The first thing you must do is calculate your minimum and maximum allowable ad budgets:

• Step 1: Take 10 percent and 12 percent of your projected annual gross sales and multiply each by the markup made on your average transaction. In this first step, it’s important to remember that we’re talking about gross markup here, not margin. Markup is gross profit above cost, expressed as a percentage of cost. Margin is gross profit expressed as a percentage of the selling price. Sell an item for $150 when it only costs you $100, and your markup is 50 percent.

  Your margin, however, is only 33.3 percent. This is because the same $50 gross profit represents 50 percent of your cost (markup,) but only 33.3 percent of the selling price (margin.) Most retail stores in America (carpet, jewelry and so on) operate on an average markup of approximately 100 percent, some operate on as little as 50 percent markup and others add as much as 200. More expensive items, such as cars, recreational vehicles and houses, typically carry a markup of only 10 to 15 percent.

• Step 2: Deduct your annual cost of occupancy (rent) from the adjusted 10 percent of sales number and the adjusted 12 percent number.
• Step 3: The remaining balances represent your minimum and maximum allowable ad budgets for the year. At this point in the calculation, you may learn that you’ve already spent your ad budget on expensive rent, or you might also learn that you should be doing a lot more advertising than you had previously suspected.

Now let’s calculate an ad budget. Assume that your business is projected to do $1 million in sales this year, you have a profit margin of 48 percent, and your rent is $36,000 per year. The first thing to do is calculate 10 percent of sales and 12 percent of sales ($100,000 and $120,000, respectively).

Second, we must convert your 48 percent profit margin into markup, because markup is what we’ve got to have to make this formula work. Most business owners know their margin by heart, but never their markup.

To make the conversion from margin to markup, simply divide gross profits by cost. Dividing $480,000 (gross profits) by $520,000 (hard cost) shows us that a 48 percent margin represents a markup of 92.3 percent. Bingo.

Now we multiply $100,000 times 92.3 percent to see that our adjusted low budget for total cost of exposure is $92,300. Likewise, we multiply $120,000 times 92.3 percent to get an adjusted high budget for total cost of exposure of $110,760.

From each of these two budgets, we must now deduct our $36,000 rent. This leaves us with a correctly calculated ad budget that ranges from $56,300 on the low side to a maximum of $74,760 on the high side.

Most advertising salespeople will tell you that “5 to 7 percent of gross sales” is the correct amount to budget for advertising, but don’t you believe it. It simply isn’t possible to designate a percentage of gross sales for advertising without taking into consideration the markup on your average sale and your rent.

Yes, expensive rent for a high-visibility location is often the best advertising your money can buy, since a business with a good sign in a high-visibility location will need to advertise significantly less than a similar business in an affordable location.

To prove this, just look at the example above and change the rent to $75,000 per year. In this case, the ad budget would range from $17,300 to $35,760, representing just 1.7 to 3.5 percent of sales.

The formula you’ve just learned is the only one that reconciles your ad budget with your rent as well as the profitability of your average sale. Use it!

Originally Posted on: Florida Small Business Consulting - SuncoastGlobal.com

Related articles:

1. Winning Advertising Methods
2. Advertising Plans – You’d Better Make It A Good One
3. All Advertising Campaigns Are Not Created Equal

Technology

Streamlining your business technology can make life less of a headache for everyone. Entrepreneurs often “don’t realize they can make things easier,” says Kevin McElligott, founder of iTech Developers, a Nevada City, California, technology consulting firm and hosting provider. Here are a few ideas to get your technology in tip-top shape:

1. Serve it up. A server can act as a digital filing cabinet for your growing piles of documentation. Compared to daisy chaining several PCs, “Servers give you a lot more reliability and improve your business,” says Mike Beltrano, supervisor of product management for servers at CDW Corp., a Vernon Hills, Illinois, server company. Another bonus: By keeping important documents on a central server, it’s easier to back up all your important documents daily.
2. Phone it in. Are you wasting time running between voice mail on your cell and office phones? VoIP systems offer a great deal of personalization and features for a rock-bottom price. In fact, VoIP can be up to 40 percent cheaper than a traditional small-office phone system, and it offers useful features for any small business.
3. Take it online. If you’ve taken the leap of setting up an accounting package to handle your bills, take the extra step of automating the process. See if your accounting software can automatically generate invoices as well as e-mail reminders for late payments.
4. Hit the web. Your website is a potential client’s main access point to your business. Don’t worry as much about fancy graphics as making sure visitors can get the information they need. An online FAQ list can cut down on the time clients spend calling with basic questions and prevent a frustrated client from going elsewhere.

Money

Money might not be the root of all evil, but it is the cause of many headaches for business owners. Here are five tips for managing your money better:

1. Bank on it. “One of the assets business owners have is their cash,” says Manny Calzon, vice president and finance manager for the central district of Merrill Lynch in Tampa, Florida. But many entrepreneurs don’t understand how much they’re paying in service charges to their banks every month. Request a bank analysis statement that breaks down the generic service charges found in your monthly statement.
2. File taxes electronically. Companies with $10 million or more in total assets that file 250 or more returns a year are now required to file their 2006 taxes electronically. “Small businesses are going to be scrambling,” says Bradford Hall, managing director of Hall & Company CPAsin Irvine, California. “They’re going to [need] an automated payroll service that files electronically for them.” So get a head start now to make life easier later on.
3. Pay now, not later. Can you pay smaller bills in advance? If you have a monthly bill for $15 but opt to pay $90 for six months of service, you’ll save $1.95 in stamps and you won’t incur late fees. Best of all, you’re not wasting time paying bills.
4. Upgrade your accounting systems. “A business that’s projecting $10 million-plus [in sales] should be on a sophisticated system,” Hall says. Software packages such as BusinessWorks, Enterprise, Great Plains (which was recently acquired by Microsoft) and MAS 90 offer increased sophistication for a growing company and will make life much easier come tax time or, heaven forbid, an audit.
5. Make your (bench) mark. It’s common for growing companies to do business without understanding how they stack up against similar companies in their industry. Most likely, your accountant has industry profit and overhead statistics at the ready–data you can keep on file for future strategy sessions without having to do your own legwork. Says Hall, “Businesses aren’t taking advantage of it.”
6. Obey the urge to merge. You might pay slightly more, but renewing all your insurance policies on the same date with the same agent lets you sit down once a year to review insurance for the entire business instead of having different renewals pop up three or four times a year.

Management

Day-to-day management of employees and processes is probably the single toughest job for any entrepreneur. Want to simplify? Here’s how:

1. Hire strategically. Create an online application form, and have elimination criteria related to scheduling, salary and educational level. “Select out vs. select in,” says Suzanne Zuniga, COO of CorVirtus, a Colorado Springs, Colorado, HR consulting firm. Being more selective means you’ll hire sooner and get back to work.
2. Stay on schedule. Creating a schedule for employees is a time-consuming nightmare for every employer, especially in retail. But there are software packages–Asgard System’s Time Tracker, TimeClock Schedulerand TimeCurve Scheduler, to name a few–that let you scan for scheduling errors and track employee hours and earnings in real time. Some, like TimeCurve Scheduler, also integrate with QuickBooks to make payroll easier.
3. Rent a CFO. At some point, a bookkeeper won’t be able to keep up with your burgeoning bottom line. “One of the biggest mistakes business owners make is they don’t realize they need the sophistication of a CFO,” Hall says. Today, there are employment agencies that specialize in hiring out CFOs.
4. Tighten your supply chain. “Strong partnerships with suppliers and service providers [are] critical in the supply-chain excellence area,” says John DuBiel, managing partner of Raleigh, North Carolina-based Supply Chain Edge, a firm that helps companies identify, develop and execute their supply-chain strategies. Keep relationships strong by leveraging your buying power with as few service providers as possible. Says DuBiel, “Simplify and leverage all the volume you can.”
5. Outsource your HR function. Entrepreneurs spend up to one-third of their time doing payroll and benefits administration. They’re also risking penalties if tax payment deadlines aren’t met or filings are incorrect. “When you pay a company that you outsource to, you’re paying for the benefit of their mistakes on their dime, not yours,” Zuniga says. So outsource HR, and make your time count.
6. Have fewer staff meetings. Do you really need a staff meeting every week when an e-mail update might do? Fewer staff meetings mean less talk and more action. Workers will thank you for your brevity: In one survey, 60 percent of executives complained about the time they waste in meetings, and 74 percent doubted the meetings they attended were effective.

