Karen Skidmore's Kick-Ass Blog | CanDoCanBe

Do You Do Business With Your Competitors?

Attracting new clients is one of the toughest challenges to most small business owners.  You can spend thousands on advertising without hearing your phone ring once. 

And you can spend hours and hours going to networking events only to find yourself on everyone else's mailing lists and yours remain small and unresponsive.

That's hard work, demoralising and does nothing to help with the cashflow, does it?

I am sure you know there has to be easier ways of creating leads and enquiries.

But did you know that one of the quickest ways of attracting new clients to your business is to use other business' databases?

And that even includes using your direct competitors.

Now I am not suggesting in the slightest that you are to break in to their offices overnight and steal their client information! But what I am suggesting is that you collaborate and look at what joint ventures you can create.

Joint ventures are when two [or more] businesses join forces to create a more powerful force in the marketplace.  Think of as two heads are better than one.

Or more importantly, two databases are better than one!

Let me give you an example.

Jenny is a fitness trainer.  She works primarily with her clients on a 1-2-1 basis but is finding it hard going fitting enough sessions in to her day whilst still generating the income that she is aiming for.

She has decided to start offering group sessions and fitness training programmes as a way of working with more clients, increasing her cash flow yet reducing the number of hours she works.  But the big problem is her database.  It's just not big enough to market her programmes to.

So rather than spend hundreds on advertising in the local newspaper or even more on buying a database, she decides to seek out other business' who have the clients she is looking for.

She approaches her local gym.  Some may think this is a crazy idea as her local gym is a direct competitor of her business, but the manager of the gym is interested in talking. 

You see, although they have a strong membership at present, very few people are coming in and using the gym.  And they know when this happens, they start getting lots of cancellations.  By offering the gym members a discount on Jenny's fitness programme, this gives the gym a great benefit to add to their membership subscription without it costing them a thing.  It should also encourage the members to train more in the gym in between Jenny's sessions, thus reducing the chance of cancellations.

OK, so this story is hypothetical and there are probably many more gym managers who just wouldn't entertain this idea and turn Jenny down flat.

But we are in a very interesting economy at the moment.  Many businesses are experiencing huge slow downs and one of the positive things about a recession is that slow downs cause problems.  If you can solve the right problems, it's good for your business. And, of course, good for other businesses as you solve their problems, too.

More and more businesses are looking at joint ventures and building collaborative partnerships - even with direct competitors!  And if you are struggling to attract the right clients to your business, joint ventures could be the quickest [and cheapest] way of moving your business forward right now.

Who could you start talking to and create a win-win situation for you both?

You could have a business opportunity right there, in front of you!

Oh and before you click away ... would you want to know how to use joint ventures to promote your teleseminar events?

A couple of weeks ago, I ran the "Get Started With TeleSeminars" masterclass, a two hour live event where everything you need to know about running your own teleseminars was covered.  From what conference call systems to use and kit that you need through to marketing strategies and how to write effective email promotions.

But there was a lot of information to cover!  And the topic of using joint ventures to promote teleseminars was of particular interest.

So, by popular demand, you can access a special teleseminar session on this very topic: "How to Promote Your Teleseminars Using Joint Ventures".

This session is free to everyone who has already invested in the "Get Started with TeleSeminars" programme but as I know there are many of you already using teleseminars and would like to access this information, you can book a place for this session, too.

The live event is happening on Tuesday, 10th March and, as always, will be recorded.

So if you can't dial in live on the day, you will automatically receive the audio recording AND a workbook to accompany the session.

But hurry, it's less than 2 weeks away.  Click here for more information and to register for your place.

Why building snowmen will help you attract clients

I live in a cul-de-sac.  It’s a quiet road with only 30 odd houses but we rarely see each other.  It’s a classic example of modern day life, everyone works and we all go about our busy lives, driving in and out of the road in our cars.

Today was different.  Today we were snowed in and no-one was going anywhere.  And with both children at home because of school closure, the best way to spend the morning was to get out there and build snowmen.

I phoned up two neighbours and invited their children to come and help us.  Within 15 minutes of being out, one of the other neighbours came over with 2 bright red toboggans.  We have never met each other in the 7 years of us living in this road and yet the snow brought us together, not only in a conversation, but with an exchange of her grown-up sons’ treasured possessions.  

Another 30 minutes later and 2 other children come bounding out of their house to join in the fun.  This family moved in about 6 months ago and we had never met.  Within another 30 minutes I was sharing a cup of tea in their kitchen with both the mum and dad, being shown around their house.

Today I have had more conversations with my neighbours than I think I have had in the seven years of living on my street.  And the only reason being was because we were spending time out in the street, being visible.

Why am I sharing my day with you?  Running your own business can be a very lonely business.  Stuck in front of your PC, returning emails and hiding in your home office.  Not conducive to making you very visible.

To attract clients you need to be build relationships.  And to build relationships you need to visible.  Whether that is going out to network meetings, being active on Facebook or getting articles published in your industry’s magazines; visibility is crucial to attracting clients and building your business.

Where could you go and build a snowman today?

Doesn't blogging & social media take up so much time?

