Tag Archives: Sales

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.

 

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.

 

 

Learning from great Entrepreneurs

Questions for Business Angels

Last night I attended the keynote event of Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW), yes it’s this week, how could you miss it? Sitting in a packed conference centre of the British Library, I looked around at the alert eager faces of budding Entrepreneurs and thought this has to be the future for Britain.

Tom Bewick, the CEO of Enterprise UK, who have organised GEW put the feeling into words “Make a job, don’t take a job”. This also fits nicely with the Government’s need to increase private sector employment to compensate for the coming job losses in the public sector.

Called “Question time for Entrepreneurs”, it followed the traditional format of a panel of eminent and famous figures asked questions by an audience hanging on their words of wisdom.

On the panel was Deborah Meaden, (Dragon’s Den), Cath Kidston (Cath Kidston Ltd), Brent Hoberman (Last Minute.com & Mydeco), Tom Bewick (Enterprise UK) and chaired by Adam Shaw (BBC’s Working Lunch).

As always, well organised by the British Library’s Business & IP Centre. However I left feeling a bit frustrated that the questions and responses were really just skipping round the edge of what most entrepreneurs wanted to hear about.

Most questions seemed to centre on the way that entrepreneurship could be fostered and at times the answers became a fraction obvious. “Should we encourage youngsters into being entrepreneurs?” Yes was the reply. “Are entrepreneurs born or can they be made?” Deborah Meaden thought they had to be born with the right characteristics. But Cath Kidston believed they could develop the skills.

Interesting intellectual issues, but I felt an opportunity was missed to have the practical questions answered by this famous group that would be on most entrepreneurs minds.

“How can I find funding?” “How do I get visibility for my fledgling company with little money for marketing or PR?” “What should I do to find customers?” These were barely covered.

So what nuggets did I pick out of the event?

  • Everyone agreed that government should assist companies to provide apprenticeships, or internships, which would give youngsters a kick-start in business life. At the moment it is left to individual companies and the quality and even whether the young person gets paid varies a great deal.
  • The best time to start a business is always right now. Do your research and business plan, but don’t wait forever.
  • Get the summary of your business plan succinct and hit the key points quickly. What is your business concept, what differentiates you, why will you make it work, how much do you need and what will you spend it on? The revenue and profit of the business and what does an Investor get out of it?
  • Deborah Meaden gets 200 plans a month (or was it a week) and now has to employ an assistant to sift through them. The Exec Summary is all important; unless that is right the rest of the plan never gets read. No fancy tricks, just a solid, thought out summary that ticks the boxes quickly.
  • Check the interests of who you are sending it to, not all Investors are interested in every market sector. Find out their background, Investors more often put their money into concepts they understand and are comfortable with.
  • If a plan is turned down, by a bank or an Investor, ask why. Learn from that. Also ask if they know of anyone else to approach.
  • Get a partner. This is one of the reasons I set up Company Partners, to help people find a business partner, so I was gratified that this came out. Even the famous entrepreneurs that we all know had partners. It may be that one took the lime-light, but the other was there with complementary skills, to bounce ideas off. It’s lonely by yourself.
  • Get good people around you. Choosing your first employees is difficult, but always get the best you can.
  • Contracts for partners and employees are needed, but it is much more about the relationship. That must be right.
  • Cath Kidston started her business part-time, while working to pay the bills and thought that was acceptable. But Deborah Meaden said: “As an Investor I want to see that the entrepreneur is fully committed” and wouldn’t invest unless the entrepreneur was working full-time on the project.

Finally, all felt that the most important characteristic of an entrepreneur was ambition and that you need to have a passion for what you did. I agree, you can teach many things, but you can’t put a fire in the belly unless it’s already there.

 

Getting sales – the single biggest issue for a small business – Part 2

Businessman waiting for sales

Last week I talked about having a simple sales & marketing plan for your business. It doesn’t have to be particularly fancy, but you should have bounced ideas around with your team (find someone to do this with if a sole trader) and written it down. The act of documenting it is important, clears up muddy thinking and gives you something to work with.

