Here are a few posts on business strategy:
If you are the one on top - the business owner - the buck stops with you. If you want to make money this month, you push harder and make it happen. If you are tired or just not feeling it, you can sit on your butt. It is completely up to you.
The winds of motivation are constantly changing and this is where a business coach can help you stay on course. Here are a few ways to find a business coach without necessarily breaking the bank...
I just stopped in at a Panera for lunch after not visiting there for several months. When I got to the front of the line, I remembered that I always struggle to order from their menu.
At first, I thought my ordering challenges were probably just me. But then I heard
Do you ever get tired of trading your time for money? If you are like many of the small business owners I talk to, then you certainly do. You know that the product you are offering is worth more than what you are getting, but you just can't imagine charging more.
That is okay. You have been basing your prices on the cost of the product to you instead of the value that the customer ultimately receives. If this resonates with you, then you may want to consider shifting your buisness model to a "value-based" model rather than a cost-based model.
The key to effectively using coupons is to understand why they work and then to strategically implement a coupon program. Without being strategic, you could just be arbitrarily cutting into your margins without understanding the effectiveness of the coupon. Basically, if you just hand out coupons on every sale you make without having a reason for doing so and without raising your profits, the result is decreased margins and subsequent profits - just like you reduced your prices.
Therefore, it is important to have a strategy behind your coupon program. Here are six ways you can strategically use coupons to make more money.
In my article How to Increase Sales Through Product Bundling, I explained the benefits of product bundling and gave five ways to increase sales by bundling products. But bundling products is not just a hack that will help you sell more.
Product bundling will help you create a competitive advantage.
Product bundling is simple - it is the process of grouping together multiple products and selling them at a packaged rate.
Whether it is McDonalds, your cable provider, or your insurance agent, product bundling is a common marketing strategy that is used to increase sales for the business while also providing a value to the customer. As customers, we are used to purchasing bundles and bundling is a strategy that has proven to work so much, that many industries would never consider selling without bundles.
A convenience item is a product or service that is available at the right place and right time for a customer. These are items that are often sold at a premium price compared to what a customer could purchase the item for if they bought it in advance, at another location, or in a larger quantity. The end result is that customers are willing to pay more for an item when a business offers the item at a time and/or location that is convenient for them – meaning the value proposition is convenience rather than price.
When I first started working in the financial industry over a decade ago, the bank that I worked for talked about making their products “sticky” for their customers. They explained that the more products we sold, the stickier our company would be for them and the harder it would be for them to leave. Stickiness was their main customer retention strategy.
I now fully understand what they mean and why they focused on "stickiness." In fact, I still bank with that organization even though I haven’t worked there in nearly a decade.
But why? Because the services I have with them truly are sticky - it would be a major headache to switch banks.
As a business owner, I can assume you want to grow your business.
Whether this means to increase revenue, add employees, or just see a higher sales volume than what you have done in the past, you would like to do better than what you have done in the past. This is part of being an entrepreneur - we aren’t satisfied with not growing.
But what if you could only work on three things for the entire year to help grow your business? What would those things be?
As I do fairly significant amounts of driving for my day job, my least favorite times of the year are the winter months. Snow, sleet, and ice are words I despise as I head out on trips that take up to 7 or 8 hours - with good road conditions.
Unfortunately, I don’t have too many options when the weather is bad because my schedule is often set over a year in advance. So good weather or not, I still have to make it to my destination.
A few years ago I was working in a part of town that had significant amounts of road construction. Traffic slowed everywhere and some businesses were extremely difficult to access. As a driver, it was an area that you wanted to avoid at all costs.
But this caused a problem for the local retail stores that thrived on visitors to their brick and mortar stores.
One of the most important tasks in business is connecting with people. The problem is, however, that we can't always meet everyone in person to connect with them. While e-mail or text messaging works okay for sorting out logistics, such as setting up a lunch appointment, e-mail and text messages don't help to connect with people. Therefore, we often pick up the phone instead of just sending an e-mail or text message. This helps to build rapport and connect with people.
But if we can't get ahold of someone when we call, we have two options: to try back later or to leave a message. Here are ten tips to leaving a message that will get a return call:
Innovation. Everyone is talking about it. Everyone seems to know they need to innovate. And everyone seems to try to sell their innovation as a marketing pitch.
But the word “innovation" has become an over used buzz word. Even the president of the United States talked about small business innovation in one of his State of the Union addresses.
The problem is that the true meaning of the word has been lost because of the overuse of the word innovation.
I believe in business systems. I have experienced time and time again how an effective system can create efficiencies and grow a business.
But I have also seen times where ineffective systems become an epic fail. As I travel throughout the United States, I often
I’ve always been risk adverse. Two business degrees and over a decade of corporate work, I have been conditioned to avoid risk. But risk avoidance is also part of my personality. It is in my DNA.
So that is why I had to attempt the most challenging strategy I have ever tried.
As the new year is now upon us, resolutions are being made left and right. For entrepreneurs and business owners, many of these resolutions are actually business goals for the new year. And rightfully so as effective goals are one of the best ways to transform a business.
