How to make more money while giving customer discount

October 31, 2010


Post from Guest Contributor Chris Blanton, editor of Ingenious Business Guide.
Here is the situation. A loyal customer walks into your business and gets whatever he wants. While paying the bill he asks for a discount. So what do you do? Do you: 1) give in and feel uncomfortable; or 2) refuse and risk losing a client.
The other day I was at the service station D & S Auto in Santa Paula, California where I took my car in for an oil change. When Denny, the owner accepted my payment I inquired “Are you running any specials?” He admitted he wasn’t. So I pushed him: “Can I get a discount?” He looked down at the floor, obviously uncomfortable, and then caved agreeing to knock $5 or 8% off the normally $40 job.
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Filed Under: Sales Tagged With: ,

How to Increase Prices without Upsetting Customers

October 3, 2010


Post from Guest Contributor Chris Blanton, editor of Ingenious Business Guide.
If you’ve ever worked at a business when it raised its prices, you probably endured grumbles from customers. Justifying the increase becomes so exhausting that many merchants take the path of least resistance and just absorb increased costs. But what if you could raise prices and avoid the grumbles?
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How to Write Sales Letters that Catch Buyers’ Attention

September 18, 2010


Guest Contributor Chris Blanton is a former serial entrepreneur and business
advisor. He is currently editor of Ingenious Business Guide, a collection of proven practical techniques to ignite business growth and profitability. He can be reached by email and tweets under the handle @cmblanton. His guests posts appear here each Sunday.

In many situations small business owners will need to write to senior executives of large corporations. If you have dealt with them in the past you know how difficult it is to get their attention, particularly when you are trying to sell them. However, it is still possible to get their attention by using the techniques in this post when writing to them.
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Filed Under: Marketing, Sales Tagged With:

Do You Understand Why Customers Buy Your Products?

September 11, 2010


Guest Contributor Chris Blanton is a former serial entrepreneur and business
advisor. He is currently editor of Ingenious Business Guide, a collection of proven practical techniques to ignite business growth and profitability. He can be reached by email and tweets under the handle @cmblanton. His guests posts appear here each Sunday.

One of the most important questions business owners should be able to answer is why their customers are buying their product or services. You have to determine what benefit your customers pay for. You can employ a skilled marketing consultant to guide you in this exercise. But if you’re determined to go it alone, you can get great mileage performing a thought experiment to uncover the true benefit your client realizes buying from you.
Our consumer culture so artfully manipulates us that we are often unaware of our own motivation. For instance, examine the process of buying a new car. Why does someone buy a new car? What wants or needs does it satisfy?
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Filed Under: Customers, Management, Marketing, Sales Tagged With:

How to Earn Additional Profit from Every Sale

September 6, 2010


Guest Contributor Chris Blanton is a former serial entrepreneur and business
advisor. He is currently editor of Ingenious Business Guide, a collection of proven practical techniques to ignite business growth and profitability. He can be reached by email and tweets under the handle @cmblanton. His guests posts appear here each Sunday.

Do you know that every company loses potential profit on every sale? It’s true. You could be earning much more income than you are now. The key is to reduce your price flexibility.
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Filed Under: Customers, Management, Sales Tagged With: ,

10 Questions to Ask Customers to Get Them Talking

July 22, 2010


In the previous post we mentioned that you need to hear customer and employee stories in addition to looking at formal reports and metrics.
One of the ways you can do this is by asking open ended questions to your customers, employees and other business owners to understand the reasons behind numbers. Below we have identified 10 questions that will get them talking.
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Key Performance Metrics for Hotels and Services Business

July 20, 2010


In the previous blog post we indicated that many types of small businesses have “standard” set of metrics that you can use as a starting point to determine the key metrics you should track for your small business. We discussed key metrics in the retail and restaurant business in the previous post. In this post we have shown the metrics for additional businesses – hotels / motels and service businesses.
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Filed Under: Employees, Management, Operations, Sales Tagged With: , , , ,

Key Performance Metrics for Retail and Restaurants

July 19, 2010


Every small business owner needs to look at the business reports daily, weekly and monthly on a regular basis to stay up-to-date with how their business is performing. You need to understand what key performance metrics to look at in those reports. We showed how to identify and track key performance indicators in this post.
You don’t have to start from zero when looking for key performance metrics for your business. Many types of small businesses have “standard” set of metrics. As a small business and franchise owner you should be aware of these metrics. In this post we will summarize the key metrics for retail businesses and fast food / restaurants.
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Filed Under: Management, Operations, Sales Tagged With: , , , ,

How to identify and track key performance indicators?

July 16, 2010


In the previous post we mentioned that many small business owners find it difficult to explain how their business is doing with the numbers backing up their words. It is even more difficult to predict how the business is going to perform few months down the road. However, it doesn’t have to be this way.
By identifying and tracking few key performance indicators (KPIs) any small business owner can not only figure out how the business is performing; but also forecast where it is headed. This is no different from when the doctor checks vital signs such as blood pressure, pulse, weight, etc. of the patient to find out what is wrong or could go wrong. You only need 5 or so KPIs to get a feel of the business performance.
Typically, these KPIs will be different for different industries. For example, the retail store should look at comparable sales and inventory turnover; while exercise facility would track customer turnover and average sales per customer. Most large publicly traded companies include these KPIs in their annual reports or in the financial analyst reports.
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Filed Under: Finance, Management, Operations, Sales Tagged With: , , ,

Reports you should use to assess business performance

July 15, 2010


In the previous post we mentioned that as a small business owner you should know the key numbers of your business by heart. These key numbers provide valuable insight in your business and act as early warning indicators. Without them you may not realize if the business is heading for trouble and by the time you do it may be too late.
We also advise you to spare some time from daily operations and spend 15 minutes daily and several hours weekly and monthly to go over the reports that show how your business is performing. In this post we will provide more details about these reports and what you should look for in them.
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Filed Under: Buyers, Finance, Management, Operations, Sales Tagged With: , , ,