Business180connect

Is the problem you're solving, a big enough problem.
Anyone can sell one thing once, but selling more than one thing, and even a lot more, is more than just a good product, its about solving a big problem.

I've been listening to an interesting podcast lately featuring the founder of Canva, Melanie Perkins and she shares a number of insights, that has helped her build a $25 billion (Thats right, billion) business in just 10 years. But those insights are as relevant to a micro, lean startup, as they are to a multi billion dollar business.

Businesses all too often think that the thing they do, the product or service alone, is enough to make them a success, when in fact it more often than not, isn't. Its fundamentally about everything else the business does. The profile, the marketing, the sales and service to start. But when thinking about a business from a startup perspective, the first question should be is the business solving not just a problem, but a big enough problem that encourages a lot of people to buy, not just one, or a small few.

Its easy to get a few people to say, "oh I love that, I'd buy that" (especially if its family) but guarantee that a lot of people want it, because its solving a problem that a lot of people have, is a much better way to ensure success in a business. Its still not the only thing, but its far better than just having a product that you and the family think is great.

Talk to people, ask the right questions. What do they really want, is this really solving a big problem that they and plenty of others have. If the answer to that is yes, and you have a big enough point of difference from the rest doing the same or something similar, it might just work.

Get out there and do that market research, talk to people, ask the right questions, refine the idea, the why they should buy from you, and ensure that you're solving a big problem. Try it, it works, and builds better businesses.

In business, you can be too close to see what’s going on?
Many business owners can continue to plod on for years, and miss countless opportunities because they are often just too close to the business they have probably been working on for years, but unfortunately not see what’s going on, or where the missed opportunities are, and it sometimes takes advice or even random feedback from people outside your normal circle of influence that creates that awareness.

Take just a couple of simple things:

1: Your profile. The website, social media, the brand, the message. Ask others what they see, and where they might see the missed opportunities might exist. What does someone that doesn’t know you see. (Ask them to try and find you though first)!

2: The product or service you sell. Why do people buy from you, what makes you different and how do others see that, and in fact is there anything that stands out? Is there something unique?

3: Post sale relationship. Once a sales been made, what happens next? What do you do to keep customers, get them back, and referring more. How can you increase frequency, and the average spend, with more than just the core thing you do?

5: Ask what your customers like and don’t like about your business, and also what they would like to see. This alone could be one of the greatest questions of all time, and it single handedly changed the pizza industry in a big way a few years ago.

6: Competition. How do others (prospective clients) perceive them and you. What do you have to do to standout better, be found easier, and be the thing that people will go back to?

In most instances as business owners, we don’t ask for feedback, or do people generally give it, with it being asked for, so all too often, nothing changes, because we think that everything is “plodding along ok” when in fact it could be powering ahead, if only we knew what we needed to do.

Getting feedback is easy, and can be done in many different ways, but just start by asking questions of your customers, and in particular the prospective customers. Their feedback could be the answer to massive growth in your business, and powering ahead, not just plodding on! Try it, it works!

Service is a given, but often it’s not!
There’s no doubt, that probably most businesses think they give great service, but according to a recent survey where businesses and their customers were surveyed about the quality of service, the results were very different. 80% of the businesses responded believing they gave great customer service (what about the other 20% that didn’t!!) but when their clients were asked the same question, only 8% believed they were given great service from those companies.

Good customer service is the expectation, not the norm, but unfortunately it’s where most businesses let their customers down. From simple things like poor service, not answering the phone, not returning a call, attention to detail, lack of product knowledge, handling complaints the right way, to delivering a real positive customer experience.

The single easiest way to build any business is hold onto every client you have ever had, and then get them back again and again, and referring others to do the same. But that only happens with an exceptional customer experience. There’s just too much competition and too many options for your customers. If it’s not great, they’ll go elsewhere.

If you understand the concept around net promoter score, and simply asking one question, how likely is a customer to refer a business to someone else, and then rating that result from between 0 to 10, you understand that you need a rating of 9 or 10, for people to want to refer you. Anything lower, they don’t care enough, or in fact will refer your competition, not you!

