Category Archives: Sales and marketing

Joining the digital age – advice for bringing your business online

Shopping onlineThe way people shop has changed rapidly over the last few years. On-line shopping is booming and consumers are using the internet to research and shop for products more than ever before. But despite this massive shift in how consumers behave, many small retail businesses resist the move towards ecommerce.

This happens for a variety of reasons – for many people taking their business on-line means entering a realm they feel they know nothing about. People are afraid of the costs involved and that they won’t have the expertise to make it work. However, while traditional shops put off the challenge of learning about ecommerce, new SMEs are setting up on-line and taking a significant chunk of market share from long established businesses that used to dominate in their market.

If you own a small or independent retail business and you’ve not made the move online, this piece aims to demystify the process and give you the knowledge you need to feel confident and, hopefully, excited about joining the internet revolution.

Why take your business on-line?

If you are only operating off-line right now, chances are you are missing out on a lot of potential sales and you may even have lost previously loyal customers to competitors in the on-line sphere. Although it may seem daunting, getting your head around moving on-line could be the difference between your business surviving in the long run or gradually becoming unsustainable.

Once you learn the ropes of ecommerce some of the benefits you’ll enjoy include more sales, the ability to serve customers from all over the world, the capacity to engage more regularly with customers and reach a much wider pool of consumers, and the satisfaction of knowing that you’ve stayed at the forefront of the industry where you have built up your expertise.

What do you need to make an on-line business successful?

At its simplest, getting set up in ecommerce requires a website with a shop, the ability to store stock and post it securely to customers, and a good system to stay on top of orders and manage on-line customer service.

If you’ve been running a business off-line for some time you’ll be well aware of the importance of customer service. When you take the business on-line all the same principles apply – great customer service results in loyal customers. This means replying to emails or social media queries quickly, being reliable, offering secure payment and ensuring that customers receive their purchases in great condition and in the time frame you have promised.

One way to organise the running of an on-line business is to use a simple project management system like Trello. You can use this system to keep track of stock, orders and create to do lists.

Setting up a website is also much easier than you might think. There are lots of great services which allow you to build a website without any knowledge of coding. Generally you’ll pay a small fee each month which will allow you to host your website and run a shop from it with genuine ease. Examples include Wix and Big Cartel.

If you’d prefer, you can hire an expert to build a website from scratch for you. If you are going to do this, remember these two tips – choose someone who comes highly recommended to ensure that you’ll get exactly what you need from them, and make sure that you get a content management system (CMS) that will allow you to edit and update the website yourself once it’s finished. If you don’t have a good CMS you’ll have to pay the web developer every time you need to make a change on-site. That is a waste of money when you could be maintaining the website yourself very easily.

If you are having a website built from scratch you will still need to find a suitable payment solution for the shop. Choose a well-known provider such as Barclaycard who offer secure and reliable options for accepting payments which you can read about here.

Take it one step at a time

When you decide to take the plunge and open an online shop, set yourself a realistic time frame to get yourself up and running. Start by getting the website built and regularly updated before you add the shop. Don’t start taking orders until you know you can manage on-line sales in a timely and reliable way. The last thing you want is to mess up your first few orders and damage your reputation on-line.

Once you have the shop operational you can start working on marketing your online business through suitable channels including social media, SEO, paid search and display adverts.

Moving into ecommerce is an important step to keep up with the modern retail landscape, and although it may seem challenging it can be extremely rewarding and very worthwhile. Take as much advice as possible and do plenty of research about what your competitors are already doing on-line so you can learn from their mistakes and successes.

 

How to write a business plan – the structure of the plan

Business Plan StructureLast week I looked at the preparation needed to write your business plan, now we are laying out the structure of the plan.

Not all of the following will be needed for every plan and you must decide what to include based on the use that the business plan will be put to. For instance Business Angels will want to see a section on the Management Team, however if the plan is only for you to run the company you could easily leave that section out.

