How to Team up with Cool Businesses and Improve Sales by 10%

October 12, 2011


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.
[Read more…]

Filed Under: Marketing, Sales Tagged With: , ,

Wildly Successful Companies that Decided NOT to do Everything

October 2, 2011


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:
[Read more…]

Filed Under: Customers, Management, Marketing, Sales Tagged With:

Framework for Deciding What NOT to do

September 28, 2011


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.
[Read more…]

Filed Under: Customers, Employees, Finance, Management, Marketing, Purchasing, Sales Tagged With: , , ,

Practical Ideas for Customer Suggestions to Improve Sales

September 18, 2011


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.
[Read more…]

Filed Under: Customers, Employees, Marketing, Sales Tagged With:

Best Practices in Customer Suggestions to Improve Sales

September 14, 2011


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.
[Read more…]

Filed Under: Customers, Employees, Marketing, Sales Tagged With: ,

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.
[Read more…]

Filed Under: Marketing, Sales Tagged With:

10 Questions to Ask Buyer Business Broker

August 18, 2010


We mentioned in the previous post that you need to watch for several pitfalls when hiring a business broker to search for a suitable business. Buying a business is time consuming and tiring process. You don’t want to waste your and broker’s time looking for business that is not suitable to you.
So how can you make sure you are hiring the “right” broker for your needs? Below we have listed 10 questions you can ask the broker before making decision to engage him/her.
[Read more…]

Filed Under: Buyers Tagged With: , ,

Effective Techniques for Working with Buyer Business Broker

August 17, 2010


Many small business buyers hire business brokers to find a suitable business that is available for sale. Hiring a business broker makes the search easier. A business broker can search for businesses from the large database of available businesses and filter the suitable ones based on your criteria. In some cases, they can also help with the buying process, including document preparation and negotiations – particularly useful when you are new to business.
However, working with business broker is not without pitfalls. Typically, a business broker represents the seller. They make money from the commission paid by the seller – similar to real estate agents. This may cause them to keep seller’s interest ahead of buyer when there is a conflict.
Below we have highlighted several tips you want to keep in mind when hiring a business broker.
[Read more…]

Filed Under: Buyers Tagged With: , , ,

Hire Employees for Attitudes; Train for Skills

July 29, 2010


Mary Ellen Slayter at SmartBrief has an interesting article on how she successfully hired 10,000 people in her recruiting career and did a pretty good job of choosing the right candidates. Although, she did this at a large, public companies, we think it applies equally well to small businesses. We would argue that it is even more important to hire the right people in small businesses because it doesn’t take long for your businesses to go down when one or two employees fail to do a good job.
For any small business that is hiring employees for customer facing roles the need to hire people who are enthusiastic and outgoing is critical. Mary Ellen describes a simple test – “handshake” test – she used to do when hiring employees. She would walk up to the job candidate unexpectedly, smile and introduce herself to him/her. If they reacted with enthusiastic smile and greeted with cheer, it was safe to assume that they would behave the same way with customers.
[Read more…]

Filed Under: Customers, Employees, Management 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.
[Read more…]

Filed Under: Management, Operations, Sales Tagged With: , , , ,