Marketing No Brainer First Steps

Marketing doesn't always have to be expensive. In fact, here are 5 simple ways to improve your brand image without spending a dime.

1. Smile.
Smiles come across on the phone, in emails, and face to face. They make people like you more and remember you and your business positively. Remember that a smile is a powerful marketing tool.

2. 30-Second Pitch.
Having a solid 30-Second Pitch / Elevator Pitch helps customers understand the value you bring to them or to others that they may refer to you. Make sure that it is easy to understand, because people will only buy from you if they understand your message.

3. Handshake.
A handshake says a lot about you, even if you don't want it to. So make sure that you have a handshake that leaves a positive impression. It should be firm, yet not too tight. You should shake the other person's hand, not their fingers. If holding a drink, hold it with your left hand so that your right is always free for handshaking. Plus your hand won't be cold or wet.

4. Business Name.
Make sure that your business name says who you are or what you do. This makes it easier to remember. If you can make it have personality, that is a bonus.

5. Use People's Names & Make Eye Contact.
Make others feel important by treating them like they are important.  Make an effort to remember their names and look at the person that you are speaking with.  These two tips can go a long way.

Marketing Solver at www.SmallBusinessSolver.com walks through another 295 marketing tools that will help your small business with even more tips & tricks of how to execute them correctly.

Three E Pillars

There are many key pieces of a successful business, but the newest insight I was given fro a successful entrepreneur I would like to share. It is as follows;

"For all 'improvers' to keep in mind, the three E pillars of a successful team and business are… 

1. Educate – pass on your learning and learn from others. Pass on your learning and experiences to your team members, subordinates, bosses, family and friends alike. Be humble in your learning and learn from others. Life is too short to learn everything ourselves firsthand; learn from others and teach others likewise.

2. Empower – empower your team with the tools and guidance to do exponentially better than you ever can.

3. Entrust – entrust in your team to do better than they know how.

Hope these three pillars serve you as well as it have served me in developing successful ventures.

Lean Start Ups

One of the biggest challenges in starting a small business is figuring out where you should be spending money and where you could be saving.

There are a few basic ways that you can save, but you have to figure out if you can afford to;

1. Sweat Equity. This is doing the real leg work and hard work all by yourself.  This often could have a huge learning curve, but you don't have to spend the money to have someone else do it. If a task is something that you know will benefit your business in developing that skill set, is repetitive so would have to be outsourced often, and has little risk involved for a beginner, this could be a good option.

For example, if you are a start up with 10-12 transactions a month and you are comfortable with numbers, you may keep bookkeeping inside your business.  Whereas tax preparation happens less frequently and has a higher risk factor if there are mistakes, so those are still better handled outside.

2. Bartering. This needs to have a business needing your product or service at the same time as you need theirs. Finding the perfect business to barter with at the perfect time is the problem. But if you can find them, this is a good solution.

3. Variable Costs. If there are instances where your company can reduce high fixed costs, your business becomes less exposed to risk.

For example, buying IT in a SaaS model or leveraging the Cloud may be a more viable solution for a small business than buying software and the network required to support their technology. This is good as the upfront costs aren't there, but if you hire 5 people you simply have to buy 5 more SaaS user IDs to have them get started.

4. Lean Development. This is when the company builds infrastructure that is aligned to the business development plan.

For example, a local tour company is really interested in buying buses for day trips, they would only create the new day tours and buy the bus once their basic local walking tours had begun to make some sales.

There are many creative ways for small business to reduce their costs.

Focusing Strategies for Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs believe that they can do whatever it is they're doing better than anyone else.

They also differ from other people - not in their abilites, but in their mind set.  Thye have internatlized 2 fundamental commitments, by making 2 decisions;

1. To depend on their own abilities for their financial security because they realize that the only security is the security they create themselves.

2. To expect opportunity only by first creating value for others becausee they understand that this is the only unlimited source of economic opportunity.

Acknowledgement: This insight was shared with us by Jim Hughes, the CFO of Eco-Shift Power Corp.

The 4 Things You Should ALWAYS Do

Sales are the key of any entrepreneurial enterprise. To be a good sales person, there are 4 things that you should always do as written by David Cowper, the author of "Mega-Selling Secrets of a Master Salesman". Here they are;

1. ALWAYS be on time.
Showing up late ruins your relationship with a customer. This demonstrates a lack of respect for their time.

2. ALWAYS do what you said you would do.
This adds to you and your business' credibility. You want to make sure that your word respected, and by always doing what you say you will, this reputation will build.

3. ALWAYS finish what you start.
Your drive and determination are what will pull you through. You are not a quitter, and people will be amazed by what you can accomplish.

4. ALWAYS say 'please' and 'thank you'.
These simple words go an awful long way. Being polite is not always remembered, but being impolite always is.

By following these 4 'Always', sales and business will be easier.

Start Ups Should Start Selling Yesterday

Being a start up requires a lot of set up. But setting up your business should never be what is preventing you from starting to sell.

Why?
- Getting awareness about your product takes a long time. Research on how many customer touchpoints it takes to get awareness varies from 5 to 32. Either way, starting early will get you ahead here.
- Getting customers to finally purchase your product also can take time. They may know about it and be interested, but it could take them months to be ready to buy. Most business to business sales take 6 months before someone buys, and this can be much longer based on the pricetag and the complexity of the sale.

So how do you sell early?
Figure out the 5 things that you'd have to complete before you feel like you can start selling. You'll be surprised that 80% of the time it is only 5 things, and 80% of the time you can finish these 5 things in a lot less time than you might have thought. For instance, you may think that you need to have;
- business cards
- a website
- a proposal
- a contract
- shipping all organized
- packaging
- inventory

But when reviewing this To Do List, all of these may not be necessary to sell.

