I learn things from many sources (hey don’t we all?) but today I was listening to a business owner talking on an issue that reminded me of a useful story that fitted to the situation, here it is…
Pete had been investing in shares for many years, and had weathered many ‘storms’ and made and lost lots of $$ along the way. One thing he said that made the difference for him in building a successful share portfolio was using points instead of $$…
“What I realised was I was having an issue about money, if I lost some I would say oh $#*%! then when I made $$ I would say the same but with a positive inflection and think I had made a fortune… On average I maintained a healthy bank balance and it certainly grew well, on average… but the roller coaster highs and lows took their toll on me emotionally… until.. Until I decided to think of the $$ as points. Basically I would say ok, I made x No: of points or lost X No: of points… It meant I was not adding the pressure my mind had created about $$, Simple really and it made the world of difference, it was as if I was using monopoly money in a sense.”
Back to the initial chat I was having… it involved $$ he was stressing out about the amount of $$ he had to earn to break even on a daily basis… no work meant no $$, or low work meant low $$… when the $$ were above his set level he was okay, but the stress the low level caused him could probably become unhealthy quite fast. If your stress is negative you may not perform as well and make a mistake that could cost you dearly.
The real lesson here is changing things that cause our ‘thresholds’ of understanding (in this case $$) so that we can reframe them so they take the pressure off.
Note if you had to earn $1,000 per day to break even in our business and that caused you grief, then altering your mindset to 1,000 points a day might just be the way to reset how you handle your threshold thoughts on amounts to be earned.
In short re framing how we look at and experience things can make a huge difference to your results.
From an original article on various business success pointers, here is an individual “how to” option on unique selling ponts for you to explore.
Market leading Unique Selling Point/s –
Creating a unique selling point is all about setting yourself apart from your competition, sometimes called a Point of Difference. It’s all about identifying what makes your business unique, unique in a rock solid definable way to ensure your team can communicate it, your clients know it and it most clearly causes them to come back time and again.
If you are a mechanic it might be the courtesy car you offer, or the full detail at the end of every major service.
Take a look at your competition and what sets them apart… if anything. Then ask yourself what is different about my business in a way that causes my target customers to want to buy from me and not the competition?
Do research if you have to, on what will work and what might not. Then you can tweak your business to suit. If you are looking at a franchise business to buy, ask this question in the research phase to be able to evaluate the business properly.
On a recent holiday we caught up with a family friend, retired well and truly from business and now taking a well earned lifestyle break from as he put it “All that stuff”.
He got chatting about his fathers business, it turned out he had a couple of retail stores that were really big and his business made it through the depression and WW2. So I asked (how could I not) about what made these businesses successful… He said “You know what I asked my father this on a number of occasions and he was unswerving in his answer. Be great with people and always have honest headlines and honest copy.” that was it.
I know I have even been guilty of trying to make copy do things it can’t do as it stretches the truth between the lines, but our friends father was implicit that the honesty be there.
I recall thinking how elegant the response was, ‘Great with people and good honest copy’. Task No 1, take a look at yours and ask how good is the copy, and of course if you are followers of great business practices you will already be working solidly in being great with people.
From an original article on various business success pointers, here are the individual “how to” possible options for you to explore.
Training to win/win
You and your staff should be trained to make the whole show win, then the customers can win too. A great position to get to and stay in. For some the idea of training staff means showing them the bare basics of their job, but go a bit deeper and encourage thinking around the idea of Win/Win, when they get the idea the concept will probably become infectious.
- Find out more about win/win and how you might create some examples you can discuss with your team.
- Look for examples of win/win already at play in your business.
- Use the concept to develop a team get together every so often to ask about and pass on ideas in business development.
Getting all this together is a great way to cause the team to work effectively together and can build the business to a strong position where people feel valued. This will then pass on to the customers and cause them to feel valued as well, in the end that’s what we all want.
Recently I’ve had a few people ask me about Publicity and if they should do it themselves. I find that I answer both yes and no, depending on the person. Many people talk about how publicity is ‘free’, except when you pay over $1000 for a company to do it for you.
So, how do we do it ourselves? Simple really- there are heaps of media release templates on the web- microsoft office online has a few for a start. Then do a search. Many of these are free and will give you an idea of how to structure your media release. If you don’t feel confident in writing your own, outsource this- find a copywriter who can do it at a much cheaper rate than a media company.
Then research where you want it to go, ring up and ask who to send the release to. The best process to use to achieve top results is the phone, send, phone approach. Phone the person whom you are about to email. Tell them who you are, and that you are sending a media release to them via email. Send the release and then follow up a few days later with another phone call- ‘just to check they got it’. This develops rapport with the journalist that you don’t get when you use a company.
On the flip side, if you don’t have much time, or really don’t even want to try your own PR, outsourcing to a company is a great way to go. Be careful though- thoroughly research the media company before engaging in any contract work with them. Find out what you are getting for your money. Ask to see some previous results- and actually contact those businesses to ask for their opinion. I’ve heard some horror stories about people paying in excess of $100 for a ‘media release’ that is only a couple of paragraphs- purely because they did not research the company prior.
Remember- publicity is only ‘free’ when you do it yourself!!
From an original article on various business success pointers, here are the individual “how to” possible options for you to explore.
Upholding great values
People love it when you are on a positive footing and in the values area it’s a great place to start (integrity – honesty, truthfulness etc.).
