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Tag: small business advice

Your Business Success Checklist for 2016

October 14, 2015 /

by Gail Oliver, Online Marketing Consultant

As we are in the final months of 2015, it is a good time to look at your business and decide how successful your year has been so far and what changes you need to make to have continued success in 2016.

business success checklist 2016

1. Are Your Sales Increasing?

It is critical that you compare your sales from year to year, as well as month over year (for example, are your August 2015 sales stronger than your August 2014 sales). This really helps you see overall annual growth as well as if you have any seasonal highs and lows.

I highly recommend you set up a spreadsheet where you enter your sales for each month of the year (in a column) with sales for the previous year’s months in the column to the left. Then in the column to the right of your current sales determine your sales growth, by month and by year, by entering the calculations:

[sales for Month X 2015 – sales for Month X 2014] / sales for Month X 2014

[sales for 2015 – sales for 2014] / sales for 2014

This will arrive at a percentage. Overall sales should never be down from the previous year. If this is the case, then you need to rethink your business in terms of your offerings, your pricing, your costs and whether you need to invest more in marketing.

2. Are Your Costs Increasing?

It is also important to look at your profit, which is Revenue – Costs. Is your profit up over last year and month over year? Again, if profits are down you need to consider raising your prices and/or lowering your costs, especially if your revenues increased. It doesn’t have to be a huge price increase. If profits are down 10%, then you can easily raise your prices 10% and it should have little negative impact on your business. If your costs have increased, then you need to analyze each cost center (be it supplies, fees, shipping) and see which ones increased in price and find alternatives.

3. What Were Your Revenue Leaders?

Look at which products and/or services performed the best for you in 2015 and consider expanding further in this area, slowly eliminating or reinventing products and services that did not sell as well.

4. What is Working For Your Competitors?

Take a look at your competitors and see what they are selling, what their customers are saying in their reviews and on their social media sites. Try to garner what is working for them in terms of their business offerings and marketing efforts and see which ideas you can steal.

5. Are You Listening to Your Feedback?

Listen to your customers. Read your reviews, comments, feedback, even ask your customers questions. If they feel your prices are too high, consider lowering them if that makes business sense. If they didn’t like the quality of a product, improve upon it. If there is a product or service you don’t have that they want, consider offering it.

6. What Marketing Efforts Are Working?

You need to study your website analytics, even though it will not tell you which traffic sources converted into sales, it is still a way to decide which efforts you should be spending time on and which you should maybe discontinue. For example, if two-thirds of your traffic is coming from Pinterest and very little from Twitter, then stop wasting time on Twitter and dedicate even more time to Pinterest. If your Google ads are not bringing in a lot of traffic, contact a Google Adwords rep and ask how your ads can be improved. If you have been avoiding social media altogether, then maybe now’s the time to give it a chance. Remember, it is futile to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results.

7. Are You Maximizing Your Customer Base?

How many new customers did you get last year? Guess what, they are still potential customers in 2016! Find ways to tap into your already established customer base – either through special offers on your social media sites or a Mail Chimp email campaign – to get additional business from them (as well as referral business) in 2016.

Just 3 More Things to Do…

Thanks so much for your support!

Gail

© 2015 Gail Oliver, Attention Getting Marketing. All rights reserved.

Tips for Success When You’re a Newbie in a Crowded Market

November 11, 2014 /

by Gail Oliver, Marketing Consultant

Are you just about to dive into a market that many others are already in, and doing it well? Are you offering a service that so many other, more experienced people with huge client bases are also offering?

 

So what to do when you are newbie or late entrant into your market? Give up? No. There is always room for new players, if you do one or both of these things:

  • Improve upon the weaknesses of your competitors
  • Find a niche no one else is targeting

Improve Upon Competitors’ Weaknesses

No company is perfect. Even successful companies like Apple have their weaknesses. One of the biggest complaints people have had for years is that  the iPhone has a horrible battery life. If another company were  to come along and offer everything the iPhone does, plus superior battery power, that may be enough for some customers to switch over.