I was speaking at a networking lunch this week sharing some tips and ideas on how to use blogging in one's business.  And the same old question came up "But doesn't all that stuff take a lot your time?"

Let's get this straight. All marketing takes time!

Driving to a networking lunch, spending 2 hours eating, talking and sharing business ideas, driving back from to your office, following up any contacts you met and sending them the info you promised - this all takes time!

Is it time well spent?  Well, hopefully yes especially if you met some interesting new contacts and some of those new contacts told others about you and your business.  Networking is an incredibly effective marketing tool.

So, why wouldn't using tools like blogging, twitter, facebook and all the other social tools out there take time to use, too?

And if the time you spend on twitter, facebook and writing your blog is used effectively - it will be time well spent too!

PLUS! anything you do online has the added benefit of being there forever.  Blog posts, twitter links and facebook photos can be found today, tomorrow and forever more.  So, yes blogging and social media does take up your time but before you use a lack of time as an excuse not to use these tools in your business, ask yourself how effective your marketing time is at the moment?

Can complaints be good for business?

No one likes it when someone complains about their service or returns a product because they are dissatisfied - especially when it is our very own business that we have built up from scratch. 

But complaints can be good for business.  And actually they can be the best thing for your business if dealt with in the right way.

Virgin airlines made headlines this morning in the British media.  No TV advertising, no front page splash in The Times, but they were being talked about on BBC news this morning.

Why?  Because of someone's complaint about the airline food.

Richard Branson responded personally to this one complaint and invited the person to be part of the next food tasting session to help Virgin airlines improve their catering.  The complaint was pretty scathing.  It included pictures of the food and didn't hold back on telling them what they thought.

But rather than ignore it or send a bulk autoreply including the standard discount coupon on the person's next travel, it was decided to let Richard Branson answer the complaint personally. 

What a great bit of free publicity!

so, how do you deal with any complaints you have? How can you turn them in to a business opportunity?

Are your clients eating more beans and less organic?

Yet more figures have come out today highlighting the downturn of our economy and how retail customers are changing their shopping habits.

The BBC are reporting that there is an increase of 22.6% in Baked Beans sales and 11% decrease in the amount of organic foods purchased. 

Not surprising really when everyone, me included, is looking at prices more carefully and making decisions on how they can decrease the price of their shopping basket.

But what about your clients?  Have you been able to take a step back and work out what your clients are doing at the moment?

People haven't stopped spending - they are just spending their money more wisely.  And this will be true of your clients, too.

So either get a survey out or pick up the phone and call a few target clients.  It doesn't matter what you actually do to find out, but find out you must.

Find out what your clients are spending more on and less on.  And you can still grow your business by offering more beans instead.

The 5 Marketing Rules for 2009

When the global economy seems to be on meltdown and all around you, you are reading, watching and hearing bad news, it’s easy to get dragged in to a negative mindset. 

If it’s happening to M&S and Woolworths, than it can happen to you, too!

Wrong.  As a self-employed professional who runs your own business, you have many advantages over the big brands.  You probably have very little in the way of overheads.  And you have the ability to be flexible and highly adaptable.  There is no reason why you can’t be successful whilst others around you get sucked down.

But there is no question you are going to have work smarter.  Not harder – just smarter.

These are the marketing rules that I am abiding by this year.

1. Be Focused.  Now we are in full flow social media marketing, it’s easy to get dragged in to the likes of Facebook and Twitter, spending hours clicking links and watching videos.  But ignore these marketing tools at your peril.  Embrace these tools but be focused. Have a plan for each one, automate as much as possible and focus your time so you have the conversations and get straight back to your other marketing and business actions.

2. Be Proactive.  Don’t just wait for business to come your way.  This year you have to go out and get amongst it.  Follow every lead up, reply to every email, return every call.  If you get complacent or feel like a duvet day, then expect your competitors to be the winners.  Be bold, be brave, be proactive.

3. Be Niche.  If you haven’t embraced the rules of niche marketing, then this is the year to.  Woolworths is a great example of what not to do:  they tried to be everything to everyone and just couldn’t compete with the likes of Tesco and Amazon.  The more focused you are on what you offer your target clients, the more likely your marketing is going to reach out and grab their attention.

4. Be an Expert.  Once you know your niche, make sure you own it.  Write articles, speak at conferences, be at the right events, get interviewed.  Become the one person that your potential clients think of when they have the problem you are able to solve.

5. Be Positive. Even when you may feel down on a Monday morning, make sure you are telling everyone how great business is.  If you are active on Facebook, Twitter or your blog, it is especially important that your messages are upbeat and positive.  Be honest, by all means, but if you feel crap and write about it from a negative point of view on the internet - its there for ever.  You want to attract potential clients – not repel them!

What rules do you have for marketing this year? Add your thoughts as a comment below.

Promote Less and Charge More

One of the easiest ways of making your business more profitable is to stop offering lots of choice and put your prices up.

Offer "affordable" and "low-cost" solutions to your clients and it is easy to get caught in the trap of constant promotions.  You can see this happening on the High Street at the moment.  Big retailers are offering pre-christmas sales and slashing their prices.  But the low margins mean that they have to get large numbers of customers through their doors to hit their sales targets.

