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Cost cutting is a great exercise to send more money directly to your bottom line. However to do this, you need to have an understanding of what is being spent and where.

As business consultants, we’ll review the finances of the business but often find they’re not being tracked and managed.  Many clients leave the financial stuff to the accountant, after all they’re the experts. While this may be the case, the expert on what the expenditure is generating for your business, is YOU. Not reviewing the outgoings of a business can result in paying for services no longer used.

In this blog I’m sharing 4 tips to effectively cut costs in your business and as a direct result, increase your profits.

1. Monitor what’s being spent

It may sound obvious, but look at your cash flow on a monthly basis. It’s easy to focus on income and sales but don’t forget that your costs directly impact profit! So, review all the outgoings, do you need and are you using all of them? If not, you can start your cost cutting exercise by getting rid of them!

2. Get a bookkeeper

If bookkeeping is one of those tasks that never makes it to the top of the to-do list, then hire one. It really is that important. A bookkeeper will provide a monthly report on income and expenditure, so you can see what is being spent. With this information, you can then perform your cost cutting exercise.

3. Understand what each cost is doing for your business

Categorising expenditure will help highlight which of your costs are business essential and which are not.

Some things like rent, rate and materials are unavoidable. Marketing activity such as advertising, social media management and so on are essential only when they generate income.

Create a list of costs that should be generating income and review the return on investment for each. Create a plan for any activities that aren’t meeting your expectation, can anything be done to improve performance? If the answer is no, cull it. My recent post, Profitable Marketing will give you some advice on this process.

4. Value for money

Do take care to ensure that if you decide to change a service provider due to cost, that you’ll still get the required service. Sometimes cheapest isn’t always best. Look out for next month’s post, you get what you pay for, for more information on this.

So follow these steps and take control of your expenditure today! Keep following the advice to make sure you look after it in the long term. If you need any help implementing these tips, then call me to arrange a free business review.

Finally, with your bookkeeping process in place, read on to my next blog which looks at budgeting, for the next level in the financial planning of your business. With a budget in place, you can achieve your goals.

Have a great month!

According to a recent survey, a business owner’s average working week is 50.5 hours, 36.5% higher than the national average of 37 hours!

But the principle of putting in long hours to make a business successful is a misconception and often, productivity will suffer.

All work and no play

A poor work/life balance will lead to tiredness, misery, a building resentment of the business and the outcome? A reduction in productivity.

Relationships are affected too; although little research has been conducted, anecdotal evidence suggests the divorce rate is higher amongst entrepreneurs because they’re never at home. Of course your partner and family want you to achieve success, but they want YOU more.

The positive effect of rest on productivity

Some years ago I worked 18 hour days, 6 days a week to turnaround a failing business. After 3 months of sustained long hours, I was at work one day when I fell asleep at my desk. It was literally a wake up call. I took a couple of days out and returned refreshed and more productive. More got done in just 7 hours a day and I had time again for friends, family and me!

Hitting a deadline

There are occasions when urgent deadlines have to be met, these things happen. But you must take time afterwards to recover. Understand and recognise these as one-offs and don’t let them become the norm. That’s when productivity, the business and potentially your family will suffer.

Time management

It’s not just long hours that are commonplace, at least 70% of small business owners never take a holiday and this too impacts on productivity. My article on time management contains some great tips on scheduling and managing your workload. This advice provides the tools and confidence to take control of your working hours so you can get back more time for you!

Don’t forget, for help implementing this advice book a FREE 2 hour business review today. One of my consultants will come into the business, assess the current status and leave you with real advice to set you on a course to focus, develop and grow.

A business’ profit level can be linked to areas such as marketing activity and cost control. How much holiday taken by the business owner is often overlooked.

Taking a break

Research suggests that at least 70% of small business owners never take a holiday. In my role as a business consultant, I come across this time and time again. Catching up on emails is far more the norm than catching a few rays. While it might appear that leaving the business could be catastrophic, not taking a holiday could be catastrophic itself.

How motivated and productive are you?

Your business simply cannot afford or function long-term without you taking a holiday. Do you feel at maximum productiveness and full of motivation? I doubt it. When business owners don’t take time out, they become fatigued, directly affecting productivity. Worse, resentment towards the business can build up, impacting motivation too.

I recommend taking at least 1, 2 week holiday a year. If it’s impossible to take such a long break, then take long weekends instead. After a long weekend you’ll come back to the business refreshed, with a resulting increase in productivity meaning you can make more money!

Handing over the reins

Ensuring the continuity of service for clients is a key concern for business owners when planning a hioliday. If this is a problem area for you, take a look at last month’s article on Creating Consistency in Service. In it, I explain how to give staff the tools and knowledge to get the job done, exactly as you want it!