Main sections of a Business Plan:

1. 0 Executive Summary

Normally 2 to 3 pages that clearly states what your business does and summarises the main elements of the plan. If you are looking for investment, the Executive Summary is the first information that Business Angels or banks will want to see. They need to quickly understand your business and its attractiveness before they will ask see the main plan.

Although it comes first in the structure, you will write it last. You can’t summarise what you haven’t yet written.

In the Executive Summary you should state what your companies Objectives or Goals are and even your business’s Mission. Mission Statements are not just the remit of large corporations; they also give direction to fast growing businesses.

Remember the above Exec Summary is done last. First you layout the main Business Plan sections as below.

2.0 Company Summary

Describe where your business is located, is it a start-up or how long it has existed, what services or products does it supply, and to what group of people.

Include in this section who owns the company and the history of the company.

3.0 Products / Services

This is the section most people find the easiest. Everyone enjoys talking about their own products. However apart from describing your products & services do include these essentials:

- What makes your offering different and more attractive than the competition

- Where do you source your raw materials, or service providers from

- How you distribute your product/service What about after sales support

- What about after sales support

4.0 Market Analysis Summary

You will already have some knowledge of your market, but now quantify it. Do some book/web research and get real numbers and statistics. Being able to refer back t0 the sources of your information is vital when talking to Investors, it gives credibility.

Even if not looking for investment, you must base your plan on actual information, not a personal/general impression that may in reality be far from accurate.

Do your own market research, ask people who you believe to be your target customers for information and if they would buy your product. Don’t just ask friends and family.

4.1 Market Segmentation

A key part of your marketing is to sub-divide your potential customers into groups that have some similarity. You haven’t got the resources or funds to market to everyone, so create target groups and you will then be able to decide how best to reach them.

4.2 Target Market Segment Strategy

Look at how understanding the different needs and attitudes of your target demographics may be translated into a strategy.

By having segmented your market, the messages that you give to each of these groups can be very different and delivered in a way that attracts that group of people.

You may also decide to make differing versions of your offering for different segments of your market.

4.3 Industry Analysis

Describe the industry in general and it’s size. Specifically talk about the competition in the industry and how you compare. Describe buying patterns; are sales seasonal for instance, do they depend on other factors, how long is the decision process to buy.

Is there price sensitivity, or is quality and service the most important?

5.0 Strategy and Implementation

5.1 SWOT Analysis

Strength – Weakness – Opportunities – Threats analysis. You may not want to actually include this here. It may be better in a appendix, or kept separate simply as part of the background to understanding your business.

5.2 Competitive Edge

These sections are about implementation, so think about how you will put in place strategies and activity to take advantage of the differences that your products/services have.

5.3 Marketing Strategy

Specify your strategy for reaching your target market and the main actions needed to carry out these strategies. You should include PR, Direct Marketing, advertising, sales calls, customer referrals, special deals/promotions, endorsements, partnerships, sponsorships etc.

Think about your resources, can you afford to advertise a bit, do you have someone who could make sales calls, try getting free PR if possible

You have a great product/service, but no one will buy it unless they know about it. See our resource on making a Marketing Plan and then include the main elements in this business plan.

5.4 Sales Strategy

Will you sell on-line, have your own sales force, franchise or not, will you have distributors, a store, a warehouse? A restaurant, bar or cafe needs premises to sell from. Where and what location, how about “foot-fall” for high street premises.

Will you sell in bulk, or minimum orders, discounts, pricing and loss-leaders, all the nitty-gritty of how sales will be made has to be thought out.

5.4.1 Sales Forecast

The finance section of most business plans includes 3 years of forecast. The first year by month and the next 2 years as separate yearly totals. Some industries may have longer forecast needs, but not normally.

People find this section hard to do, but you have to give it your best estimate. Note down the assumptions that you made in coming to that estimate, so you can justify it. When operating you can compare actuals to forecast and look back and see if any assumptions needs changing.

Sometimes you can get an idea of your likely sales by looking at your competitors, or competing products & services.

6.0 Management Summary

If the plan is only for internal use, you will not need a full biography of the management team of the business, which you will certainly need for Investment purposes. Even if it is a one person start-up, you will need to say something about your background that makes Investors believe that you are capable of being successful with their funds.

