Posts Tagged ‘small businesses’

I watched an interesting video by Shane McSimov in which he talks about how raising money for a charity can help you find a job. He is trying to raise $5,000 for Charity:Water. You can support his campaign here and you can watch the video here.

His take got me thinking about charity and business. Is it ever right to raise money for or support a charity if part of your goal in doing so is to bring in more business?

There are certainly businesses that co-exist with charity and causes. Tom’s Shoes comes to mind. But in a lot of those cases the business actually exists to help fund a charity. This is an interesting and worthwhile business model.

But how about raising money and donating with the hopes of creating positive buzz for your business? Does it work? Can it backfire?

I think it depends on where your heart is. Hooking your business up with a charity JUST to increase sales is not a good move. Really caring and devoting actual efforts to support a charity can be a great move.

I don’t think it would be a bad thing if every business had some sort of charity initiative. Whether or not the business promotes the connection is a matter of personal taste, but sometimes you can do more good by promoting your efforts and getting others involved.

I know for my business I am considered some charity options. For one, I provide my work at a discount or for free to some non-profits. But what if I could do more? What if I can pick one charity to donate to and to get others to donate to? I think that would be worthwhile, and if my business benefits from helping out a good cause, I wouldn’t mind that at all.

What do you think? Is business and charity a good mix?

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Hi there, I am Bradford Shimp. You can find me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/bradfordshimp. I want to get to know you better. Please leave comments and reach out. Lets make business better together!

My business, Broad River Creative, helps small businesses create a presence online so they can be found by more customers.

This is part of a series of posts on what you can do to be more successful in your business this year. To get a free report full of success tips for your business, click here.

The advice I am about to give is dependent on two things already being in place in your business. First, you need to know what you love. Never veer your business too far from your passion. Second, you need to have a clear idea of who your ideal customer is. You should be worried about pleasing and serving this type of customer above all else.

With those two things in place, it is safe to follow this advice. Without them, you could derail your business. What is this advice, that is potentially so dangerous? Simply this, let your customer shape your business.

Customer Input

If you want a business that is loved by your customers, you need to be sure to pay attention to them. Proactively find out what they like and what they don’t like, and make adjustments accordingly.

Katharine Coles, of Mad Marketeer, is a strong advocate of this. She says:

Listen to your clients. If they complain that they don’t like something about your product or service, try to find ways to change to meet their needs. If they don’t like your customer service or they think you are not listening or being responsive enough, try to put new systems in place to address the issues. If they don’t understand your documentation or your contracts, make them clearer and easier to understand. One of the biggest mistakes that small businesses make is NOT LISTENING.

Adapting to fit the needs of your customers is an obvious move. Yet, sometimes business owners can get so caught up in what they know, they forget to find out what the customer knows. And if the customer knows something is too complicated, too slow, too out of date, they will move on.

Customer-Centric

By listening to each customer, finding out what their experience was working with your business, and making adjustments, you can create a business that is customer-centric. And when customers are happy, everyone is happy.

Don’t forget though, this can go horribly wrong. First, if you have a customer that doesn’t fit your ideal customer blueprint, you shouldn’t listen. That sounds harsh, I know. But what if your ideal customer is small grocery chains? Your business is flexible and serves these chains well. Now, maybe you have one sale with a larger grocery chain. Suddenly, this larger chain is making different demands on your business. If you change according to these demands, you know that it is going to hurt your smaller customers. What do you do? If you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the small grocery chains are your ideal customer, you don’t kow-tow to the big guy. Always do what is best for your ideal customer first.

The same goes for doing what you love. Customers needs a lot of different things, even ideal customers. Some you can deliver with perfection and passion. Others you can’t. So, even if you see a need, it may not be your best move to fill it. Always run any new product or service pass the test of whether you are going to love doing it.

Listen and Change

If you keep those two things in line, you can safely play within the boundaries. Listening to ideal customers and adapting your business accordingly can be fun and very profitable. Focus on making the customer experience amazing. The only way to do this is to talk constantly to customers about it, listen to their suggestions, and make changes accordingly.

I’ll end with some advice from Iman Jalali, of Train Signal.

Listen to current and prospective customers and the communities around them. Listening to them is only part of being successful though. If you only listen and don’t react or adapt, listening does you no good. By utilizing tools like Twitter search you have access to millions of conversations, conversations that may be about your business. Conversations that may help shape how you conduct business and the future of your business.

The information you need to know is accessible to you, both through talking to your current customers and through your engagement with communities online and off. So stop making excuses, start listening and adapting. In the end, you win and your customers win.

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Follow Bradford Shimp on Twitter.

photo credit: Slack pics

When it comes to advice on how to grow your small business, a lot of experts, including myself, will tell you that you need to increase your marketing. We’ve heard the bells of marketing peel even louder in the recession. The mantra? Increase your marketing now while your competitors are pulling back.

As I talk about success throughout this month, marketing is going to come up over and over again. I believe that small businesses simply don’t focus enough attention on it. But before I start singing the praises of marketing, perhaps I should answer the question, is more marketing really the answer?

