Why this recession does not matter to small business

I have two thoughts to offer you on trading in our current economic plight.
The first is that I do not believe there was ever a time when business was easy, except maybe for a few plumbers and “loadsofmoney plasterers” in the eighties, but probably even they were working very hard albeit with exceptional returns.
I think for small businesses it is always hard, the challenges may change slightly over the years but there was seldom, if ever, a golden age when customers and cash fell like manna from heaven. This then brings me to my second thought, and the source of my headline, most of us have only a tiny percentage of the potential market for our product or service so the overall size of that market is not especially significant to us.

If you are a market leader like World of Leather then a 20% drop in the demand for leather sofas will have a huge impact, but if you are selling 2 sofas a week from your Ceredigion workshop then you still only need to find 2 customers a week out of the probably thousands that are still being bought each week in South Wales, and because a big beast in the leather sofa world is no longer there it could actually mean that there is more unsatisfied demand?

“Ah” I hear you say “but my turnover is suffering how do you explain that?” Well maybe we are all just a little guilty of expecting less and consequently settling for less?
Perhaps we need to find the zip and self belief that we started with?

Just a thought
All the best Chris

Are you turning custom away?

In conversation with Entrepreneurs Circle member Sheryl Gellatly it occurred to me how little extra business it takes to cover the cost of a phone answering service with a real person. I am not trying to sell the Services of Bluewest  – Sheryl is quite capable of that – But most of us would think that paying £50 a month would be an extravagance. My revelation is simply that for most of us one customer a month would pay for it, we all put in our marketing effort  either in time or money and then, but for that marketing to pay off we need to stand by our phones, and answer each call properly.

But if you have to attend to other clients , go to meetings, or you are a one man band doing whatever you do, then answering the phone can be a nightmare, whether you need to concentrate, or get into unusual positions and places ( I am thinking of plumbers here, before your imagination leads to other places!) And of course in our part of Wales the mobile signal can be quite hit & miss.

Of course customers might wait until you can ring back, or they might leave a message. But we all know the sound of an empty message, left because the keen buyer is off to ring the next supplier!

That is what people do if they get an answer phone, some people just hate talking to them, for whatever reason whether they leave a message or not they will ring somebody else, at best then it might be a race to see who gets back to them first, but if your competitor picks up the phone you have lost that customer not just on this occasion but for life.

What is the life time value of one customer to your business?

Haverfordwest is today!

As a business owner you are jack of all trades and the buck stops with you. The Entrepreneurs Circle is run by people in the same position as you, with a mission to offer practical and proven tools to help you grow and achieve whatever your ambition was when you started out. We do that through a combination of workshop meetings that give you the chance to spend a couple of hours a month working on your business, mailings of useful information and updates to help you tweak things to make them better, regular helpful emails and a content rich website including for instance training on Google Adwords, or how to use Twitter for business.

This all comes as part of a very affordable package, but you are invited to a meeting this evening to see how we work, whether  or not you come along we will offer you a two month no risk, no obligation trial for just £4.95  – actually the cost of post and packing – If you decide that it is not for you and leave after the trial then fine, but naturally we hope that you will join the thousands of others nationwide who have found that the Entrepreneurs Circle has made a real difference to their business!

Take up the trial today either at the meeting in the Hotel Mariners or online at http://www.businessgrowthadvisor.co.uk/495-trial/?qAf=17565

And I will give you a FREE copy ( cover price £9.95) of “It’s All Changed” 66 practical down  to earth  steps to growing your business in 2011/12.

This is a real book not an electronic e book and it features a not very flattering picture of yours truly!

PLEASE YOU MUST ACT TODAY TO GET THE BOOK

Call me, 01550 739 053 or come to Hotel Mariners this evening, or go online;http://www.businessgrowthadvisor.co.uk/495-trial/?qAf=17565

What are you going to do differently?

How are you going to change for the better?

I am not sure who it was said that a definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result.

Many small businesses reflect the personality of the owner, after all we are probably in that business because we like the industry and are good at whatever it is we do. This is not necessarily the same as turning a hobby into a business, but we are drawn to those things that we enjoy and the prospect of doing something you hate for the rest of your life is not going to motivate many of us to start a business doing that very same thing. Of course escaping the prospect of doing something you do not enjoy for the rest of your life can be the thing that kick starts us into self employment.

But running and developing your own business demands different skills and talents’ as things move on. It can be that the determination and self reliance that gets you started is less useful in the later stages when you become more dependent on staff and suppliers or the bank manager. When you think about it the biggest changes we need to make in our business is us! We have to spend more and more time explaining things to people, we become more reliant on others to do their job properly, we spend less time “doing the business”.

