Category Archives: Small Biz Management

Maximizing Contact with Customers After a Sale

By Chemeketa SBDC

Right after your customer buys something from you is the perfect time to give them love and attention. Don’t let them fade away. Be sure to remind them how great it was to buy from you (and not from someone else) and how pleased you were to have them as a customer. Here are five ways to do that, how many more can you add to this list?

• Congratulate them. Better than thanking them, a congratulatory “wow, you made a great choice!” or “congratulations on your new membership” lets them know not only that you appreciate their purchase, but that you approve of their decisions.

• Send a thank you that’s interesting and different. Instead of a regular thank you card, use something else that can be sent through the mail such as an envelope containing puzzle pieces. Or a small box with a surprise in it. Make the thank you memorable in some way.

• Ask another staff member to come over and thank the customer at the point of sale. A manager is best here, but any other staff member will do. This lets the customer know that the whole team appreciates the purchase.

• Create ways for customers to let their friends know about the purchase. This is easy these days with social media. But you can go beyond that by having a wall (a real one or a virtual one) where customers can post pictures of themselves with your products. Or space on your website for customers to pose with you and your service providers. Think of ways you can make your customers the stars of their own shows (and yours).

• Have exclusive events that only your best customers are invited to, and make sure they know that not just anyone has been invited. Offer tasty snacks and entertainment.

Please email me your great ways to keep contact with your customers post-sale, and I’ll write them into another column soon.

Marcia Bagnall is Director of the Chemeketa Small Business Development Center and instructor of Small Business Management Program . The Small-Business Adviser column is produced by the center and appears each Sunday. Questions can be submitted to SBDC@chemeketa.edu. Visit the SBDC at 626 High Street NE. in downtown Salem or call (503) 399-5088.

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Customer Awareness is Vital to Success

By Chemeketa SBDC

If your business (bricks and mortar or virtual) is going to be successful in the long run, you must focus on serving your customer’s needs and desires. The essence of marketing rests on your clear understanding of your customer and delivering a unique product that he or she cannot get anywhere else.

A Customer Analysis helps you predict which items will appeal to your customers and make a dramatic impact on how you spend your advertising dollars. Do you have answers for the following checklist?

1. Who are your target customers and what are they seeking from you?

2. Have you profiled your customers by age, income, education, occupation, etc.?

3. Are you familiar with your customers’ lifestyles?

4. Should you try to appeal to the entire market or just a segment?

5. Are there new customer segments or special markets that deserve attention?

6. Do you know where your customers live?

7. Do you use census data from your city or state?

8. Are you aware of the reasons why customers shop with you? (Convenience, price, quality products, etc?)

9. Do you stress a special area of appeal such as lower prices, better quality, wider selection, convenient location or convenient hours?

10. Do you ask your customers for suggestions on ways to improve your operations?

11. Do you know what products your customers most prefer?

12. Do you know what seasons and holidays most influence your customers buying behavior?

13. Have you considered using customer questionnaires to help you in determining your customer’s needs?

14. Do you know at what other types of stores your customers shop?

15. Do you visit market shows and conventions to help anticipate customer wants?

And, finally, what do you do with this information? Just gathering data is not enough. The answers to the above questions will now give you the opportunity to make true management decisions about your business. You now need set your business goals based on the analysis of your customer. Reminder — make all goals SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, responsible (person), and with a timeline).

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Getting Your Business Ready for the Upcoming Holidays

By Chemeketa SBDC

For some businesses, particularly those in the retail sector, the holiday season can be an important period. By now, most businesses owners already have thought about the inventory side for the season. But here are a few added things that might need to be on your planning list.

• Make sure you know your target market. Has your customer base shifted over the years or does it shift a little during the holiday season? Do you need to adjust your marketing to include a slightly different type of consumer or focus?

• Get social. The holidays will be busy, so plan ahead on how to handle social media. Make sure to check online reviews so you can take action if it appears a problem is brewing. Do you need to add a festive picture or let people know you have this year’s “hot” item in stock? Do your product descriptions need a little fine-tuning? How are you going to communicate specials? How and when are you going to allocate the time to update Facebook or Twitter?

