Author: etcwebsite
The key to ending your business lockdown
The UK is slowly reducing restrictions and ending lockdown. However, things aren’t going to return to how they were pre-COVID-19, and businesses need to prepare for a new ‘normal’.
The number one priority at this time is to re-open or return to work safely. A second lockdown, as seen in Victoria, Australia or local lockdowns as seen in Leicester, is a real possibility. And, as in the case of Leicester, local lockdowns could mean no special financial support from the Government – BBC News.
Government advice and changes are happening fast and planning for change is critical. To help prepare your business for these changes and for leaving lockdown, we have created an essential three-step guide:
1. Marketing should be your focus
Marketing is an essential element of bouncing back. 75% of consumers say that brands should inform people of what they’re doing.
There is still a lot of uncertainty around what businesses are doing. With some sectors still closed, your customers may need reminding that you’re open and ready for business.
There are many tools in the marketing toolbox, but at this stage, we advise that you focus on PR (public relations). This involves re-engaging with your target audience and rebuilding your relationship.
PR requires you to share your message through media channels, both traditional (press) and non-traditional (social media). The ultimate goal is to build awareness of your brand, reinforce your business values and demonstrate why customers will like doing business with you. This can include things like:
- How you’re re-opening your business (making sure you focus on what’s important to your customers, not your company)
- Case studies of post-COVID-19 business and success
- How you’ve supported your local community
For more information on how to market your business, re-read our previous marketing guides, or contact us and let us help you bounce back.
2. Let customers and employees know how you’re keeping them safe
Public health is at the forefront of everyone’s mind at the moment and informing your customers and staff about your ‘safe’ re-opening can be a compelling message.
Messages about ‘safe’ have become more important as lockdown has eased. Larger brands are opting for a clear, positive, inspirational, and helpful tone over humorous, witty, or casual.
According to a study by Econsultancy: one in five consumers have actively stopped purchasing from a brand because of its response to the coronavirus outbreak. This included not providing a safe working environment for its employees.
In the same study, 62% stated that they were more likely to spend money with companies that prioritise the health and safety of their staff.
The full study can be found here: coronavirus impact on marketing, ecommerce & advertising
3. Be consistent in your message
After you’ve invested in PR and promoted your ‘safe to return’ messages, you should always ensure you follow through. It’s great to have handwashing stations and social distancing in place, but if these aren’t clearly visible people may become anxious about what the protocols are.
If you have been into a retail shop recently, you’ll have seen the answer to this yourselves: large signs above sanitiser stations and 2-metres or 1-metre plus signs on the floor.
Without these highly visible, tangible changes to improve safety, all your PR and messages will be wasted – and potentially counterproductive as it may appear disingenuous.
Finally, on a more serious note, the importance of these COVID-19 safe measures cannot be stressed enough. If COVID-19 gets into the workplace, everyone exposed will need to isolate, which may include some difficult conversations with customers.
To protect your business, get your cashflow going again and rebuild customer trust, don’t just give COVID-19 safe the lip service – it’s the key to ending your business lockdown.
How ETC can help
If you need help creating a comprehensive ‘bounce back’ plan to reduce recovery time, take advantage of new opportunities ETC can help, please get in touch.
If you’re new to ETC, why not contact us for a free new business review? We’ll spend two hours with you, giving you professional coaching and will leave you with actions for immediate implementation.
Debbie Hargreaves
Tony Crook
Steve Parker
Admin vs. love for your business
Does admin stand between you and the love for running your business?
If so, you’re not alone. Lots of small business owners are extremely skilled at their trade. Having started their own business though, ‘admin’ tasks often get in the way of their love for it.
It’s common to become despondent when it comes to finance, pricing, writing quotes and so on. While you may be breathing a sigh of relief that it’s not just you, be cautious. There could be danger ahead. It’s common sense, but ‘admin chores’ are not really admin at all. They’re fundamental to the success of your business. Just like a marriage, you must work on your business and make the odd compromise by doing the things you enjoy less.
For an explanation of the 8 management functions of a business, read our recent article: Momentum: The small business growth programme.
