101 Tips To Improve Your Business – Tips 41 to 45 (includes listening to customers, maintain focus, staff morale, ideas, sales planning)

101 Tips continued:

41. Listen to your customers, they are your lifeblood – when customers ring to say they want you to jump, then ask them how high? Respond quickly to your customers’ request. Have a system in place – where a customer rings and you can give them a definitive answer there and then.

42. Focus. Focus. Focus. You must be disciplined enough to create your business – you can only focus on an end result. Know what the end result looks like, that could be 10, 100 or 500 customers, whatever, then you can see what you need to focus on.

43. Motivating, coaching and managing your staff morale, productivity and profits can easily be destroyed without ongoing involvement – stay in touch with staff, even if this is once a week contact.

44. The successful entrepreneur lives in a world of likelihood but spends money in the world of reality – keep dreaming the ideas, but only spend on what you can afford

45. Create a sales plan. You need a realistic map of where the sales will come from how and from whom- what targets do have for sales? How many customers do you want to service this month? How many new leads from your flyers, website etc? More importantly, what is your conversion rate from leads to new customers? Is this conversion rate high (maybe you are cheap!)? Or, is this conversion rate too low (maybe you have priced yourself out of the market!)?

101 Tips To Improve Your Business – Tips 36 to 40 (leasing office equipment, happy staff, customer service, marketing sales planning)

101 Tips continued:

36. Leasing computers and office equipment is a great way of justifying the expenditure. However, be careful because every lease you sign is a long term overhead – we can get carried away with our successes on the field, you know with getting new jobs and everything! Perhaps we should delay that purchase, or better still talk to your accountant or someone you trust, before going ahead. There are no guarantees, that is, you could lose that big contract – the one that would support your leases. Like a good carpenter, “Measure twice, cut once!”

37. Happier staff give better customer service- another NO Brainer. Look after your staff, attract happy staff and the customer service will just happen!

38. Enthusiasm is contagious – have a bit of fun with work, let others know you’re comfortable with yourself, and the enthusiasm will rub off on others!

39. Don’t stick to one single idea. Play with many ideas and see which ones bring money and success- brainstorm with others, and give encouragement to other people’s ideas. Never say never! As silly as someone’s idea may be, still write it down as a possibility.

40. Create a marketing plan. Failing to plan is planning to fail – so true! You know what, your marketing plan can be drawn up in 1 page! Yep, that’s all. In fact I think at some stage I will show you that.

101 Tips To Improve Your Business – Tips 31 to 35 (tell the truth, staff meetings, tool talk, get personal, business development)

101 Tips Continued:

31. Never go back on your word, even if it hurts- this is just one of life’s basic skills that my parents (from the old school of taking responsibility for your own actions) instilled in us kids from toddler-hood. It appalls me the number of people these days that think it is OK to tell untruths to get what they want.

32. Have weekly meetings with your staff – or even just a regular “tool talk” session, that is, stay in touch. Another good way to stay in touch is to work with your employees on the job.

33. Make a point of getting personal, but not personal enough to get involved with problems – you don’t want to become their Doctor Phil, you’re not getting paid to hear people’s problems! But certainly take an interest in their life, interests and hobbies.

34. Spend less time on penny pinching and more time on business development – this is so true. I grew up with my father following us 5 kids around the house telling us to turn of the light in a room we weren’t using. I think you get conditioned to focus on negatives and not positives. I have a friend with 8 kids, he owns a telecommunications business (they supply the corporate market with mobiles etc), and I have heard him say “Oh well, another child to feed, I better go and find ways to earn more income!” – so his focus is on his business and how he can make it earn more for him! Think the positives!

35. Get excited about your product, business or service – think the positives, dream about how your business or service can solve people’s products.

101 Tips To Improve Your Business – Tips 26 to 30 (customer communication testimonial, advertising discounts, honesty, be upfront)

101 Tips continued:

26. The market is not a perfect communication place. Just because you make an offer to one group of customers in one month does not mean that they will remain in the same place 4 months down the track. - figure this one out yourself. Like I said in the start of these tips, I found this info in an office clean-up – now, I don’t know who wrote this stuff, but I am really confused on this tip as I think it is badly worded.

27. Every time someone tells you they are impressed with your organisation, write down a testimonial. Don’t ask them to send it to you because 80% of people will forget. Write it down and send it back to them & ask for their approval to use it. - It’s as simple as that! If you have a website, the best testimonials are from people who allow you to submit their head-shot photo with name, suburb and testimonial. Research shows theses are the most believable testimonials followed by a testimonial with name and suburb (no photo) followed by testimonial with initials and suburb.

28. Never pay full rates for advertising without asking for a discount - doesn’t hurt to ask.

29. Be honest - Oh this is a NO-Brainer. Your life should be an open book, another thing, make sure all the stuff you write and say about your business is consistent. “Under promise and over deliver”, all that sort of stuff. I know 1 fellow who is a real estate agent who is just full of it and he’s always trying to impress with the big numbers and everything. Stick to the facts and stick to a simple story!

30. Be upfront - this is another NO-Brainer. Like I said before Under Promise and Over Deliver. So if there are limitations to your service, best to say so in the beginning. Just tell it as it is. Likewise be upfront about what you can do, this is good marketing!