There’s no need for a full CV in this section, just a summary, picking out relevant details.

In this section also you can say how the personnel levels will grow over time and what skills or positions will be expanded.

7.0 Financial Plan

As mentioned with the sales forecast, the financials are normally the first year by month and then the next 2 years as a yearly total.

If you have the sales forecast ready, all you need then as preparation are the costs of the business. Typically these are split between fixed costs and variable costs. The putting together of the financial side of the business can be done on a spreadsheet for small businesses but larger concerns will need to use an accountant to translate the forecast and costs into full financials that include a balance sheet, cash flow and Profit & Loss accounts.

Alternatively, there is software around that will guide you through putting all the sections of a plan together and also produce the full financial section. Try this business plan software,  we’ve looked at many and this turned out best in our review.

Finance sections to include:

- Important Assumptions

- Break-even Analysis

- Projected Cash Flow

- Sales Forecast

- Projected Profit and Loss

- Projected Balance Sheet

It’s important not to get stuck in any one section of the plan. Do your best and move on, keep momentum going. If possible bounce ideas around with your team, a business partner, or a friend. If you need a Business Partner, Mentor or Investment don’t forget to join Company Partners.

 

Want to get into business? We look at the options

Business choicesIf you’ve got past the headline then you obviously have a hankering to be your own boss. The arguments for going into business are well rehearsed – you can make your own decisions, choose who you work with, enjoy the fruits of your success and so on – but, arguably, the paths into entrepreneurialism are less well documented.

Mention entrepreneurship and many people will think of starting their own enterprise and base their decision on whether to become an entrepreneur on the merits and risks associated with starting your own business.

But there are, of course, two other ways into business: buying an established business and buying a franchise. Each option has pros and cons and will suit different attributes, skills and circumstances.

To get you thinking about which option is right for you, here’s a rough outline of the three choices, their attractions and drawbacks, potential rewards and risks. There’s also a suggestion of the type of people they might suit – though by no means do we want to be prescriptive about this.

Starting a business

Starting a business from scratch is far from easy, but affords the entrepreneur the freedom to generate a business idea and build it as he or she sees fit. It’s tough in the first couple of years, where the owner acquires and fits out premises, fulfils any regulatory requirements, begins to build a team and starts marketing the new brand to its market.

Advantages

  • Creative: generate the business idea yourself, develop the products and services and your marketing strategy
  • Freedom of choice: choose your premises and location, your own team and build the business as you see fit
  • Satisfying: any success is truly your success

Drawbacks

  • Risk of failure – especially compared to buying a business or franchise
  • Formative period is often stressful and time-consuming, as you establish a foothold in the market with few staff, few customers and little brand-name recognition.
  • Expect to work long hours in the first 1-2 years
  • Difficult to raise finance, especially in competitive markets or for novel ideas, particularly in current climate

Suits

An “ideas person” will enjoy generating new ideas that gain an edge in existing markets or break the mould and forge a new niche. You could argue that starting a business suits people who can afford to fail – the childless, or those wealthy or young enough to move on and try something else if it doesn’t work out.

Buying a business

Businesses are sold for a variety of reasons, including retirement, illness, a desire to change sectors, a perception that the value has peaked. Although the business buyer is skipping the challenging start-up phase, the business buying process itself can be difficult, and must be conducted with care. Failure to research the market and conduct proper due diligence can result in paying over the odds or buying the wrong business.

Advantages

  • Providing you choose wisely, you could be profitable with a strong market presence from the moment you take over
  • Arguably also less demanding than starting a business for the same reason
  • Possibly easier to raise finance; banks keener to lend to businesses with track record of profitability as opposed to an idea that only exists in a business plan

Drawbacks

  • Can be expensive buying ready made profitability or floundering business requiring further investment
  • Buying process can be protracted and deals can collapse at last minute
  • Change of ownership poses problems – staff alienation from new regime, customers deserting you because they liked previous owner, can be difficult to steer business in fresh direction

Suits

If you’re cash-rich the dearth of credit means there are plenty of bargains on the market. If you’re excited by the challenge of turning round a failing business, and like to be in full control but don’t fancy a stressful start-up period – perhaps you’ve been there, done that – then buying an established business will suit you.