Could admin neglect be causing you to lose money?
At ETC we recently worked with a digital designer. I can’t tell you how amazing she was at her day job. So it was a surprise to learn she was losing money. When we got to the root of the issue, we discovered she was undercharging. This was caused by a lack of attention to detail when costing up jobs (find out more about how to price your services here) and demonstrates the importance of getting pricing right.
Time management
You must allocate time for the management functions of your business. Follow these simple steps to do this:
- Diarise the time in your diary, whether this be weekly or monthly (or whatever is appropriate)
- Put all the jobs relating to that function into a folder (in your email or a physical one) to be dealt with at the allocated time.
- When the time arrives, move your way methodically through each task.
By doing this, tasks become much less daunting. Doing them in a ‘job’ lot will save time too — you’ll work through them at pace as you get going. Once complete, this will give a real sense of satisfaction, leaving you to get back to doing what you love — the day job!
My blog on time management will help you review and change your working week for the better.
If you still struggle to find time to allocate, or don’t have the right skills to complete certain tasks, then consider a sub-contractor. A book-keeper or virtual assistant for example will get the job done quicker; those tasks you detest, they love!
If you’re falling out of love with your business, why not get in touch with us for free 2 hour business review? One of our management consultants will come out to your business and identify and explain immediate steps you can take to not only help find the passion again, but set you on a path to focus, develop and grow.
Momentum – the small business growth programme
All business owners we work with at ETC are experts in their field. However the reality of dealing with finances and sales and marketing is often a barrier to growing a successful business.
Try as you might, finding time outside of the day job to plan your marketing, or review your finances, or any other managerial task can seem impossible when there are deadlines to meet. Even if you can find the time, do you know where to start? If any of this sounds familiar, don’t worry, you’re not alone!
With these issues in mind we developed Momentum, the Managed Growth Programme. Over the course of three years, this tailored programme guarantees to increase profits by three times its cost and is realistic in terms of practical investment.
So how do we do it? The first step for your assigned business consultant is to complete a free business review so they can get to know your business inside out. The next stage is to visit you for half a day a week over the course of 5-6 weeks to coach you across the eight fundamental areas required when growing a successful business. But it’s not a closely guarded secret, you can get started yourself by getting to grips with the following:
Goal setting
Your business consultant will get you to take a step back and think about your long-term future, what is it you want the business to deliver for you, to facilitate the kind of lifestyle you covet? Find out more about the importance of setting personal goals here.
Key objectives
With personal goals defined, you can establish how to deliver on them by agreeing what actions and processes will be required. There’s more on objectives and how to create a simple business plan in this blog: why have a business plan.
Organisational structure
Growing a successful business requires an understanding of who is in the business. What are their roles and who is responsible for ensuring the expected outcomes of each activity? Find more information about creating your organisational structure here.
Sales and Marketing
Marketing and selling your products and services doesn’t have to be daunting. You simply need to answer the following questions:
– Who is your target market?
– What marketing activities are required to generate prospects?
– What is the sales process to take prospects through the funnel to purchase?
Your business consultant will help establish these answers and give coaching on closing sales. Get started now by taking a look at our post: 3 simple steps to an effective marketing strategy.
Delivery (operations)
Keeping on top of operational commitments is of course paramount to keep customers happy enough to come back. It may sounds obvious, but as your business grows and with it the team, you will need a robust process to keep track of orders and the status of each. Your business consultant will work with you to define a simple process to ensure products and services are delivered in a timely manner and at the quality expected. More detail on this can be found here.
Admin
Support functions are all crucial to keep the business running smoothly, even though they’re often loathed by business owners. Your business consultant will find out how you currently manage these tasks and help identify any streamlining to increase efficiency. There is more advice on how to do this yourself here.
Finance
Every business should understand their break-even point (the cost involved to run the business). Your business consultant will complete an exercise with you to define this. My post: 4 tips for effective cost cutting not only explains how to track expenditure but also suggests ways to cut it!
In addition, your business coach will ensure you have the correct pricing structure in place. At Executive Training & Consultancy, all too often we come across businesses that aren’t charging what they’re worth. Discover why cheap pricing is not not suitable for growing a successful business here.
