New Business Plan: Four weddings and a funeral
If you follow me, you know I’ve discussed thinking about new market opportunities for your product or service as a way to grow your business. You may remember the blog I wrote about baking soda. Well this one takes the cake – no pun intended. Funeral homes are hosting weddings. I grew up working in a family-owned funeral home, and honestly this is an idea I wouldn’t have seen, but it makes sense. If we can believe HBO’s series, “Six Feet Under,” independent funeral homes are having a hard time staying alive. According to industry sources, many are starting to think outside the box and are finding ways to repurpose their facilities. Occupancy problem According to US Funerals Online, funeral home facilities lay empty around half the time and a funeral chapel is a lot like a hotel room – there’s no way to collect rent on yesterday’s unoccupied funeral chapel. So far, no “hotels.com” has popped up to handle excess funeral chapel inventory. However, if you stand back and look at a funeral chapel solely in terms of its infrastructure, you’ll see that it’s basically a rental hall with a lot of upgrades built into it. They often have musical instruments on hand, such as an organ or piano, the ability to handle flower arrangements and more. Further, many are decorated in a style that lends them quite well for other ceremonies or events, such as weddings. To take advantage of this trend, funeral homes across the country are repurposing, rechristening and renaming part of their facilities as “family” or “life” centers. One of these is The Avacentre in Cedar Rapids. The Avacentre happens to be at the same location as Brosh Chapel funeral home, but you can’t tell that by its promotional materials. “I’d say probably now 90 percent of people that call the Avacentre would be in an age bracket from probably 20s up until 50s (and) don’t really know there is something else going on in that building. They really don’t care,” Matt Linn, owner and president of both businesses, told The Gazette. Not only is The Avacentre expanding its business by drumming up weddings, it’s going after corporate events and virtually any other type of party. Back to basics The takeaway from this is to look at the “bones” of your business. Define what you do in the most generic way possible. Funeral parlors essentially provide meeting places. Who else can use a meeting place? What is the most basic function of your service or product? With a little tweaking, who else could use it? Business success can ultimately become a numbers game. With the funeral home business, the numbers highlight the potential additional earnings available through a horizontal expansion. People only get one funeral, but many today celebrate several marriages over the course of their lifetime… Image: 1959 Cadillac Superior Landau side loader Hearse, © 2012 Dave S, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike...
read moreOne Million Free Email Marketing Tips
How many email marketing tips do you want today? You name the number and we can go out on the Internet together and find them. Believe me, there’s no shortage. However, I think handing out “tips” is like the old adage about giving a person a fish. You know, give a person a fish you feed him for a day; teach him to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. It’s more important that you understand some principles of email marketing than gather up 42 tips, and when you know the principles then you’ll be able to discern which tips apply to what you’re doing. You can discover virtually all of the important principles that should guide your email marketing if you can answer these two questions: Who is your audience? What do you want them to do? A tale of two emails Let me take two extremes to illustrate how important it is to have a command of these two questions. Email “A” is going to a list of prospects. The people on the list have expressed some interest in what you do. Email “B” is going to a list of regular customers. They are the lifeblood of your cash flow. With our two wildly different audiences established, it leads us to our goals. With the prospects, we want to move them further down the sales funnel. Maybe we want the email to lead directly, or semi-directly to a sale, or maybe we want to pull the prospects in more closely to our brand. With the prospects we haven’t yet fully established our authority or brand so email readers will not give us a lot of time. The subject line needs to pull them in and the body content needs to be direct and not long. The body of the email could be as short as: “Thank you for your interest in our product. We have a free white paper that explains it in detail and gives practical tips on how to best use it. Here’s where to download it.” With prospects you want to get that one “next” action. Don’t say more than you need to say to accomplish that. The email newsletter Your regular customers need something different. Often this will take the form of a newsletter. Occasionally it will be a special offer. Let’s consider the newsletter and ask our second question, “What do you want your customers to do upon reading the newsletter?” The answer may be more abstract. Often you want to strengthen your relationship and maintain “top of mind” status. You may also have something to sell. To strengthen your relationship with these customers month after month, your emails need to contain value. Notice that the prospect’s email linked to value because that was the action we wanted to achieve. The regular customer newsletter needs to have value on its own, otherwise your customer will soon cease opening it. While the prospect email needs to be short, the longer email for your customers needs to be “scanable.” If it’s written as one long paragraph, it won’t engage its intended audience. I’ve taken two extremes to illustrate my point here, but there are prospects and customers who fall between these extremes. For example, you’ll have a different desired outcome for a customer...