• Evaluate your staffing needs and have a staffing plan. Decide whether you will need some temporary help. Know how much a new hire really costs when you take into account hiring, training, employment taxes, etc. Is it better to pay some overtime? This also may be a busy time for your existing employees, and being forced to work a lot of overtime might lead to a disgruntled staff.

• Give great service. It is all about customer service at the holidays, and here is where a small business truly can excel. Go out of your way to provide a personal touch. If you are hiring extra help, look for friendly people who won’t get rattled by tired and stressed-out customers who may not be exhibiting the season’s joy.

• Get found. Check your website, Facebook page, Google Places, Yelp.com and other online places where your company information can be found. Does it still show the correct address, telephone number, store hours, etc.? If you have satisfied customers, you can subtly encourage them to do online reviews — but don’t be pushy.

• Get ready. Create a warm and welcoming atmosphere in your store that encourages customers to linger. Use creative window displays to lure people in, and music, scents and décor to keep them browsing inside. “Read” your customers — providing good customer service doesn’t mean being overly pushy or always looking over the customer’s shoulder. Some people find this annoying and will try to rush out rather than leisurely lingering and looking.

• Think safety and convenience. Try to keep sidewalks clear from ice and snow, both for your customers’ and your employees’ safety and convenience. Think ahead and plan on who will be responsible for snow removal.
With the shorter daylight hours, make sure outdoor lights are working.

• Get involved with Small Business Saturday. Started in 2010 and sponsored by American Express, this nationwide initiative is aimed at encouraging consumers to buy local and support small independent businesses.
Occurring on the Saturday after “Black Friday” (November 24th this year),
promote this event and concept at your business. Over one hundred million people were part of Small Business Saturday in 2011, and the initiative is supported by President Obama and SBA Administrator Karen Mills. Find out more about this event at www.smallbusinesssaturday.com or www.facebook.com/SmallBusinessSaturday

Marcia Bagnall is Director of the Chemeketa Small Business Development Center and instructor of Small Business Management Program . The Small-Business Adviser column is produced by the center and appears each
Sunday. Questions can be submitted to SBDC@chemeketa.edu. Visit the SBDC at 626 High Street NE in downtown Salem or call (503) 399-5088.

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Put Luck on Your Side by Doing Things Right

By Chemeketa SBDC

Have you ever noticed another business owner who seems to do everything right, get great reviews, have plenty of customers, and just make everything look easy? You might ask yourself how they get so lucky. They’re probably doing a few things right, and so can you. See how much “luck” you attract when you follow these guidelines.

• Tune your inner radar to “chance” opportunities. People and opportunities come frequently into our personal and business lives. Many of those may be unexpected, but could be great. Pay attention to them. Get into the habit of considering opportunities as they come along. You aren’t obligated to act on any of them, but you will be training your mind to see potential where you weren’t seeing it before.

• Consider the unexpected and new, don’t close your mind to things just because you aren’t used to them. Many opportunities come with potential blessings, but you won’t recognize them if you’re only looking for the same things all the time.

• Other people are the best avenue to serendipity. Maintain a large network of contacts. The more people you know and keep in contact with, the wider net you are casting for yourself. And the more likely it is that something fortunate will be in that net.

• Embrace the idea that there is a silver lining in dark clouds. Any adverse situation will have positive moments and providential meetings. Learn to capture those and see them as opportunities. It won’t reduce the pain of a negative situation, but it will provide opportunities for future good.

• Become an optimist if you’re not one already. Expecting good thing to happen will increase your chance of seeing the opportunities for good and capitalizing on them. The concept of “self-fulfilling prophecy” is real, so make a choice about how you regard your time and your future. You can decide to see the good in people and situations. You can choose to be hopeful and forward looking.

Marcia Bagnall is Director of the Chemeketa Small Business Development Center and instructor of Small Business Management Program . The Small-Business Adviser column is produced by the center and appears each
Sunday. Questions can be submitted to SBDC@chemeketa.edu. Visit the SBDC at 626 High Street NE. in downtown Salem or call (503) 399-5088.

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Use Product Differentiation as a Competitive Advantage

By Chemeketa SBDC

As a business advisor, I routinely ask my clients “What sets you apart from your competition?” and “What is your competitive advantage?” I frequently receive the answer “I charge less than my competition.” That always
raises red flags for me, and I worry about this business owner getting thinner
and thinner margins and needing to get ready to post the “going out of business” sign.

