Are you complacent about your business and your customers?

Are you complacent about your business and your customers?

A recent new venture of mine has highlighted that many businesses do just that.

I identified a niche - that Holy Grail of business ideas.

The niche was created when one business, that had gone part way to fulfilling that niche, ceased on the death of the owner. For 12 months I looked at the void that was left and fully expected one of the remaining providers to snap up the opportunity.

But no, they just carried on doing what they've always done, happy with the extra market share that fell into their hands as they were the only alternatives.

Just under a year ago I said 'enough is enough'. If no one else is going to do it, then I will.

So the planning started.

The venture was launched at the back of 2010 and the formula, as I predicted, has proved very successful.

Now at that point, if I was one of the existing businesses, I would have at last woken up to the fact that I needed to re-think my offering by working hard to change, and update so that I could compete at the same level.

The bizarre thing is that they're not! All they are doing is trying to make it difficult for me to continue and, you might not believe this, bullying their current customers into boycotting me (both totally unsuccessful I might add).

What can you learn from this?

Every business MUST avoid sitting back on it's laurels.
It's all too easy to be complacent and believe that the status quo will continue. Reality is that there is always someone looking at your success, trying to work out how they can improve or modify what you do and carve themselves sufficient market share to make a decent profit.

You MUST constantly look at ways to improve your product or service to retain your customers.

Businesses either decline or grow. They very rarely stand still for long.

I feel jealous.

Why? Because I spoke to a lady today who knows she is to be made redundant after many years in the public sector and is planning to start her own business when that happens in a few months.

But why should I feel jealous about that?

Most of us in business work on the 'just in time' model.

Sometimes we come up with new ideas, products or directions and they need to be actioned NOW. Maybe because financially we need to, or perhaps it's a small window of opportunity that someone else will fill if we don't act right away.

That means we have little time to make really good preparations and build the confidence building collateral our prospects might look for to justify calling us. So we wing it!

Wouldn't it be nice, just sometimes, to have the luxury of time.

Don't switch off

A client of mine called me today and we were chatting about how his business was doing. He'd been struggling to get enough work in for his family team over the past year. Times have been tough in the building sector.


He told me that he and his wife had been out for a meal a few weeks ago and the locally owned gastro pub they chose was looking a little tired but the food was fantastic.

Remembering what I'd taught him - never miss a business opportunity - he took a note of the owners details and contacted him later to show him their portfolio.

It hasn't got him the pub job - yet - but it did get him a three month contract to do a major project in one of the family homes.

Turns out that the pub is one of three they own in the area and, if all goes well with the current job, he'll be well positioned to take on the renovation work that's planned for them.

Sometimes being in the right place at the right time can get you work.

But, if you 'switch off' when you are out socially, you might not realise that you're in the right place, at the right time, right now!

Terry Rees and his family owned property maintenance and repair business is based just outside Norwich.
http://www.propertymaintenanceandrepair.co.uk/

Get Ready for a Great 2010

Christmas is just about over and the New Year is just around the corner.

Going by the activity in the last quarter, 2010 looks set to be much better for buisness. Most seem to be waking up to the fact that sitting on your hands and doing nothing, hoping to sit it out and that the storm will just pass by isn't an option.

Doing the Second World War, Cadbury's chocolate continued to advertise heavily despite a severe shortage of their products and no chance of increasing revenue. But, once hostilities ceased and production restarted fully, the Cadbury's name was the one on peoples mind. It built their business to be the strong brand it is today.

Don't sit on the fence and wait for the world to pass you by. Get out there and let everyone know who you are and what you do - the business world hasn't stopped.

If you need help working out the best way to get your products and services in front of the right people - on the internet or in the real world - call me at Alloy CRM for a chat and see if I can help.

So this is how the World economy works

It is the month of August, on the shores of the Black Sea. It is raining, and the little town looks totally deserted. It is tough times, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit.

Suddenly, a rich tourist comes to town. He enters the only hotel, lays a 100 Euro note on the reception counter, and goes to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to choose one. The hotel proprietor takes the 100 Euro note and runs to pay his debt to the butcher.

The butcher takes the 100 Euro note, and runs to pay his debt to the pig grower. The pig grower takes the 100 Euro note, and runs to pay his debt to the supplier of his feed and fuel. The supplier of feed and fuel takes the 100 Euro note and runs to pay his debt to the town's prostitute that in these hard times, gave her "services" on credit. The hooker runs to the hotel, and pays off her debt with the 100 Euro note to the hotel proprietor to pay for the rooms that she rented when she brought her clients there.

The hotel proprietor then lays the 100 Euro note back on the counter so that the rich tourist will not suspect anything.

At that moment, the tourist comes down after inspecting the rooms, and takes his 100 Euro note, after saying that he did not like any of the rooms, and leaves town.

No one earned anything. However, the whole town is now without debt, and looks to the future with a lot of optimism.... .

Someone made me think about networking

As the Chapter Director of a BNI (Business Network International) group in Norwich, I was passed the contact details of someone who had shown interest in visiting and maybe joining our group. I sent out the appropriate invitation and received a reply that said they had spoken to most of our members at other networking events and they were not able to sell to them then, so there would be no point in joining. I sent them a polite (hopefully) reply explaining what networking is really about.

Yes there will always be an element of the hunter in us all at networking events, some events are more suited to it than others. Andy Bounds excellent book The Jelly Effect explains how to maximise this process well. He goes through the process of identifying your 'Big Fish' in the room and succeeding in securing a meeting later to discuss business opportunities.

However groups like BNI work on a different dimension. They are based on relationships. Understanding what your fellow members do, how they add value and their ideal target customer gives us the background knowledge we need to find them suitable prospective customers in our daily travels and maybe within our own client base.

To do this effectively we spend a great deal of time understanding each others business and gaining confidence and trust in their ability to fulfil. That's not a quick win. It takes time to build that sort of relationship, but once it's there is very sound and can be very lucrative.

So if you're just about to look at networking as a new form of marketing then make sure you understand how networking works before you blunder out there and think it's a waste of time.

Roy Gough of Alloy CRM helps businesses increase sales both on and off line.

Selling is all about the numbers

Selling is all about the numbers

"Make a better mousetrap" they said, "And people will beat a path to your door"

Hmmm... Well, woe betide anyone in business who thinks that philosophy alone will make them their first million.

The business world is littered with fantastic ideas and products that would knock the socks off the competition - but have died a painful death through financial ruin. Yet, conversly, there are any number of second rate offerings that continue to thrive.

What's the difference?

The second created sales opportunities for themselves, the first just sat back and waited for the sales to come to them.

And how do you think those successful businesses 'created' sales opportunities?

They went out and got their sales message across to as many people as possible. The more they speak to, the more they sold.

I suspect, at this point, there are some folk out there wagging a finger at me saying 'Work Smarter, Not Harder'.

I absolutely agree. Working smarter means making sure that all of those people you speak to are of the right calibre to be your customers, so that you are not wasting time on people who are never going to, or able to, buy.

But make sure you talk to as many people of the right calibre as you can! That's smart, but it's also damn hard too.

Getting to speak to the right people or attracting them to your website in significant numbers is vital to your business success.

If you need help, talk to me about my Sales Accelerator Program to Increase your Sales and Profit.