Marketing

Catching consumers’ attention is only getting harder. Here’s some advice for revving up your marketing efforts:

1. Do some data mining. What do customers think about your company? “You don’t build your brand by yourself anymore; your customers are equally involved,” says Michael LeBeau, CEO of Byte Interactive, a South Norwalk, Connecticut, digital marketing company. Simple customer comment cards or web-based survey forms can save market research costs.
2. Leverage partnerships. Strategic partnerships with local businesses will help you rise above the noise. Picking the right partner, however, can be very time-consuming. Simplify the process by looking to your own customers, vendors and suppliers first. You already know each other’s strengths in terms of services, products and marketing, which will let you move more quickly to develop effective cross-promotions and sponsorships.
3. Go directly to the consumer. Are you spending all your time knocking on big retailers’ doors and saving for TV ads when half of U.S. consumers have lightning-fast broadband connections? “I’m seeing more entrepreneurs starting to market their products directly to the consumer,” says Peter Koeppel, founder and president of Koeppel Direct, a Dallas direct-response TV media buying agency that works with clients including Cigna, Columbia House and DirecTV.
4. Get the message. It’s easy to lose brand focus in a world of in-person, over-the-phone, online, catalog and direct-mail sales. To simplify, divide your business into five main channels (website, catalog, direct mail, employees and customer service) and have one main marketing message every week (a sale, a new product, a new partnership and so on) that you communicate and track for consistency across all channels. You’ll see fewer customer-service hassles and less turnover from frustrated employees who can’t read your mind.
5. Consolidate your advertising legwork. Most business owners invite random interruptions from advertising representatives throughout the week. Instead, set aside a block of time–Monday afternoon, for example–when advertising people know they can reach you. Everyone will save time, and you won’t have to hide anymore.

Personal Time

“It’s very easy to let work consume you,” says Bo Short, president of the American Leadership Foundation, a Charlottesville, Virginia, nonprofit organization that offers leadership conferences and seminars. “But if you do, will it eat you alive?” Here are ways to create a more balanced life:

1. Decide what to outsource. You don’t need to have your hand in every single pie anymore; let someone else carry part of the load. Outsourcing a few tasks gives you time to focus on something else–even if it’s a round of golf now and then. Plus, “You’re the customer, and they’ll treat you better,” Short says. Learn to delegate to employees, too.
2. Create boundaries. Set aside 10 minutes after lunch to make and return personal calls. Set a time for leaving the office every day, no matter how busy you are. And spend at least two hours doing something fun before you burn some late-night oil. Your family will thank you.
3. Shorten your to-do list. “A to-do list is nothing but a wish list,” says Barry Izsak, president of Arranging It All, an Austin, Texas, firm that helps companies get organized. A long to-do list leaves less time to focus on revenue-generating ideas. Instead, focus on the top three urgent tasks for the day. The rest can wait.
4. Love your inner Luddite. Entrepreneurs who become slaves to gadgets “are running reactive businesses and being reactive with their time,” Izsak says. Try working unplugged–this means no internet connection and absolutely no phone calls–for one hour every morning. It will give you a sense of accomplishment that lasts all day.

Originally Posted on: Florida Small Business Consulting - SuncoastGlobal.com

Related articles:

1. Sudden Success – Plan for It
2. Exit Strategies – Getting Your Money Out
3. It’s All In The Name

Creating a customer service policy and sticking to it can make it easier on you.

Take these steps to help you ensure that your clients receive excellent service every step of the way.

1. Put your customer service policy in writing. These principles should come from you, but every employee should know what the rules are and be ready to live up to them. This doesn’t have to be elaborate. In fact, keep it as simple as you possibly can.>
2. Establish support systems that give employees clear instructions for gaining and maintaining service superiority. These systems will help you outservice any competitor by giving more to customers and anticipating problems before they arise.
3. Develop a measurement of superb customer service. Don’t forget to reward employees who practice it consistently.
4. Be certain that your passion for customer service runs rampant throughout your company. Employees should see how good service relates to your profits and to their futures with the company.
5. Be genuinely committed to providing more customer service excellence than anyone else in your industry. This commitment must be so powerful that every one of your customers can sense it.
6. Share information with people on the front lines. Meet with your employees regularly to talk about improving service. Solicit ideas from employees-they are the ones who are dealing with customers most often.
7. Act on the knowledge that what customers value most are attention, dependability, promptness and competence. They love being treated as individuals and being referred to by name.

Phrases That’ll Make Your Customers Happy

Principles of customer service are all very well, but you need to put those principles into action with everything you do and say. There are certain “magic words” customers want to hear from you and your staff. Make sure all your employees understand the importance of these key phrases:

• “How can I help?” Customers want the opportunity to explain in detail what they want and need. Too often, business owners feel the desire or the obligation to guess what customers need rather than carefully listening first. By asking how you can help, you begin the dialogue on a positive note (you are “helping,” not “selling”). And by using an open-ended question, you invite discussion.
• “I can solve that problem.” Most customers, especially business-to-business customers, are looking to buy solutions. They appreciate direct answers in a language they can understand.
• “I don’t know, but I’ll find out.” When confronted with a truly difficult question that requires research on your part, admit that you don’t know the answer. Few things ruin your credibility faster than trying to answer a question when you are unsure of all the facts. Savvy buyers may test you with a question they know you can’t answer and then just sit quietly while you struggle to fake an intelligent reply. An honest answer enhances your integrity.
• “I will take responsibility.” Tell your customer you realize it’s your responsibility to ensure a satisfactory outcome to the transaction. Assure the customer you know what he or she expects and will deliver the product or service at the agreed-upon price. There will be no unexpected changes or expenses required to solve the problem.
• “I will keep you updated.” Even if your business is a cash-and-carry operation, it probably requires scheduling and coordinating numerous events. Assure your customers they will be advised of the status of these events. The longer your lead time, the more important this is. The vendors customers trust the most are those that keep them apprised of the situation, whether the news is good or bad.
• “I will deliver on time.” A due date that has been agreed upon is a promise that must be kept. “Close” doesn’t count.
• “Monday means Monday.” The first week in July means the first week in July, even though it contains a national holiday. Your clients are waiting to hear you say “I deliver on time.” The supplier who consistently does so is a rarity and will be remembered.
• “It’ll be just what you ordered.” It will not be “similar to,” and it will not be “better than” what was ordered. It will be exactly what was ordered. Even if you believe a substitute would be in the client’s best interests, that’s a topic for discussion, not something you decide on your own. Your customer may not know (or be at liberty to explain) all the ramifications of the purchase.
• “The job will be complete.” Assure the customer there will be no waiting for a final piece or a last document. Never say you are finished “except for….”
• “I appreciate your business.” This means more than a simple “Thanks for the order.” Genuine appreciation involves follow-up calls, offering to answer questions, making sure everything is performing satisfactorily, and ascertaining that the original problem has been solved.

Neglecting any of these steps conveys the impression that you were interested in the person only until the sale was made. This leaves the buyer feeling deceived and used, and creates ill will and negative advertising for your company. Sincerely proving you care about your customers leads to recommendations and repeat sales.

Never Let Your Customers Forget You

One important tool for generating repeat business is following up. Effective follow-up begins immediately after the sale when you call the customer to say “thank you” and find out if he or she is pleased with your product or service. Beyond this, there are several effective ways to follow up that ensure your business is always in the customer’s mind.