The “Zero To A Hundred K in 30 Days” Blueprint – Official Launch on 1st May, 2010

We’re buzzing with excitement with the up-coming official launch of The Blueprint.

What do you think about the look of my new Book?

Rhetorical question! No need to answer, although you can drop me a line in the Comments area.

PS. The really cool thing about The “Zero To A Hundred K in 30 Days” Blueprint is that what I am going to reveal are the secrets of what worked in my business over the last 24 years.

You get to find out in an instant:

1. how to build a gardening and landscaping business that will put $2,000 cash in your pockets week in, week out

2. how to market your business for less than $300

3. what other business models work including commercial & corporate (factories, stratas etc) contracts

4. and much more

Google vs Yellow Pages – “let your figures do the talking” – the truth about where your advertising dollars should be spent

I got this email last week from a chap called Monte Huebsch (a Google adwords expert etc etc), anyway he had a lot to say about the 2 Giants of advertising, that is the young bull, Google, and the old bull/dinosaur, the Yellow Pages.

Anyway here is the message from Monte verbatim:

Hi , this is the team from AussieWeb Local Search where your free business listing exists at www.AussieWeb.com.au .

For too long local and small businesses have had to “cop it sweet” as the Yellow Pages were the only advertising game in town.  Now that customers have gone online, Google is the new BIG gorilla.  Both make a lot of claims, so what is the truth?

I made the following video with a real company, so “let your figures do the talking” and you can make up your own mind about what is best for your business.

Please feel free to pass this on to your friends and other local/small businesses.

http://www.aussiewebconversion.com/google-vs-yellow.aspx

Best, Monte and The AussieWeb Local Search Team

Now I have never met Monte or done business with him, but I felt compelled to share his story with you because if there one thing that you should be doing – that is, measure the results of what you spend you advertising dollars on.

Remember, the gurus always say, “Measure, track and measure!”

I would like to hear of your experiences with Google and Yellow Pages. Come on, let’s go!

At least 2 Marketing Tools that really suck

I’ll get straight to the point here! The 2 marketing tools that really suck are:

1. some telephone directories (to avoid any litigation I won’t mention the colour) -what’s wrong is the big flashy ads don’t use good copywriting and the poor contractors pay thousands for a dud ad.

2. expensive websites with crap SEO – same again except there are way too many web designers that know zero when it comes to marketing, copywriting and SEO

There, I’ve said it, and it’s all true!

6 Lawn Care Marketing Tools That Attracts Lots of Customers

Just a quick diversion from our 101 Tips series!

Today I want to talk about 6 really effective Marketing Tools that bring in customers by the truck load!

These 6 marketing tools are:

1. flyers with good copy

2. vehicle signage

3. a well constructed and crafted website  with good SEO (search engine optimisation) and with good copy

4. well designed business cards

5. a great USP and good copywriting

6. a well designed system of generating solid referrals

Next time I am going out on a limb to tell you the marketing failures that really suck! I’m going to name and shame the things to stay right away from!!!

101 Tips To Improve Your Business – Tips 21 to 25

101 Tips continued:

21. Have controls and mechanisms in place so you can see what is happening at any time in the business – this refers to systems, so if you want to see how many quotes (and conversion rates etc) you are doing in a week then you can quickly find this information

22. Learn to delegate, but also teach your employees about effective prioritisation - this is a good point! The only way you can delegate is by teaching your staff to do all their jobs properly and in a systematic way. This takes patience but pays dividends in the long run. Regarding prioritisation, I guess this applies to your senior staff, say managers etc.

23. Relax, treat the business like a game, and you will think better - This relaxing attitude comes with time, especially after you install and implement systems in your business.

24 Give your business a full health check at least once a year – just like we all should go for the annual health check – to make sure everything is working properly. In the same way we can give the business a once over each year. I think this applies really well to your marketing strategy. Each year you should see what works and what doesn’t in your marketing. Get rid of the marketing deadwood so to speak!

25. Analyse what you already know because what you assume you knew may have changed – what can I say. yes I agree with this. Don’t assume anything, keep asking questions and seek answers.

101 Tips To Improve Your Business – Tips 16 to 20

101 Tips continued:

16. The more people you you hire, the greater the potential headaches, yet the greater the potential gain. Balance your objectives – No Pain, No Gain is the cliche! However, if you put in place good systems you should be able to train up staff to be productive in your business without too many headaches.

17. Employ positive people – this goes without saying.

18. Avoid negative people – ditto the last tip. At all cost avoid hanging around negative people, they just suck the life-blood out of you, and you will find it hard to be creative in your own business.

19. Respect your employees. Value their work and praise them when they do a good job – this is really important, we all need to recognise positive results with positive reinforcement.

20. Never assume you are right. Before you criticise ask for the facts. It’s amazing how often you will be wrong in assuming the worse of people rather than the best- my brother-in-law often says, “It is better to be nice, than right!” In other words, you don’t have to have the last say or always have to correct people or always have to be right, rather, just be agreeable and you will get on just fine. Also, get the facts first before tearing someone apart!

What are your thoughts? Can you add any good ideas to the tips? If so, please leave a comment.