Not a Simple Answer

As with all simple questions, this one has a complex answer. Can increased marketing lead to more success at your small business? Yes, it can. Is it a cure-all to get you out of financial funk and to profitable success? No, it is not. The short answer is that you need marketing as one part of your strategy for success. Without good marketing systems, you can never really grow your business at any kind of scale. What that means is that without marketing you have to rely on the power of one to grow your business. Whether it be one salesperson to book a sale, or one customer who just happens to tell a friend about you, or one presentation that you do at a local conference. Marketing, on the other hand, thrives on the power of many. This means your message is getting out to a group of people all at once, and perhaps even going viral within that group as they spread your message for you to many more. So you can’t ignore marketing.

Not Just Marketing, Good Marketing

At the same time, you can’t just take an ad out in your local paper and expect it to generate sales. Maybe it will, maybe it won’t. You can spend a lot of money for very little to no return on investment. As a responsible small business owner, you don’t want to do that. The word marketing covers a wide swath of ideas and applications. If you are going to use marketing as part of your success strategy, you have a responsibility to find the method or methods that will bring in the most return on investment. Once you find good marketing methods, you should stick with them and invest money to improve them. For instance, if you find a direct letter works pretty well, spend some money on a copy writer to improve your letter so that it converts even better.

You Need More for Success

While good marketing will indeed bring new leads and sales to your business, that is not all you need for success. Success isn’t just measured by the number of sales you get. You also need to focus on other areas of your business. This includes having a good engine within your business to handle growth. It also includes having a focus on profit over sales. You may need to tweak things to get a maximum profit. Other success factors to consider are customer and employee satisfaction, personal satisfaction, your exit plan, and maximizing current potential.

The point is, success is a package. Marketing is a tool that helps your business grow. But you wouldn’t waste a lot of time watering your sidewalk, hoping tulips will spring up. You need a well tilled plot of land, and the seeds to make things grow. Add a good marketing plan to that, and you will see growth and be well on your way to success.

Marketing is Part of the Plan

So, marketing is not the end all and be all. But it is a part of the plan and you can’t ignore it. You need to start experimenting with marketing. Spend money on it. When you find something that works, every dollar your spend will be bringing back more than a dollar in profit. When that happens, you will want to spend as many dollars as you can. Before you do that, make sure you have the infrastructure to support real growth. Your house had better be in order before you add waves of new business. Otherwise they will bring your business crashing down around you.

What are your thoughts? How much do you rely on marketing? What has worked for you? What hasn’t?

photo credit: Dennis Goedegebuure

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Bradford Shimp helps small business create online success strategies at BroadRiverCreative.com

Some small businesses have blogs because they think they should. They toy around with one, post occasionally, and see little benefit. The problem is, they produce a boring blog, all about the business in most cases. The blog is just another sales page. Even more small business owners never start a blog because they can’t think of anything interesting to say on a regular basis.

The thing is, producing an interesting blog that people will actually pay attention to is not that hard. Here are some ideas on how to do just that.

Cut the Sales Talk

You can give all of your sales information on the static pages of your web site and in your hand out materials. Use your blog to build trust. For instance, instead of talking about how great your widget is on the blog, do an in depth interview with one of your customers about how they are using your widget with great success. This still puts your business in a positive light, but with a human story.

Also, its okay to talk about things on your blog that aren’t directly related to your product or service. A blog is a place to have conversations with customers and prospects. You will want to cover a range of topics that is interesting and useful to your target audience.

Give Advice

One great thing to do on your blog is to give advice. People are searching for answers all of the time on the web. If your blog can provide good answers to specific questions, it will attract an audience. So think about the advice your customer base will most benefit from, and then provide content on your blog that gives that advice.

This works well for every type of business. A mechanic can give advice for basic car maintenance and upkeep. A marketer can give advice on how to set up a marketing plan. Don’t worry about putting yourself out of a job. Remember, you are a specialist. If you are a baker, you could give instructions on how to bake a perfect cake and still attract buyers for the cakes you make. The fact is, you will always be able to do it better, and people will come to you for your expertise.

Spice it Up With Other Content

You don’t have to write every article on your blog. You can find other content to include that will be useful to your target customers.

One way to do this is to pull articles off article marketing sites, such at EzineArticles.com or ArticleBase.com. Sites like these allow you to repost content. Simply search for your topic and follow the instructions to post the content on your blog.

You could also find guest authors to write unique content for your site. Blogger Link Up is a good resource for this. You can also find experts using Help a Reporter Out. Both of these resources allow you to reach out to a list of people who want to write content or be interviewed.

Share the News

If you are a local business, sharing local news can be a great move for your blog. You will attract local visitors who will then be introduced to or reminded about your business. Add your own take on the news or break stories, and you will have even more visitors.