• Let customers know what you are doing for them. This can be in the form of a newsletter mailed to existing customers, or it can be more informal, such as a phone call. Whatever method you use, the key is to dramatically point out to customers the excellent service you are giving them. If you never mention all the things you are doing for them, customers may not notice.
• Write old customers personal, handwritten notes frequently. “I was just sitting at my desk and your name popped into my head. Are you still having a great time flying all over the country? Let me know if you need another set of luggage. I can stop by with our latest models any time.” Or if you run into an old customer at an event, follow up with a note: “It was great seeing you at the CDC Christmas party. I’ll call you early in the New Year to schedule a lunch.”
• Keep it personal. Voice mail and e-mail make it easy to communicate, but the personal touch is often lost. If you’re having trouble getting through to someone whose problem requires that personal touch, leave a voice-mail message that you want to talk to the person directly or will stop by his or her office at a designated time.
• Remember special occasions. Send regular customers birthday cards, anniversary cards, holiday cards…you name it. Gifts are excellent follow-up tools, too. You don’t have to spend a fortune to show you care; use your creativity to come up with interesting gift ideas that tie into your business, the customer’s business or his or her recent purchase.
• Pass on information. If you read an article, see a new book, or hear about an organization a customer might be interested in, drop a note or make a quick call to let them know.
• Consider follow-up calls as business development calls. When you talk to or visit old clients or customers, you’ll often find they have referrals to give you, which can lead to new business.

With all your existing customers can do for you, there’s simply no reason not to stay in regular contact with them. Use your imagination, and you’ll think of plenty of other ideas that can help you develop a lasting relationship.

Dealing With Unsatisfied Customers

Studies show that the vast majority of unsatisfied customers will never come right out and tell you they’re unsatisfied. They simply leave quietly, later telling everyone they know not to do business with you.

So when a customer complains, don’t think of it as a nuisance-think of it as a golden opportunity to change that customer’s mind and retain his or her business.

Even the best product or service receives complaints now and then. Here’s how to handle them for positive results:

• Let customers vent their feelings. Encourage them to get their frustrations out in the open.
• Never argue with a customer.
• Never tell a customer “You do not have a problem.” Those are fighting words.
• Share your point of view as politely as you can.
• Take responsibility for the problem. Don’t make excuses. If an employee was sick or a supplier let you down, that’s not the customer’s concern.
• Immediately take action to remedy the situation. Promising a solution and then delaying it only makes matters worse.
• Empower your front-line employees to be flexible in resolving complaints. Give employees some leeway in deciding when to bend the rules. If you don’t feel comfortable doing this, make sure they have you or another manager handle the situation.

Originally Posted on: Florida Small Business Consulting - SuncoastGlobal.com

Related articles:

1. Customer Relations Management
2. Customer Service Policies
3. Get Your Marketing Plan Right the First Time

Even though every company should have a strategic plan in place before the big day arrives, most small business owners are so busy just trying to survive that planning usually gets put on the back burner. That’s why we’ve have put together this 10-step survival guide to help you think fast and react quickly when you wake up one morning to find the world beating a path to your door.

1. Take a deep breath. Don’t max out your credit cards, splurge on a big bottle of champagne or do anything crazy. While it’s only natural to want to celebrate the good news, remember that a big contract or great press doesn’t mean dollars in your bank account–at least, not today. So hold off on that Ferrari or tropical vacation.
2. Map out a strategy. Make a to-do list, crunch the numbers and marshal your human and production resources. It’s always easier to fight a battle on paper (or a computer spreadsheet) than to shoot first and ask questions later. No matter how much pressure you’re getting from your customers to deliver the goods right now, you need to take the time to sit down with your partner or staff to map out a plan of attack.
3. Get the money. Before you go on a hiring binge or start placing orders overseas, it’s important to figure out how much working capital you’re going to need to meet the market demand. Because employees and manufacturers generally won’t wait until you’ve sold the products and collected the money before you pay them, you’ll need a source of capital that you can tap immediately.
4. Reach out for help. Call on suppliers, personal contacts and the Internet to find extra hands to help you. If you think you can do it alone, think again. No matter how hard you work, there are only 24 hours in a day and you’ve got to sleep during seven or eight of them. That’s why it’s important to reach out to people who can help you.
5. Forge production partnerships. A small business making handcrafted soaps is going to be hard-pressed to fill a million-unit order from a large national chain completely on its own. That’s why it’s important to partner with manufacturers in the United States and overseas who can take your samples or prototypes and produce them in large quantities.
6. Create a distribution network. As news of your product or service spreads, you may start getting orders from consumers and retailers all over the country. If you’re like most businesses, you’re going to need help selling and servicing those accounts. Rather than hiring a national sales manager and opening offices in major cities, a more cost-effective option may be to sell your product through manufacturers’ reps.
7. Communicate with your customers. Communication is the lifeblood of any business relationship, but it’s even more important when your product or service suddenly takes off. The biggest mistake a business owner can make is failing to warn customers of shipping or production delays until it’s too late. This is especially critical in the apparel and toy industries where seasonality is important.
8. Leverage your success. The hardest thing about achieving overnight success is keeping it going. The last thing you want is to get stuck with a warehouse full of pet rocks. Creating line extensions like the Chicken Soup books or the For Dummies series is one way to keep your brand alive. Another is to find new markets for your products and services or new ways to publicize them.
9. Invest for the future. While it may be tempting to reap the profits from your hit product right away, it’s important to re-invest some of those profits to help your business grow. Whether this means paying down debt, buying new equipment, hiring another employee or opening another location, don’t pass up this opportunity to make your money work for you. It’s always cheaper to put your own cash to work in your business than to borrow money from a bank or give up equity to an investor.
10. Learn from your mistakes. After the excitement of the initial sales rush has died down, take a few hours to sit down with your staff to figure out what went right, what went wrong and what you think you could do better in the future. This will help you put a strategy in place for the next time you come out with a hit product–which could be sooner than you think!

More Resources

Got a hit on your hands and don’t know where to turn? Check out the Web links below to get the help you need today.

• craigslist: This is a great place to find freelancers and independent contractors, and it’s free to search and–in most cities–post.
• VendorSeek: This online marketplace helps match companies with vendors of products, services, equipment and staffing.
• Net-Temps: Here you’ll find employment listings for employers and seekers of full-time, part-time and temporary jobs.
• Manufacturers’ Agents National Association: This website offers a searchable directory of manufacturers’ reps and agents in the United States and worldwide.
• Credit-Card-Source.com: Go here to find help navigating your way through the maze of credit card offers so you can pick the best card for you and your business.

Originally Posted on: Florida Small Business Consulting - SuncoastGlobal.com

Related articles:

1. Purchasing Plan – You’d Better Have One
2. The Right Way to Manage Your Money
3. Cash For Your Start-Up – Where To Get It

The five most common mistakes made in business-sign design are:

1. Attempting to be understated or elegant.
2. Attempting to “fit,” or blend into, the surrounding environment.
3. Underspending.
4. Including too much information.
5. Placing the sign too high. (The eyes of drivers tend to stay focused at windshield height. Low signs are better in town. Tall signs are better on freeways where they’ll be read–at windshield height–from great distances.)

Great signs are always the most interesting piece of scenery in their vicinity. This is why they’re noticed even when people aren’t looking for them.

Would you like to have such a sign? Believe it or not, it’s possible–not cheap or easy, but possible.

Consider the sprawling white letters stretched across a hillside in Southern California: HOLLYWOOD, a landmark known around the world. Did you know that sign was originally erected by a real-estate developer to identify his remote suburban subdivision, Hollywoodland?

Not all business signs will become famous landmarks, but it doesn’t hurt to keep these common denominators of business signs that do become landmarks in mind:

• They’re dramatic. This can be due to the fact that they’re:
  • Grossly oversized
  • Strangely placed
  • 3-dimensional
• They’re different. They contrast sharply with their surroundings due to:
  • Color. For example, snow-white Hollywood letters against a hillside of dark brown and green.
  • Installation. The famous Hollywood sign isn’t on a pole or a board. Its individual letters sit directly on the ground.
  • Context. There’s nothing immediately around it to distract from it. Or if there is something important nearby, it’s incorporated into the sign itself.
• There’s something “wrong” with it. Ever notice how the Hollywood letters aren’t level, but rise and fall with the terrain? This makes it far more memorable.