read moreBusiness Loans: Women rejected, but not dejected
A recent study published by the Democratic staffers of the Senate Small Business & Entrepreneurship Committee details how difficult it is for women to get funding for their startups. While women own 30 percent of all small businesses, they only get $1 out of every $23 loaned. The story is about the same in the venture capital world. I remember pitching a startup once at a venture capital event where I was the only woman. I didn’t get the money and I recall the organizer saying, “We were hoping she was good looking.” No comment. Academic studies have been conducted in which men and women give the same presentation to investors. Overwhelmingly, the men presenters garner much more support for their “projects” than the women presenters. I hope this research continues through the years because I’d like to see if it changes and if so, how quickly. However, I’m going to leave the complaining – or at least most of it – to others and point out some very encouraging information that is hiding behind all these statistics. Beyond the negative The headline on one prominent website said this: “Rejected and dejected – women small business owners still struggle to get loans from banks.” Statistically speaking, I think the use of the word “rejected” in that headline is justified. However, I think the word “dejected” isn’t. In an earlier post, I pointed out that between 1997 and 2014, women-owned business rose by 68 percent – twice the growth rate posted by men. Add to that the number I quoted above: 30 percent of all small businesses are owned by women. This incredible rate of growth among women entrepreneurs is happening despite the lack of funding from traditional sources. That is nothing short of phenomenal. (Hey men: If we took away your funding, could you achieve that kind of growth? Just asking…) I believe this is testimony to women’s natural persistence, capacity to accomplish much when given very little, and ability discover and exploit alternative strategies – that would be called “thinking outside the box” in today’s vernacular. By the way, when I reflect on these traits, it seems to me they are also found in great moms. It turns out that what makes women wonderful at raising families and running a household, also makes them talented and tenacious business owners. Questions unanswered There is some data missing from the studies that have been conducted on women and business financing. I would like to know what women are doing in lieu of receiving traditional bank loans and venture capital. Perhaps many are finding ways to bootstrap their businesses without going deeply in debt or giving up a big percentage of ownership. Those would be very positive developments and competitively position women-owned businesses very well. So folks, keep pushing for equality in funding for women, but at the same time take pride in what our women entrepreneurs have been able to accomplish against great odds. Image: Pennies Coin Coins Money Jar Spill Spilled, Public Domain...