When you run your own business, this is a strategy that rarely works.  It's hard to attract the high numbers of clients you need to make the profits you want.

Here is a simple example using workshops to show you what I mean.

Half-day workshop tickets sell at £45
Delegate rate & room hire cost you £10 per person
Gross Profit per person £35

To make a total gross profit (and remember you still need to take in to account all the cost of promoting the event, work book printing, admin support, etc) of £500, you need a minimum of 15 tickets sold. 

Full-day workshop tickets sell at £195
Delegate rate & room hire cost you £40 per person
Gross Profit per person £155

To make the same £500 gross profit, you only need to sell 4 tickets.  If you sold 15 tickets, you would make a gross profit of £2325.

You would have to run at least 4 half day workshops to make the same gross profit as running one full day workshop.

Which workshop programme do you think will take less of your time to make £2,000?

(Please note, these calculations are simplified.  Do make sure you work out your net profit carefully when running events and don't get caught out by focusing on your gross profit per person!)

Writing a Marketing Plan for Your Small Business: The 3 questions you must answer

Whether you are just starting up your own business from home or have been working for yourself for several years, a clear marketing plan is essential to not only show you what you should be doing to attract clients to your business, but also to keep you on track.

A marketing plan is really quite a simple document to produce.

There are far too many complicated templates that can be downloaded off the internet or got from a business book.  And when you feel you may to produce a 20 page document it can be the fastest way to put off the whole planning process.

There are only 3 questions that you need to answer in your marketing plan and they are:

1.  Where are you now?

2.  where are you going?

3.  How are you going to get there?

And they need to be in this order.

Too many people jump in to the “how are you going get there” question and get bogged down with marketing strategies and tools that, frankly, may not help you bit.

Start with the easiest question of all “where are you now?”. Not only will this help build your confidence up (after all, you should know the answer to this question without much thinking!), it will give you a baseline from where to start building.

The second question “where are you going?” is designed to focus you on targets and goals.  Where do you want to be this time next year?  How many clients do you want to managing?  How many hours do you want to be working? How much money do you want to be creating?

Your destination needs to specific.  It needs to be something that you can measure.  It’s got to have a timescales.  And it’s got to be realistic and something that you know is achievable. (Yup, you’ve guessed it - it has to a SMART goal!).

Once you have your SMART desination, you will find it far easier to answer the third and final question “How are you going to get there?”.

So forget about mission statements and synopsises.  Get to the basics and focus on what’s going to work for you on a day-to-day basis.

Business Plans are bad for small businesses

Most small businesses have business plans that are just not doing them any favours.  In fact I would go as far as saying that most small businesses have business plans that are only holding them back.  Their business plans are actually bad for them.

Now, don't get me wrong.  I'm not saying that business planning is bad for business.

Business planning is essential for the success of you and your small business.

But when it comes the actual act of writing a business plan, most small businesses start with a template downloaded from the internet which usually creates a document of at least 10 to 20 pages.  All the pretty boxes are filled out, the cashflow spreadsheet is completed and the answers to the questions such as "What is your USP?" are answered.

What happens to this 20 page document?

Yup, that's right. In fact I know you know which drawer in your filing cabinet I am talking about here, don't you?

What use is a 20 page business plan that just sits and gathers dust.  That sort of business is really bad for business.

A business plan that is going to get you moving forward is a working document.  It needs to be something that you use each and every day to help you decide what you should be doing each and every day.

A mission statement and general synopsis is all very business-like but it's the actual day-to-day actions you need to be clear on to help you with your marketing and promoting.

So what sort of business plan is great for a small business?

Your business plan should be no longer than a single sheet of A4.  It should answer the 3 questions "Where are you now?", "Where do you want to be?" and "How are you going to get?"

There should be no corporate BS, no unnecessary long-words - just focused SMART goals and a list of bullet points outlining your planned daily, weekly and monthly actions.

Want some 1-2-1 help simplifying your business plan?  Then get in touch and we can arrange an initial phone consultation.  www.CanDoCanBe.com/businesscoaching

Reviewing & monitoring your marketing is boring, right?

Everyone always seem hungry for new ideas on how to attract clients do their business, don't they?  They want to know the latest web-tool to use, the next social networking site, the new way of reaching out to a new target audience.

But how many of you take the time to step back and review what you have done already?

I know reviewing and monitoring can often be viewed as the boring bit.  The annoying admin that needs ticking off.

But it's got to be done!

There is no point going out and discovering the latest and newest (is there such a word!!) way of attracting clients if you haven't taken the time to work out what is working for you now.

Even this is just a monthly exercise.  A couple of hours on the last Friday of every month where you check your web stats and the number of subscribers to your blog or newsletter.

Even if you just have a piece of paper stuck to your desk where you scribble down how your new clients and customers get to hear about you.

You don't have to have complicated systems - a basic excel spreadsheet or form to be filled out by hand will keep you on track and help you work out what is working (do more of!) and what is not (stop doing and try something different).

Now, which day did I say I was going to do this myself this month?!!!