I spent a few months working in Adelaide a number of years ago, and would go to this one little cafe for lunch once a month. The lady there asked my name, took my order, and then every time I came back, (once a month) she’d know my name and my order. That’s all it could take to make a huge difference on the perceived level of service experience. Someone cares!

So the answer is easy, ensure that you develop the customer service experience, skills and systems in your business, that then guarantee you get the result you want, and that’s clients coming back, buying more and referring others to do the same. Try it, it works.

Marketing is the key, but get the basics right first.
Far to many businesses struggle with getting even a small result from their marketing efforts, but far too often its the "gaps" in everything, that cause the problems.

Up until only a few short years ago, the normal spend on marketing for an average business was around 5% of the total sales, and that was down from a few years before of suggested around 10%. But now its closer to 1 to 2%, and the reason behind that is that we now rely on online marketing as the solution, and on its own, its not.

You could even start with the business name, the domains and social media, because people will search for the thing it is you do, and not always your name that you've got attached to, and there are a few simple solutions to that without having to change your name. But this is simply about getting the basics right (or even started) before you go and spend anything.
1: Website: Every business needs one, and ideally one that can be visible on any device.
2: Social media: Find out where you clients hangout, and be there. And heres a tip, a monthly post won't work. Get creative, answer the questions your clients have, and start posting every couple of days at least.
3: Online, offline and connect: You won't get it working on social media alone, without spending! So it takes an online presence, offline (signs) and the ability to network, connect and be seen face to face.
4: Brand, design and the message matter. You need to standout, and be able to be found, seen, heard and remembered, easily.
5: Numbers: Everything in marketing is numbers. Leads, conversion, non converted. What works, what doesn't and why. Know those numbers and getting a regular and replicatable result, is easier.
6: The easiest way to grow a business is to get customers back, and get them referring others. But that doesn't happen unless your product and service are sensational, and they want to refer. Even then, you still need to ask.
7: Eliminate the gaps: Make sure there aren't any. Connection with the brand, constancy and frequency, contactability (answer the phone) and ensure that the message that you think you're projecting, is the right message. Message confusion is the easiest way to lose a prospective client.

Do that, or at least improve the way your doing things now, and you'll get a better result. Once thats going in the right direction, then look at scaling the result. Identify whats working, and simply do more, and then start testing paid marketing. At some point the only way to grow to the next stage, is with paid advertising. But get all the basics working first. Try it, it works.

Do you need to protect your trading names and more?
The question as to whether to protect your chosen business name, slogan, logo and more is a question of how much do you like it, want to keep it and want to keep using it. If you don't, it doesn't matter, but if you do, and would rather not have someone else use it and take it away from you, then you need to protect it.

Believe it or not, but most businesses, don't completely protect their business name. They might register a domain, get the social media handles, register the business name and maybe even the company name, and actually think thats enough, but don't trade mark anything; and trade marking, trumps it all!

I had been using a trading name that I'd registered, bought the domain and had been happily using that name for around five years, when one day i received a cease and desist email from a solicitor. Their clients owned the trade mark to that name, and had for some time. Coincidently I actually knew these people, and they knew me, so I called them, to ask why didn't you just reach out, rather than go legal. Sorry, its ours, was pretty much the response. So I stopped!

The Australian case of UggBoots being sold into the American market, (and apparently it was only a dozen pairs) has been an incredibly expensive case for the Australian manufacturer, to not only lose, but have to pay out in damages that added up into the millions according to the ABC. It might just be worth a quick search at the very least.

99% of people never bother, and think who cares, I'll just change the name. But if your brand, message, logo, website, socials become successful, is the cost to change, a price you're prepared to accept? It might not have any effect, but it might be worth looking into, especially if this is something that has long term growth and even future business sales potential. It just might be worth looking into.