I doubt if the builder of the Hollywood sign did these brilliant things intentionally. But they worked, even if some of them were accidental. Do you have the courage and determination to repeat on purpose the things he did right by accident? If you do, the public will soon be using your sign as a reference point when giving directions.

Originally Posted on: Florida Small Business Consulting - SuncoastGlobal.com

Related articles:

1. Sales Letters That Actually Sell
2. Advertising Budgets – How Much Is Too Much
3. Close Sales Like A Master

Finding the “Right Stuff”

The key to a person’s worth (the “right stuff”) is integrity, honesty, intelligence, the ability to communicate, and the ability and willingness to learn. Technical skills are important, but without the key ingredients, the technical skills of the applicant may be irrelevant.

Finding the candidate with the “right stuff” is not an easy task, but then my grandmother, after several years of urging, finally convinced me that anything that is worthwhile is difficult and requires considerable effort.

There are several roads to successful hiring:

Personal knowledge of a candidate.The best candidates are usually not hunting for a job. They may be people employed by one of your customers, people in competing companies, people in the same industry but not in the same line of business, or people in other industries who have exhibited the talents necessary for the job. More important, do you or one of your key associates personally know the candidates? If so, you may begin to pursue them, but with a few admonitions.

If the selected candidate works for a customer, it’s a good plan to contact the customer and let him know that his employee is a candidate for your position. I once hired one of my best customer’s top men, believing that I would lose the customer. I decided it was worth the risk. I did lose the customer, but not forever. The man I hired is now successfully running the business from which I retired. It was well worth it!

People with the “right stuff” are absolutely essential to the future success of your business! A compromise in this area has come back to hurt many businesses: it typically involves terminating the “compromise” and repeating the hiring process. What’s worse is that these “compromises” do poor work, cause internal problems, and end up costing the company in many ways.

Depending upon your relationship with a competitor who has a potential candidate, you may wish to treat that competitor much the same as recommended for your customer. The same may be said for candidates working for one of your suppliers.

A valued friend knows the candidate personally.

This is the next best thing to knowing the candidate yourself. A referral from a friend, a business associate or a present employee whose judgment you respect is a valid basis for pursuing a candidate. Note that your friend must be more than a golfing buddy; you must respect his judgment as you would a trusted associate.

Pay the price.

If the first two approaches don’t provide a candidate, the next best avenue to the “right stuff” is a toll road. A search firm or a highly reputed employment agency is a good but expensive route (often in the area of 30 percent of the employee’s starting annual compensation). Keep in mind, however, the value of an outstanding employee. It far surpasses the fee you may have to pay.

Your agreement with the search firm or agency should include the right to reimbursement if the hired candidate doesn’t work out within a reasonable time period, perhaps six months and sometimes longer. This may be negotiable with each individual firm. This avenue is most often appropriate for higher-level positions and not entry-level jobs.

The search firm or agency should do all preliminary screening, which often includes intelligence, personality, aptitude and skills testing, the cost of which should be included in their fee. (Note: These efforts do not test judgment; you must do this yourself.) In addition, you should expect the firm to provide you with at least three good, qualified candidates who meet the requirements you specify when you contract with the firm.

Hire a temporary employee from an agency.

It’s quite common to contract for a temporary employee only to find that the temp is the right person for the job on a permanent basis and may be available. In this case, you should be prepared to pay a fee to the temp agency. This is a reasonably good way to hire clerical and lower-level technical personnel and it keeps your business moving while you’re continuing your search.

Advertise in the right places.

Although we have not found many “right places to advertise,” they may include trade or industry magazines that you’re reasonably sure are read by the candidates you’re seeking. Sometimes the local newspaper can be a good source for candidates, but be prepared to kiss a lot of toads to find the prince. Likewise, some have reported success with national publications such as The Wall Street Journal and the National Employment Weekly, and others report good results by advertising on the internet. Choose the outlets best for you. Remember: If you hire an out-of-town candidate, you will be expected to pay for moving expenses!

The hiring of a candidate assumes that you have carefully and thoroughly considered your own employees as a source. You must not overlook current employee candidates! Study the background and work history of those who might qualify. You may not be aware or have forgotten that one of them has all of the qualities that you are hunting for in the new position.

Many businesses post job openings on the employee bulletin boards. I believe this is a good practice.

The interview process and application forms, in today’s arena, are landmines waiting to be stepped on! There are more employment laws today than ever before and questions you used to be able to ask are now grounds for discrimination lawsuits. If you aren’t familiar with these laws, you must become so–and the sooner the better.

Contact your legal counsel. Most law firms either have an expert on employee relations or can refer you to a source where appropriate literature can be found. One good document is the SBA’s An Equal Opportunity Guide for Small Business Employers.

There are questions you cannot ask during the interview process. Topics to steer clear of include age, disabilities, pregnancy, marital status, religion, sexual preference, race, ancestry, children and prior arrests. Everyone in your organization who may be in a position to conduct an interview must be aware of these and other limitations. We recommend that you develop a list of questions that are acceptable and provide the interviewers with some guidance that is meaningful.

A typical list of questions that can be asked is presented below. Obviously, if you have found a candidate because of your personal knowledge (or the knowledge of a business associate), you will already know the answers to many of the “illegal” questions. Even so, don’t document such knowledge, even if the candidate is for the number-two position in the company. Have as many key people as possible interview the prospect. More opinions will make for a better hiring decision and the other interviewers may uncover something vital that you overlooked.

Interview Questionnaire
1. What do you like most about your present job?
2. What do you like least about your present job?
3. Describe your responsibilities in detail.
4. Describe your relationship with your supervisor.
5. What do you like most about your supervisor?
6. Why are you considering a different job?
7. Why did you leave the job prior to this one?
8. Do you like most of your fellow employees?
9. Are you aware of the responsibilities of the job for which you are a candidate?
10. Do you have any physical limitations that would prevent you from fulfilling those responsibilities?
11. What do you consider your greatest strength as a candidate for this position?
12. What do you consider your greatest challenge as a candidate for this position?
13. What is your present compensation and benefits package?
14. What was your beginning compensation in your job?
15. What specific training have you had that might increase your ability to perform our job?
16. In which school subjects were you most successful?
17. Which subjects in school did you find the most difficult?
18. Can you provide some references for your technical abilities? What are their positions?
19. What do you know about our company that you find appealing?
20. Are working overtime and travel acceptable to you?
21. Are you willing to receive additional training to improve your ability to perform our job?
22. What is the most important factor to consider about becoming an employee of our company? For example: compensation, benefits, working hours, opportunity to progress.
23. What are the least important factors in your consideration?

Employment Preferences

Another aid in hiring is a listing of employment preferences. The answers can be quite enlightening when studied with the responses to interview questions and a review of an application form. The answers to these questions are important regardless of the level of the position that you are seeking to fill.

Here is a sample employment preferences questionnaire:

Rank the factors listed below, on a scale of 1 through 10, with 10 being the most important and 1 being the least important to you in considering a position with our company.
___ 401(k) plan
___ Health and dental insurance
___ Incentive bonus plan
___ Initial base compensation
___ Job security
___ Opportunity for advancement
___ Retirement plan
___ Vacation time
___ Working conditions
___ Working hours

The Employment Application

Once you have identified legitimate candidates for the position, you must have them complete an employment application. Failure to do so may result in your inability to defend your decision to hire or not hire an individual. There are a number of sources available for securing a sample form that complies with all government regulations and laws. Or, you can develop one of your own and have your legal counsel review and revise it to ensure that it is acceptable in the eyes of the law.

