Communication For Solo Professionals ? 7 Steps to a Fabulous Survey That Will Get You More Clients
By Felicia Slattery
Business communication by asking questions is a powerful way to get new business, keep your current clients happy, and generate business from your past clients and customers. And one of the most effective ways to ask questions and gather the answers is by creating a survey. Follow these seven steps and your surveys will help you get amazing results, too.
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Step 1. Decide What You Want to Know
Determine what type of information would help you the most with where you are right now in your business. You should never try to cover everything in one survey. Last year when I decided to talk about communication for small business owners, I surveyed people in my target market to know what they felt was important. Then I used their answers to come up with my first offering. It?s been smooth sailing ever since!
Step 2. Choose Your Best Questions
You have several choices when it comes to questions. You can ask open-ended questions, closed-ended questions with multiple answers, or closed-ended questions with one answer. The quickest surveys for people to answer are those with closed-ended questions, and you may get a higher response rate if you use mostly closed-ended questions. However you should also include at least one open-ended question. And it should go something like this: ?What?s your most important question about X (add your business area here)?? Keep it short by asking no more than 10 questions.
Step 3. Create the Best Answers
One effective way to determine how often or how likely people would be to use a particular product or service is to create a five-point answer scale known in the survey methods world as a Likert Scale. You?ve seen these before. The response selections look something like:
always
rarely
never
On any closed-ended answer option, also include a box that says ?other? with a blank for people to fill in their answers. You?ll be surprised at what you may not have considered.
Step 4. One Question to Always End With:
?Is there anything else you?d like to share?? This type of yes or no question is usually not the best choice, but this question works. Why? Because people like to talk about themselves. In my days when I interviewed people regularly this is one question I would always include. Even the most experienced interviewees appreciated it and would often divulge some juicy tidbit I had no idea to ask! You?ll get fabulous responses to this question, so be sure to include it in every interview or survey. Another way you could ask it, ?What didn?t this survey cover that you would like to tell me??
Step 5. Choose Your Survey Method
You can deliver your survey by mail and include a self-addressed return envelope, you could make phone calls to the people on your list, or you could send an email survey. I most prefer an email survey because it?s free and easy for the respondents to use with just a few clicks. I recommend Survey Monkey.com, where you can create a free account. Survey Monkey will give you a link to include in an email invitation to your subscribers, so it?s all very simple, even if you?re not the most tech-savvy person (like me!).
Step 6. Send Out Your Invitation
If you follow the email route, I found burying the survey request in a newsletter or posting to a blog to be less effective than sending a special mailing asking people to take your survey. If your survey is brief, as it should be, it should take people no longer than two minutes to respond to. Tell people that in your invitation and your response rate will be much higher.
Step 7. Give ?Em What They Want
The people who respond to your survey are those most engaged with you and what you offer. Pay close attention to what they say they want or like based on their answers to your survey. And then provide exactly that. When you do, you?ll get more interest and more sales just from those on your list alone. As you pay attention to the feedback from your survey, you?ll see better results overall and end up with happier clients.
Regardless of the method you choose, effective communication with your clients and prospects is the key to making your business successful. The first thing you need to communicate? and contiune to communicate ? is your credibility. Without credibility, your business will go nowhere. With it, you?ll automatically attract new clients and see positive cash flow.
I invite you to discover how to Increase Business by Communicating Your Credibility now. Visit http://www.communicationtransformation.com/creating-credibility-ecourse.html to get your free e-course that will help you customize a credibility plan for your business and get you more of what you want.
Felicia J. Slattery, M.A., M.Ad.Ed. is a communication consultant, speaker & coach specializing in training small and home-based business owners effective communication skills so they can see more cash flow now.
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