Maybe you just opened a dental practice, and all the dental offices in your city close at 5:00 pm, frustrating those patients who can’t afford time off work. Simply keep your office open to 8 pm just a few days a week, to capitalize on this need.

A great way to find competitors’ weaknesses is to go to Yelp and read what their customers are saying. Whatever customers hate about their business, make sure these will be the things people will love about yours.

Find a Niche or Specialty to Target

The worse thing you can ever try to do as a business is try to be all things to all people. If you can find and specialize in a niche, you will have much better success. For example, if you have just become a realtor, finding new clients is always a challenge. You can target the newlyweds or the empty nester looking to downsize, like everyone else is, or you go after a niche your colleagues may not have considered, such as the out-of-town-buyer. Approach the Human Resources department of local companies who appear to be doing a lot of recruiting from other cities and states for new talent. This new talent will need help finding a new home, and that is where you can make sure you get first crack at the business.

Maybe you sell gadget cases for phones and devices. Everyone seems to be targeting their designs towards the female market, but why not create cases whose designs specifically target kids. Do you know how many young kids have a phone and/or iPad these days? In fact, iPad cases for kids is a top Google search because this segment of the market is growing so fast. Don’t be surprised if soon all pre-schoolers have their own phone. Jump on the new and upcoming market segments if you hope to be a leader in your field.

GB OliverNeed My Advice?  Email me at attentiongetting@gmail.com to find out how I can advise and come up with some creative marketing ideas just for you.

© 2012-2014 Gail Oliver. All rights reserved.

 

 

8 Keys to a Successful Business

March 6, 2014 /

Here are my 8 keys to a successful business as well as the hard facts. THERE IS NO MAGIC SECRET. Anyone who tells you there is, is lying. If you expect success to come quickly and easily, you might as well stop now (but don’t).

Key to a Successful Business #1: Believing It Will Be Successful

It doesn’t matter if anyone else does, it only matters that you do. Negativity and doubt breed negative results.

Key to a Successful Business #2: Work Hard

I don’t know anyone who is successful and didn’t have a long, hard road getting there. Expect to invest endless hours in your business, especially in the beginning. But once you have a steady customer base and a good reputation, things will come easier.Keys to a Successful Business

Key to a Successful Business #3: Be Patient

Nothing happens overnight, and you really don’t want too much success too quickly if you are not prepared to handle it. That can hurt your business. So set goals you wish to achieve daily, monthly and yearly and see those as a measure of success to stay motivated.

Key to a Successful Business #4: Be Willing to Change

I am constantly reminded of the famous quote, “Stupidity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results“. If your current marketing efforts are not working, why keep doing them, try something else.

Keys to a Successful Business

This art print is from LuciusArt on Etsy

Key to a Successful Business #5: Stop Compaing

I get this a lot. Why is this company that does the same thing I do, so much more successful? It could be a variety of reasons. First to market always helps. Maybe they have a large friends and family referral business. Maybe they had a personal contact at a major publication that brought substantial publicity. Maybe it’s just pure luck. Who knows for sure. Forget about them and focus on you. I have competitors, we all have competitors, but it is a large marketplace and you can carve out your own niche.

Key to a Successful Business #6: Take Advice

I have a lot of clients who come back to me asking why they are not getting results, only to find out they did not implement all the tactics I suggested, probably because they are hesitant to change (read #4 again). The truth is, you are not objective about your own business as you are just too close to it. So if you pay for professional advice trust what they are saying to do and do it.

Keys to a Successful Business

Key to a Successful Business #7: Invest in Your Business

Whether it is consulting services, advertising, graphic design, SEO, and so forth, you have to spend money to make money. If you are not willing to invest in your business, you are not serious about it.

Key to a Successful Business #8: Don’t Give Up

Failure is part of being successful. Everyone fails, the difference is successful people keep trying, they don’t give up.

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