Dear Marje*, should I have asked them if they loved it?

I have run two workshops recently. One for BusinessLink SW in Bournemouth and one for CIBAS in Basingstoke. I have worked for both these organisations before and they now trust me to give their clients a great insight into marketing as well as an enjoyable time.

Of course they know this because they use feedback forms – something which I encourage my clients to use within their own businesses because

1. If you don’t know what your clients think of you how can you improve?

2. If you don’t know what your clients think of you how can you play to your strengths?

The form need not be long, gather great stats by asking things like:"On a scale of 1 to 5 with 1 being poor and 5 being excellent how do you rate our service/product?"

Remind clients that you do more than one thing, otherwise you miss an opportunity to re-engage with them eg:"Please tick if you would like more information on:"

That difficult to identify and articulate your all important USP could well be defined via a question like "May I ask why you chose us?"

And how about taking this opportunity to ask if they would like to hear from you more often: "Would you be interested in receiving our regular newsletter?"

3. If you don’t ask what your clients think, you are missing out on some potentially great marketing words.

One questionnaire used by a client during a workshop introducing new facets of their service produced a fantastic new strapline. This year alone I have been given some gems via the above events plus some delivered for the University of Winchester and Southern Entrepreneurs that I will be using for the training side of the business:

• Delivered with great gusto, really inspirational
• You exceeded my expectations and the handouts are perfect to give me a basis on
how to develop my marketing techniques.
• Just the right approach, informal but informative
• Approachable, easy to listen to, imaginative speaker
• Fantastic run through of an interesting subject with excellent handouts

Will I be using them in marketing my business? I just did!


*Marjorie Proops (1911 to 1996) was a well known agony aunt, writer, campaigning journalist, and a social commentator. Into her office for over 30 years the letters came, millions of them, cries for help, for encouragement, from men as well as women, in the certain knowledge that they were writing not to a stranger but a friend, to "Dear Marje"