You can share news by providing a brief overview and then the link to stories on other web sites. Link to other sources generously. If you start sending a decent amount of traffic to a news site, they are bound to notice your blog and your business. At the same time, do add some personal touch to the news you share. You can also treat your own company news as legitimate news stories.

Interview Your Customers

Putting up interviews can work very well for some businesses. This is especially true if the interview can help other customers. I work with a business that sells to volunteer organizations. These organizations can benefit from learning about how other volunteer organizations are succeeding.

Interviews also give you a chance to get to know your customers a lot better. This has huge benefits as you figure out how to better communicate with and sell to your customer base.

Finally, interviews are almost a guaranteed way to get visitors to your blog, as your subject will visit and share the link with others.

Be Personal

Your blog is a place where you can truly connect with customers. Its okay to add your personality to your posts. By being real on your blog, you are building trust. If customers feel they know you, even before they buy, then you are succeeding.

I don’t suggest making your business blog a personal journal. Customers don’t need to know about the movies you see, the parties you go to, or about your latest hobby. Instead, sprinkle personality into your business posts. Use your real voice. Write and record as if you were having a normal conversation. And if you want, slip some personal information inside the business posts.

Keep Talking

Here is an important key to writing an interesting blog. Do it regularly. This is counterintuitive to many business owners, who think that by writing too often they will drive people away. The fact is, the more often you blog, the more people will visit.

Its not just about the visitors. By blogging often, you will be able to develop a rhythm and a voice. You’ll find your groove, basically.

If you blog only once in awhile, your blog will attract cob webs and the posts you do put up will likely be stilted and boring. Commit to a regular schedule, and your blog will be dynamic, on point, and conversational.

By blogging regularly, something unexpected will begin to happen. You will begin to understand and relate to customers like you never have before. You will unleash new ideas for your business and see new opportunities. Blogging regularly gets you to think, not just about the next sale, but about the greater story that you are involved in with your business. I would argue that blogging makes your a better business, and a better person.

If you still need help getting your blog off the ground, please feel free to email me at bradford@allbizanswers.com.

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Bradford Shimp helps small businesses develop their web presence at BroadRiverCreative.com.

Your customers should be a primary focus when you own a business. You need to be able to understand them and communicate with them so you can create a better product and sell it like crazy. But customers are not the only important connections you need to develop in your business. You should take some time to build a network of colleagues. This would include other small business owners, including some in your industry. This network is another great resource for your business.

It is from a network of colleagues that you can learn about changes in business and with which you can brainstorm new ideas for growing your business. You will also find shared opportunities and chances to collaborate. While your customers will be focused on their needs, your colleagues will be more focused on the same needs you have as a business.

So how do you find colleagues and start talking to them? Here are a few ideas.

• Go to trade shows and focus on building these relationships, and not just on getting leads.
• Join LinkedIn and look for other people in your industry.
• Join Twitter and find other people who own small businesses. A great place to do that is on the Small Business Buzz chat.
• Reach out to the people you come in contact with as you sell your product. There are people who sell to the same demo, but who are not your direct competitors.
• Ask your customers what other local businesses they use and love.
• Host an event and invite other area businesses (that sell to your customer base) to attend.
• Join local organizations such as the Chamber of Commerce or a networking group.
• Join a mastermind group.

Share Experiences

The great thing about talking to colleagues is that you have a forum to share experiences. This is where you can talk the inside baseball of your business. The details of running a business is deeply interesting stuff for you, but its probably not an great topic for discussion on your customer blog.

By sharing experiences with other small business owners, you can learn from each other. Perhaps one of you tried something new in marketing, and it really worked. Now the others can adapt it to their businesses.

Being a small business owner can get lonely. Having a close network of other small business owners to help encourage and spur you on can make a lot of difference.

Brainstorm Ideas

Beyond the emotional impact and the sharing of experiences, you can use your network to brainstorm new ideas that you are working on. Its great to think through things ahead with people who have had similar experiences.

Colleagues will bring in a perspective of an owner, but with a different take than you. You’ll get ideas by brainstorming with this group that you could never get from customers, employees, or even friends and family. Other people that live where you are at will have a truer sense of what it takes, including the amount of risk that is acceptable.

Blow Off Steam

Sometimes, you need to vent. You can’t vent to customers or employees. And you don’t really want to bring it home to your spouse all of the time. Colleagues can understand you. If you are close enough with some of them, you can call them up and tell them all about the crazy customer, the tight budget, or whatever. Chances are that they can relate.

If your network is local, you can also get together and have some fun. Colleagues are people who share similar interests, so chances are you can have a friendly get together and forget the business woes, if just for a little while.

Collaborate

A good network of colleagues also presents opportunities for collaboration. By talking to these people, you are developing relationships with possible investors, partners, affiliates, or mentors.

If you have complimentary businesses, chances are good that you can work together on some marketing pushes, say hosting an event together. You can also send referrals each other’s way.

When a group gets together and starts helping each other out and investing their time in each other, everyone in that group benefits.

So take some time to develop relationships with colleagues. There are a lot of mutual benefits to be had.