When buying a franchise business you should make sure the franchise you are looking to get into is good and will make you successful as well. After all, selecting the wrong franchise can hurt you and may even wipe out your hard earned savings. Below we have listed traps many novice business buyers fall into when choosing a franchise.
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In the previous post we mentioned that small businesses can improve brand and increase sales by 10%-20% by teaming up with “cool” businesses. Subway’s partnership with American Heart Association to position them as a healthy food purveyor by teaming with an organization that promotes heart health is a great example. Recently, Ford announced partnership with a Zipcar to improve their brand perception in the minds of college students based on the same principle.
Small businesses such as yours can also realize benefits from such partnership. It can improve the brand image of your company by “rubbing some the coolness” from your partner to your business. In the process, it can bring new customers and increase sales from those new as well as existing customers. The association can also teach you a great deal about how to work with and attract different customer base.
The key to successful partnership is to understand your overall objectives as well as the target customer base you want to attract and find businesses that are deemed as “cool” by those customers. This needs careful planning on your part. We have come across number of ways in which businesses have gone about implementing this. Below we explain some of the tactics based on our experience and observations.
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Small business owners can improve their brands, while increasing sales by 10-20% by teaming up with the “cool” businesses! On August 31 Ford announced partnership with Zipcar by which Ford will sell cars to Zipcar at a discounted rate for them to use for their rental fleet. For those not in the know, Zipcar is a next generation car rental company with a very different business model. They typically rent their cars on a per-hour flat fee that includes fuel and insurance to mostly young customers, college students and such, who do not own a car. By associating with Zipcar, Ford will improve their brand image and get more sales from the younger generation. This is a brilliant move on Ford’s part to attract buyers at an early age who typically tend to stick with them for years to come. You can find similar tie-ups at many places in the business world.
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We have highlighted virtues of focus in the last couple of posts. The decision NOT to pursue something is the most important decision small business owners will make to be successful. You can use the framework described in the previous post to get better understanding of how to apply this principle in everyday decisions.
In this post we want to show examples of companies that have used this principle and have become wildly successful. They are the companies whose products we use every day. After studying their business model and decision making we have come to appreciate the way they go about doing their business. Here they are:
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In the previous post we highlighted that the most difficult decisions you will ever make are the ones where you decide NOT to move forward. By focusing your resources and energy on narrowly you can achieve number of benefits and get higher return on your investment of time, money or effort. We mentioned how Apple has succeeded to become the most valuable company in the U.S. by applying this principle, while GM had floundered by spreading resources over multiple brands with lot of overlaps.
You should use this approach in decision making every step of the way. If you take a step back and think about the decision in terms of cost vs. benefit of the current choice and evaluate it against alternatives you can improve the odds of making the right choice. You can use this principle in number of different areas as shown below.
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The most difficult decisions you will ever make are the ones where you decide NOT to go ahead. We live in a world full of constraints – there are only 24 hours in a day, the bank is only willing to give you 50% of requested loan, you can only hire 5 employees. The list goes on and on. Given that there is only so much you can do with the limited amount of resources it is imperative that you pick your battles wisely. Decide to fight all the battles and soon you will run out of ammunition.
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In the earlier post we mentioned that if you are not applying customer suggestion tactics in the small business you are losing about 25% of current sales. We also showed best practices to work with when implementing customer suggestion plan. The key to making customers to like your suggestions is to do it in a way such that they do not feel as if they are being forced into buying something they do not want to.
In this post we will show practical ideas that are based on the best practices to implement in your small business. We have seen many of these ideas implemented at number of businesses with great results. I am sure you will be able to enjoy similar sales growth after you implement some of these ideas.
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In the previous post we mentioned that if you are not applying customer suggestion tactics in the small business you are missing out on 25% of current sales. These days customers receive suggestions from businesses and other customers from all kinds of businesses. However, you have to be careful about not turning off customers with your overly aggressive tactics. Customers do like receiving suggestions from their friends and businesses, but they do not want to be bombarded with them every step of the way.
The key to making customers to like your suggestions is to do it in a way such that the customers do not feel as if they are being forced into buying something they do not want to. There are certain things you should keep in mind when working on your customer suggestion plan as described below.
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If you are not applying customer suggestion tactics in the small business you are missing out on 25% of current sales. These days customers receive suggestions from businesses and other customers every step of the way. The trend has only increased in the last few years with the advent of Internet and social media. You can find online businesses suggesting that “you might also like these” based on what you have bought earlier. Your “friends” are also “recommending” you products and stories on Facebook. Suggestions can also be found in the physical world – sometimes in not so obvious ways. Have you looked at McDonald’s Combo Meal lately?
So how can suggestions help small business owners as well as customers?
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In an ideal world your small business should operate like a well-oiled machine without encountering hiccups. However, as we all know, this is not the case in real world. Problems could and do arise from time to time. We are not talking about transient problems that can be fixed easily and quickly. We are talking about structural changes that occur very slowly and can go unnoticed for a long time. These are the problems that can do a great harm and eventually put you out of business.
To avoid this unfortunate fate we recommend you implement a three-step process. (1) Implement systems to provide you with warning signs about potential issues. (2) Interpret the warning signs to find trouble spots in your business. (3) Take appropriate actions to remove trouble spots.
We talked about the warning signs earlier. In the later post we showed how to interpret these warning signs This post will focus on what actions you can take for each type of the warning sign so that you can take care of the trouble spots and get your business on the right track again.
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