read moreSelf-Improvement Month: Grow Yourself, Grow Your Business
September is Self-Improvement Month – it’s also National Honey Month, but that’s a bit off topic for this space, so we’ll stick to the self-improvement topic today. Many of you are self-employed, so it stands to reason that if you improve the “self” you’re also improving your employer, which is your small business. We’re so lucky to be living in the Internet Age because it gives us easy access to a myriad of information sources that contribute greatly to improving ourselves. Here are some of my favorites. edX There are many sources of free courses on the Internet, but few can match the quality of what’s offered at edX. The world’s top colleges and universities have partnered with edX to provide courses on a wide range of topics. Among the great business courses offered right now is one from MIT: Entrepreneurship 101: Who is your customer? There are great computer classes if you want to polish your tech skills. You can audit courses or enroll to receive a certificate of achievement. However, don’t expect to get actual college credit. TED talks Inspiration and new ideas are central to achieving stand-out success today and TED talks have been feeding those fires for several years now. A good approach is to start with the playlists, where great talks have been curated by topics. You’ll find at least two “business” playlists. Kim Lachance Shandrow, a senior editor at Entrepreneur, wrote a piece earlier this year where she named three must-see TED talks for entrepreneurs. You’ll probably recognize the names here: Tony Robbins, Seth Godin, and Nigel Marsh. You won’t go wrong. Reading lists Do a search on Google for “best business books” and you’ll be overwhelmed by the results. Google gives you a very cool lineup of “books frequently mentioned on the web.” Further you can mind meld Bill Gates, see what’s hot on Amazon, discover all kinds of “100 all time best business books,” and more. I know that books don’t really need a defender, but let me point this out: Any business book that has withstood the test of time is worth reading. TED talks and podcasts may come and go. One more thing: Biographies are often the best reading for ideas and inspiration. Learn a language I recently devoted an entire article to learning a second language, so I won’t go into a lot of detail here. However, for many small business owners, a working knowledge of a second language can be very useful for communicating with employees and customers as well as expanding overseas. Podcasts If you spend any time commuting or traveling for your business, filling some of the time with podcasts is an excellent idea. Again, search Google for “best business podcasts” and you’ll get some starting points. Forbes, Business Insider, and LinkedIn have each offered curated lists of podcasts. I also have several podcasts on my site for you to check out. These ideas should easily keep you busy all through Self-Improvement Month and beyond. I know how hard it is for small business owners to break away from their everyday responsibilities, but I urge you to find some avenues for personal and professional growth. Image: IMG_4227, by Robert Jemimus, used by a Creative Commons 2.0...
read moreCash Mobs: Local Boosters Plus Social Media Equals Success
It’s a time-tested truth that the same tool can be put to both good and bad purposes and that certainly applies to social media. In recent years we’ve read a lot about riots and other nefarious activities organized and promoted through social media. On the other side of the ledger, we’ve all enjoyed viral videos of flash mobs pulling off some crazy and wildly entertaining stunts. The good side is getting another boost with a flash mob variation: the cash mob. A cash mob is a group that descends on a local small business. Participants typically come with $10 to $20 to spend at the business. A local bar or restaurant hosts a post-cash mob get-together. There might be prizes and other fun add ons as well. The effort supports the local economy and is gaining popularity around the world. Cash Mobs on the Internet You can find information on cash mobs all across the Internet, but perhaps your best starting point is Cash Mobs. If you want to check on the cash mob activity in your area go to Twitter and search for this handle, @CMyourcityname. Anyone can organize a cash mob and often it’s the local Chamber of Commerce that pulls everything together. For example, in the Daytona Beach area, the Flagler County Chamber of Commerce recently organized its first cash mob event when local residents descended on the Sew & Quilt Shop. “It is a grass-roots, community-led movement to support local businesses. With $10 in hand, chamber members will come together to shop in a locally-owned small business, at a set time, on a specific day. It’s a win-win all around: cash mobbers have fun, businesses make money and our local economy gets a boost,” Flager chamber government affairs director Gretchen Smith told the local media. It can be a bonanza for local small businesses. When a cash mob hit John Reburn’s Appalachia Press in Roanoke, Virginia, he sold stationery, books and prints to 54 customers in less than an hour. Even during the Christmas season it takes a full day to rack up that many sales, Reburn related. In Roanoke it wasn’t the chamber that organized the event, but a group of local residents who put together their own informal committee to promote cash mobs. Spirits boosted Not only do cash mobs put dollars in the till, they can have a positive psychological influence on small business owners, who sometimes see themselves as constantly swimming against the tide. “There are months when you just wonder if you can continue and if (printing) just has to be a hobby and not your career. But this little cash mob was just so joyful. Even though it was just one night, it does make you feel appreciated,” Reburn said. If you’re involved with your local Chamber of Commerce, or know other like-minded shoppers who would like to further the financial health and awareness of local businesses, consider organizing some cash mob events. You’ll find some great guidelines on the Cash Mobs site. You’ll have a lot of fun and folks will make some new friends in the process. Image: “Cash mobbers busy cash mobbing Pages of Hackney, an independent bookshop in East London“, by Ken Banks used under a Creative Commons 2.0...
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