The ABC’s to Your Cross Channel 1:1 Marketing Plan

1:1 marketing is one of the most effective ways to get your message across to your target market. Here is a step-by-step process to follow.

A: Acquire a solid list for your first general out reach. You can do this by purchasing a targeted list. The size of the list will be determined by the number of warm leads needed and budget.

B. Build a strong marketing piece that will include some level of personalization, whether this is a postcard or a letter. You can utilize Variable Data Printing (VDP) which enables you to design one piece and alter a variety of data on that piece and have it print digitally on the same run. Ensure that this general outreach piece has a strong call to action or offer.

For an even better response rate, include a personal URL, allowing recipients to respond through a unique web site that enables you to capture additional data.

C. Call back those that respond, whether through the personalized URL, phone or email, within 48 hours of their response, showing a high-level of service. You can respond with an email, but calling directly allows you to establish a stronger relationship.

Tips for a successful 1:1 Campaign

1. If you do not have a good list to start with, be sure to use a reputable list company to purchase your initial list. Often times, your printer can coordinate your list purchase. You should use as many parameters to ensure you are reaching your target, such as: age range, household income (HHI), net worth, zip codes, owns home, etc.

2. When you design your direct mail piece, make sure to include:

a. A strong headline and graphic that will grab attention

b. Provide just enough to entice a response without offering too much information.

c. Have a very clear Call to Action, preferably direct recipients to a unique web site, email or phone number, so you can track the response rate.

d. Double check all your contact info to ensure accuracy

3. When following up, make sure you have a list of prepared questions that allow you to gather more information that will be helpful in future communications. Ensure that other employees that may have contact with recipients have some knowledge of the campaign and can answer some basic questions.

Benefit of 1:1 Marketing

· A single message across multiple platforms solidifies your message.

· Since you are not constantly reinventing the wheel you are saving money on the development.

· The outreach is cost effect – targeted lists = smaller runs = less postage, printing, etc.

· You save time because you only respond to warm leads with a higher rate of conversion.

· Building a strong database for future outreach

Your mindset, or attitude, towards marketing has a direct impact on:

• your satisfaction with your business
• the number of clients you find and keep
• the quality and quantity of the products and services you offer
• your sales - your bottom line
• how fast your products “fly off the shelf”
• how prospective customers and current clients view you, your business and your products and services
• whether you meet your sales targets and objectives
• your personal growth and lifestyle
• your opportunities for having affiliate and joint venture partners
• how fast you grow and your company grows

This list could actually go on and on because marketing is really the lifeblood of your business and anything you do connected with your business. You can even go as far as to say that marketing is actually what you do - you’re not a chiropractor or a caterer or a virtual assistant, you are really a marketer.

So how you view marketing - your marketing mindset - is key to how you actually market.

Like anything in life, your attitude shapes your actions and therefore affects your results.

If you have a negative attitude towards marketing, it will drastically impede your ability to attract and retain clients, and ultimately make money.

There is a chain reaction that occurs:

…if you have a negative attitude toward marketing, chances are you will market poorly or not at all

…if you don’t market, people won’t know about you, your products or services

…if they’ve never heard about you, you can’t sell them your services

…if you’re not selling anything, your business isn’t going to be successful

…if your business doesn’t succeed, where does that leave you?

You need to have a positive attitude towards marketing, or at the very least you must have a willingness to market yourself and your business.

With willingness you’ll start marketing and from there you will gain confidence and comfort in marketing, and by being able to see positive results, such as recognition, money, the phone ringing, people signing up for your newsletter, etc.

You’ll move from willingness to actually wanting to market and maybe, just maybe, even enjoying marketing!

Even in an uncertain economy, start up businesses and other emerging companies need public relations support to communicate their news. Finding the right agency for your needs is important, but the challenge in conducting a successful PR program does not end merely because you’ve hired a new agency.

Here is some advice for people in organizations that have never worked with a PR agency before.

1. Check references and chemistry.
A track record of success is important, but every PR agency has something it can point to. Make sure their successes are current. (One site we recently checked highlighted a hugely successful program which turned out to be from 1988!) Client-agency chemistry is an important, but often overlooked, factor contributing to a program’s success. When making a decision, remember these are they people you will be working with: do you like and trust them? If you feel like their main interest is in selling you more services than you need, you won’t feel comfortable and are less likely to succeed.