Buying a franchise

Buying a franchise is a more formulaic route into business ownership, where you follow tried-and-tested systems and the risk of failure is generally low. In return for an initial franchise fee, and often ongoing monthly management fees or percentage of your revenue/profit, you operate under the name of an established brand, selling its goods or services, with support and training from the franchisor.

Advantages

  • Providing you buy into a successful brand – McDonald’s or WSI being prime examples – the risk of failure is negligible, and failure at the application stage at least entails no financial loss.
  • Following a proven formula, it’s arguably less challenging than the alternatives
  • Also buying brand recognition and training and support – meaning you’re in business for yourself, but not by yourself

Drawbacks

  • Following a rigid formula you rarely have leeway to tinker with product, prices, decor or any other aspect of the business
  • Generally pay monthly management fee or proportion of revenue/profits to franchisor
  • Must pass rigorous application process, particularly for the biggest, most successful brands like Subway

Suits

Someone who wants to be their own boss but doesn’t mind following a rigid formula, and who wishes to keep risk to a minimum. With a number of home-based, part-time franchise opportunities available for a modest investment, franchises are also popular with parents of young children.

This article was contributed by BusinessesForSale.com, the directory of business opportunities from Dynamis, the online media group also behind FranchiseSales.com and PropertySales.com

Start or grow your business now – what’s holding you back?

Start and grow your business

Start and grow your business in 2013

It’s a New Year and the entrepreneurial juices are flowing. It’s time to start the business that you’ve been talking about for years. What’s stopping you?

Or maybe you’ve already got a business but it’s not growing as fast as you had thought, what has to happen to make this year the year it doubles its revenue?

I’ve talked to thousands of prospective entrepreneurs and small businesses over the years and surprisingly it’s not always lack of funding that is the biggest hurdle. It’s fear of the unknown.

Whether you are dreaming of starting a business or hoping that this year your business is going to somehow take off, it is much more comfortable to continue dreaming than to do something about it. The dream is warm and cosy; we can lie in bed and feel comforted that our lives can change for the better at any time. But if we take action, what if it doesn’t work out? There’s no longer a dream just trouble.

When I started Company Partners, one of the key drivers was to allow people to find a business partner with complementary skills and a like-mind. Having a partner will motivate and encourage anyone starting a new business. It’s quite daunting by yourself.

For existing businesses, sometimes it’s not a new (expensive) employee that you need but someone else with ideas and energy that could join as a risk (and reward) taking partner to grow the business.

Yes having the funds to start or grow a business is also important and that’s why we have such a strong Investor community on Company Partners, but the first thing is to stop dreaming and do it.

There are things you can do to get the ball rolling. Write down your ideas for a business, or the way that you would like to grow, think what you need to do in order to make this happen. Dare I say, join Company Partners and search for a business partner, or Investor.

The key is to get started. Don’t wait, have drive, energy builds on energy.

 

How to find more customers – the top 5

How to find customers1. Get free PR

If there was an unlimited amount of money to spend, advertising would be easy, but normally there isn’t. So what can you do? Well this is where free PR comes in. PR is of course short for Public Relations and was the remit of large corporations, but has now become a valuable tool for gaining public recognition of your business and products as well as building your image.

In many ways it’s the best form of advertising, because it doesn’t use sales techniques that customers are suspicious of, instead it promotes a positive message about your business that can develop customer loyalty and encourage new customers to find out more about your services or products.

You can hire a PR company to do all this for you, but that’s not cheap, so why not do it yourself. The media have to fill their papers and their broadcasts with content every day. The key is to make it interesting and have a human interest angle, not just the history of your company or latest product.

For our full members we have a comprehensive write-up on getting free PR (btw if you are a full member you also get access to business partners, mentors and business angels investors) – How to get free PR

2. Make marketing work

Marketing is the overall term for PR, advertising, branding, pricing and identifying the products that your customers want. It therefore looks at the big picture. Each business should have a marketing plan, which pulls all this together and makes sure that you have not missed an important step that will grow your business.