How you approach hiring the right person for a job depends upon the level and type of job. It goes without saying that hiring an entry-level person is substantially different than securing the services of a high-level technical person or a number two or three in the chain of command. In every case, however, reference checking is mandatory.

Despite your prior knowledge (assumed) of a key manager-level applicant, you may be surprised at what you find when checking references and credit. Remember: Some of the biggest names in industry (and in our federal government) have been embezzlers, bankrupts, accused of sexual misconduct and harassment, felons, and convicted of lesser crimes. Check out their education, call prior supervisors, check for felony convictions and verify prior employment. In short, do your homework!

Assuming you’ve identified a good candidate and completed all of the homework with positive results, how do you convince him or her to become a part of your company? There are several employment selling points that you should emphasize.

1. Stress the positive factors that have influenced the candidate to favorably consider the position. They may include your company’s reputation, a positive environment in which to work, an equity opportunity, the possibility of advancement, the prospect of securing improved monetary rewards for outstanding performance, or simply a “great challenge.” Remember that compensation is not the key incentive for people with the “right stuff.”
2. Do not “buy” their services. Any person who is primarily motivated by an immediate increase in base pay is not looking for the strong, long-term relationship that will contribute to the company’s success. Why wouldn’t he leave your company six months from now for another immediate increase in base pay? This is quite different from a candidate’s desire to be properly rewarded for an outstanding contribution to the company’s objectives. Although you shouldn’t “buy” the candidate, you should be willing to “pay for what you get.” Good people cost more! More about incentive compensation later.
3. Assure the candidate that his contribution to the company’s objective is meaningful. What is more discouraging than being pursued by a company and, once employed, becoming an unnoticed number on the employee roster?
4. Consider involving more than one key manager in the hiring process to reinforce the positive factors. It’s fine to discuss prospective employment with the key manager who is involved; however, if other managers are present, it will give the candidate a stronger feeling of being wanted. If you are hiring your number-two man or prospective successor, the group approach is not appropriate, unless that group involves other owners or directors of the company.
5. Consider an employment contract or offer letter. There may be occasions when a candidate for a high-level management position will be more comfortable seeing all of the conditions of employment in writing. The written document is a permanent record of the covenants between the candidate and the company and lessens the possibility for misunderstanding between the parties.

Getting Acquainted

One of the most common mistakes made by small businesses in the human resources area is believing that a new hire will perform exactly as expected. At the very least, there is an indoctrination phase that should be provided to every new employee. In addition to learning his way around the facility, the new employee must be provided information that will improve his chances of contributing immediately to the company’s performance. This indoctrination phase should consist of the following, at a minimum.

• Presenting the company’s personnel policies. Although the new employee will have learned a good bit about the company’s personnel policies during the hiring process, he should now be provided a personnel handbook (assuming one is available) that explains the more important policies. These policies should include the hiring process just completed, a definition of salaried and hourly personnel (and their differences), salary administration, incentive bonus plan, profit sharing, retirement plan (if any), pay grade structure, time reporting, working hours, overtime pay, shift premium, pay for attending funerals and jury duty, and performance appraisals. Employee benefits should be explained, including vacation time, health and dental insurance, disability compensation and other benefits, such as awards and company automobiles.
• Teaching the company’s safety programs. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has issued standards and regulations designed to protect employees from safety and health hazards. These standards and regulations involve the communication of information about hazardous or toxic materials, infectious materials, respiratory hazards and safety procedures for the operation of equipment.
• Understanding the company’s business. This may be the most important part of the indoctrination program. The new employee needs to learn about the company’s operations, its objectives and, in broad terms, the plan for achieving the objectives. The new employee should understand product information, competitive position, marketing strategy, manufacturing or service process, and personnel organization.

In some cases, you may have hired a person who has all of the character attributes that you desire but may not be well-versed in some technical area of his responsibility. He may be a good machine operator but not have adequate training in computer numerical controlled (CNC) equipment.

He may be a great salesperson but not understand the required data entry functions required of sales personnel, e.g., use of a point-of-sale device, cash register and so forth. Many times a person with responsibilities in operations may have no background at all in accounting and financial controls. In all of these cases, a training program may be appropriate. There are several ways to provide the needed training.

1. Vocational technical school. Vo-tech schools are quite good in training people in industrial arts, such as machine tool operation, engineering design, computer-assisted design (CAD), computer-assisted manufacturing (CAM), and similar skills. You or the person who is responsible for human resources matters should be well acquainted with any vo-tech schools in your company’s area and the types of skills for which they offer training.
2. Business schools, colleges and universities. These institutions offer excellent training and education in traditional areas of marketing, sales, accounting, computer operation, clerical skills and others. If the school is of sufficient size, it will offer these subjects at night, interfering less with the normal workday.
3. Industry schools and seminars. Depending upon the background of the instructor and his or her teaching skill, industry-sponsored seminars or workshops can be an excellent way to provide “brush-up” training to new employees. The sessions are usually not lengthy and the value of meeting their peers from other companies may be even more valuable than the training itself.
4. In-house training. Many small companies don’t have the facilities or time to offer formal in-house training. However, one-on-one or on-the-job training, focusing on the critical needs of the new employee, is an excellent way to make sure the needed information is learned. Keep in mind that such training may detract from the efficiency of the trainer but the new hire will learn “our preferred methods,” enabling him to contribute more rapidly to the company’s performance.

Motivation and Involvement

Do you really know what motivates your people? Have you thought about what motivates you? We believe the answer can be expressed in this way:

Something or someone you respect has told you, in some way, “You have done well!”

The “some way” may be a silent nod, a communication from someone you respect, or your own knowledge (based on parameters you know and honor) that you have “done well.” The more clearly this acknowledgment is perceived, the more effective the motivation.

The premise that “nothing succeeds like success” is illustrated by a research study involving ten adults who were given a puzzle to solve. The puzzle was the same for all ten participants. After they were completed, five of the adults were told that they did quite well, getting seven or more correct out of 10 possibilities (which wasn’t true). The other five (who may have done well) were told that they had done poorly, seven out of 10 wrong (which wasn’t true either).

Then all 10 were given another puzzle, the same for each person. The five who’d been told they had done well on the first puzzle really did do well on the second puzzle. The five who’d been told they had done poorly on the first puzzle did poorly on the second puzzle.

Having coached little league baseball (ages 9 to 18) for 16 years, I can absolutely corroborate the results of the puzzle experiment. We created good teams out of players who were average in technical skills by reinforcing the good things that each player accomplished. We pointed out that poor performances were the result of some technical miscue of which the players simply weren’t aware and we were sure that they would do better now that they were aware. This confidence that we expressed in the players was rewarded!

In my own business, we often hired young people who had just graduated from high school and were known to some of our proven employees. Our on-the-job training program was essential to the success of these new recruits; however, positive recognition of their successful accomplishments played an immense role in their becoming valued and competent employees. We dealt with their mistakes as a learning process as long as their attitude remained good and they did not often repeat the same mistakes. Positive reinforcement is a powerful motivator!

Obviously, motivation is not as simple as a pat on the back or a person knowing that they’ve done well. You must understand the normal desires of people relative to their employment, regardless of the level of their responsibility. Most people desire the following:

• Recognition for their good work
• Meaningful participation in the company’s efforts
• A feeling of belonging in a successful organization
• Opportunities for growth and advancement in their competence and responsibility
• Security in their job if they perform to expectation
• Monetary reward for an expected level of performance
• Benefits that protect them and their families from significant monetary loss

Even top-level management personnel, who are typically self-motivated, desire the same things as those in positions of lesser responsibility. A mutual recognition by their peers for a job well done or a project successfully completed may be sufficient. A brief recognition of their success by the top executive goes even further as a motivator!

Keep Your Employees Happy

There have been many such surveys published, but none that I have found have ever identified what I believe is the most important factor in successful employment:

Enjoying the job . . . enjoying going to work!

How many people do you know that sincerely like to go to work in the morning? How many people do you know who would say they honestly like their job? We all know people who have worked all their lives at jobs that they have not enjoyed. Considering that many men and women spend 35 percent to 50 percent of their waking moments at work, not enjoying that time would be very depressing.