2. Identify the main daily contact at your agency and within your own organization.
Generally it’s not the most senior person you met during the pitch. Just as important, however, identify the main internal contact at your company. This person is critical for the program’s success by providing insight into the company (serving as a “travel guide” into the far reaches of the company), tracking down customer leads (from a usually reluctant sales force), and getting approval far faster and more easily than someone on the outside.

Make sure that the internal PR contact is accountable and that the job description changes to accommodate this new role. (Ideally some parts of the person’s former responsibilities can be delegated to someone else when PR gets added to the mix.) The internal contact should hold regular meetings with the agency’s daily contact, establish priorities, and provide information and direction that enables the agency to write and execute a successful program. This is important because a successful client-agency relationship depends on time committed on both sides. A good PR program generally keeps the internal contact busy. If it doesn’t, you’re probably not conducting interviews, making significant announcements, etc.

3. Ask the senior agency executive how to work best together, most efficiently.
It’s not that you need to change the way you work to suit the agency. But they might have some best practices about how to work smarter with them and get more value from the relationship. At a basic level, telephone conference calls may be less personal but more cost-effective than having your agency travel to your offices – since agencies typically charge by the hour.

4. Ask your agency to provide you with PR 101
if you are unsure or uncomfortable with your new assignment, ask your agency to present a PR 101 session. Don’t worry about looking “dumb” – they don’t know your business or company well, either. (In fact the PR 101 session could be scheduled the same day as a detailed agency briefing on your company.) Another suggestion: invite senior management to the PR 101 session so that everyone has the same expectations. The PR 101 session can be conducted up front – before the planning - so you can understand what’s appropriate, realistic and strategic. (Getting on “The Tonight Show” may be cool, for example, but may not help your company’s bottom-line.)

5. Keep an open channel to the CEO.
Make sure you understand the CEO’s business goals and current positioning driving the company to hire its first agency. You need to understand where the company is headed, and the best people to give you that information is your CEO, senior management team, or business divisions chiefs. Make sure your goals are in synch; we’ve had clients who generated strong results, but the messages picked up in the media were not the ones the CEO wanted - even though the company appeared in Fortune, The New York Times, Newsweek and other top-tier media. Is product PR more important than internal (a.k.a. employee) communications? Does your company have an established crisis communications plan? Based on management’s input, your agency can help assess your needs.

6. Update or formalize your company’s positioning before developing your PR plan.
Otherwise, you won’t be able to establish communication priorities that map to management’s business goals. You also don’t want to communicate corporate messages that are no longer relevant or are half-baked. It can be tempting to try to swing at everything, but chances are you might have limiting funding and resources, so it’s critical to prioritize to be effective.

7. Assess all your communications and marketing materials.
Assess all your communications and marketing materials. This includes Website design, press kit, sales collateral, advertising, trade show and other signage, stationery, and direct marketing. Evaluate whether they consistently communicate the same message (allowing for appropriate differences across different in how information is communicated; a website clearly communicates differently from a business card.) If you don’t have one, develop a style guide to be distributed to all marketing personnel. Websites are often the first place reporters turn to when checking out a company, but many corporate websites are inconsistent, not updated on a timely basis (press releases get posted late), hard to navigate and don’t provide easy mechanisms for contacting the company.

8. Make sure the CEO kicks off the new program
so you get buy-in from others who have information that can help develop good story angles. This will help minimize the likelihood that others within your organization, who don’t see PR as part of their job, stall on getting information to you. Having the weight of the CEO behind you helps grease the wheels.) It’s also important to determine who the CEO wants to serve as the main corporate spokesperson. In some cases, it’s clear: the CEO. Most media prefer to speak to CEOs; however, not all CEOs are comfortable talking to the media or have enough time to devote to conducting interviews.

9. Set communications goals and objectives.
Make sure to set aside budget to measure the program. Many clients choose not to, but by establishing benchmarks, and ideally by exceeding them, you can demonstrate the program’s ROI to senior management. With major clips – like a Wall Street Journal article – present it with an executive summary that explains the significance of the placement, highlights the messages communicated, etc. This is important because you will likely need to continue to educate senior management on public relations. When establishing benchmarks, look at direct competitors and emotional competitors. (Emotional competitors are those you are compared to yet, but want to be.) Again, measurement can help you demonstrate your effectiveness. Hold quarterly update sessions for management.