Gone are the days of the company store. Even in a small town, all businesses are in a global market with hundreds if not thousands of competitors. With so much competition, there are only two ways for businesses to compete: price and differentiation. Small businesses cannot compete on price with the large box stores, larger department stores or the Internet. The only way for small business to compete is on differentiation.

So what does that mean exactly? Product differentiation can be as simple as creative packaging or as elaborate as incorporating new functional features in a product. Sometimes differentiation does not involve changing the product at all, but instead it’s about creating a new advertising campaign or other sales promotions to highlight differences between one provider and another.

Differentiation strives to make a product or service more attractive by contrasting its unique qualities with other competing products. Successful product differentiation creates a competitive advantage for the seller as customers view these products as unique or superior. And that’s what the business owner wants the customer to focus on, not the price.

What sets you apart from everyone else? Here are some examples that may apply to you: proprietary know-how, intellectual property, your reputation and your brand’s equity, your high level of customer service, your convenient location, a speedy turn-around time, etc. And this is only a small sample.

Take some time to determine what your point of differentiation is and then build a marketing campaign around it. And for goodness sakes, stop talking about how your prices compare to everyone else’s.

Marcia Bagnall is Director of the Chemeketa Small Business Development Center and instructor of Small Business Management Program. The Small-Business Adviser column is produced by the center and appears each
Sunday. Questions can be submitted to SBDC@chemeketa.edu. Visit the SBDC at 626 High Street NE. in downtown Salem or call (503) 399-5088.

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Getting Cutomers to Pay You and Continue Coming Back

By Chemeketa SBDC

Times still are tough out there for most business owners and their customers. You may have customers who never had problems paying you in the past, but who have developed slow-pay habits over the past couple of years, or worse, stopped paying you altogether. How can you help these formerly good payers continue to pay you?

If you don’t already offer payment plans, then you should consider it. Sometimes this is the only way you’ll get paid at all, although it will take longer. You want to keep your customers, so make it possible (and comfortable) for them to pay you, even in small amounts.

The first thing to consider is how you are going to approach a slow-paying or non-paying customer. Being polite, reasonable and fair is a good start. No one likes to be yelled at or intimidated, and taking a strong “take no prisoners” stance will just lead to your customers hiding from you, avoiding phone calls, and stalling.

Have a conversation with your customer that begins with asking questions about what’s going on with them. You will learn why they aren’t paying you, and what might be reasonable for them going forward. After this discovery process, make a clear request for specific amounts at specific times. Don’t make the mistake of asking the customer how much he can pay, keep control
of the conversation. Agree on a payment plan together.

Follow up the conversation with a letter that details the arrangement. You can start with a sentence like “Here’s a recap of our conversation today (date) regarding the (specific dollar amount) still owed from the previous (specific time period).

Then detail the terms agreed on, the number of payments and their dates, and any other details. Be very clear about everything, and include a stamped payment envelope for extra emphasis. Be sure to include a sentence or two about how much you appreciate this customer working to make this debt good, and how you look forward to working with them in the future.

Marcia Bagnall is Director of the Chemeketa Small Business Development Center and instructor of Small Business Management Program. The Small-Business Adviser column is produced by the center and appears each
Sunday. Questions can be submitted to SBDC@chemeketa.edu. Visit the SBDC at 626 High Street NE. in downtown Salem or call (503) 399-5088.

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Project Management Can Help Run Business

By Chemeketa SBDC

Do you sometimes wonder if you are running your business or your business is running you? One of the greatest services our advisors offer at the Small Business Development Center (SBDC) is helping an owner step back and see the pieces of the puzzle that make up the entire organization. To tackle any given part of your organizational needs may best be viewed as a project. Managing a project (or many projects) may give you the perspective you need to solve one issue at a time. (It’s not unlike the joke, “How do you eat an elephant?”)

Project management is simply a process. Break it into several steps. Identify the problem (issue, opportunity, etc.) Design the solution. Implement your plan. And finally, evaluate the results. For now — concentrate on steps 1 and 2 — Identification and Design.