Get holiday ready and make more profit

So with the summer upon us, it’s the perfect time to get away. If you don’t yet have your summer break planned, get one booked! If you understand the benefit of taking a break but still feel unable to, book a free business review so we can help get your business holiday ready and more profitable!

If you’re a business owner working alone or if you have a small team you may feel you don’t have time for systems and processes or that they just aren’t necessary. If that’s the case then you may losing money. In this post, I’ll explain how to implement a system to ensure that you have transparency across the business, that you’re spending your money wisely and thus have successful and profitable marketing from which to start your business growth.

Where does your business come from?

You may think you know where your business comes from, but how often do you complete an analysis of your marketing, if at all? In my role as a business consultant I discovered a client of mine was spending thousands of pounds on Yellow Pages advertising. When I asked whether this was a successful marketing tool, the business owner didn’t know because he wasn’t monitoring the amount of business that it was generating.

Record the source of your sales!

I showed my client a simple way to record the source of his business and after 3 months we were able to see that none of it had come from Yellow Pages!

So, it’s clear why it’s so important to monitor where your customers come from. Implement a system to keep a track of the source of your new business for you and your staff to follow. Remember to record each enquiry as well as each sale, so you can determine your most successful marketing activity.

Profitable marketing

Very quickly, you’ll have some meaningful insight into the profitability of your marketing and this will give you the ability to spend your money wisely. Perhaps stopping some activity altogether and reallocating the cash to something that is really working. Imagine the results…

Understanding the outcome of your expenditure is just one of the reasons why systems and processes are so important. My next post will explain how they are also important in your efficiency and customer service delivery.

If you need any help implementing these tips, then book a free business review.

Are you about to become an employer? Perhaps you already have a team but you are struggling to delegate tasks to them or maybe you do delegate with disastrous results! If you are in any of these situations then implementing processes within your business can give you the consistency you need for great customer service delivery. Without them, your customers may not know what to expect when they buy from you.

In practice

Let’s take McDonalds as an example of this in practice. Being a huge franchise organisation with stores being independently owned, McDonalds pride themselves on their consistency in delivering products and customer service the world over. A Big Mac in London looks and tastes the same as a Big Mac in Moscow or New York! You know exactly what you are going to get.

Systems and processes are the key to delivering its customers food that looks and tastes the same. Everything has a process, from cooking times, ingredient amounts, right down to the way the store is cleaned.

McDonalds attracts young staff with a high turnover; many are students who are simply there to earn some extra money but that probably don’t see a long-term career with the company. Having such detailed procedures leaves nothing to chance and ensures the consistency required.

Training

Of course in your business your processes may not need to be so intricate, but having the right ones in place will ensure that no matter how skilled your workforce is, you can be confident they can get the job done. Written processes or checklists for specific tasks can give you the basis of staff training.

Repetition equals reputation

With established processes and checklists in place you’ll be able train staff effectively and as the old saying goes, from your repetition comes your reputation. With procedures in place your customer service delivery should be the same each time, building trust and reliability in your business and from there, business growth.

You may be the closest person to your own business, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re the best person to decide your USP.

I wish I could say I’m the best person, but that’s not true either!

If you want to know what will sell your product or service the best… simply ask your customers why they bought from you. You never know, the answer might surprise you! But it could also give you the edge in marketing to others.

Think about it, if ten people bought from you for a specific reason, chances are, others will too.

Do your research

If you conduct customer satisfaction surveys when you complete a job, add in the question, “Why did you choose us as your supplier?”  Allow them the opportunity to elaborate. Ask them how many suppliers they considered, what was the deciding factor, what would they tell others about your service? All of this will give you invaluable information that you can translate into an effective marketing message.

You will usually find a common theme emerging, but it’s not always what you would expect.

In my own business, I thought my USP as a business coach would be the affordability and achievability of my service to small businesses – my primary target market. Customer surveys, however, revealed it was the fact that I offer guaranteed results that appealed to them most.  Every single one of my satisfaction surveys was returned with reports of increased profits and growth which allowed me to claim the following: “We are so confident that this programme will help your small business, that we guarantee your profits will increase by at least three times its cost over the next three years.”

You’ll now see “guaranteed to increase your profits” prominently highlighted in all my marketing. Just take a look at the home page of my website.

Analyse all emerging themes

Through your research, you may find more than one theme emerging. If this is the case, think about why different customers might like different things about your product or service. How are the customers different? Does one thing stand out to a particular age group? Are certain customers buying a particular product or service because they have a specific need in their industry sector? All of this information will help you fine tune your marketing messages to a variety of potential customers.

It’s important to note, however, that this needs to be an ongoing process. You might find themes change over time, so it’s worth making sure your USP is still in-line with customer comments.

USE your USP!