10. Coordinate with other departments and functions.
Public Relations should coordinate messages and information with other advertising, investor relations, human resources as well as other divisions. IBM places such a high value on consistent communication across the company that a few years ago, it developed and distributed a booklet called “One Voice.” If an organization as complex as IBM sees the value of consistency across all its business units and subsidiaries, it probably makes sense for your company, too. That consistency will make your company’s messages more effective because they will be repeated. And it ensures that other parts of the organization are aware of what you’re doing and vice versa; they may even forward information that you can use to develop compelling news.

11. Be a communications counselor for your company.
Don’t just focus on tactics, think big picture, across divisions. How does the development in one area of the company impact another area? Is there a bigger story here?

12. Make sure your agency acts as your communications partner.
A good agency can help by bringing in perspectives outside your company because they don’t drink the Kool-aide. Their objectivity is useful in determining whether something is newsworthy or just something good for the company. (For example, one former client told us their new software kernal was significant news; when we talked with the product manager, he confirmed the development was significant – because it enabled to company to catch up with its competitors.) Your agency should be able to monitor trends that directly affect your company as well as larger trends being played out in the business media. As a communications partner, the agency can counsel you on strategies – not just tactics – that will help you meet your goals.

13. Understand that managing an agency takes skill.
Ironically, some clients are afraid of being upstaged when the agency generates lots of results, and that their bosses will credit the agency, not the internal person. In some cases, internal PR contacts micromanage just to say “we had to work closely with the agency to get it right.” (A client once placed every “that” in a press release to “which,” only to change them back again in the next draft.) A good PR agency wants to make you look good, not upstage you. And it takes management ability to get results from an agency, just as it does from an internal team – and that’s true no matter how good the agency. For example, with one former daily contact, we uncovered terrific news from within the company, generating placements in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, ABC “Evening News,” NBC “Dateline,” Fortune, Forbes, and others. After she left, an outside PR veteran took over; yet the number and quality of our results plummeted dramatically because he never spent the time to uncover anything we could translate into coverage. The lesson: use the agency to succeed and don’t be afraid if they are the ones in daily contact with the media.

14. Understand your agency’s invoices and billing policies.
Most agencies hate surprising their clients as much as clients hate getting surprised by an unexpectedly large and complicated invoice. Make sure your agency explains its policies so that you can plan accordingly as well as who can resolve billing problems – it’s often not your daily contact. At the same time, you should explain your company’s accounting policies: do you need a P.O.? What do they need to do to ensure your accounts payable will quickly approve payment?

A good list isn’t just a random collection of people. It’s a list of people who have something in common. It may be their age-range/gender, professional affiliation, personal interests, level of income-you name it. If the people on your list have something in common that puts them in the target market for your business, then, bingo. You’ve hit pay dirt.

There are a number of ways you can put the power of a list to work for you as part of an effective overall marketing plan. You can use that list to conduct market research, the way Fortune 500 companies do. Or you could use that list as the basis for your marketing campaigns, utilizing direct mail, email or both.

With all the different ways that the power of a list can help to grow your business, using one only makes sense.

But how can you get your hands on a list that actually corresponds to your target market? Here are a few tips to help you get started.

1) Build One
Your website is a great place to start building a targeted list. That’s because there’s one important thing that all visitors to your website have in common-an interest in your products and services. It’s not hard to see why capturing their contact information can be key to the growth and success of your business.

One effective technique for building a list based on your website traffic is to create a free e-course or special report. When visitors sign up to receive this free information, they provide their email address. The e-course or special report is then sent directly to their inbox and their email address becomes part of your list.

This is a technique that has been incredibly effective for thousands of savvy entrepreneurs.

2) Exchange One
Maybe you know of another business owner who serves a clientele similar to yours with a complementary (non-competing) product or service. In which case, it might be beneficial for both of you to double the size of your list through a list exchange.

If you’re just getting started, and don’t have a list of your own just yet, there might be something else you could provide for your fellow entrepreneur. You might offer to provide a free ad for their business on your website or feature their products or services in a limited run of promotional materials for your own business. Both of these ideas foster the spirit of “win/win.”

