5 Small Business Tips from the Bottom of Santa’s Bag

Posted by Peter Junge on Jan 4, 2016 in In The News | 0 comments

Not many people know this, but after Santa finishes his deliveries on Christmas morning, he always finds a few extra gifts at the bottom of his bag.

The big guy has been gracious enough to share with us five of these that were intended to go to some hard-working small business owners. As with your holiday meal leftovers, these will appeal to a wide range of tastes and can be consumed in small bites.

Enjoy.

1. Boost your online reviews. Get a group of local small business owners together and have a “review party.” Post online reviews of one another’s businesses and also give each other constructive criticism of your businesses – online, brick-and-mortar, customer service, etc.
2. Imprint yourself and your team with habits. Good habits can boost productivity. Develop routines that turn into habits in your operation. When you have good habits you can stop sweating many of the small details. Habits are to our personal and professional lives what automation is to operational and machine processes.
3. Consider charging for something you currently give away for free. Do you have a freemium that you use to pull people into your fold? If you always give it away for free, you’ll never get good feedback on it. If you start to charge, people will take the time to tell you what they don’t like about it and you can use that information to improve it.
4. There aren’t many “early adopters” in the B2B world. Coming to market with a cutting-edge service in the business-to-business environment is difficult. Businesses like to see a track record. Thinking evolution rather than revolution is usually the sounder advice.
5. Listen to the marketplace. Use tools like Google Alerts, Mention and Talkwalker to monitor what people are saying about you and your competitors, and make strategic use of the insights you gain. If you have physical locations, use secret shoppers to give you a clear picture of what really happens in your business.

Relax through the end of the year. Enjoy New Year’s Eve and all the traditional New Year’s Day TV-watching. But when you start to get rolling in the coming year, try to make good use of at least one or two of these tips!