Don't Blame the Economy

Good and bad economic conditions come and go like a roller coaster and will continue to do so. When the economy, either the country or world, is less than perfect buyers are looking for new ideas. Most people and businesses still have to buy products and services but are more cautious and getting the most value for the money spent. When you can add some additional value to what you are selling you will have an advantage over other competitors. Value added products and services do much better when people feel that money is tight. The rich feel this way all the time (maybe that's how they got rich).

Many of the giant companies today started their business in tough economic times and provides more than the buyer expected or a new concept for an old product. They found that there was less competition at that time because others were hesitant about trying anything new. The opposite is what makes a company grow quickly when there is no one to stop them or hold them back. When the market conditions bounce back (as they always do) the competitors are playing catch-up to the company who has taken the lead and has most of the customers.

When you have a new and possibly great idea or improvement to an existing product or service, don't wait for for the economy, get started now. There's a good chance that you can be way ahead of your competitors before they even realize what happened. Remember that a great general doesn't give out his battle plan before he attacks, he just forges ahead and claims victory!

By Barry Thomsen, business speaker & trainer, international author of 6 books, business coach/advisor. www.idealetter.com

New Franchise Concept

Like most other businesses, franchises are often saddled with short- and long-term costs. Capital investments, rents, employee compensation, inventory, maintenance and other overhead are normally a fact of life. Unless, that is, the franchise is a new style of business that requires no capital investments, no full-time employees, relatively low startup costs and minor overhead.

An emerging business concept, it is a nationwide system of franchises that provides homeowners and small business with highly qualified, certified and reliable service contractors ranging from maintenance, repair and emergency services to select professions such as architectural design, landscaping and even services such as voice training, pet sitting or fitness training.

“Our franchise business is like the AAA auto club for homeowners,” says Sam Goodwin of San Diego. “The auto club not only provides roadside services, but also discounted rates at hotels and other travel-related sites that provide extra value for its members. Our home services franchise does that and a lot more.”

For the past couple of years Goodwin’s franchise has provided contractor services including a plethora of trades, including plumbers, electricians, carpenters, painters, air conditioning & heating specialists, roofers and handymen – virtually any type of maintenance, repair or construction service that are needed by homeowners, rental home owners or small businesses today.

All these services are thoroughly checked out and verified as reliable by the network continually, so members know they are getting reliable, trustworthy professionals to deal with. Membership in the network provides ancillary services as well that range from music lessons to piano moving, maid services and RV rentals, in addition to discounts on purchases of items such as appliances from quality suppliers like Sears.

This unique approach is reinventing the way people think about home services. For the franchisee, it allows one the freedom to be their own boss, to achieve financial success and community involvement to whatever extent is desired while not locking one in to fixed assets such as facilities, inventories and full-time employees.

Goodwin, a former corporate executive, says he was looking to own his own business, either a pure start-up or a franchise that offered him the control of a system that he could build on.

“The business concept made a lot of sense to me,” Goodwin explains. “It fulfills a real need, gives me a strong business platform to build on, and also allows me the latitude to develop the business in my own way.”

Fast ROI

This franchise does not require the capital investments, staff, facilities, inventory or other ongoing expenses of many franchises. Most franchisees work from home, using only a computer, telephone and professional answering service.

The low overhead and a growing market contribute to the unusually fast return on the initial franchise investment. Most franchisees experience a complete ROI within one to three years. In the case of Goodwin, it took about 18 months.

By Craig Madans, HOCOA 4701 Hedgemore Dt., Charlotte, NC 28270; Phone: (704) 527-7660; Email: corporate@hocoa.com; or visit the web site: www.hocoa.com/

It Takes Time to Build a Business

One of my mentors once said to me, "It takes at least four or five years to see if a company is going to work. Generally more. If you're really fast, maybe you can get a sense of where things are going by the end of Year Three."
This surprised me at the time. But I've come to realize that he was right.
There have been many recent accounts of companies becoming immediate successes, particularly in the Internet space. But for most businesses, 'overnight success' is an outlier. Generally, a company makes progress incrementally, and the overnight success was years in the making.