The main key though in making marketing work is to segment your market into bite size pieces. That way you can get your messages tailored exactly right for your potential customer. I wrote a blog on that which may help – How to market smarter

If you’re thinking of writing a marketing plan for your business, you may be interested in a deal we put together with Palo Alto to get a free copy of Marketing Plan Pro software with each copy of Business Plan Pro bought from them, you can see more here – Sales and marketing plan

3. Using a web site to generate new business

Nearly every business has a web site nowadays and if you haven’t you really must get one, it isn’t expensive and I can’t think of any business that can do without it. The first thing will be finding a domain name that meets your business needs.

Ideally the domain name would contain the key words that people will search to find your product or service, such as “bestsheds” or “berkshireaccountants”. It doesn’t have to be your company name.

Using your company name is also okay and allows you to keep your products and services unrestricted by the web site name, but the site will be harder to find on search engines for your products, so you will need to do more work on its visibility. If someone already knows your business name it will come up, but you want to be found by people who don’t know you and are searching for what you can provide.

There are plenty of very inexpensive web site packages around. Choose one that allows you to easily make changes to it, because the worst thing is seeing a site that hasn’t been updated for 2 years. Have several new items, testimonials or articles that show that it is up-to-date.

If possible get a local web designer to produce the site, again not too expensive an option. Pick one whose work is attractive to you. He can help you optimise it so it can be found on search engines like Google.

Don’t get sucked in though by all those emails from companies wanting to provide SEO (search engine optimisation). If you can afford it pick a well trusted digital marketing business, but it won’t be cheap. You can do it yourself, have a look at Perfecting a business web site .

4. Don’t use a free email address

Using gmail, hotmail or any of the free email addresses looks amateur if you are running a business. It’s okay for private use, but when you are trying to show that your business is worth buying from or investing in, then it looks shoddy.

If you already have a domain name, adding email on to it is cheap. If you haven’t a domain name for your business, get one. Then use that for email.

Put your name, contact details and a sentence saying what your business does at the bottom of your mails (as a “signature”).

5. Communicate and Network

If you have a website, offer a free incentive (such as a downloadable useful information sheet) and keep in touch with those people (make sure they have ticked a box to allow you to keep in touch).

Regularly contact existing and old customers, with special deals or just helpful information. It’s easier & cheaper than finding brand new customers.

Not everyone is comfortable with the concept of networking. It’s been over used as a term, but has been around for hundreds of years. It needn’t be hard or daunting. Just as computers talk to one another over a network and spread messages, so can us humans. The idea is that your message will pass from one person to another. A network should be more than just a list of people you talk to. It should work for you.

Thought of that way, find rememberable messages and sound-bites that you can give people you meet about your business that may cause them to mention it to someone else. On Company Partners for instance, I talk about it being like a “dating site”.

Depending on your industry and market, there will be opportunities to pass these messages on to either customers themselves, or to people who meet and influence your customers. There are thousands of organised events, choose one that best fits your market and give it a go.

Networking can also find you partners to collaborate with and ideas to try.

The old adage of invent a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door, doesn’t work any more. You’ve got to tell the world about your mousetrap and show them how to get to your door.

 

Get more customers – provide a better service than your competitors

customer serviceAfter writing the title of this piece I thought what more can I say? That’s it isn’t it? Provide a better service than your competitors and you will win business.

But maybe it’s worth thinking about this a bit deeper. No one actually sets out to deliberately provide a bad service and does it really matter that much?

Increasingly the difference between me choosing one supplier or another is their service. In today’s marketplace most prices are competitive. I can also easily compare prices on-line and I’m getting pretty good at negotiating discounts as well.

But you have to live with the product you buy a long time and if it’s a service you are buying, such as a telephone line, broadband ISP, or consultancy; the ease and quality of service can make your life pleasurable or absolute hell.

