Taking on More Than You can Handel

When you take on too much, your business can’t keep up and therefore you can easily lose control of everything and find yourself barely functioning. You want your business to be successful, no doubt, but you need to have a plan for how you will handle the growth. Your clients expect great customer service and highly quality products/services, they don’t know or care about your behind the scenes operations to get those things done.

·       Look for these signs that you are taking on more than you can handle:

·       Clients’ needs aren’t being met.

·       Employee morale is low, clients are upset and you’re in a panic.

·       You have to react in emergency mode to save accounts.

·       Your current clients are suffering from trying to keep up with new business.

·       Profits are going down.

·       You are just trying to pick up the pieces of your business.

·       Your clients/customers leave.

·       Resources are being reallocated.

There a trick called the Mock Fish Plan. This plan can help you react positively when you are facing some or all of these things and help you get your business back on track. This plan will:

·       Help increase sales in a short period of time.

·       Alter your products/services for the better.

·       Fulfill promises you made to your clients.

There are six steps to this plan:

1. Bring in your best team and have them all help to meet the fish needs.
2. Review your operational system.
3. Anticipate future problems better.
4. Communicate better.
5. Include costs in your quotes.
6. Always have a back-up plan.

All Your Eggs in One Basket

You can allow your company to become dependent on any one fish. Eventually or for certain periods there is going to be a slowing down period with your fish. In order to stay in the game you need to diversify.

If you’ve ever mishandled a fish, you could drive away potential fish as well. In order to keep balance and prepare for a strong future, there are a few things you can do.

·       These things include:

·       Stay in the loop and try to know what’s going on inside your fish company.

·       Constantly reinvent yourself and stay at the top of your industry.

·       Stay exclusive.

·       Try to secure multi-year commitments and contracts.

·       Spread your contracts out.

·       Price your products/services correctly.

You also need to work to reduce your dependency on your fish. This can generally be measures in sales or profits. Take a look back at the process we’ve used thus far to snag more fish to keep this all in balance.

These are the ways you can help avoid the killer mistakes that can make you lose it all.

Up Cash Creek Without a Paddle.

Even when business is good there’s still a change of running out of cash flow. You have to always be prepared for a slow in sales or a surge in expenses. One of the keys to balancing your cash flow is to get your clients to pay on time. This can seem like a nightmare, but is absolutely essential to a successful business.

Here are some tips to speed up the payment process:

·       Always send invoices on time and adjust your records for potential audits.

·       Learn how the client processes payments on their side and find out precisely where to send invoices.

·       Find out who’s in charge of processing orders and payment, so you know who to contact if needed.

·       Have a follow-up procedure in place, just in case.

·       As a last resort, call your contact to ask questions.

·       Always make sure your invoices are correct before sending them out.

You also need to make sure your cash flow is protected. You can do this by:

·       Always know which accounts need paid and when.

·       Negotiate with your suppliers for the lowest cost possible.

·       Have a bank contingency plan in place.

·       Build your own inventor network.

These are all great ways to protect the cash flow of your business and prepare for fish transitions and slow sales. These last few lessons are all about finding and catching your big fish clients. These clients are essential to your success and your need to take the time to work through each of these steps carefully and correctly for the best success.  If you need more help in these areas, just contact me and we will help you with business and the transformation of your business.

Do It Like the Big Dawgs!

Today we’ll take a look at how the kings of industry wine, dine and otherwise cajole prospects.

Most of successful professionals use a series of information based ads that build emotion and a call to action. These are much more effective than a standard company branding advertisements. The same principles that go into putting together a high impact (and, often, high priced) ad campaign can be adapted to fit your needs with similar results.

Here are some ways to put together and execute a professional, effective ad campaign:

1. Put together a short report that’ll you’ll automatically send to prospects when they contact you. This should include a short description of your business and what you specialize in. Don’t forget to include case studies, samples or other proof of your success.

2. Develop value-oriented social media strategy including: Google, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and other other social media activities, tell everyone about your business.

3. Consider newsletters as a way of educating and informing customers about your industry and services offered.

4. Offer a free seminar, webinar or other lecture to build awareness of your business, but make sure you make the information pertinent to your target market and find speakers who are respected and known in the industry.

5. Buy an existing business, introduce better marketing and grow this new business faster than a “from scratch” business.

6. Always test different versions of your ads to find the most effective ones.
7. Use direct mail marketing to grow your business.

