How to Rally Brothers and Sisters To Fight For Your Small Business
Band of Brothers. Today we know that phrase because of the outstanding HBO series. Yet those are the words of William Shakespeare, and as is with much of what he wrote, these three simple words speak of an eternal and universal truth: the greater power and courage of individuals when they join together for a common cause. Shakespeare put those words into the mouth of King Henry V as he rallied and joined his flagging troops on the eve of the Battle of Agincourt. Sometimes as small business owners, we too feel beleaguered. But if we band together, we can rally and find the strength to move mountains. I want to suggest some simple ways you can discover great power in a band of small business owners or entrepreneurs. You must participate First you need to be part of a “Band of Brothers.” A lone business owner operating in isolation doesn’t have a good chance for success. Groups like local Chambers of Commerce were formed for this reason. Other business-related community-service organizations also, in part, serve this function. The Internet has created another dimension in this area. Mastermind groups, forums, and various social media groups can serve as tools for small business owners to band together and achieve results that would be impossible if everyone was acting independently. My first strong advice is to get involved in as many good groups as you can, but not too many that you’ll be unable to meaningfully contribute. And don’t overlook the possibility of starting your own group. Private Facebook groups, for example, can be a great way to bring together a band of people who have shared interests. Victory in the online battlefield Once you have established your involvement in one or more groups, “rally the troops” to support one another’s social media marketing efforts. This can be as simple as people sharing posts and newsletters to their personal social media contacts. This will greatly increase the reach of your social media and content marketing. Another excellent idea is to review one another’s products and services. This can be through review sites like Yelp, via Amazon.com reviews, or as website “social proof” testimonials. For example, if you’re putting out an e-book to promote your authority, give free copies to your “Band of Brothers (and Sisters, of course)” and ask them to review it for you on Amazon. The possibilities are endless, but the foundation upon which they rest is a single, simple truth: You can accomplish far greater things when you band together with others who have shared interests. Image: “PPC ph-so-EarthDay,” © 2012 Fort George G. Meade Public Affairs Office, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike...
read moreHow to Turbo-Charge Customer Service and Holiday Sales with Mobile POS
This post is sponsored by Samsung Business. All thoughts and opinions are my own. I was standing in line at the movie theater recently. We were running a little late and the movie was scheduled to start in just a few minutes. The line was longer than we had ever seen at that theater and I thought I might miss the beginning of the movie. Then suddenly an employee emerged with a tablet in hand that was equipped with a credit card reader. She started working her way through the line and within a few minutes the line dissipated and people were munching popcorn, watching the coming attraction trailers and settling in to enjoy the feature presentation. By now I’m sure almost everyone has experienced the mobile point of sale (POS) systems that are in use. An employee armed with a tablet or smartphone can go out onto the sales floor – or anywhere for that matter – and complete a sale. There are a number of systems out there, including Samsung’s that use the company’s Galaxy tablets. Frankly, I’m shocked that more small businesses aren’t using this technology already. It has a long list of benefits and I can’t think of any downside. Let’s explore several of the reasons you should add a mobile POS system to your small business. Improves the customer experience and increase sales. Today a world-class customer experience is often what separates the winners from the businesses that walk away with participant ribbons. You can train your employees to be as cordial as possible and put all kinds of customer service systems in place, but few things have the impact of actually speeding up the process and making it more convenient for buyers. Mobile POS does this…and without a huge investment on your part. How many times have you abandoned an in-store purchase because the line was too long, or there was no one around the cash register? It happens all the time. When you arm your employees with mobile POS systems and train them how to best use them, you can virtually eliminate this problem. Says you care about your customers. You can post all the “We Care” signage you want around your business, but what really matters is how you treat your customers. Going to your customers, rather than making them come to you, is a concrete way to demonstrate your commitment to your customers. If you’re at their side, helping them with their purchases, it makes a huge impression. It creates loyalty. But a good POS system can go even further. With the right software, these systems can create a personalized shopping experience and offer unique recommendations for repeat buyers. Suddenly your business has established a noticeable difference in a very competitive market. Captures email addresses. When completing a purchase via a mobile POS, customers are more likely to request a receipt via email and this can pull customers into your email list. You can then advertise private sales and other benefits to your customers and increase sales even more. Boosts overall productivity. In some businesses there are processes that take a fixed amount of time – the restaurant business, for example. Cooking food takes a while, but there are process adjustments that can speed up the food ordering experience. I’ve...