3) Find One
The Dunn and Bradstreet Corporation (a.k.a., D&B) is among the leading providers of business information in the world. If your target market includes a certain profession and/or business clientele, you can use the massive database on their website to create a targeted list.

Entries to this site provide legal and trade names, physical and mailing addresses, geographical descriptions, product and industry descriptors, sales and number of employees, as well as up to 40 vital statistics. This information is often used by large corporations for marketing research services and finding prospective customers, because you can really hone in on the specific types of businesses you are looking for.

And, D&B offers modest subscription services for small business owners that include profiles of the top companies in a wide variety of industries. Their Industry Reports can really help you narrow down on sales prospects, in particular.

3) Buy One
When all else fails, there’s always the option of simply purchasing a list. There are a number of businesses online that offer extremely targeted lists, based on the target market you are trying to reach. Check out www.melissadata.com — one of the good ones. If your customers are consumers, they’ve got a variety of targeted lists you might find interesting, including people who have recently moved, recent graduates, people who are “about to move,” absentee homeowners, people with credit challenges, income groups, people with children, married vs. single people and more.

While buying lists tends to be expensive, it may be a worthwhile investment in the long-term health of your business. Before investing serious money in a purchased list, you should know more about your sales conversion rate so you can build a budget for list-buying that ensures a solid return on investment.

No matter which option you choose, remember - a good list is worth its weight in gold!

Scheduling your marketing activities is key to ensuring you are consistently and successfully getting the word out about you and your company and all the great services and products you have to share with people.

There are several formats that people use to schedule things - to-do lists, activity lists, calendar items, list of projects, sticky notes all over their desk, and so on. It doesn’t really matter how you do it as long as it works for you.

There are going to be three general types of marketing activities that you’ll want to put into your schedule:

1) ongoing everyday activities
2) specific one-time projects
3) idea generation

Ongoing everyday marketing activities include those that you do regularly. Some examples are:

• writing your ezine
• adding new auto-responders to your email series
• writing blog posts
• contributing to online forums and blogs
• networking events
• writing content for your monthly teleseminar
• adding content to your website
• writing articles for submission
• checking your website analytics
• communicating with your affiliates
• sending out press releases
• networking on social media sites such as Facebook and Linked In

Specific one-time projects would be marketing tactics that occur as a special or one-time opportunity. For example:

• a workshop you’re putting on
• creating a new product
• setting up a referral program
• a joint venture with another company
• flushing out the specifics of a new service you’re going to offer
• a speaker series you’ve been invited to share at
• setting up your affiliate program
• running a special promotion
• writing a book
• a new web site design
• setting up a blog

Time set aside for idea generation is important. You need to schedule this in just like any other marketing activity. Things you’ll “think” about during this time can include:

• researching possible joint venture partners
• thinking about ideas for a new product, service or book
• taking a look at some colleagues websites and blogs to see what they are up to
• daydreaming about the direction you’d like your company to go
• brainstorming about your professional and personal goals

Write down a list of all the different marketing activities you currently do and start scheduling them into your calendar and to-do lists. Make sure you look at your schedule first thing in the morning and different times throughout the day to make sure that you’re staying on course.

Commit to your marketing by having a schedule and you’ll see your business grow and attract new and old clients on a consistent basis.

Webster’s Dictionary has been a tool used by many generations, now of course one of many options available online. It’s very much a democratic concept—words defined in the same way for all to employ. Yet, when it comes to marketing and sales, a common definition becomes very elusive. Or more accurately, the word, “lead,” employed by each discipline is dramatically different.

In many companies, sales and marketing work in silos, and when they do meet, they collide. To a marketing person, a “lead” is a name and phone number of a prospect, who based on their profile, is a potential buyer. To a salesperson, a lead is a targeted title at a targeted company with an expressed desire to buy from the company.

Therein lies a huge challenge.

A marketer develops campaigns designed to reach out to those potential buyers; most typically with a call to action. If a potential buyer (prospect) responds to that call to action, marketing calls this a “lead” and counts this as a feather in their cap. After all, marketers take a holistic approach to their craft. They are chartered with “making the phone ring” and use different mechanisms such as direct mail, email campaigns, trade shows, seminars, etc. to do so. Marketers measure success by “hits,” attendees, inquiries, etc., then try to equate a Return on Investment (ROI) to such metrics. Typically, this ROI is based on sales pipeline or projected sales which may take months or even years to materialize. While there is value in these marketing initiatives, quantification of value is in the eyes of the beholder.