So, how do you make an employee’s work something that he or she enjoys? It is called involvement! Keep your people involved. Consider the following:

1. Communicate with them. Make them aware of company business that might affect them, either directly or indirectly. Make sure they know about new products or services, give them copies of new company brochures, and tell them about negotiations for new health insurance. They have a need to know.
2. Reinforce their contributions to the company’s objective. Informal discussions are needed to bring the employees up to date on their role in the business. Annual performance appraisals offer an excellent chance to involve the employees in company affairs in addition to letting them know how effectively they have been working.
3. Solicit suggestions for positive changes, whether in customer service, new products, manufacturing processes or administration. Often, the employees who are closest to a problem will come up with the best solution. Involve them in problem solving and operational improvements. A lot of good ideas have come from a suggestion box and those ideas should be rewarded with recognition and monetary rewards.
4. Encourage a sense of belonging, a sense of being a part of a successful effort. This is much like being a part of a winning sports team, an experience that is never forgotten.

Originally Posted on: Florida Small Business Consulting - SuncoastGlobal.com

Related articles:

1. Want to Start A Service Business?
2. It’s All In The Name
3. Get Your Marketing Plan Right the First Time

And if you roll out a large traffic campaign before you’ve tested your site to make sure it converts maximum visitors into buyers, you risk losing sales and looking unprofessional to potential business partners and affiliates.

So you’re caught in a vicious cycle: Before ramping up a big traffic campaign, you need to test your sales process, but without any traffic, testing is difficult–if not impossible!

Here’s an eight-step action plan that will show you:

• How to get cheap, instant traffic to your website so you can test key components of your sales process–your sales copy, order form, navigation and opt-in offer–before rolling out a large-scale traffic campaign.
• How to ensure that every element of your sales process is optimized to convert maximum traffic into maximum sales.
• The most effective strategies for attracting thousands of highly qualified potential buyers to your site right away.
• The secret to putting your entire traffic campaign on autopilot.

So even if your site is getting no traffic right now, you can be testing the key elements of your sales process tomorrow–and as soon as two weeks from now, you can be rolling out your traffic campaign in full.

1. Get the traffic you need to test your website fast! But, you may be asking yourself:
   • How do I test my site?
   • What do I test on my site?

   As you may already know, there are an infinite number of things you can test on your site to help you increase sales. From layout to copy to design, there are limitless combinations of changes that may improve your visitor-to-sale conversion rate. But what’s “enough” when you’re just starting out? What elements should you focus on testing before rolling out your traffic campaign?

   Stick to the basics. Focus on testing your:

   • Salescopy: especially your headline, benefits, guarantee and call to action
   • Order process: which needs to be simple enough for a novice web user to place an order
   • Opt-in offer: so you can determine if you’re successfully capturing your visitors’ contact information
   • Site navigation: so you can figure out how many clicks it takes to buy. Ideally it should take less than three.

   These are the four critical aspects of your sales process that need to be tested before you start driving traffic. Later on, once you’ve generated sales and have some steady traffic, you can move on to testing other parts of your site.

   Of course, all this talk of testing your new site raises one big question: How can you test without traffic? Because if you’re just getting started, chances are good that your website doesn’t get much traffic yet.

   The solution is simple: Buy traffic through PPC search engines. Pay-per-click search engines are a lot like auctions–they allow you to bid for top-ranking positions under keywords of your choice. For each visitor who searches the keyword(s) you bid on and then clicks through to your site, you pay whatever you bid. Prices typically range from five cents to a few dollars per click-through for popular keywords. There are a ton of PPC search engines out there.

   With PPC search engines, you get cheap, instant, qualified traffic–provided you bid on targeted keywords. Not only that, but bidding on traffic in the PPC search engines can help your site get ranked in the free search engines, too!

   Here are a few tips to help you start bidding for traffic without breaking the bank:

   • In Yahoo Search Marketing, bid to appear in the top three listings whenever possible, since these results are also “pushed” to appear in many other search results–reaching a large percentage of all internet users.
   • Bid on targeted, descriptive keywords. So don’t just bid on “sock;” bid on “red wool sock.” Not only are targeted keywords and phrases usually cheaper to bid on–they’ll also attract more qualified potential buyers. Use a keyword selection tool like Google’s AdWords Keyword Tool to research targeted keywords that attract maximum traffic for minimal cost-per-click.
   • After you’ve tested and tweaked your site with a limited amount of purchased traffic, it’s time to start generating qualified traffic for your site on a larger scale. But how do you go from some traffic to a ton of traffic?
2. Get cheap traffic quickly with PPC advertising. Once you’ve tested your site with limited PPC traffic, the fastest way to ramp up traffic to your site is to roll out a PPC campaign on a larger scale.

   This is also a great time to get started with Google AdWords –Google’s own PPC contender. With Google AdWords, you get instant traffic with no waiting. Because as soon as you put the money down on your keywords, your ad goes up and starts working for you.

3. Get free traffic from search engines like Google. Now that you’ve bid on keywords for a strong showing in the PPC search engines, it’s time to tackle the organic search engines and directories. Search engines like Google and directories like Yahoo! can still be a great source of free traffic for your website. The trick is getting a competitive ranking for your best keywords.
4. Give away irresistible free content for priceless publicity. Believe it or not, a really easy, frequently undervalued strategy for getting traffic is giving away free content to other websites. Even just two or three well-written articles can generate truckloads of traffic, as long as they don’t contain a sales pitch.

   You want to include rare, hard-to-get information that’ll lend your articles automatic value–the kind of information that establishes you as an expert in your field.

   Once you’ve finished an article, write a short bio paragraph about you and your business and place it at the end of your article along with–and this is the most important part–a link to your site.

   To locate sites that might be interested in your content, e-mail other website owners in your industry–be sure to choose sites that receive attention and visits from your target market–and invite them to use your article on their site or in their newsletter at absolutely no cost.

   Many site owners need fresh content, so they’ll be more than happy to post your articles–and it won’t be long before those articles start driving traffic back to your site.

   Another option is to give away your articles through free content websites like these:

   • www.ezinearticles.com
   • www.freesticky.com

   Your articles will automatically be made available to thousands of websites seeking free, quality content–and all you have to do is submit your articles once.

   Don’t underestimate the power of giving away free content. And as your articles gain more exposure, don’t be surprised if you’re contacted by high-profile magazine and portal sites related to your industry looking for free articles to include on their sites, too.

5. Get free word of mouth publicity using viral marketing. Simply defined, viral marketing is a way for you to spread your marketing message like a virus. You encourage people to pass on information about your site to others, and you use that word-of-mouth publicity to advertise your business. Once you start the “virus,” it spreads without you lifting a finger.

   Need an example? Try Hotmail.com, the free web-based e-mail service provider. At the bottom of every single Hotmail e-mail sent by Hotmail members, there’s a simple one-line message:

   “Get your free, private email from MSN at http://www.hotmail.com”

   How much time do you think it took Hotmail to include that signature line as part of their e-mail service? Not much at all–but look at the impact this simple strategy had on the growth of their business. In my personal experience, more than 35 percent of all e-mail users have Hotmail accounts!

   You can easily duplicate this strategy by doing something as simple as including a “pass it on link” at the end of a free newsletter, something as simple as:

   “If you’ve enjoyed this article, please be sure to forward it to a friend!”

   By simply asking readers to take action and forward your newsletter, you’ll prompt free word of mouth exposure for your business without any extra cost or hassle.

   How else can you put viral marketing to work for you? Here are a few simple ideas:

   1. Give away free articles (like the ones I describe in Step 4) that include a “pass it on” link.
   2. Give away free demos of your product.
   3. Offer a free trial of your service with a “share this great resource” button on the page.
   4. Hold a contest on your site, and give participants an extra entry for every friend they refer.
   5. Start an affiliate program (see Step 7 below).