The first step is to analyze the situation. What is the problem, issue or opportunity? Define it as clearly as you can – the more clarity here, the easier the design, implementation and evaluation will be. For example, if you are seeing a decreasing cash balance, you may identify the project as “increasing the number of customers.” If that is the solution then your efforts (project plan) will be focused on getting more people into the business OR it could be about increasing sales to existing customers. But (and a big but), if loss of cash is really about having a miscalculation in your pricing strategy, bringing in more customers will simply break you faster than the current rate. This is the most critical part of project planning. Identify the real issue – not just the symptoms.

Then you can begin to design the solution. This includes the scope of the project, the budget required, the return on investment expected, the activities, the timeline and specifically, who will be responsible for each outcome. This cannot be done in your head. This must be documented, consulted and updated on a regular basis. This is a step that you cannot skip. If you don’t know where you are going – you are not going to know when you get there.

In our example, if your project is to “increase the number of customers,” you need to know by how many? Compared to what? In what given time period? How much will it cost? What does that translate into as a cost per customer? (If it costs you $100 to recruit each new customer and their average sale is $10 – this plan makes no sense.) How will you attract the customers? What tools will you use and when?

This is the beginning of project management. Before you begin, you need a plan. If you jump into the water without knowing how far it is across – you may or not make it, you may or may not expend a lot of energy (and resources) without an achievable goal.

Marcia Bagnall is Director of the Chemeketa Small Business Development Center and instructor of Small Business Management Program. The Small-Business Adviser column is produced by the center and appears each Sunday. Questions can be submitted to SBDC@chemeketa.edu. Visit the SBDC at 626 High Street NE. in downtown Salem or call (503) 399-5088.

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What Small Biz Can Learn From the Tech Industry

By Chemeketa SBDC

“The Lean Startup” has become a book that every tech entrepreneur has read and quotes regularly. Eric Reis, the author of the book, coined the term “lean startup” to reframe what it means to be a startup and the process that a startup should follow to ensure success… or at least to take a good stab at it. The main premise of the book is that a startup is simply a
series of experiments. Experiments that have a hypothesis (an idea to test), limited variables to test (test certain aspects of your idea, not the whole idea at once), and success measurements (how you know when you succeeded or failed).

By executing and completing these experiments, you are continually refining and defining your product and target market. Through the experiments, you might find out that no one will buy your product, or that a completely overlooked demographic is actually your target market. In the long run, testing small aspects of your idea will save you time and money because you will be forced to focus on the product that will sell and not on superfluous
aspects of your business that do not contribute to your bottom line.

While “The Lean Startup” is written specifically for tech startups, the principles can be and must be applied to small start-up business and social ventures. Here are some examples on how applying the lean start-up principles might look in a small business.

Business idea: Car mechanic Hypothesis: People want a car mechanic in a convenient
location.

Experiment: Find a neighborhood that has to travel 5 miles to get to a car mechanic. Go door to door and offer to provide basic services at their residence.

Measurements: Get 30 percent of car-owning neighborhood residents to pay for services.

Why it works? You will be able to determine if a convenient location is a problem. You will start to build a customer base before making the capital investments into a building.

Business idea: Organization services

Hypothesis: People want to get organized because it makes them calm.

Experiment: In the same time frame, send out two sets of marketing materials. One that uses words and colors that reflect calm, peace, tranquility, etc., and the other that uses words and colors that represent efficiency, time-saving, productivity, etc.

Measurements: Record which marketing materials created the most interest.

Why it works? You will be able to see what motivates people to get organized and develop a customer-centric marketing strategy.

Using the lean startup principles can be intimidating and might be counter intuitive to traditional startup thinking. The fact is you can plan as much as you want but in reality business plans reflect the world that’s in your mind, and not the world that actually exists. To start a successful business from the beginning, you need to be in the trenches with your
potential customers.

Now time for my experiment: Are you interested in learning more about lean startup rinciples and how you can incorporate them into your startup or existing business or nonprofit? If you are, contact me at kmozian@chemeketa.edu or 503-399-5088 and let’s chat.

Kristen Mozian is a business advisor working with the MERIT Microenterprise Program at the Chemeketa Small Business Development Center, www.sbdc.chemeketa.edu.

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Three Social Media Don’t Do’s

By Chemeketa SBDC

As a business owner it’s tempting to think that social media will solve all your marketing problems. It’s free, right? And reaches a vast audience, right? Well, maybe. There are better and worse ways to use social media. Here are a few common errors to avoid.