Start the business with a strong stance on the rights and wrongs, if you get caught by a staff member or a customer ripping people off, word will spread fast, not a good thing to have happen. Make your act squeaky clean and others will follow.
Make a list of the sorts of values you want the business to uphold, google them on your computer and find out more about what other businesses have as values, then find ways to integrate them into what you do, yes even if you have a one person business.
You may find you already have these values, they are automatic and things that inherently are of interest to you. But there may be areas you want to tweak so you can be better at those ones as well.
Over time the staff and customers will be certain to know your business has high integrity, honesty etc.. In a highly competitive market place these things can set you apart.
From an original article on various business success pointers, here are the individual “how to” possible options for you to explore.
Covering overheads easily…
Overheads are often the thing that break the camels back, so make it easy for the camel and take the pressure off, in this case keeping the turnover and cash flow up so the overheads are not a challenge EVER! (I know, easier said than done…)
- Sell things that are wanted by your target ‘ideal customers’ this will mean you have things moving in and out again fairly quickly, and that’s good for business.
- Set your pricing right, sure beat your competition if you want but make enough to make a profit too, then you are sure the overheads are covered.
- Know what your industry average is for turnover and profits, this way you can measure (benchmark) against the industry average and see how you fit in the scheme of things.
- Ask your customers what they want more of, it might be as simple as “better service” then you will know “It’s not the products or after sales service it’s the SERVICE!”
- Know exactly how much your overheads are and how many things need to be sold per day to cover them, then anything over that amount puts you ahead.
- Know what is selling and what’s not, aim to make every square inch of your sales area sell well, (even if it’s an online page!) simply by providing more of what your customers want. perhaps just moving something to another spot in your ‘store’ will make a difference.
Getting an objective view of your business is vital to figuring out which areas to focus on to improve cash flow and keep your overheads under control, so ask lots of questions, observe thoroughly what’s going on.
Now put these things into action and watch the results alter in a positive direction.
From an original article on various business success pointers, here are the individual “how to” possible options for you to explore.
Enjoyable to run
Who wants a business, which is a hassle to run? Who wants to work in a tough field? No one… Make it a joy to be part of for you and staff and the low hassle enjoyable nature of the business will probably rub off onto the customers over time.
- Make the systems simple effective and clearly understood, no one wants to run a system they have little idea of why it is being done, especially in larger organisations.
- Ask the staff for suggestions on ways to make the work more enjoyable, perhaps multi tasking could be a useful starting point.
- Figure out the culture or if it’s a new business create a suitable culture one that is inclusive, cooperative and has fun some times, this way you will be encouraging the best from everyone involved.
- Make a Profit! This is an obvious point but without it the stress you suffer might soon spill over into the business. Take it easy that bad stress can wipe you out! So make sure you “juggle” things properly to ensure you have a profit and not just cover the overheads and wages.
- Smile, show you love it, show you love being there, show you love the staff, (yes love them!) let the positivity rub off.
- Ask lots of questions from all angles, the customer, the staff member, the senior staff and you… if there are common areas to be tackled then focus on those first.
If your business is enjoyable to run now, what would it be like if you went through and made it MORE enjoyable to run!
From an original article on various business success pointers, here are the individual “how to” possible options for you to explore.
Creating easily saleable products and services
You want people to buy, not to um and err then walk away, so it should be easy for them to select what they want and then make the purchase with great peace of mind. Especially people in your ideal target market.
It may be one thing to provide a prestige product and another thing to have enough people in the right target market to meet the needs you have. Again it might be a case of having some prestige products and more of another not so prestige product.
When it comes to business you should be making sure that customer satisfaction is a number one concern, and a big part of that is the service and support your business provides. Make it EASY for people to get things serviced, not a hassle. Make it easy for people to select the right product, Make it easy for them to find a sales person, the list goes on.
So take a customers viewpoint and walk in and out of your store as if you were them, how quickly are you attended to? how gracious was the enquiry “How are you today sir…” How easy was it to get your bearings on where things are (online or in a physical sales environment…) Now ask yourself what can be done to make changes so the people walking in and out are really satisfied.
Also look at the things you may want to add to your range… How easy are they to market? And will people readily make enquiries that could lead to sales… These are all aspects of easily saleable products and services.
Taking all these things into account you should be able to”pull apart” the customer experience to know what’s working and what you can do about it.
From an original article on various business success pointers, here are the individual “how to” possible options for you to explore.
Does your business fill a need and or want?
Hopefully it does both. If there is no need for what you have there will be no sales, therefore no business. This is a vital prerequisite for any business . Consider this, if you are selling diving gear in the middle of a desert you would not sell much, however a cold drinks stand would be a more obvious choice.
If you are just starting out in business do a lot of research to make sure what you have will fit, the local people, the culture, the psyche of the whole area, again if you are selling art in a working class area the amount you might sell may just be way less than a city where the arts might be more solidly valued.
Consider if are you providing for a want or a need, e.g. if you sell food, there is a need for that, if you sell dolls it’s more of a want, not a need. Ideally I guess the best scenario might be to have a needs based business that also sells some “wants” as well.
Watch out for things changing, cassette tapes were once the only portable music device, then came the CD… selling cassettes today would be a waste of time. So move with the changes so you don’t get left behind. What might start out as a solidly moving product range can become dead in the water fairly quickly.