Sales people are much more tactical and only focused on the numbers that really count—compensation for their efforts. In most organizations, sales people view leads much differently than marketing. They view them as opportunities to close business in a defined (the shorter the better) time period. A lead needs to be qualified.

The problem is in the definition of a “lead” and the definition of “qualified.”

You have two groups of people with different backgrounds, different objectives, and different definitions. In order to function properly, these two groups need to communicate more effectively. They need to share a common lexicon, a common dictionary, and a co-dependent level of accountability.

Of the two groups, marketing is more likely to have the advanced educational degree, work in the corporate office and be focused on metrics one or two steps removed from the heart of the sales cycle. They view leads as opportunities and the more the better.

Sales is much more primal. They think: “Is someone ready, willing and able to buy my product now?” These are relationship people and risk takers who are more likely to have been the quarterback on the football team or the captain of the baseball team. They are in the field and work directly with the customer.

Because of where they come from and how they are measured, a rift is inevitable. Marketing creates all this great activity and thinks “these dumb jocks can‘t sell their way out of a paper bag.” Sales looks at marketing and says “these poindexters wouldn’t know a good lead if their life depended up it.”

However, the common ground is that both sales and marketing need results to survive and prosper. They each need to contribute to corporate objectives, but take very different paths to get there, with many collisions along the way.

The Emergence of Translator

Recently, some open minded companies have begun to address this issue. These organizations bring in third parties to provide the common definitions between sales and marketing. More importantly, they bring in the associated processes that leverage the strengths and core competencies of each side. Sometimes these third parties introduce enabling tools and methodologies. Other times they provide outsourced services.

To succeed, these companies need to employ proven and repeatable methodologies that work with both marketing and sales to accomplish goals. Taking marketing’s strategies, these third parties create messages that position the company’s products and services in the context of the prospect’s needs. They identify the correct decision-maker or influencer within the organization and know how to gain the necessary time and attention of this potential executive sponsor to create consistent and repeated meaningful business conversations with this coveted audience.

Employing a campaign approach, these outside firms communicate key messages as they turn suspects into prospects and move them down the sales funnel. The net result—a sales funnel filled with qualified leads that understand the offering and want to hear more. A streamlined sales cycle that results in more sales, faster. By doing all the prep work before the salesperson makes that initial call, these firms leverage the time and talent of the best purveyors of a companies’ value proposition – their frontline sales people.

Marketers are freed up to understand their buyers better, pursue newer and better tactics, and measure their efforts. Sales has more time to do what they do best and that is to manage sales cycles and close deals. When sales closes more deals and marketing has the data to refine strategies and campaigns, goals are met and commissions and bonuses are paid. When this all comes together it is amazing how the language barrier is not a barrier after all.

I believe that marketing is connecting with people and forming a relationship, and connecting on a consistent basis.

Having said that, is there an actual process for fostering this relationship? My experience has taught me that yes, there is definitely a marketing process.

People are strangers and do not know you and you do not know them. You need to “introduce” yourself to people in order to get the relationship started.

There are various ways to do this: speaking at community or business venues, sending out an Introduction letter, having a free giveaway on your website. With any of your “introductory” marketing strategies you want to give people an opportunity to find out more about you.

For example, at the end of the seminar you have a sign-up sheet for people to put their name and email address and you’ll send them a copy of the presentation or 10 Tips and Tricks. The back of your business card may ask them to go onto your website and in exchange for their name and email address you’ll send them a copy of your free audio mini-class.

Of course it goes without saying that you want to be providing valuable information with your free reports or Tips booklets. This is how people will start trusting you and getting to know you.

If you always provide information they need that can help them, then they start trusting you. The more they get to know you via your authentic marketing message contained in all your communications with them, the more they feel they know you.

When people sign up for your newsletter or send in a query via your website, this is the beginning of a mutual relationship. They have made an overture in your direction, in response to your introductory marketing tactics and materials. They have shown that they are interested in finding out more about you.

You can now put them on your list and start sending follow-up emails - again always offering valuable information to them and focusing on their needs.

You may invite them to a free or paid web conferencing seminar that you are hosting. You can send them an interesting article or share details of your affiliate’s upcoming seminar that they might want to find out more about. You can let them know about the upcoming release of your ebook, and any special promotions you may be having.