Management
At the end of the 6 weeks, you’ll be in the right place to start your business growth. That’s not quite it, though. To keep everything running as it should you’ll need to keep track. From how you’re doing against objectives, to whether your customers are happy, to how well your marketing is doing, you’ll need to monitor and measure performance. Find out more about this in our blog: Monitor, Measure, Grow!
Following the intensive sessions, your business consultant will then write up your agreed business plan and provide you with the primary focus for the first quarter. At the end of each quarter from thereon, you’ll have a half day strategy session to look at progress and decide on the actions needed in the upcoming quarter.
Of course in between those appointments, your business consultant is just a phone call away for any help or advice you need!
Interested to find out more? Book a no obligation FREE business review today to see if Momentum is right for you.
Fix the sales dip before it happens
Many businesses experience a seasonal sales dip, but three simple actions can help iron these out.
There are some industries and trades that have obvious trends and sales patterns. For example, the wedding industry will have a sales peak during the summer. Similarly, gas engineers will experience their biggest sales volume during the winter months.
However hidden dips can also occur when revenue and sales activity is left untracked. From a financial viewpoint, being unprepared for such an event will affect cashflow. I often come across business owners who cite lack of time as a reason for not tracking sales activity, but this process is vital in business. It’s the first of my three actions to fix the sales dip before it happens:
1. Keep records and review
I urge you to keep a record of your sales activity by month, as far back as you can. The more data, the more valuable the insight. A spreadsheet is all that’s needed, with columns for the month alongside sales volume and revenue.
Use this data to create a year on year performance chart, this is a really simple and visual way to spot trends.
I went through this process with an English Language school who fortunately had kept attendance records for the previous 5 years. When we looked at the years side by side we spotted a recurring sales dip each May. With this insight we planned a marketing campaign to attract new students for May, thus ironing out their sales dip.
2. Look forward as well as back
Just as important as reviewing what’s already happened, is tracking advance sales. This is known as your Order Book.
For example, a client of mine who is a wedding photographer does just that. Each time a sale is made for a future wedding, the revenue that wedding will attract is attributed to the month it will come in. That way, he knows well in advance how the coming months/year looks and can plan for any gaps.
3. Plan ahead
I’ve alluded to this already, but of course the reason for tracking past and future activity is to enable marketing planning, the aim of which is a revenue line with no major sales dips.
I’ve gone into more detail about actions to achieve this in my next blog: 6 Marketing Tips for Seasonal Businesses.
As ever, if you need any help implementing my advice, why not contact me for a free new business review? I’ll spend two hours with you giving you professional coaching and will leave you with actions for immediate implementation.
Doug D’Aubrey.
6 Marketing tips for seasonal businesses
Don’t let the dip get you down! There are plenty of of ways to keep sales afloat for seasonal businesses.
If you read my last blog: Fix the sales dip before it happens, you’ll know how to spot forthcoming dips in sales. In this post, I’m sharing 6 activities you can undertake to iron out that dip.
Research your customer base
While it may be obvious for some businesses why some months are slower than others (for example a seafront cafe in Cornwall relying on tourists will be quiet in winter), there are some businesses who may have identified patterns in sales that are unexplained.
In order to combat these quieter times, the first step must be to understand why they occur. A simple survey of your existing customer base could uncover some facts you can use to your advantage. Include questions to find out why they don’t purchase at certain times.
An example of this might be a stationers, whose sales always dip in August. The reason for this may be that many of their clients take holiday at this time, rather than a change in their requirements. With this knowledge, a plan of action can be implemented.
Give people a reason to buy
With your new knowledge, you can give people a reason to buy.
A beauty therapist will typically be busiest during summer and at Christmas, when people want to look their best for holidays and parties. Offering discounts or packages over quieter times could be enough to keep customers coming. For example, selling treatment courses at a discounted rate over winter or spring. Add to this clever messaging, perhaps suggesting this will ensure a tip top appearance for the start of summer, and you’ve sold the benefit to off-season purchases.