Given your product / service is competitive, you’ve ensured that it has unique qualities and should sell, the next thing is to have potential customers know about it (simple isn’t it). You tell them by using PR (see how to get free PR), marketing and advertising, so that they come to you (called “pull”). Then you also go to them, by direct sales techniques like mailshots or leaflets, telesales, salespersons’ appointments and exhibitions (called “push”).

You may be thinking “well that’s not rocket science” – and it isn’t, but most small businesses don’t lay out a plan for doing these simple activities.

Can all this be done for nothing? Probably not. The term “guerrilla marketing” became popular a few years ago to describe how you can obtain publicity by unconventional means using creativity rather than money. This is now largely taken over by the idea of viral marketing, where a low cost web video for example, can suddenly take off and make a product well known.

However, if you are going to grow a business, you are probably going to need to budget for marketing and sales expenses. It needn’t be a huge amount and the budget can start small and grow in line with increased revenues.

All of your efforts though will be wasted if you are aiming your messages to the wrong people. Not only wasted, but expensive. It is much more efficient to use a focused campaign to an exact audience. The cost of advertising alone will be much less if you are only taking out ads to a small precise group of potential customers for a product that they particularly want.

Some of you will know this as market segmentation and it is important. You need to understand exactly who your customers are and split them down to addressable groups. These groups may have slightly different aspects to them. They may have different ages, backgrounds, location and needs, which will allow you to tailor your marketing exactly to each group. Address first the easiest to win and use the revenues and testimonials from that to market to the next group.

In a blog you can only give so much information and I’ve probably reached that by now. The key message I’m giving is to get a sales and marketing plan laid out (see Essential marketing plan content). The very act of brainstorming the content and putting in place measurable actions will galvanise your sales activity. You’ll feel more enthusiastic and in control than ever before.

If by chance you missed it, here is a link to Part1.

 

Getting sales – the single biggest issue for a small business – Part 1

Waiting for sales

Hands up those who have more sales than they can handle? It does happen, but for most small businesses it is a constant battle to get customers.

You’ve got a good product or service; in fact you are probably very proud of the quality and cost effectiveness of your offering. But sales don’t seem to be coming in very fast. I hear this time and time again.

Occasionally when I look at what the business is selling, there are problems with the product, or poor customer service that over time results in less recommendations and repeat business. But most often it’s because no one knows about the company, or they are just being out sold by the competition.

So then I ask “let’s look at your sales & marketing plan”. There is usually either a silence, or protestations that the owner hasn’t the time to do such a thing. In fact most small businesses don’t have a plan, but instead place an occasional ad and go to the odd exhibition when they think of it.

Yet it needn’t take long to think through what you are going to do during the year to get better known and to achieve more sales.

A short session brainstorming ideas with colleagues / partners can quickly put the bones of a plan together.

Ideally it would initially address your basic identity (brand), what you want to be known for and what is unique about you (called the USP – unique selling proposition in the theory books). You may instinctively know that, but try putting it on paper and think it through.

Then, how are customers going to know about you? PR (public relations) isn’t just for the big boys, but it can be expensive. A typical minimum retainer for a PR firm to get you some visibility is around £1k a month and can be much more.

You have to choose wisely also, making sure that the PR company understands your market. I’ve generally been disappointed when I’ve seen the quality of PR that had done for companies.

As an alternative you can do your own free PR. It can be time consuming and that is a reason for using a carefully selected agency, but if you can’t afford an agency, don’t ignore PR, you can get some publicity very cheaply yourself. For our Company Partners members we’ve got a good resource describing how to do so “How to get free PR”

So what else should you be doing to get sales? I’ll look at that in Part 2.

Oh yes, my bit of sales…. Would a hands-on workshop, plus free business plan software and marketing tips help? Have a look at our next business plan workshop.