If you are running a business and you are not getting the results you want (or deserve) then the chances are that it is you that needs to change! It is your business so who else is going to do it for you?

If you are happy with things continuing the way they are leave well alone. But if you want to grow or develop profits, sales or lifestyle then something has to change. Having some help is no disgrace, Alan Sugar clearly is not afraid to use other people with different skills. You probably use an accountant, and you probably do not fly the plane when you go on holiday.

You have achieved a lot in starting your business, although it may not feel like it, and you have some great skills (or you would not still be in business) But you now need to do something differently, in order to achieve the dreams and ambitions you had when you set out.

So my question is “what are you going to do differently”  Or are you happy with things as they are?

From a guest blog done for the Best of Pembrokeshire

 

Is your business worth a fiver?

Is your business worth a fiver?
The Entrepreneurs Circle is for Busy Business owners who want information, practical support and proven tools grow help them become super successful.
I know it works, what better way to find out for yourself than trying it!

Take the two month trial for £4.95

Click here;
http://www.businessgrowthadvisor.co.uk/495-trial/?qAf=17565

To make it worthwhile you having a look there are some great extras including

• FREE Online video training “How to Use Twitter for Less than 6 minutes a Day to Successfully Grow Your Business”.
• FREE Online training on Google Adwords and pay-per-click — to seriously sky-rocket your online earnings.

either of these would cost you a lot more to buy and could be worth even more when you use them in your business!

Check the other FREE GIFTS out along with the money back guarantee, so you really cannot lose
Click here;
http://www.businessgrowthadvisor.co.uk/495-trial/?qAf=17565

The Entrepreneurs Circle is different -and credible- because it is lead by a UK entrepreneur who has built SIX £million+ businesses from scratch , and is still doing it today!

HAVE A LOOK NOW!
http://www.businessgrowthadvisor.co.uk/495-trial/?qAf=17565

OR RING 01550 739 053

If this is as good as I say how would you feel to miss out?

Thanks for looking
Chris

Christmas is on its way, will you be ready?

Christmas is almost here!
So Christmas is coming, you probably remember me saying something very similar last year, and whilst I enjoy the stupidity of the comment there is a very real message behind that stupidity.

For many of us the period leading up to Christmas is the best of the year, and we want to maximise our returns during this time.  This golden period will start in early September so it is actually just over 3 months until the arrival of Christmas cuts it off in its prime. So we really need to make sure that everything is right and working to its optimum during this time. We should be OK it is still only July we have virtually the whole summer to prepare……..
BUT!
Well the chances are that you will have a holiday that will take out a couple of weeks, then of course everybody is taking a holiday as well so even the smallest job can take a lot longer than usual to get done, even the people who are not on holiday are covering those who are, and nobody wants to work late when the barbie and a cold beer (alright some wishful thinking here!) are calling.

So take out the downtime between now and September and we probably only have about 3 weeks to get sorted for a very important trading period which we cannot afford not to squeeze every penny out of.

• Three weeks to get our winter promotions sorted, consider and design our marketing campaigns.
• Under a month to make sure that everything is working perfectly, to train people to do everything just right.
• 21 days to sort out the warehouse, service or buy new equipment.

It is no good starting in September – we will not get things going until October in that case.
Cheesy my headline may be but I really do think it is time to get ready for Christmas now

That’s it for now, enjoy the summer if it ever gets here

Chris

What have you got in common with Richard Branson?!

 

Not the 200+ companies that sit in his Virgin group. Not the private Caribbean island. Not the penchant for dressing up.

What you’ve got in common is that you’ve got exactly the same number of hours in every day, and the same number of days in each week.

Branson’s not become a billionaire because he’s discovered a way of slowing the tick tock of his clock, he’s done it because he’s taught himself to get more stuff done than most other people do, in exactly the same amount of time.

Time is the one thing that money can’t buy, and as a business owner, it’s YOUR responsibility to make to make sure you squeeze the maximum out of every last second.

It’s not easy (if it was, perhaps we’d all be billionaires), but there are some simple strategies that super-successful people use to make the most of their time.

Our very own serial entrepreneur Nigel Botterill is one of them, finding time in his week to manage 5 highly successful businesses and take Monty the dog for a walk most mornings.

Come and join us on  the 12th where we will be sharing Nigel’s time management secrets, and finding out what tricks and tools he uses to fit everything in.

You can book here

www.businessgrowthadvisor.co.uk/southwestwales

or call me on 01550 753039

I look forward to seeing you at the event.

Chris