What is it with the snow?  I know we haven’t had any for like ten years now but, the snow falls we have had over the last few weeks have been really instructive to me about certain people’s attitudes and their likelihood of success in business.  Let me explain.

We had some major training events for our franchisees last week.  We hold them three times a year in ten venues around the country and these Regional Meetings are the place when myself and my Management Team sit down with groups of twenty to thirty franchisees in each venue and launch our new initiatives, discuss and debate things that need resolving and share examples of success, things that are working, that sort of thing.  They are hugely effective events and very popular with pretty much all of our franchisees.

Given that this is the case, why would you cancel your attendance at one of these events three days in advance because of “the snow”?

Three days in advance?  The event was due to happen on Thursday but three franchisees rang up on Tuesday to say they wouldn’t be making the journey on Thursday morning because of the snow.

Pathetic.

Now, Mrs B gets a bit cross with me about this. She says that not everyone is a confident driver and that I should be more tolerant, but you see it’s not about that.  If you’re prepared to give in to the snow three days in advance then what you have to accept is that you, and your mental approach to life, is wholly incompatible with success in business.

And it’s not just the three days in advance people either. Life has to go on.  To decide not to travel without even trying is completely the wrong thing to do as far as your business is concerned.  (Okay, I know there may be genuinely rare exceptional circumstances – but that hasn’t been the case here over the last few weeks. All the major roads have been open and trains have been running very well).

In business, bad things happen. You will get setbacks and if you’re the sort of person who shies away from travelling two hours because there’s been some snow on your lawn then I’m afraid you’re destined to never achieve big success in business.

Once again, I’m sure this little post will offend a few people and others will call me irresponsible but, the fact is, if you want to be successful in business you have to be prepared to do things that other people are not prepared to do and getting to my Regional Meetings in bad weather is one of them!

The thing about social media is…it’s where the people are.

Looking from a purely statistical perspective: 350 million users are on Facebook alone, millions more use Twitter every day. Rightnow, thousands – probably tens of thousands – of your potential customers are using social media, either from their PC oir, increasingly, from their mobile phones.

The fact is, for business, this is simply too big to ignore.

And don’t for one minute thing this is all about ‘the kids’. Facebook and Twitter are patchworks of different ages, ethnicities and socioeconomic class – making it a platform for pretty much any product or any service. The fastest growing user groups is the Over 50’s. You’ve gotta be here, baby!

“The best time to diffuse a bomb, is right before it goes off” and that means that those business people who get to grips with social media now – in 2010 – have the best chance of really getting ahead…which is why, in a nutshell, you need to give this some of your time and attention.

You see, all this social media malarchy…it aint  going anywhere. Sure the formats might change. Twitter may be usurped by the next big thing, Facebook may not last the distance, but the people love this stuff and it’s here to stay… which is why, in a nutshell, you need to give this some of your time and attention. (You getting’ the message yet?)

So where to start?

There are four first steps.

1. Your Blog.
   Your blog should become the corner-stone of your social media strategy. It’s where you become interesting and it will facilitate much of your business success in this space. So start there. Regular postings – at least once a week – on topics that are of interest to your audience. They don’t need to be long. Or particularlyy well written, but you do need them.
2. Twitter
   I’d recommend you start with Twitter because it’s simple to get to grips with. Set up your account at www.twitter.com and start ‘tweeting’. If you need more help and guidance then check out my webstore.
3. Facebook Fan Page
   Next up you’ll want to set up a Facebook Fan Page for your business. Again, it’s not difficult to do, and the content can be fed from your Blog posts and your tweets so it’s very little additional work. The great thing is you can send messages direct to your ‘fans’ – just  like having an email list – so you can be proactive with your marketing.
4. LinkedIn
   If you’re in business you’ll want to be on LinkedIn. There are a lot of connections made using this business oriented site and I strongly recommned that you get on there and build your profile

Ready for one of the most successful marketing campaigns you’ve ever unleashed?

Then get ready to give away your product.

Winners do it

Look at the Winter Olympics. Freebies were everywhere at the Olympics. Companies gave water bottles, coats, equipment and more to athletes. All this in hopes that their brand would reach homes and offices around the world.

You say you can’t afford to give away products to the global community?

Well, if making sales is your goal, you can afford freebies to qualified customers.

Consider Vermont, U.S. based Ben & Jerry’s Every year they give away a free scoop of ice cream to anyone and everyone who comes into their stores.
Read the rest of this entry

Customers need a good reason to buy from you. And the quality of your product or service alone isn’t enough.

That’s unfortunate, I know – but wake up –  life’s not fair and the good guy doesn’t always win.

The best product doesn’t always prevail either. Customers won’t flock to your door because you think you’re twenty times better than every competitor.

You need to drive business by being proactive, creative, aggressive and persistent.

Offers and special promotions have to be in your marketing toolkit. But for many small businesses, offers are nothing more than an afterthought.

Big mistake. Huge opportunity missed.

Branding’s over-rated

My colleagues who work with big brands won’t like this. But the small business owners and marketers I work with get it.

There’s absolutely no reason why a small business should run an ad with the sole purpose of “branding.”

Ok, I take that back. There are three reasons a small business should ran a branding campaign:

1. Vanity
2. They were talked into it by an ad agency – branding specialists, no less.
3. They don’t understand the link between marketing and sales.

If your small business is spending your money on branding (or ‘getting our name out there’ as its sometimes called)  you’re not spending it on what really matters: SELLING.

Make your marketing actionable

Instead, move your customers to take action. And take it now. For virtually all of your marketing efforts, you need a hook, a pull, a motivation for the customer to buy. Use compelling offers with an incentive the buyer cares about and watch your responses increase across the board.

Offers make you money – not cost you money – if you do ‘em right.

Hit them were it counts

Know your target. If you’re selling conservatories at five grand a pop then your customers won’t be motivated by a £15 voucher. The offer has to match the scale of what you’re selling – but it doesn’t have to be about money off.

One of the best offers I’ve seen recently was this from a Chinese Takeaway:

“Free Coke & Won-tons with every order over £30”

That offer is a thing of great marketing beauty. Here’s why:

The takeaway owner knew that her average customer spend was £27. The offer was designed to push up that average spend. The coke and won-tons cost her 65p.

Not only did her average spend go up to almost £33 – a 22% increase, almost all of which was profit – but her volume of sales went up as well because people came to her Chinese Takeaway as opposed to the other two or three that they could have chosen in the area. See. The right offer can be a truly beautiful thing.

How to use offers and incentives

Easy ideas for offers include discounts off the next purchase, (to bring people back buying form you again sooner than would otherwise happen); a coupon for a complimentary  product, and entry into a high value draw, say.

If you want to make an impression, reach for high value and think sexy. When we offered a £400 iPad entry levels in our contest went through the roof. It was a smart spend, I can tell you.  Cheap options won’t get buyers’ attention and they don’t make you stand out

Use offers strategically. If your sales process is lengthy, for instance, you can use the offer as an incentive to speed up the process.

Don’t forget the focus of the offer is always to increase sales AND profit!