   As you can see, you don’t need to be the next Hotmail to get started with viral marketing. By simply encouraging people to “share this resource with friends,” you can attract some great word-of-mouth traffic.

6. Get free links on other high-traffic websites. Link requests require minimal effort from you, but they can absolutely explode your traffic numbers overnight. How? If your site is a featured link on a major site in your industry–one that receives a ton of attention–your site immediately benefits from all the exposure their site receives.

   Getting started with this strategy is simple, but you should follow a standard process every time you request a link. Let’s break it down into a few easy steps:

   1. Do a Google search for your standard keywords–the ones that people generally use to find your site.
   2. Make detailed notes about the sites that appear regularly in the top ten listings for your major keywords.
   3. Use the Alexa Toolbar, LinkPopularity or Technorati to find out what other sites these sites are linking to, whose linking to them and how much traffic they’re receiving, then look up their contact information.
   4. Before making contact, make sure you know the correct URL for the site, the URL of the sub-page on which you want your link to appear, the name of the site owner or webmaster, the date you last visited their site, and a brief description of the contents of the site.

   When you’re ready to contact the owners of these website and request a link, write a personal e-mail–don’t use form letters. Be sure to include some positive comments about their site, information about you and your site (along with your URL), an explanation of why a link to you would benefit them, and instructions for contacting you to get started.

   You want your request to be thorough and professional. If you can present a persuasive argument for why the link request benefits both of you, you stand a better chance of forging a connection. And if you’re really eager to get your link on their site, be prepared to up the ante by offering them a commission or a link on your site in return. The investment could be well worth the extra exposure your marketing message receives.

   When other businesses request links on your site, my advice is, be stingy. Just as links on others’ sites serve as a personal recommendation of your site, links on your site are recommendations for their businesses. Only recommend the best!

7. Get thousands of websites to promote your business for free. Imagine hundreds, even thousands, of websites promoting your product or service without spending a dime until someone refers a paying customer. You can do this with what’s called an affiliate program.

   Affiliate programs–also referred to as “reseller” or “associate” programs–are a great way to get other people (called “affiliates”) to promote your product or service for you. For every paying customer your affiliates refer to your site, you pay them a commission. And since you only pay when you make money, it’s an extremely low-risk option.

   Here’s how it works: Your affiliates send visitors to your site using banner ads, text links, letters of referral and so on, while you track these referrals using special software. It’s an extremely powerful way to grow your business because it automates your traffic generation. To get started with your own affiliate program, you need to:

   1. Establish your commissions. To keep your affiliates motivated, you should pay them 40 to 50 percent of your profits per sale.
   2. Get software to track the traffic and sales of your affiliates so you know what to pay them.
   3. Provide your affiliates with tools they can use to promote your products, such as e-mails, banners and so on.
   4. Recruit more affiliates. Look for sites that target your market, and invite them to become affiliates.

   Affiliate programs are an ideal way to automate your traffic generation because other people are marketing your site for you. Your sales increase on a daily basis–but your affiliates do all the selling for you, and it doesn’t cost you a dime until they send you paying customers.

8. Use e-mail marketing to attract repeat visitors. Getting lots of traffic to your site is great, but if you aren’t collecting the contact information–the names and e-mail addresses–of visitors, you’re wasting every single click. If visitors leave your site without buying your product, there’s a good chance they won’t ever be back–and you’ll have absolutely no way of following up with them. It can take up to seven points of contact to make a single sale.

   You’ll want to begin collecting visitors’ contact information from day one using an opt-in form on your home page. Then send them e-mail messages to follow up and keep them thinking about your site. Need some ideas for e-mails you could send to follow up with your opt-in subscribers? Try these ideas:

   1. Monthly or bi-weekly newsletters that include tons of tips and information
   2. Free reports on topics your market would appreciate
   3. Answers to common questions people ask about your product
   4. Offers for products similar or complementary to ones you may have already offered them
   5. Free product trials that give potential customers a taste of what you have to offer
   6. A “downgrade” offer for a product that’s less expensive or robust than your featured offer

   Following up with the addresses you gather is quick, easy and simple with e-mail management and automation software. You can create e-mail messages called “autoresponders” that potential customers receive automatically as soon as they opt-in on your site–within seconds–no matter what time of day it is or whether you’re even at your desk!

   That’s right: As soon as your visitors opt in, they’ll start hearing from you on a regular basis without you having to deal with the stress of writing a ton of e-mails to individual addresses. This is a process you can put on autopilot from the very beginning.

Final Thoughts

Obviously, we’ve covered a lot of ground in this article, before you dive into any of these strategies, you’ll need to do a bit more reading and research on each of these topics in order to understand these tactics in depth.

This article was meant to be a clear road map of exactly what you need to do first, second and third to test your website to maximize conversion rates and then roll out an effective traffic campaign that attracts swarms of potential buyers–automatically–for years to come. But reading more on each topic will help figure out exactly what you need to do for your site to make it a success.

Over the years, I’ve noticed a common thread that links all our most successful clients who have internet businesses: They have all focused on implementing one or two marketing strategies really well.

Don’t feel like you need to become an expert in all the strategies covered here. Focus on becoming really proficient at one or two–because this may be all you need to dramatically increase your traffic–and sales.

Originally Posted on: Florida Small Business Consulting - SuncoastGlobal.com

Related articles:

1. Attracting New Customers Online
2. 10 Web Design Tips
3. It’s All In The Name

The key to choosing a good advertisement begins with deciding what you want your ad to highlight. Are you trying to sell a specific product or are you trying to sell your business as a whole through your brand image? To answer that, you need to understand what the four main types of advertisements are:

1. Category-specific ads are written broadly enough to fit every advertiser in a category. A transparent fabric of smoothly woven cliches, a category-specific ad is a generalized template into which one merely inserts a store name and address. All you have to do is fill in the blanks. Ads that fit everyone don’t work very well for anyone. These were once called institutional ads. Don’t use them.
2. Franchise ads build the master brand.
   The hope of every franchisee is that the ads provided by the franchisor will generate enough brand attraction to pull customers into their store. Due to the fact that a franchisor can afford to create a higher quality of ad campaign than the typical local merchant, this strategy often succeeds.
3. Product-specific ads benefit every retailer who sells the product, but they aren’t really about the retailer at all; they’re only about the product. Product-specific ads almost always make good advertisements. The only problem small business owners run into is when they’re selling another manufacturer’s product and are offered co-op advertising.
4. Store-specific ads are the foundation of local branding, but to write them requires intimate, detailed research on the part of an expert ad writer. Rarely will a good, store-specific ad fit another advertiser in the same category. Store-specific ads are also guaranteed to make good advertising and I highly recommend them.

Now that you understand the four main types of ads, you need to choose the one that’ll work for you–not the one that worked for ABC Company down the road. The story you’re about to read is a a true tale.

You’ll see why the type of ad you choose can totally change the way your customers perceive you–and also why the same ad probably won’t work for someone else. The name of the store, the town and the vegetable have been changed to protect the innocent:

Heisenberg’s Jewelers had been in the same building on Main Street in Cabbage Valley for 105 years. A facelift seven years earlier had given the store white carpet, walnut paneling and a huge chandelier in a high, domed ceiling.

Heisenberg’s was the Sistine Chapel of jewelry stores. Not a problem, except that Cabbage Valley is a little farming community of about 45,000 people. Even the wealthiest of Cabbage Valley’s farmers felt they weren’t dressed well enough to enter that store. Heisenberg’s was truly an intimidating place.

“You need to understand who our customer is,” said the owner. She’s a 40 year-old female. Upscale. Very upscale. Well-dressed. Always buys the best. That’s our customer. That’s who you need to target.”

This was in mid-October. They were trying to get help saving their Christmas sales season, because if they had another season as bad as the previous six, they were going to have to close their doors in January.

“Let’s get something straight. There’s no handle that can be cranked that will spit out 40 year-old rich women. You’ll need ads that appeal to men or you’re going to have to find another way to make a living.”