However, many businesses will not meet their goals in 2015 because of a few simple mistakes.
Here is my list of the 5 biggest mistakes businesses make in goal setting:
As 2014 has come to an end and we move into 2015, I can’t help but do two things: reflect on the past year and look forward to the next.
2014 year was a fantastic year. I presented over 30 different seminars, traveled to places like Glacier National Park, attended a public speaking conference in Orlando, and met one of my fitness goals.
But I also had some shortcomings in 2014. While I...
As a recovering perfectionist, my tendency is to want to master something before I share it and find myself in a place of vulnerability. For this reason, perfectionism is both one of my strengths and one of my weaknesses. It is a strength as I prefer to offer quality work. It is a weakness because I often work on things that never get finished as I fear they won’t be able to find perfection.
And then I heard someone say: “If you aren’t embarrassed
As a business owner, I love innovation because it provides a competitive advantage. As a consumer, I look toward innovation to solve problems. As a cat owner, well...
Growing up, we had always been a dog family. But my wife came from a cat family. So when my two and half year old daughter found a stray kitten, I became a cat person. And as a cat person, I quickly learned that I needed to look for letterbox smell solutions.
As a dog owner, I had always been accustom to having any animal dirty business conducted outdoors. Yes, cleaning up the fenced in yard was not a desirable job, but it was better than what I was now facing as a cat owner: cat dirty business is done inside. So my I knew we had to find a solution.
My readers are amazing. I am so thankful for each of you and all of the support you show me. You are the motivation for me to continue writing and blogging.
This last week, I put on two seminars in Illinois and was reminded of something: diligence matters more than preparation or even execution.
When I teach seminars, I get a survey from every attendee. Because of this, I often
A sales process is an intentional strategy used to convert prospects into paying customers. This is often accomplished by designing a “sales funnel” where customers are given a clear path which walks them step-by-step toward becoming an ideal customer.
But a sales process is more than just a packaged guide that points toward the cash register - it is something that is big, clunky, and complex, but still needs to be beautifully designed. To fully answer the question of what is a sales process, I would like to share with you one of my recent experiences.
I found myself somewhere I never expected to be - I was at a Taekwondo tournament watching my son compete on a regional level.
I final did it. I made my first video.
To be honest, ever since I hired the videogropher and scheduled a date to shoot this two minute video, I have been extremely nervous. It is hard to put yourself out there every week when you write a blog, even though you can somewhat hide behind those black and white letters. But a video is a whole new ball game.
Ever since I first read (listened to) The Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris, I have been intrigued with the idea of outsourcing work to a virtual assistant for a low price. So when my friend Herby told me about Fiverr, I knew I had to try it out.
The fourth of July is a celebration where we burn money. Literally. We buy fireworks and other explosives and blow them up with nothing to show for it. Well, something to show for, but then it is quickly gone. In my youth, I spent several summers working selling fireworks and that industry amazes me even today. Products are sold only 2 and a half weeks a year and can bring in millions for just one owner, as Mark Lazarchic explained on a Mixergy interview. But what is more interesting to me is that our society has gotten used to paying for disposable products.
Content is everywhere. Products are available from many different sources. In the online information age we live, there is so much content available for free that you have to wonder why anyone would pay for it. One of the biggest hurdles for us content creators is to be able to justify to ourselves that our content has value. Why would someone want to pay for content when they can get so much for free? And, why would they want to pay for my content anyway?
Michael Hyatt recently published an excellent blog post on this topic where he explains why charging for your content is a good thing. The interesting thing about Michael, a person who makes a living on content creation, is that he also allocates a large budget for spending money on content. He has said that his budget is one of the largest content budgets he knows. While my budget isn't even close to Michael's, I too have placed a value on paying for content and paying for products. You have to understand that I am a "penny pincher" by nature, but I have come to realize that content is more valuable to me when I pay for it. Yes, I would rather pay for content than get it free. Here is why:
A great corporate culture is an asset to the bottom line. An ineffective culture, however, can be very costly. The corporate culture of an organization is the difference between a great place to work and one that is chronically drained by spending energy to bring in and retain good talent. Personally, I am always surprised at how many organizations are not pro-actively creating a culture that cultivates and attracts the type of employees they desire.
So how is a corporate culture created, even in a small business?
Be Pro-Active
The first step to creating a great culture within an organization is to understand that a culture is going to develop whether or not you plan for it. If cultural outcomes are not strategically developed, the result is going to be less than ideal.
About Adam
I am a business strategist, author, professional speaker, and consultant. This is my site where I encourage small business owners to work on the business side of their business. Having presented hundreds of seminars to thousands of people throughout the US, I try my best to make learning fun through personal stories and humor. Thanks for stopping by and I would love to hear from you.
New to Businatomy? Here are a few blog posts you can start with:
When we look at a small business, we can usually tell pretty quickly whether or not a business is healthy. We can tell if the business is mature and strong, right? The parking lot is always full, they always have what we need, and the staff make you feel welcome and leave a desire to return. On the other hand, we can also tell if the business is weak and dying. We have all seen it.
I remember going into a local hardware store for the first time after moving to a new town. Within moments of being in the store, I was asking myself