Once you know and understand your USP – use it! Make it your billboard ad, your website banner, your email footer.

Everywhere customers might find information about you, keep your USP prominent and visible.

I even suggest to clients to include their USP in their answer-phone message. Listen to mine – you’ll see what I mean (01384 355 444).

Use your research

The findings of your research can be a useful selling tool in more ways, too.  Use the statistics to your advantage.  Do you remember this tagline? ‘Nine out of ten mums use Daz because it gets your clothes whiter than white’.  Or, what about, ‘Nine out of ten cats prefer Whiskers’? Although I’m not quite sure how that customer survey must have gone…

If you uncover some impressive findings, share them.

The key point is, let your customers be your guide. They really are better placed than you to pinpoint your USP.

Every business claims to have one, but how many ‘Unique Selling Points’ are actually that… unique?

It’s always one of the first questions I ask when working with a business – tell me what your unique selling point is.  Most of them give me very valid selling points, but often – nothing that makes them unique.

A window cleaner who says, ‘We clean the sills and corners too’; a builder who claims, ‘We leave the site as tidy as we found it’; a cleaning company who states, ‘We have trustworthy employees’ – all of these are great, but aren’t they what customers would expect from anyone in your industry?

Your USP has to be what makes you different. Why do people buy from you? What makes them choose YOU above your competitors? 

You may offer a unique product or service – fantastic! Finding your uniqueness is easy.  This always begs the question for me, however – why is no-one else doing it? Is there really a demand for your service? But, I guess that’s a whole other blog post about market research.

You may be able to claim you are the best at something – great! Just make sure you can qualify this statement and prove how or why you are the best.

The best way to find your USP is to look at your business from a customer’s perspective. What will resonate with them?

If you conducted market research before starting your business, take a look back at your findings with your USP in mind. Did a theme emerge about what is most important to people? Is it customer service, price or something else? Can you hook your USP on this?

It’s also good to remember that USPs aren’t always set in stone. You may want to use a different USP for the same product or service when marketing to a particular geographic area, for example, within a particular setting or to a specific demographic group.

The way you sell cleaning services to the domestic market, for example, will differ to how you sell to commercial customers.

Of course, there is an easy way to determine your USP… My next blog post will reveal all!

Have you ever thought of using your potential customers’ pain to your advantage? By this, I don’t mean you should torture your leads into submission! Rather, if you focus on their pain – and tell them how you can take it away – you will suddenly become their best friend.

Think about the last time you had toothache. It’s a killer isn’t it? You can’t concentrate on anything but the throbbing pain and you’d give anything to be free of it. You book in to the dentist, they sort it out and they’re your hero.

Now consider how this applies to your marketing message.

When booking your dentist appointment, were you particularly bothered about finding out how long they’d been a dentist, or what university they went to? Or did you just want to know they could take your pain away?

Your biggest selling point will always be how you can solve a problem, improve a situation, make someone’s life easier – or in other words, remove a pain.

DON’T make this your ending strapline. Why would you want to bury your problem-solving prowess in a load of facts about you that, whilst they might add to your credibility and be really important to share, will not make people pick up the phone and ask for your help?

Look again at the information you give out to potential customers. Look at the introductory paragraph of your website’s home page, or your brochure. Now look at it through a potential customer’s eyes. What does your first line focus on? Are you telling them you’ve been in business for 20 years? That you’re the number one in your field?  Or are you telling them what you can do for them – save them time or stress, or help make them more profitable?

It’s all great information, but you should prioritise your main sales message.  If a customer can’t see immediately what’s in it for them to employ your services, you’ve already lost them.

Tell customers straight away how you can take their pain away and marketing suddenly becomes less painful!

Once you’ve got your marketing message right, the rest should fall into place.

Follow my six steps to marketing success here.

There’s also more in-depth guidance on refining your marketing in my book, Getting Down to Business.

Modern marketing can really feel like a battle – you’re fighting to win the attention of potential customers, often against multiple enemies, or competitors.  So, you need to think like an army commander!

There are key elements to preparing for any battle, and each can be linked to the marketing process.

Know your enemy – do your market research

An army commander will gather intelligence on the enemy, through covert operations and observation of the enemy’s movements. He will try and ascertain the size of the threat, know their troupe numbers and fire-power, and understand their strategy. He will measure and evaluate – and consider how his own forces match up. This is exactly what you need to do with your market research. Make a few calls to competitors to see how they respond to an enquiry – see if they will send you a brochure, read their website, follow their social media channels, stalk them! Then, compare your marketing to theirs – are you on an equal footing? Is there anything they do better than you that you might need to improve on before going head-to-head? The more information you have about what you’re up against, the greater your chance of success.