How to build a simple website on Google sites in 15 minutes!
You can build a simple landing page style website, as an interim page before you get a real website, or as a seperate page for a different business, or new product, and its easier than you think. This literally takes 15 minutes.
- Jump onto sites.google.com and setup an account, or use your existing gmail/google account.
- Pick a theme
- Add the name, picture background
- Add a couple of sections, tell people about what you do
- Add your social pages
- Publish
And you've got a website. (If you do another you'll get it done in 10 minutes)! FREE!

The site will issue you a web address like sites.google.com/view/yourbusiness name (and you just add the name. But if you decide to buy a domain, you can then simply redirect that domain and point it back to the google sites website, and you've got an almost free website. People can type your domain, and end up at your google sites website. Try it, it works.

Backup now!
If theres one thing that I've seen far to often, is data, documents, and important business information get lost, simply because you didn't have a backup of that information. Its amazing how often it happens, and theres just no excuse. I speak from experience of living through the great flood in Brisbane of 2011 and losing a huge amount of equipment, years of documents and much more when my business had over 2 metres of water go through our office. Luckily nothing crippling, but I did lose 35 years of personal family negatives, that were totally destroyed. (Luckily the prints were elsewhere), but those negatives are gone forever, because I had never thought something like this could happen.

A computer dies, a USB gets lost, a file gets corrupted, or a laptop gets stolen from a car. It does happen, but have a separate backup of that file, then theres a good chance that 99% of everything can be accessed again. Here are a few ideas.

1: External hard drives. Important data needs to be backed up regularly, at least weekly, probably more, but the key is offsite. If the business burns down, its gone too. So take the backup home, and maybe even have a third monthly backup with a friend, or family member elsewhere.

2: Cloud storage. The easy solution for most things is cloud storage, like Google drive, Box etc. For confidential data look at something more secure.

3: Email. Look at sending copies of documents that you want to access elsewhere by sending them to your online email account like Hotmail or Gmail.

4: Online platforms. If you use a note book, look at online versions like Evernote or OneNote, basic versions are free and you can access anything anywhere, just login into your account.

5: Photos. There are plenty of online image storage services, but iCloud and Google Photos are a good start point. Photomyne is a great tool to scan old prints easily, and never lose a picture ever.

As a business, losing data can be catastrophic, and at the very least, to rebuild customer and prospect databases can be time consuming, if possible at all. Its easy and incredibly low cost (if not free) to fix the potential threat. You might want to also consider a triple backup process. External hard drives, cloud storage plus email. Just backup! Do it regularly, make it part of the weekly, monthly business system. Try it, it works.

Here's the solution to business planning, and it works.
Most businesses don't, because it's simply to complicated, so don't end up with the results they want. Make it easy and something that could be done in five minutes and it will get done. Then make it impossible to miss daily, and you have a planning system that works. Click the link to download free. https://mailchi.mp/3881878832fe/one-page-marketing-and-sales-ezyplan

Business is all about customers, the spend and the frequency.
Starting a business from scratch, or growing, and building a business isn’t really that complicated. Getting the structure right, licensing, insurance, record keeping, and eventual staffing are pretty straight forward, but what really matters (and no rocket science here) is the customer numbers, how much they spend and how often they come back. Thats the important thing. Focus on that, and businesses work. Thats the marketing, profile, sales and service aspect of business building.

Any business, or anything that its sells, makes or does, can work, and has been proven time and again, the secret is to get enough customers, that buy enough at a high enough profit, and do that often enough, that creates the business and the income, that most business owners wanted in the first place.

Far too many businesses focus on the single sales model. Someone buys once (if lucky) then leaves (goodbye) and never comes back. The idea of building a business, that's objective is to grow, is to have a process (a funnel) that is part of a replica -table system, that gives you the leads you need, that you convert, that results in a customer. From there it's about retention and upselling, to ensure that the client sticks, keeps buying and in fact buying more, and referring others. There are in fact four key areas, that have the biggest impact to most businesses.