Target a niche
Is there a niche corner of your market you can target? For example gluten free/allergen suitable cooking for bakers/caterers. Ensuring your product or service is suitable for all areas of the market could mean you capture sales from your competitors.
A client of mine who is a wedding photographer has kicked off a marketing campaign for winter brides. Showcasing examples of winter wedding photography is helping win business from competitors who don’t promote them, and in the off-season too!
Diversify your product offering
A popular way to maintain year round sales is to diversify. If you operate a seasonal business, is there another market who could use your services in the off-season, or is there another product you could offer your usual base?
For example, a gas engineer would try and fill their summer months with boiler services, knowing there will be less breakdowns.
Alternatively, a busy weekend bar or restaurant could target mid-week corporate clients with a venue hosting package.
Find more information about diversification in my blog: Diversification: 3 ideas to increase sales.
Stay in touch
Ensure you keep front of mind for your customers by staying in touch all year round. Share stories about what you’re up to, share useful tips, and even try to create interest by sharing emotive content. A seaside guest house sharing images of log fires, hot chocolates and winter walks could create desire and demand for an off-season break.
When to market for the low season
With all your actions in place, the only thing left is to decide when to implement them. This is a simple case of understanding how long it takes your business to move consumers through the buying process.
If it takes three months to turn a prospect into a closed deal, then ensure your marketing is active at least three months before the dip. Remember that prospects need to see your content a number of times before they might be ready to purchase.
If you’d like help to implement any of my advice, why not contact me to arrange a Free Business Review? This is a genuinely free 2 hour session whereby I’ll come into the business and spend two hours giving you advice for immediate implementation. Click here to arrange yours now.
3 simple steps to an effective marketing strategy
Don’t be daunted by complex, expensive marketing strategies. Often, basic marketing activity is all that’s required for a small business.
I once visited a small business on the verge of collapse. Despite having had an external consultant craft a marketing strategy, they still weren’t winning business.
The strategy itself was about 6 inches thick and kept in a folder. Understandably, the business owners hadn’t read it in detail and felt it was ‘just stuff copied and pasted from the internet’.
The nature of the business was website programming. The only marketing tactic identified in the marketing strategy was telesales, the thought of which was too daunting. Therefore the strategy document had been a waste of money.
If this sounds familiar, then I’m here to tell you creating your own marketing strategy should be much more simple!
Step 1: Identify your core service
Seems obvious, but is your core service or product offering crystal clear? Without a straightforward definition, it’s impossible to determine who will want what you’re offering.
Establish what problem your business solves for buyers and write it down. Ensure to avoid jargon and write it so a 14 year old could understand it.
Take me as an example, I’m a Management Consultant. I can’t assume that everyone knows what that means! So what is it I actually do? This is a clearer description of the service I provide:
“Sound advice and practical assistance to help small businesses increase profits”.
Step 2: What is your target market?
With a defined service offering, the next stage is to determine who is in the market for it. What type of customers are you trying to attract?
The web programmers I visited had failed to identify their core service offering and target audience, proving almost fatal. Without this knowledge, the external marketing consultant had recommended they market their business to companies needing new websites. However, when we followed my recommended steps one and two, we discovered the following:
Core service offering: technical build of pre-designed websites
Target audience: website designers
So actually, their audience had been completely wrong. It’s no surprise then that their marketing strategy was destined to fail.
Step 3: Decide on marketing strategy
Now you understand the importance of knowing who you’re talking to and what about. The question is, how do you communicate it?
For the web programmers I mentioned, in fact telesales was still appropriate. All that needed to change was the audience. With a list of the right people who needed their services, the idea of speaking to those people became less daunting.
In addition to this, they redesigned their own website to have the right messages and also started networking.
The moral of this story is simple, get the background right before deciding on your marketing actions! To find out more about choosing the right marketing activity and creating a plan, read on to my next blog: 4 simple marketing tactics for micro businesses.
As ever, if you need any help implementing my advice, why not contact me for a free new business review? I’ll spend two hours with you giving you professional coaching and will leave you with actions for immediate implementation.
Doug D’Aubrey.