- If you are selling over the internet, business cards may not be necessary.
- If you are selling to referrals or have a product, a website could come later.
- A proposal and a contract can be developed once you get that warm lead.
- Shipping is often taken care of by the customer, especially if they are bigger than you.
- Packaging and inventory don't stop you from selling. Having a prototype could get you some interested customers. Start getting the awareness as early as possible!

Sales are the make or break of many businesses. By starting early you are able to get cash in earlier, can continue to design what you are doing based on customer feedback, and you are starting to build awareness about your company which takes a long time to build.

Small Business Competitive Advantages

Size matters, but sometimes being small is the advantage.

1. Flexibility
Being a small business means that your business strategy or focus on delivering various products can change easily. So if a customer asks for a specific request or if there is an emerging trend, small businesses are more posed to pounce.

2. Understanding Your Customer
As a small business your proximity and interaction to the customer is a close. Often the owner, founder, or manager works directly with some of the customers and gets a better understanding of what they need. Without piles of hierarchy in a business, all of the employees become better at customer service and when changes are made to the product/service, they truly benefit the customers.

3. Speed to Market
With flexibility and an understanding of your customer, small business is well equipped to get new offerings to the market....fast.

4. Low Overhead
With fewer employees and smaller scale facilities, there is less risk involved in the overhead and the opportunity to be cost competitive.

Besides these advantages, with changes in technology and various service offerings, many of the advantages of being big are disappearing. Such as;

- Procurement Quantity Discounts
With websites such as Alibaba allowing for easier international procurement and the efficiency of logistics increasing, the playing field is not as wide as it once was.

- Resources Available
Partnerships and leveraging sub-contractors can make a small business seem (and provider expertise) larger than it is. Leveraging resources outside of your company that adds customer value simply makes it easier to compete with the larger organizations that would have all of these resources internally.

- Marketing Budgets
Social media and online marketing is levelling the playing field with even micro companies or individuals receiving widespread awareness through these tools. No longer is a multi million dollar marketing budget required to get results.

Next time that you are worried about not being big enough, get creative and figure out how to take advantage of your smaller size.

Getting Money For Your Business

Getting money for your business is something that every single entrepreneur wants, making it that much more of a competitive marketplace.

Here are a few of your options to get money in;

1. Banks
If you do not have collateral, this may not be an option. Banks are in this industry to make money, but they will protect themselves. If you are looking for $50,000 as a start-up and you do not have collateral or are willing to put your house up to secure this, it will be extremely difficult to get a loan or line of credit. With an existing business, you are in a better position and should start by asking a banker that you have built a relationship with.

2. Investors
If you are not willing to give away a portion of your business, this may not be an option. Investors will want a big piece of the action and most of them want control as they will want to make sure that their decision matters when it comes to the use of their money. Make sure that you bring in investors when you are willing to do this or when you have made your business' value high enough to support this investment while maintaining your majority share.

3. Government Grants & Loans
The government creates grants and loans to stimulate parts of the economy through businesses. Most of the government mandates are to support innovation and employment. Innovative grants and loans are in the technology, agriculture, diesel, education, medicine, and many other industries. However, many of these programs are tax rebates and loans rather than grants, and this trend is continuing as the government is seeking to incent established companies who would pursue this innovation regardless of having government financial support.
For employment, the mandate is to support unemployed or difficult to employ individuals. When applying for many of these programs, your company would have to ensure that you are helping the community and unemployed individuals who require this type of assistance.

4. Sales
Sales is self financing of a business and it is an excellent way for other options (governments, banks & investors) to be more interested in lending. Is there a way to get sales earlier? This is a good option to consider.

5. Family & Friends
This is your last resort, but also the most likely group to invest when you don't have sales and the rest of your options are gone.

Consider all of your options when seeking finance, but be realistic of what is needed with each option.

First Step In Writing a Business Plan

The first step in writing a business plan is not the numbers or explaining the product. In fact, the first step does not include ANY writing.

Your first step of a business plan: Identify Why You Are Writing It

For example, if you are writing a business plan just to guide your own actions in the upcoming months, that business plan is going to have different content and look very different than something prepared for the bank.

Why is this step so important? By knowing the reason for your business plan and its audience, you are able to make your business plan more effective in whatever purpose you have selected.

Here are some examples of different business plan audiences, and the format of the business plan;

The Bank
Institutions know exactly what type of information they want in order to grant you a loan or a line of credit. So use their templates that are found on their websites, as you know that they'll be getting what they want. This increases the likelihood that you will be getting a loan. A standard business plan for a bank is over 20 pages in length.

Private Investors
Individuals are a little different than a bank. Sometimes a document isn't required as much as a presentation! There should be an emphasis on the numbers as they want you to 'show them the money'. But this plan would look very different than something you give to a bank.

The 3 Fs: Family, Friends, Fools
Family, friends, and fools are the most likely individuals to support a start-up. These individuals will be very interested in the 'how' you are going to do things and watching you get sales and traction. To convince the 3Fs to contribute time or money, you can imagine this will be a different approach.

Employees, Customers, Suppliers, and Other Stakeholders
There are times that you will show people your business plan just to ensure that they want to do business with you. These types would be less numbers and content heavy. Write about the values and what makes the company different, plus it would probably be under 10 pages.

Yourself
Business plans are often written just to help the owner of a company organize themselves and test their concept. This would be action oriented with sales forecasts and a budget. Sometimes these are only 1 page in length or up to 5 pages making them flexible to the ongoing changes within a business.

By starting with the 'why' in a business plan, you will end up with a better plan.