Two companies I enjoy dealing with are Amazon and John Lewis. I’ve never had any trouble returning goods with these companies and they have speedy delivery, so I continue to go back to them – even if sometimes their price is higher.

On the other hand who hasn’t been kept waiting ages on a telephone line while trying to get technical support from your Internet Service Provider?

Or had to deal with a call centre where you get passed from one automated menu to another, before talking to someone who clearly didn’t want to be there talking to you.

Large businesses can fall into this trap, because someone has done an efficiency study and calculated that the odd drop-out of customer is compensated by the lower cost of delivering service. Many large faceless organisations, such as Utility companies, and big corporations, just see such service as normal. The stock answer is “there are always complaining customers, but when you think that we deal with millions of people a year the number of complaints are very small”. Does that reassure you?

Smaller businesses may just have lost sight of the importance of service. Running around fire-fighting issues, having to do everything yourself, it can be hard to provide the level of service that you would like to. Whist understandable, it’s a road to disaster. Reputation is hard won and easily lost.

So what should you do?

  • Build ease of doing business, friendliness and going beyond the call of duty into your sales strategy and branding.
  • Design your systems for ease of customer interaction; IT systems, telephone handling, paperwork, bills, quotes – anything the customer has to deal with.
  • Own the problem. If a customer contacts someone at your company with an issue, that person should own the problem – even if the customer has rung the wrong department.
  • Make speedy delivery, speedy response, speedy interaction with your company an important factor in how your company operates. Customers are all busy people, the issue that they contacted you about is important to them and so they are impressed when you reply to an email or query within an hour, but not after days of waiting.
  • Forget the clichés “the customer is king”, “the customer is always right”, these are meaningless and are a fob to the whole concept, your staff will not respond to such trite. Instead make sure that your staff knows that how the customer perceives you is key to their success and the company’s business.
  • Get an attitude in place that one of the things which your company and the staff are proud of is the way they are viewed by customers, suppliers and others as being friendly and efficient.
  • Give staff the respect and trust to make judgement calls on what is needed to “do the right thing” for the customer, rather than “more than my jobs worth” to do anything out of the ordinary.
  • Once you have the right procedures in place and have built excellence of service into the core of the business, capitalise on it by using good testimonials in your literature and web site.

One of the reasons I like using Amazon is that apart from their service, I can read reviews of products and companies before buying. Checking reviews on-line is now an important shopping behaviour, so encourage your customers to leave good reviews anywhere they can. There are many opportunities to do so on-line, look for these and build your reputation.

I’ve worked in many corporations that have put measurements in place for customer satisfaction and even made that as part of the pay mechanism, but such measurements can always be massaged. None have worked as well as in companies where the ethos and self-image is all about quality.

Start with your own and your staffs perception of your brand as being one of excellence, ensure the systems allow you to deliver that quality and then customers will go out of their way to choose you rather than your competitors.

Why SEO means sales for your business website

Search Engine OptimisationAlmost all businesses now days have to have a web site. Even if you don’t sell over the web, your customers will expect to be able to find you on it.

If they know your name and it’s fairly unique then you are likely to be found. That’s good, you can give your customers contact details, support information and reassure them that you have a web presence.

But what if you not only want to be found by people that know you, but also by new customers? Then you have to be found by the type of product or service that you sell. These in web terms are keywords.

Given that all of your competitors also want to be found for those terms, it’s not easy to get to the first page of Google (hardly anyone looks beyond the first page).

If, like me, you get continued spam from people claiming that they can get you on that first page, you’ll be pretty jaded by now. There are some good SEO (search engine optimisation) companies out there but they are difficult to identify from the poor ones and do tend to charge quite a bit.

Also, the good companies do not send out spam, I’d never respond to unsolicited SEO mails, but actually SEO is something that you can take control of yourself.

We used a tool that we down-loaded, it looked at the top ten websites for our keywords and worked out what it was that made those particular sites rank higher than others. We then altered our site to match the recommendations.

All the recent spam I’ve had on SEO reminded me that we’ve had questions on this before and have written a resource on the subject (along with a plug for the tool we used – well worth getting !). Have a look at How to get people to your business web site

 

To grow a business employ a “great one”.