Even for the rare product or software app that does become a rapid hit, it often took the programmers or product developers or designers time to build up the necessary expertise. In many cases, they might have worked on some earlier product that no one ever heard of, learned from it, and came back to build something great. Rovio was around for six years and underwent layoffs before the 'instant' success of Angry Birds, for example.*
Think about what goes into a company. First, the founders are on the drawing board developing the concept, testing ideas and preparing the offering. Sometimes this takes months in itself. They have to spend a considerable amount of time gathering resources (people, capital, know-how, sourcing, vendors, infrastructure). Then, the company has to land its first customers who kick the tires and make suggestions.
Sometimes these initial customers aren't paying. The feedback the founders get at each stage can take months to incorporate. A company can set off in one direction, figures out that it's not the right way to go, and then go in an entirely new direction. Over time, the product or service improves, and the company gets better at executing and delivering.
Eventually, the initial customers are happy enough that they tell their friends, and word of mouth slowly spreads.** Vendors begin assuming you're going to pay them. The company may even start generating enough revenue so that it can invest in sales and business development, perhaps migrating to multiple locations or new distribution channels.
All of the above typically describes a painstaking, multi-year process. Most businesses require a complex network of relationships to function (e.g., staff, investors, suppliers, vendors, partners, customers), and these relationships take time to build. In many instances, you have to be around for a few years to receive consistent recognition. And it often takes time for staff, and founders, to become effective in their roles.
Experienced entrepreneurs have a number of advantages where pace is concerned. First, they know roughly how long it will take to get something done if they've done it before. Second, they can move faster because many of the necessary relationships are already in place (e.g., they can call people they've worked with, use the same lawyer/accountant/P.R. firm, draw on earlier investors, reach out to past customers, etc.). Third, they can proceed more decisively because of greater confidence in their judgment, both internally and externally.
Still, if you're building a new business, you should expect it to take time, as in several years at least. If you're not prepared to fully invest yourself in the business for 3 -5 years, you might not want to start down the road, particularly if you're planning on having other people rely upon you. Prepare yourself for the long haul, and maybe you'll surprise yourself if it develops faster than you think.
By Andrew Yang

Make It Better

The best way for a business to survive and grow is to make your customer/client experience better - all the time. People will expect more than they received in the past and if you won't give it to them, they will find someone else who will. Here are some ideas for making your customer experience better.

 *Outdo the Golden Rule and give more than you expect.
 *It's little things that will matter, lots of them
 *Get to know customers/clients by names and the way they like to do business
 *Give free information, tips and advice cheerfully
 *Ask for referrals and a testimonial if they are satisfied
 *Give your best customers perks and they don't have to be big things
 *Solve problems quickly and fairly
 *Remember you customer's preferences like colors, price range, how they like their coffee etc.
 *Don't talk down about competitors, just explain your best benefits
 *Keep smiling, even if it hurts

Barry is a speaker, entrepreneur, business coach and published author of 6 business books. www.idealetter.com

How Much of Your Time Is Billable?

Self employment has a lot of juicy benefits, but billing hours for dollars has it’s drawbacks. When you work for someone else, you turn up, do your work, and get paid..week in…week out. Yes even when you’re not being productive (I don’t think youtube and facebook are part of most peoples job descriptions).
There is no measure of financial reward against productivity or output in most employees lives.
Self employment. Ah now that’s a different kettle of fish.
We set our work calendar, define our hours. Suddenly you realize that all those hours don’t equate to money.
A good deal of time is swallowed up on the small stuff that goes unrecognized. Suddenly you’re 40 hour week has shrunk to 20, effectively halving your earnings capacity.
If you’re not earning what you would like, I suggest that you take a look at where your time is being eaten up to see if you can’t squeeze some more billable hours into your time schedule.
Here’s a shortlist of some areas that might be eating into your paid work time.

Administration

Poorly organized or piecemeal tasks may be causing you to spend more time in this area than needs be. Systems will streamline your ability to get things done, as well as setting time aside to tackle admin requirements in a block, rather than doing tasks here and there. You could also look at outsourcing your admin too.

Meetings

Are they necessary. If they are can they be less frequent. Or perhaps shorter more on focused on a particular task, rather than trying to solve world issues in a single sitting.
Could you meet virtually instead of traveling, can you combine meetings with individuals to making them more collective. Can you be more selective with your meeting attendees, eliminate the ramblers if you will.
I mean, really… a lot of these “meetings” really turn out to be completely non productive time sucks. Be well guarded of your time on the meeting front.