1: Marketing & profile: It's not just about a weekly social media post. Its about being seen, heard and found, but also about being remembered. 99% of the potential customers a business could attract, don’t even know it exists, they walk, drive or click past.

2: Sales: Marketing is key, but if you can’t convert, then there's a good chance sales will be lower. Sales is and should be thought of as a conversion number. For example: you have ten leads, and two convert to paying clients. Thats 20%, and that's great, but how do you improve the conversion number? Plus, and where most business fail, is in the non-converted sale. What happens to the people that say no thanks, I’ll think about it forever!

3: Service: And this isn’t just about customer service, thats now old school, this is all about experience, retention and relationship. How do you hang onto every single enquiry, prospect and customer for ever. How do you develop that relationship past the customer stage, and onto the advocate stage, where they now refer you to others?

4: Average spend & frequency: One of the critical things a business needs to know, is how much an average client spends, for a couple of reasons. 1: So you know where the business is going. Customers X avg spend X frequency equals turnover, sales, income. 2: The potential to upsell. How do you get a client that currently spends $10 to spend $20. The McDonalds question, would you like a coke and fries to go with that? And 3: how do you get them back more often? Sometimes its just a matter of asking?

Workout what the numbers are that you need, and focus on them. Develop the strategy to get to them and the rest is easy. Its a process, but it (and just about everything else in business) is numbers, and its the easiest way to plan, and to manage or review regularly, where you’re up to. Are we on track with the numbers? Try using something like a simple one page business or marketing plan, and then have those numbers on the plan, print it out to A1, and pin it to your business or office wall. You’ll focus on it every day. The problem with most business, financial and marketing plans is they end up in the top draw and never get looked at again. Print it out BIG, pin it to the wall, and you can’t forget what the objective is. Try it, because it works.

Get that card, don't ever miss an opportunity.
More often than not, business and sales (or lack of) is about missed opportunities. Customers not finding you, seeing you, hearing you, or remembering you, and even when sometimes you connect, they leave (go on, let them think about it!!) and you have no idea who they were. Not a name, business, industry, anything, nothing, so the opportunity gone.

In business, you are always "on"! (If the idea is to build a business). Be ready to sell, deliver the elevator pitch, connect somehow, or hand out yours, and grab their card. How else do you build the relationship, and followup? You don't. It doesn't need to be complex, but be ready always.

I was recently crossing the street at the lights, saw a van for an auto electrician, (I needed one) stopped, asked for a card, and I called and he got the job. No card, he wouldn't have. How can people connect with you? Linkedin, social media, why not a QR code, or maybe a really easy to remember website, (autoelec.com).

Everything in business is a numbers game. Leads, conversion, (and non converted) average spend and frequency, but if you don't even have a start point, the lead, or know who they are, nothing else happens.

Connecting has never been easier, but a business card is a great place to start, and it’s cheap. But if for some reason you forget, why not connect on Linkedin. So have a basic profile setup, but now you have details to followup.

Its not the only thing, but I can't count the amount of people I've bumped into over the years that asked for a card, and wanted to know more, and then turned into long term clients. Try it, it works.

Question: What's the easiest way to build a business.
Answer: Hold onto every single enquiry, customer and client ever!

One of the most common failures in all businesses, regardless of size, is the ability to keep a customer, that's bought from you once. The way that works for most is what’s called the single sales model. The customer buys, then it's goodbye!

The reason that happens is simple, they aren't asked to come back. Most businesses don't have a database of their customers, and if they did it's generally a generic, almost spam like email. The real solution is relationship, talk to them. Without data, you can’t connect.

The easiest and most common sense way to grow a business, is to connect back with a client that's bought from you. Now often, if it's a low average sale value, some might think it's not worth it. So here's an example. Let's say you're a guys barber, average sale value, $15. Yes I get it, maybe a one off $15 sales isn't worth it. But what if they come back every month, and stayed with you for 10 years. That's now a lifetime value of $1,800. Would it be worth some kind of regular contact, even a reminder text? Of course it would. But it goes further. Most regular clients, will spend more, plus on average refer four others, that spend and do the same. That's now at least $1,800 X 4 that equals $7,200 over the ten years. So you have a choice. A one off sale of $15, or build a little relationship and there's $7,200. What do you do.