Get your strategy in place

Once the intelligence is gathered, a commander will then plan his strategy according to the findings. This isn’t about replicating the enemy’s activity, but thinking of an appropriate response. How best can you use your own arsenal? You want to play to your strengths and take advantage of the enemy’s weaknesses. Where are you going to invest greater resources? A planned attack will always beat the scattergun approach, so make sure you plan how, where and when you will deploy your troops.

An army commander will strategically place his infantry and tanks; he’ll decide on the best time to send in the bombers; he’ll consider whether ships with rocket launchers are required.  In marketing, your infantry might be your website, seo and blogs, your tanks – your social media channels, your bombers are your email or postal campaigns etc.

In the same way that an army commander won’t rely solely on his infantry – you can’t rely solely on your website to bring you custom. It’s about using all the weapons at your disposal in a strategic way.

Prepare your arsenal – branding / marketing materials

Once the strategy is in place, you need to make sure you have enough fire-power and ammunition. In marketing, this means refining your branding and marketing message, and preparing all the materials you need to deliver your message effectively. Your marketing materials and content are your bombs and bullets – and your underlying strategy should ensure they hit their target.

Are you using the latest weaponry? In the same way that the army are constantly upgrading their kit and use the latest technology to their advantage – you need to stay abreast of the latest marketing trends.

Defend your territory – reactive marketing

A certain amount of battle strategy will be reactive – responding to enemy activity. If you know troops are being deployed to a particular area, you send your own troops to defend the territory. So, with marketing, if you know your competitors are prolific on Twitter, or have a particularly effective radio or TV ad campaign – you might want to work it into your strategy to ensure you have an equal presence.

Stay one step ahead – proactive marketing

To win a battle, however, you need to try and stay one step ahead. Think about what the enemy isn’t doing – are they missing a trick? Sometimes, you need to think outside the box. Doing something different could be the key to success, catching your enemy off-guard and gaining you new ground.

Evaluate and amend – measure and adjust your marketing

A good commander knows that any battle strategy has to be flexible. If something’s not working, you don’t keep throwing resources at it relentlessly! Instead, you learn from mistakes and adapt your strategy as you go along. Marketing is no different. If you’ve spent thousands on radio advertising but received no leads from it, you either need to change the advert, or re-allocate those funds to an alternative activity.

Employ advisors

Remember, you don’t need to do this alone! An army commander will employ specialist advisors and use the expertise of the team around him. In the same way, you can employ the help of marketing consultants or business advisors to guide and inform you.

You can find more marketing advice in Doug’s book, Getting Down to Business, available at just £9.37 from Amazon. Click here to buy.

It may sound a strange question! If they’re a customer already using your services, of course they know what you do – right?

Wrong! They may know what you do for them – but do they know you also do this, and this and this?

We should never assume that a client understands the entirety of our business. For example, they may have come to you to develop their website – but do they know you also write blog posts, create email marketing campaigns, manage social media accounts and do graphic design for brochures?

As we’re talking about the importance of client retention, it is definitely worthwhile considering how you are communicating your full range of services to existing customers. They may have employed you to undertake a short term project, but there may be a way of retaining them as an ongoing client with another of your services.

Again, it comes down to communication. You shouldn’t have to do the big, hard sell on existing clients – hopefully you’ll have won them over with the fabulous work you’ve already done. There will be a trust there, which makes it much easier to sell without selling. Try dropping into conversation that you’ve done X for another client that seems to be working really well for them. Ask them, ‘did you know we do that?’ It really is that simple!

Here are some other ways of getting the word out to existing clients about additional services:

Case studies and testimonials

Do you have any case studies or client testimonials on your website? If not, get some on there, pronto! Nothing speaks louder than showing off some top work you’ve done for a client and hearing how pleased they are with the results. Why not get a client on camera? Short video testimonials can be really powerful.

Spread the good news!

How are you spreading the word about the amazing projects you’ve completed, or the fantastic feedback you’re getting from clients? Don’t just let case studies and client testimonials sit static on your website. Share them! Facebook, Twitter and Linked In are great for getting word out, as are blogs and email newsletters.

Leaflets

Don’t rely purely on online – a well designed leaflet with your list of services can be just as effective. A cleaning company I worked with handed out leaflets to all of their commercial clients, telling them they also did window cleaning and removal of environmental waste.  Straight away they secured new business from existing clients, who hadn’t realised before that they offered these services!

It’s good to talk!

Make sure you have it on every meeting agenda to discuss how else you could help an existing client. Face-to-face meetings give you the perfect opportunity to talk about what else you do that might be of interest.

Now go forth and multiply your business the easy way. Just tell your existing clients what you do!

Doug’s step-by-step guidebook to growing your business is available NOW to buy from Amazon.

For straight-talking advice specific to your business, book a FREE business review with Doug today!