Client Acquisition

This too could fall under the meeting scenario. Obviously time has to be allocated to this function of your business, without clients there’s no one to bill, right? But take a look at how your are doing things in this area. Are you minimizing the impact on your time, maybe by running your client meetings or calls in particular time blocks or are you “on call” which can be really disruptive to your productivity.
Do you have a system in place to lead the potential client efficiently through the process of becoming a client? Can you replicate all elements so that you’re not having to reinvent the wheel each time you take on a new client. Can you put in a filter process to take you out of the loop until a certain stage.

Teams

You may be fortunate enough to have built a team to support your business, in which case you should have more billable hours at your disposal. That is, unless the team is now taking as much time out of your day as it was to complete the tasks you’ve given them. I would hope not. But it does happen.
Assess the time you’re spending on team functions, meetings, project management, training etc. How can you streamline the time you spend on team management. Create evergreen trainings, work wiki’s, reference or swipe files for your team to fall back on rather than you.
By Jackie Purnell

Start-Up Marketing Plan

Start with the marketing plan.
There are two reasons: 1) You must know who is your paying customer; 2) You must know how you are going to stand out in the marketplace. Once armed with these two critical points, you’ll be ready to write your full business plan.

Your Marketing Plan should answer the following questions:
• What is/are your product(s) or service(s)?
• Who is the target market customer?
• What is your placement strategy?
• How will your product or service be distributed?
• How will you price your product or service?
• How will you promote your product or service?
• What are the sales activities that must be executed on a daily, weekly and monthly basis to achieve your marketing goals?
• What are your budgetary needs to execute your marketing plan?

Market Analysis: Outline the business opportunity, then drill down to what share of the market you believe you can capture. Define each customer segment in terms of revenue. Include trends analysis about your industry and define where the market is going. If you are not in a growth industry you need to understand how long you can pursue your business strategy before the market moves or is saturated.
Explain your target customer and niche strategy. Make your description:
1. Meaningful – know the problem you will solve, and offer a real solution.
2. Sizable –make sure the market you want is large enough to turn a profit.
3. Reachable – be certain you have the resources to reach your target audience.
Remember, your network is your net worth when starting a business.
Competitive Analysis: Today, your customers’ needs are already being met by some other vendor or company. Describe your top three competitors, their strengths, and their weaknesses. Explain why their current customer will buy your product or service over theirs.
Customer Profile: Describe your customer in detail. Your description should enable anyone to see the face of your customer. Based on this information, you can now create a message and then a strategy on how you plan to communicate with your target customer.
Niche: Define a niche market for your products and services. You have limited time and limited resources as a small business, so you need to pick a lane and be disciplined enough to stay there. Strive to own an area of specialty. Think about it this way, which makes more money — your primary care physician or your cardiologist. Niche to get rich.
Your Signature Move: Michael Jackson was famous for the moonwalk. What is your signature move? Defining your secret sauce or signature move will enable you to stand out in the market place. A signature move could be uniforms, an extra free service, how you say thank you, a discount coupon for the next time. Little things can be big winner with your clients.
Marketing Budget: Now you know who you are selling to, your niche, the competition and your signature move, you must develop a budget to execute your marketing plan. Once you have a 30-day revenue goal, you need to determine how many sales leads you need to generate to hit that number each month. Then you need to figure out how many resources you need to put those leads in your pipeline (website, sales people, call center, tradeshow, Facebook ads etc.)
BY Melinda F. Emerson

Avoid Becoming Obsolete

 

When you look at the industries that have collapsed, or are in the process of collapsing, you realize that those industries were usually serving consumer needs that have not gone away. People still need to read the news. They still enjoy reading books, watching movies and travelling. What they don’t necessarily need was the same way of fulfilling those needs.
The leading companies in each of the declining industries are almost never the ones who benefit from their long-term understanding of consumer needs because they are invested in the method of fulfilling those needs.
Barnes and Noble, for example, was late to the party with e-commerce and the Nook was a me-too by the time it was launched. When you are so heavily invested (both mentally and in terms of capital investment) in the old way of fulfilling needs, it takes incredible courage to disrupt yourself.
By the time desperate, last ditch moves are made to change the model, it’s usually too late.
If you’re in an industry that has been successful in the past but you now see yourself slipping, take heart. You understand one thing about that industry better than the entrepreneurial start-ups.
You have been satisfying consumers’ needs for something for a long time. Start with that knowledge. Wipe everything else on the slate clean and ask yourself these questions:

• How do they want it fulfilled today and in the foreseeable future?
• Can I satisfy that need by packaging it differently, or delivering it differently?
• Am I capable of doing what’s necessary to change?

By Ilana Rabinowitz