Step 1, is build a database, get the right information, name, email, regular purchases, and a phone contact. There's much more to this too. Understanding what your clients think about you can also change the way you do things. Getting feedback, asking if they'd tell others about you, getting to know them more like how often do you get your hair done, and sending a text reminder is one of the best ways to get clients back. Book them into the quiet days, and give them a regular client discount.

Imagine what could happen if every person that's bought from you once, came back more often, spent more, and referred others to do the same. Try it, it woks.

Stop thinking it’s all about the thing you do!
Because it doesn't! Sure, a good value product helps, but lets face it, there are plenty of dodgy products around that have sold, and plenty of great ones that never got off the ground, so the answer is it has less to do with what you make, sell or do, than you think, and its all about the rest.

There are in fact six keys to what its really about, but heres one. Why you?

Ask that of just about any business owner, and they'll usually come back with, its the best, we give great service, no one does what we do, but in fact can't articulate why its the best, and what do you do that so different, and forget service, its a given, everyone says it, but no one does!

Find out the why. Why would someone buy from you and not the other guy. I recently spoke to a client that said, well, theres nothing different, we just do what everyone else that does the same thing does. But without some point of difference, some unique selling point, brand, gap you fill, and it doesn't need to be about the actual product either, but without it, when someones looking for your thing, and theres nothing that stands out, they'll go to the cheapest, or closest. you need something that makes clients go WOW, I'll go with them because they do it different, better, and I like the look of whatever. Otherwise, its all the same, and anyone can get the business. Anyone, and maybe not you.

Get clear about the why you, and then tell everyone about that thing you do different, the reason why, the unique selling proposition, that no one else does. Marketing is simpler, and the decision for the client is faster. Try it, it works.

Get the business social media right!
Love it or loathe it, but social media is here to stay, and it's one part of the business and professional branding processes that needs to be done right. Regardless of what it is, Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Utube and any one of the myriad of other platforms, your prospective clients, current clients, and all the associates you connect with and rely on referrals for, are on it somewhere, so the bare minimum is to at least get that profile looking like you're in business, or a professional that's part of a business, and continue to build the brand, update, educate and inform your target market. So there are a couple of very simple starting points.

From a business or professional standpoint, get your Linkedin profile as complete as possible.
- Complete all initial aspects including your current business, or employer, a recent image, a relevant banner (not one of the family and dog on holiday) and a short brief of what you currently do. A tag line, and the point of difference.
- Complete the experience history, your about section, and add any documents you are happy to share. The more information, the easier you might be to find.
- Posting regularly is optional, but advisable. It helps to build the brand around your content, and show you know what your talking about, that creates a profile and interest in you (and not just rely on AI content) and hopefully, not just other people's posts. But at the very least, build content by sharing, commenting and engaging something, that keeps your profile fresh.

Your business Facebook and Instagram pages are not that much different, in fact Linkedin and Facebook are getting closer and closer by the day (even though we know “LinkedIn” is theoretically a business platform). The important thing is to maintain a branding, image and message that's consistent accross all platforms including the website, to eliminate confusion, because without that, it’s the easiest way to lose a prospect.

Content and engagement is the key to social media, following, although to some degree important, isn't the only aspect that has value. Many people will never like or follow you, but indirectly might end up engaging, or even buying from you.

Social media is a profile of you and your business, it needs to be fresh, regular and consistent, a post once a month just doesn't cut it these days. The only way to cut through the massive amount of posts that get uploaded into all social media platforms every hour, is frequency, even followers of you will see you less, the less you post, so just make it regular, interesting, informative and value, but make sure it all connects accross all platforms, to maintain the brand, and message. Try it, it's not the only thing about marketing that businesses need, but it's one of the keys.