This is the radio ad that saved Heisenberg’s:

“Ladies, many of you will be fortunate enough this Christmas to find a small, but beautifully wrapped package under your tree bearing a simple gold seal that says ‘Heisenberg’s.’ Now you and I both know there’s jewelry in the box. But the thing you need to know is this: The man who put it there for you is trying desperately to tell you that you are more precious than diamonds, more valuable than gold, and very, very special.

You see, he could have gone to a department store and bought department store jewelry, or picked up something at the mall like all the other husbands. But the men who come to Heisenberg’s aren’t trying to get off cheap or easy. Men who come to Heisenberg’s believe their wives deserve the best. And whether they spend $99 or $9,900, the message is the same: Men who come to Heisenberg’s are still very much in love. We just thought you should know.”

That radio ad was delivered slowly and thoughtfully with style and grace. No hurry. No street address. No store hours. No phone number. We simply told listeners what they already knew about Heisenberg’s, but made them feel differently about it. What we said in essence was, “If your husband voluntarily came to this scarily expensive store, he must really be in love with you.” It worked like magic.

Throughout the month of December, men wedged themselves into Heisenberg’s, waved stacks of cash at the register and shouted, “I don’t care what you put in the box, but make sure it’s got that damn gold sticker.” Heisenberg’s made a blistering fortune that year and reversed their downward trend.

Like every great store-specific ad, the Heisenberg’s gold seal campaign would never have worked if Heisenberg’s hadn’t already had the reputation of being extremely intimidating and expensive. That same ad could just as easily have been delivered by newspaper, direct mail or television and it would have worked just as well. It was the message, not the media, that delivered the miracle.

So in summary, remember the four main types of ads:

• Category-specific “institutional” ads are a waste of money
• Franchise ads are for team players who want to help build a strong collective brand
• Product-specific ads are for special promotions
• Store-specific ads are for local branding

What kind of ads are you running?

Originally Posted on: Florida Small Business Consulting - SuncoastGlobal.com

Related articles:

1. Advertising Plans – You’d Better Make It A Good One
2. Winning Advertising Methods
3. Advertising Budgets – How Much Is Too Much

1. The Modified Nike Maneuver: Just Take It. One favorite exit strategy of some forward-thinking business owners is simply to bleed the company dry on a daily basis. I don’t mean run it in the red–I mean pay yourself a huge salary, reward yourself with a gigantic bonus regardless of actual company performance, and issue a special class of shares that only you own that gives you ten times the dividends the other shareholders receive. Although we frown upon these practices in public companies, in private companies, this actually isn’t such a bad idea. It’s called a “lifestyle company.”

   Pros

   • Who doesn’t like seven figures of take-home pay?
   • Private jets are fun.
   • There’s no need to think hard about getting out: Just pull out the money when you need it.

   Cons

   • The way you pull the money out may have negative tax implications. For example, a high salary is taxed as ordinary income, while an acquisition could bring money in the form of capital gains.
   • Without careful long-term planning, you may end up pulling out money now you’ll need later.
2. The Liquidation. Even lifestyle entrepreneurs can decide that enough is enough. One often-overlooked exit strategy is simply to call it quits, close the business doors, and call it a day. I don’t know anyone who’s founded a business planning to liquidate it someday, but it happens all the time.

   Pros

   • It’s easy and it’s natural. Everything comes to an end.
   • There’s no negotiations involved.
   • There’s no worrying about transfer of control.

   Cons

   • Get real; it’s a waste! At most, you get the market value of your company’s assets.
   • Things like client lists, your reputation, and your business relationships may be very valuable, and liquidation just destroys them without an opportunity to recover their value.
   • Other shareholders may be less than thrilled at how much you’re leaving on the table.

   My favorite piano bar in Boston simply vanished one day when the owner decided he was tired of show tunes. His regular patrons were crushed, but then, he didn’t consult with us first.

3. Selling to a Friendly Buyer. If my neighborhood piano bar owner had asked, we might have wanted to buy the business ourselves. You see, if you’ve become emotionally attached to what you’ve built, even easier than liquidating your business is the option of passing ownership to another true believer who will preserve your legacy. Interested parties might include customers, employees, children or other family members.

   Pros

   • You know them. They know you. There’s less due diligence required.
   • Your buyer will most likely preserve what’s important to you about the business.
   • If management buys the business, they have a commitment to making it work.
   • Selling to family makes good on that regrettable offhand promise made 30 years ago, “Someday, son/daughter, all this will be yours.”

   Cons

   • You can get so attached to being bought by someone nice that you leave too much money on the table.
   • If you sell to a friend, they’ll be peeved when they discover they just bought the liability for that decade’s worth of taxes you forgot to pay.
   • Selling to family can tear the company apart with jealousies and promotions that put emotion way ahead of business needs.
4. The Acquisition. The acquisition was invented so you can sell your business and leave the kids money, still spoiling them rotten, but at least sparing the business from second-generation ruin. Acquisition is one of the most common exit strategies: You find another business that wants to buy yours and sell, sell, sell.
   Pros
   • If you have strategic value to an acquirer, they may pay far more than you’re worth to anyone else.
   • If you get multiple acquirers involved in a bidding war, you can ratchet your price to the stratosphere.

   Cons

   • If you organize your company around a specific be-acquired target, that may prevent you from becoming attractive to other acquirers.
   • Acquisitions are messy and often difficult when cultures and systems clash in the merged company.
   • Acquisitions can come with noncompete agreements and other strings that can make you rich, but make your life unpleasant for a time.
5. The IPO. I’ve saved IPOs for last, because they’re sexy, they’re flashy, and they get all the press. Too bad they make the lottery look good by comparison. There are millions of companies in the U.S., and only about 7,000 of those are public.

   Pros

   • You’ll be on the cover of Newsweek.
   • Your stock will be worth in the tens–or maybe even hundreds–of millions of dollars.
   • Your VCs will finally stop bugging you as they frantically try to insure their shares will retain value even when the lockout period expires (Warning: they won’t necessarily be looking out for your shares, too.)

   Cons

   • Only a very few number of small businesses actually have this option available to them since there are very few IPOs completed annually in the United States.
   • You need financial and accounting rigor from day one far above what many entrepreneurs generally put in place.
   • Some forms of corporation–S-corps, for example–will require a reorganization before they can be taken public.
   • You’ll spend your time selling the company, not running it.
   • Investment bankers take 6 percent off the top, and the transaction costs on an IPO can run in the millions.
   • When your lockout restrictions expire, your stock will be worth as much as a third world hovel.

Originally Posted on: Florida Small Business Consulting - SuncoastGlobal.com

Related articles:

1. Cash For Your Start-Up – Where To Get It
2. Business Structures – Which One’s Right for You?
3. The Right Way to Manage Your Money

By learning more about your customer’s lifetime behaviors, you will develop stronger relationships and increase loyalty. We offer strategic customer relationship management (CRM) solutions tailor made to your specific industry and your specific customer. We will promote growth and profitability by providing a compelling, consistent customer experience across every channel.

CRM solutions enable a better understanding of your customers and their specific expectations. We offer:

• Technology platforms that align business units across departments, enabling collaborative information sharing.
• Strategic alliances with world-leading application providers including Oracle, SAP, Avaya, Genesys, Infor, KANA, and Nortel.
• Extensive industry-specific strategy, implementation, integration and infrastructure expertise.
• The right mix of hardware, software and services that can help drive a successful CRM implementation at your company.

Your custom CRM solution is based on customer-focused strategies, will incorporate all necessary departments, and is built on a scalable architecture that can start small but adjust to growing volumes of data. We have technology integration and project management expertise to help ensure a successful, consistent implementation across your business processes. Let us help you turn customers into advocates — driving increased profitability and growth.

Originally Posted on: Florida Small Business Consulting - SuncoastGlobal.com

Related articles:

1. Your Customer Is Your Company’s Lifeblood – Treat Him Right
2. Customer Service Policies
3. It’s All In The Name