Make sure you always give them clear information about how to contact you but don’t pressure them into any action. Remember, your aim is to start and nurture a relationship with these people.

By providing good, usable, interesting information to them, you gain their respect and trust. Each follow-up brings them closer to the next step - which is purchasing your services and products. If you’ve done your job properly then they are eager to take it to the next level - to do business with you.

So you see, there is definitely a process for marketing and creating lasting and mutually profitable relationships with your clients and customers. AND the good news is that this process is easily duplicated and implemented…what are you waiting for?!

Over my next posts, I’m going to share with you some important things that I’ve learned over 26 years of business experience from some of the most successful investors, investment and venture capital firms in the world about how they read business plans and what they look for in them.

First some basic advice: With business plans, size does not matter.

Let me say that again.

Size does not matter.

Never lard up a business plan just to make it a hefty read, thinking to “wow” people based on its bulk. That does not impress experienced business people, knowledgeable investors and funding sources.

Experienced and successful business professionals know this and focus their business plan to make it concise and succinct; one that hits all the “hot buttons” but does not say more than it should.

If you use a template to create your business plan, use it as a guide only and modify extensively to give it its own distinct identity. Strip out and replace any “boiler-plate” language that is not necessary and put in only the important things you need to convey (read on to learn what that consists of).

If you hire a business plan writer (who may write well but does not have a great deal of business experience), be sure not to just accept what they give you as being the best for you. Make sure it answers the five most important things (we’re getting to them shortly) that investors and funding sources look for … no more … no less.

What to leave out of your business plan is just as important as what to put in!

• With business plans, telling them you graduated from John Smith high school, love cats and your hobbies are snorkeling and bear wrestling do not matter.
• Telling about your dream to own your own business does not matter.
• Telling them any thing not directly related to the business or your capability to run that business, does not matter – leave it out. Let that simple rule govern what you put into your plan.

You get the idea without me having to add more bullet points (see … less is more!).

What does matter?

I’ll get to that in my next post, because if your business plan does not have what matters most – and you’ve filled it with things that don’t – you have wasted your time and more importantly someone else’s time (and from the all important point of attracting an investor or funding source that is a death blow).

You get one shot at a first impression. Don’t blow it!

Be sure to watch for:

The 5 Most Important Things Your Business Plan Should Contain (that investors want to read about)

Until then best wishes and good fortune to you (and fortune favors the prepared),

Dennis Lowery
Adducent, Inc.

Your marketing message describes the core of your business and your clients. It’s essential that it accurately reflect your offering so that new and future prospects and customers know exactly what you offer and how it can help them.

The whole idea of a great marketing message is that it helps prospective and current clients, vendors and partners understand quickly and easily how you can help them. So you’ll want to use it in all of your promotional, sales and marketing materials and activities.

Your marketing message serves as your message blueprint and will be where you go every time you need to write marketing copy. By referring to your marketing message whenever you create marketing you’ll ensure your marketing communications are always on target and consistent.

You can take the elements of your marketing message and put it into different forms to suit different marketing purposes and situations.

Below are many of the ways you can use your marketing message (or components of it):

• elevator speech (what you say when someone asks you what you do)
• headline on your webpage
• headline for a sales page or ad or flyer
• your voicemail message
• author resource box on articles and podcasts
• tagline for letterhead
• email signature
• title for an article
• title for a seminar or workshop
• use in creation of a logo
• content for an email campaign
• include in your bio for talks, books, website, teleseminars
• create a product, service or program
• website design copy
• business card
• create a business name

Schedule an hour every week for the next while and use this time to look at all of your current marketing communications - your website, brochures, ads, emails, direct mail, business cards, sales literature etc. Choose one to look at each week during this hour and rewrite or tweak it to ensure that it accurately reflects what you want it to.

Remember that your marketing message needs to grab your prospect’s attention, show them how you can solve their problem, why they should trust you and why it’s in their best interest to do business with you.

Your business, you, your products and services, your target market - are all in flux and will change and grow and develop over the course of being in business. As a result, your marketing communications will change too - as will your core marketing message.

Take the time to ensure that all your marketing communications say exactly what you want them to say and accurately reflect you and your company. Then start reaping the rewards of a fulfilling, lucrative and successful business, providing a valuable and needed service!