Tell them it's you!
Branding is a key part of every business, without it, you might get missed, lost, forgotten or even never found!

I was given a personalised wine goblet over the weekend by some friends and thought, what a great gift idea. The next day I looked at the box, under the goblet, even inside to see if I could workout where they came from, but nothing. I would have gone there and bought for other friends, but also wanted to see what else they do? What a lost opportunity, of sales to never happen!

Businesses, regardless of what you make, sell or do, need to take every opportunity to sell again! Not just once, which is the most common sales approach for most businesses. The single sales model. Someone buys, and then it's goodbye! Could they buy again, could they refer and could those referees buy again? And of course they could and would, but, if like me, you don't know who, you go somewhere else. Loved the idea, now lets find someone, (how about the competition)!

Stop thinking single sales model, and start thinking lifetime value of a client. How often could they buy, and who could they tell? Better branding so that after the purchase, they know, and so does everyone else, so they continue to buy! Try it, it works!

Add value and up-selling is the easy way to grow your business. And here’s the secret!

A number of years ago, McDonalds made one of the biggest changes in how they do business, that effected the turnover by millions a day. It was simply by asking every customer, one question; would you like a drink and fries to go with that? It was a game changer, and since then, many business do similar things, by asking a simple up-selling question, that in many instances, results in yes, because they probably would have bought it eventually anyway. Petrol stations started asking if you'd like bread and milk, electronics retailers asked if you'd like extended warranties. And people would say yes!

Whatever it is you do, is there something else that you could or even currently sell, that is going to be purchased by your client, but maybe not from you, unless you ask them.

There are fundemantlly three things important to business growth. Customer numbers, the amount they spend, and the frequency, how often they come in. Multiply those three things and you have turnover, sales or revenue, whether that's daily, weekly, monthly or yearly that then gives you the income your business makes over that period. To increase, simply get more customers, get them in more often, or increase the average spend. Would you like fries with that?

Every business, regardless of what it does, could offer something. What else do they buy anyway, maybe later, accessories, ongoing support packages, or maybe even your branded merchandise. Try it, (that's why McDonalds does it) it works!

Does the thing you do, have more impact, than the way it's marketed?

That's a great question, and more and more information seems to point at the marketing of that product or service, rather than the actual thing you do, as the most important aspect of business. There's no doubt, that dealing with thousands of businesses over the last 30 plus years, that anything (and I mean anything) can sell at least once, but repeating that, and getting enough sales at a high enough margin to make the business really work, can be a different thing altogether. And so much has to do with not yelling loud enough about how great your product is, not just good!

So the first thing is creating awareness. Let's face it, if the thing you do can't be seen, no one will buy. So the ability to be found, seen, and remembered, and do that easily, is critical. Because unless you have a small (or large fortune) to spend on marketing, sales will be low, unless your business thing, is seen by someone. But there's more!

If the business is capable of making one sale, what does it take to do more than one? How do you get a customer that bought from you, to buy again and again, whether it's for personal use, or to give away to someone else. Where is the opportunity for repeat, regular sales?

And then, take it one step further again. Would someone that has bought, refer you to a friend? Now that's a powerful question, and the one you want a answer to, if you want the business to make more than one sale. I had recently made a purchase from a local business, and then got sent an email a week later, asking whether I'd refer a friend to that business. (It's the basic net promotor score question, and the answer is given as a rating between 1 and 10). I gave an 8, there were a couple of small things I wasn't happy with. The system recognised the 8 I'd given and sent an automated reply back asking what could we do better. The reason behind that is that historically, unless you score a 9 or 10, people don't refer. That's powerful!

There's more, but get these small key things about your business going right, and it's a game changer! Marketing is more important than the thing you do. Sure, your product or service needs to be good, that's a no brainer, but marketing is the number 1 thing! Where are the repeat sales opportunities, and will those that have purchased, refer?

Small things can make a huge difference. Try it, it works!