8. Put together a database of previous customers and send them new information.

9. Offer incentives such as frequent purchasing benefits, loyalty programs, referral programs or others.

10. Approach large firms who may need your services and negotiate a deal to be their exclusive expert in your field.

Need more marketing information, check out www.marketingandsalesuniversity.com, get one month all access for only $1.00 Over a million dollars in research has gone into this University. If you have topic of interest or want more consultation, contact me at kenselt@sympatico.ca

PR Equals Free Publicity

There are three key areas of public relations you can use to boost your advertising results ten-fold over your paid advertising.
The key to public relations lie in:
• Public relation or publicity
• Merchandising
• Promotions

With a solid plan in place that encompasses all these areas, you’ll have a great approach to use public relations in the best way possible.
Public relations include all that is the media. Don’t limit yourself. The attention of newspapers, television, radio, magazines, bloggers, ezines and more are all equally powerful. Online marketing is just as, if not more, important as conventional media.

Here are the steps to get noticed by the media:
1. Put together a press release for your company. The press release should be relevant to your target market and address consumer interest, not just announce your business.

2. Compact your press release to include one hook and one angle. Choose the most attention-getting to make sure the media person you are sending it to is interested in reading it.

3. Put your press release in professional formatting. With press releases you need a dateline, the most important information at the top, facts, figures and wrap it up with contact details including who and how. Print the press release on your letterhead.

4. Send your press release to all television and radio stations, local and metro newspapers, national newspapers, industry magazines, and any other form of media that reaches your target market. Don’t forgot to include relevant blogs, ezines, press release submission sites and to industry professionals.
More importantly than a perfect press release is to make sure you have addressed the needs of your target market in the products/services you offer and made that clear in the press release. If you are provided people a solution to a problem, a way to avoid a problem and an opportunity to enhance their life the media and public will be interested.

If you have a connection (or the ability to get a connection) with a celebrity, this can practically guarantee you’ll get attention. Make sure you are offered newsworthy information, and then follow up with media outlets to make sure they are publicizing that information.

“One of the most powerful techniques every business should use is free publicity. As the name implies, there is no cost, just the time and effort required to attract attention to your business.” Jay Abraham

Our FREE test drive can show you how to put together press releases that work! Check out how the pro’s do it and craft the perfect press releases for your business.
Contact me or go to www.marketingandsalesuniversity.com for a free 30 day trial. Download as much information as you can to help you grow your business.

How Did Starbucks Build A Multimillion Dollar Empire Using A Basic Commodity?

You can buy a cup of coffee at 7-11, Quik-Trip, Dunkin Donuts and even McDonalds. and buy it for $3.50 less than you can at Starbucks. So WHY are so many people Starbuck junkies?

Why is every airline bankrupt or nearing bankruptcy, and yet Southwest has made a profit every quarter but one since it started flying its planes in 1971? How did Apple come back from the dead and resurrect itself so it now sits at the top of the communications world?

What you need to know.

Starbuck's didn't just happen to get "lucky." This was a very carefully planned and crafted assault that was years in the making. In most cases, when you sell a basic commodity such as coffee, you're forcing yourself into a market that competes on nothing but price.

Well, that's what everyone else was indeed doing. 7-11, Quik-Trip, Dunkin Donuts and McDonalds were locked in battle to see who could offer the cheapest cup of coffee. In fact, most of them were providing it at cost as a way to entice customers to come in more frequently. They figured they could make up the lost profit with additional sales.

Starbucks looked at this and said "these guys are all fighting over who can offer a 50 cent cup of coffee. I wonder how we can get these same people to buy our coffee. and pay us $4 a cup in the process?"

Why you need to know this.

Obviously, they were successful. So how did they do it? In a word. "INNOVATION!"
If you want your business to grow and flourish, then you must stop competing on price. You have to find out specifically what your customers "want" from your business, and then innovate your business to not only give them what they want, but do so in a way that can only be described as "extraordinary."

Customers don't go to Starbucks to pay $4 for a cup of coffee. They pay $4 for the "experience" they enjoy at Starbucks. Starbucks innovated their stores to give their customers what they "wanted." Customers don't want to buy their coffee from a clerk. They want to buy it from a "barista." They don't want to buy coffee from a convenience store or a fast food restaurant. They want to buy their coffee from a specialty coffee establishment where the barista knows them by name and knows what they want to drink without them having to ask for it. In short. they want an "experience," and they're willing to pay $4 a cup to get it.

The cost to you if you fail to act.

* Do you know exactly how to find that "sweet spot" that your competition knows nothing about?
* Do you know how to use that "sweet spot" to instantly attract new clients whenever you want?
* Would you like to finally understand how to separate your business from all of your competition?
* Would you be interested in positioning your business for market dominance?

You can learn to do this for your business. IF you can discover specifically what your customers want. and create an experience that compliments what they want.
For more information, check out my new Marketing University, get as much information as you want and take a test drive on our system.To take a Test Drive on our system visit http://marketingandsalesuniversity.com/guidedtour

Kensel Tracy is the Marketing Coach and owner of Marketing and Sales University, a resource for small and medium sized businesses that want more information on marketing.