read moreWhat Your Small Business Can Learn From 60 Years of Disneyland Success
Disneyland is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year. This kind of staying power is rare today. I’m certain that you probably know several amusement parks that have opened and closed over the course of your life. Yet – as anyone who has waited an hour or more in the Pirates of the Caribbean line knows – the popularity of Disneyland is as strong as ever. This is despite shifting demographics, the rise of video games and all the other societal changes that have sunk so many other businesses. A book or more could be written on how Disneyland has maintained its popularity, but let me just hit some of the highlights that teach us lessons that can be applied to virtually any business. Disneyland employs cast members Everyone working at Disneyland is called a cast member. Those two little words immediately – and without any ambiguity – communicate the ultimate objective of the theme park. They are there to create an all-encompassing entertainment experience for the guests. As a cast member, employees know that their “performance” is being viewed by the “audience” all the time. There is an image that must be maintained. Shakespeare said that all the world’s a stage. Walt Disney said that all of the Magic Kingdom is a stage. Always changing with the times “Disneyland will never be completed. It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world,” declared Walt Disney on July 17, 1955, the day Disneyland opened. People who have visited several times over the course of their lives know that this is true. The planners at Disneyland never rest on their laurels and that would have been very easy to do. It takes guts to shut down a popular ride and totally redo or replace it. I’m writing this 60 years after Walt Disney spoke those words on opening day. It’s impressive to note that the concept he communicated then – “Disneyland will never be completed” – is still a central guiding principle of the company. It’s just five words and it offers a tremendous amount of direction. It doesn’t take 50 pages of detailed bullet points to keep an organization moving forward. Attention to detail One of the first things that will impress a visitor to Disneyland is that no detail is overlooked. This extends all the way to the park’s commitment to not allow even a single stray piece of garbage to litter the streets. Smartly uniformed cast members armed with brooms and dustbins are constantly on the prowl for any windblown wrapper or kernel of popcorn. Of course, this attention to detail to the various themes throughout the park is what makes visitors fall in love with the experience. This is a reason employees need to view themselves as cast members rather than “soda stand attendants” or “cashiers.” The magic of the Disneyland experience starts the moment you step onto the tram outside the massive multi-story parking lot and it doesn’t stop until you leave the park…usually as near to closing time as you can manage. The power of branding Disney is one of the most valuable and powerful brands in the world. When we see a product that carries the official brand, we immediately associate all the good feelings we experienced at...
read moreThis Week in Small Business: Negotiation skills, ACH payment info, influencer marketing, low-cost marketing.
Negotiate like a pro and check out the small business advice of pro Shark Tanker Robert Herjavec. Add just a few of the tips in this week’s collection of curated content and it will make a major impact on your business. Leadership, management and productivity Don’t miss these 11 tips for negotiating a contract like a pro. What does your customer experience say about the value of your brand? Roz Bahrami explains how all the elements work together. If yours is a woman-owned small business, you need to understand the new government contracting opportunities that are available to you. You may have a killer business model, but if you don’t have the company culture to go with it, you’ll end up with far more management woes. Money, money, money! Here’s the info you need on ACH payments and online small business loans. Check out how small business owners can take advantage of cell phone deals. Marketing and sales Digital marketing may on the surface seem impersonal, but if you want to be successful at it you must dig more deeply and make it “people marketing.” You can’t wait to launch your inbound marketing program. Develop and publish content that draws buyers in. If you’re behind the curve, here’s what you need to know right now. Attention gamers and small business owners: If you want to see the future of marketing, check out the Halo 5 “Hunt the Truth” series. If you’re doing influencer marketing – and you should be – here are three questions you need to ask yourself. Looking for small business marketing plans that won’t break the bank? Here are five. Blog posts published on weekends actually have a better chance to be shared on the social media, says this study. Entrepreneurship, startups and innovation Shark Tank star Robert Herjavec talks about small business and the “Small Business Revolution” campaign. There’s only one right time to launch your startup: early. If you need convincing, read this. Politics, government and the economy New regulations coming out of the Obama administration would change the requirements for financial advisors who set up 401(k) accounts and many think they impose an unfair burden on small businesses. Of every $100 spent at a small business, $68 stays in the local economy and today small businesses are the big...