Whenever I hear advice from successful entrepreneurs the most consistent mantra is “always hire the best people you can afford”.

But how good is “the best”, how do you measure that? Also, if you are in a young company, with very limited resources, how much can you really afford?

Let’s step back for a moment though and examine that advice. Is it really the most important thing that a growing business should do? What about offices, buying equipment and developing the product or service, then there’s marketing, the best product is going nowhere unless people know that it exists.

The answer may be that if you have good people aboard, they will help you get the operating essentials cheaper, faster, and of better quality. When you look at product design the difference between good and average has even more staggering claims.

Mark Zuckerberg, of Facebook, suggests that some programmers and programming teams are 100 times more productive than their more typically talented peers.

This isn’t because they can programme 100 times the number of lines of code, but because they write smarter code. These truly great programmers grasp what is needed quickly and transform that into efficient, supportable, clever instructions that enhance the original concept.

What does this mean for the non IT side of businesses? Well the theory is still valid, if the multiplication factor may be less. Consider the likely results of an inspirational, highly respected and well networked senior figure in any sector of business, such as marketing, PR, raising finance, compared to an industrious but junior practitioner.

Can you measure the impact of the great person against the average worker? The difference may be that you get funding, or not. That you become well known, or not. What is the measure and worth of these?

I think we can all accept that the great person is going to do more for your company than an average worker, the question is what do you give up to be able to afford them?

Do you take out loans, sell your house or divert funds from infrastructure to hire a great employee?

It’s a balancing act, between all the calls upon your limited cash. The advice that successful entrepreneurs have given implies that you do all you can to get these few great people.

If the immensely talented ones can ramp up your business fast, then you can start to readjust the balance so that other areas have cash made available.

It is natural though to hope that even by using a less expensive resource you will still manage to make the break through. The lessons from very successful businesses however seem to speak against that.

 

How to market smarter.

Market segmentationI spent an enjoyable couple of days doing one-to-ones on business planning at a conference last week and the area that was most misunderstood was the need to define and understand your market.

It sounds simple, everyone of course understands their market don’t they, it’s obvious. The market is whoever will buy from us. We don’t want to restrict ourselves, so we will market to everyone.

There are actually a couple of problems with that; firstly to market to everyone you have to spend a lot of money. Then think about the messages that your marketing is going to give, to be applicable to everyone they have to be fairly general and bland.

This is where a well known but often ignored marketing technique comes in – market segmentation.

You may well have a product or service that could be bought by a great many people, but they will not all be alike. They may live in different geographies, be of different ages or gender, or have different expectations of the product.

The more you can focus your marketing effort the more cost effective your advertising is, instead of expensive adverts in large magazines to try and reach everyone, or GoogleAds covering lots of keywords, you can just pay for advertising in the specific media that your focused market reads.

Importantly also, the messages and benefits that you give will be targeted exactly to that group of people. It may be that your company, works both for corporate clients and private individuals, each will value different aspects of your offering.

A middle aged man will identify and be swayed by different messages about your product than a teenager. The more you can segment your market into different chunks, the more effective your advertising and marketing will be.

Finally it may lead you to changing how your product or service is packaged to be more attractive to each specific group, rather than a one-size fits all, that no one sees as relevant to them.

 

Division to provide business help is launched

Management Consultancy

 

Company Partners has been a blessing for those businesses who are looking for business partners, mentors and investors, but what if you need to reorganise your business to make it more profitable, or to grow?

 

I’ve been helping companies that have approached us for a while now, but eventually there is only so much of my time available. Rather than continue to turn down requests, we’ve started a new division dedicated just to helping companies with their consulting needs.

 

Called, “Company Partners Consulting” – yes maybe a bit of an obvious name – I’ve gathered together the consultants that I most respected and that follow my own ethos of practical advice geared to getting results.

 

Since it is aimed at this stage at the UK, I’m using our www.companypartners.co.uk address – have a look, I’d be interested in your feedback.