• Blatant self-promotion. Who appreciates a self-involved bore? No one and especially not customers. Think about social media as a conversation that is only partially about you, and mostly about the folks you’re talking with. Like any good conversation, it’s a free flow of ideas where no one person dominates the action.

This means that it’s important for people to leave comments, “like” what you put out, and generally interact with you. Get back to them with comments and posts that show you’re paying attention to what they say. Encourage participation that focuses on them and not you.

• The hard sell. This is just as unappealing on social media as it is in person. No one wants to hear the “buy me!” message being trumpeted at high volume. Social media is about building relationships, not using people to get to their wallets.

Experts say that 10 percent or less of your content should be a marketing pitch. This is one out of ten messages (or less). That means the other nine messages should be about providing information, answering questions, affirming what others say, and serving as a trusted resource. Social media shouldn’t be your entire marketing focus anyway, and that means that you can ask for a sale in other channels.

• Believing that just because it doesn’t cost you anything means it’s free. Wrong! There’s a big cost to your time (and your staff’s time) in keeping up with the social media channels you’ve chosen. To do this well you need to be paying attention several times a day. Think about the number of hours you can devote to this and assign a cost. Consider how social
media marketing fits into your workday and the workloads of you and your staff.
If you’re doing this, what else are you not doing, and what’s the opportunity
cost to that?

In order to do this well you should choose only one or two social media avenues and focus your energies there, and not scatter-shot by trying to be everywhere. Better to do a couple of things well than many things poorly.

Marcia Bagnall is Director of the Chemeketa Small Business Development Center and instructor of Small Business Management Program. The Small-Business Adviser column is produced by the center. Questions can be submitted to SBDC@chemeketa.edu. Visit
the SBDC at 626 High Street NE. in downtown Salem or call (503) 399-5088.

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For Business Owners, Multitasking May Not be What it’s Cracked Up to Be

By Chemeketa SBDC

In the fast-paced, high-tech lives of many business owners multitasking has become an art form, something to be proud of and maybe even brag about. But be careful, it may not be all it’s cracked up to be.

Business owners do have a lot on their hands: juggling bookkeeping, social media, website updates, customer service, fulfilling orders, stocking inventory, opening and closing the store, tending to employees, etc. And while accomplishing a number of things in the same moment may feel satisfying and buy time in the short run, in the long run it may backfire.

Have you ever tried to carry too many grocery bags from the car into the house so you didn’t have to make more than one trip — only to drop half the bags and make a mess before you were able to get them on the kitchen counter? The same thing goes for trying to do too much in business.

Writing that e-newsletter while talking to a customer on the phone may look like this: part of your conversation with your customer ends up in your newsletter and because you didn’t have time (or didn’t take the time) to have someone proofread it, you sent it out as is.

Trying to update your QuickBooks while posting things to your business’ Facebook page may look like this: You end up posting your profit for the last month and that client whose account is past due on Facebook.

Ultimately, you may end up disappointing a customer, embarrassing yourself, and getting less done than you would have if you’d just slowed down and done one thing at a time. In fact, a Harvard Business Review blog post, “How (and Why) to Stop Multitasking,” says that multitasking leads to as much as a 40 percent drop in productivity, increased stress, and a 10 percent drop in IQ.

So, as a business owner, what can you do to reduce multitasking and still get everything done?

Slow Down: Believe it or not, you are more efficient and effective when you aren’t rushing from one thing to the next.

Prioritize: Instead of trying to get everything done at once, determine what is most important. What needs to happen first and what can wait?

Turn off your cell phone: Ok, not forever, just for the hour or so you need to focus on an important project. Consider it an experiment; see how much more quickly you get that project done without all the interruptions.

Schedule down time: Everyday, schedule even five minutes of time where you can close your eyes, breathe, and let all the work you have to get done wait on you, wait on what’s most important, retaining your sanity and reducing stress.

Ask for help: Business owners are known to try to do too much, to try and do it all themselves. If you aren’t in a position to hire employees, consider temporary help, a virtual assistant, or even asking your teenager to stuff envelopes for you. You may be self-employed but that doesn’t mean you have to do it all alone.

Joanne Scharer is a business adviser at the Chemeketa Small Business Development Center and owner of All Writing Matters. She can be reached at sbdc@chemeketa.edu

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