read moreLeverage Packaging – Physical and Digital – to Brand Your Small Business
Cats typically value boxes over the content that comes inside the boxes and we’ve all see the posts on Facebook that prove this fact. As a small business owner, if you ship anything, you might want to adopt some of that “cat attitude.” I say this because I recently heard some interesting comments about the boxes that a small business is using to ship its merchandise. The people who run this business display an incredible attention to detail and that goes all the way down to how items are shipped. The company has designed beautiful and sturdy boxes that feature its logo. They look so good that people save the boxes. They use them around the house and they also save them to reuse later when they know they’ll be sending Christmas gifts, for example, to out-of-state family members and friends. Every time a person sees one of these boxes, it helps brand the company. (Obviously a notion shared by Amazon.com!) And not only does the box “imprint” the company’s logo in the viewer’s brain, the quality of the box imparts a message as well. A lesson for small business Are you getting all the mileage you can out of your logo? This is one of the lessons small business owners need to learn from the global corporations. They treat their logos like royalty. They defend them from any incursion and they constantly put them on display. If you create any packaging, you should consider stepping up your game a bit so it does more than move your product from Point A to Point B. If you think hard on the subject, you’ll probably remember some boxes or bags that you have reused over the years. Of course, the classic cigar boxes are the greatest example of this. Today these are collectibles and can be worth several thousand dollars. I also remember little pouches that candy came in when we were children that we often reused for different purposes. In addition to any physical packaging that you use, consider your digital packaging as well. Work hard to keep a consistent, branded look to all of your webpages, email and social media platforms. When you look marvelous When you do this, I think it does more than just keep your small business logo in front of potential customers, I also think it sends a subliminal message that says you business is real and that you take care of all the details. It gives a feeling of “consistency” and this is one of the main things people want to sense when they strike up a relationship with a new and so-far unfamiliar business. If you carefully tend the image of your small business, it’s likely that you’ll give the same amount of care to your customers. The opposite is true also. If your branding is schizophrenic, people won’t know what to expect when they contact you…so they just won’t take that critical first step. Image: “Cat in a Box,” © 2008 Peter Huys, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license:...
read moreNeed a Growth Strategy? Avoid These Epic Fails
What do startups and mature SMBs have in common? The need to develop and implement an effective growth strategy. This always proves easier said than done and that is in part due to the fact that growth strategies are rather elusive, almost like shapeshifters in science fiction. You think you see one at a distance, but when you get up close it has morphed into something entirely different. In an effort to help you avoid the trap of chasing growth strategy shapeshifters around endlessly, let’s look at a several strategies for growth, that aren’t really strategies at all. Chasing the hot growth market There’s always a new market that’s growing like gangbusters and it’s tempting to want to get a piece of that pie. Heck, the market is growing so fast that even if you got just a small share of the market, it would propel your growth to the next level. An acquaintance of mine was running an Internet bookselling company in the early days of Amazon. An investor kept pumping money into the operation and he was inching the company’s way toward profitability, and he made it one quarter. With his head finally above water, he felt that growth and added efficiencies would keep the company moving forward. Virtually the next day a new player entered the field that was willing to sell books at a loss to gain market share. The problem with chasing the red-hot growth markets is that they attract others like porch lights attract moths, and with the same eventual outcome. Fast growth with no margins is not a growth strategy, it’s a recipe for disaster. Adding more muscle “If 10 sales people can generate revenues of $10 million, then doubling the sales force will give us $20 million in revenue. It says so right here on my spreadsheet!” If the real world only behaved as nicely as our spreadsheets. Merely giving your sales and marketing people a mega dose of steroids and boosting their muscle mass, will not have the desired results. Adding bodies isn’t a growth strategy. If you study World War I, you’ll discover that the nations virtually backed themselves into the conflict because they sent so many soldiers through the same paths that they couldn’t get away from one another if they wanted to; the area was too crowded and it forced bad decisions on leaders. They had no room to maneuver. They had to fight. To bring this into a business setting, if there’s a new area you would like to “attack,” you need to know its potential, how many people it will require, have them trained and understand what kind of “maneuvers” they’ll need to be able to make once they make it to the “battlefield.” You see, it’s not about increasing input, growth comes by increasing throughput. Buying all the railroads on the Monopoly board Acquisitions can seem like a quick way to achieve growth. We read about them all the time in the financial pages, so shouldn’t we do it too? It’s difficult to get acquisition information about SMBs, but I can tell you that with publically traded companies, I most often see a failure rate of 70 percent when it comes to acquisitions. There’s a hidden problem that occurs when you flip on the...
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