Category: Blog

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.

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.

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.

Micro businesses don’t need a complicated marketing strategy. Instead, key marketing tactics that fit within resource and reach the correct target audience are absolutely sufficient.

In my last blog I explained the 3 simple elements that make up a marketing strategy fit for a small business. Refer back to it here if you haven’t yet read it.

Put simply, the strategy should define the product or service you provide, together with the target audience. The final step is to establish which marketing tactics to employ?

There are many options! Here are some of the tactics I recommend to my clients:

Branding

Having a recognisable brand is an excellent way to raise awareness of your business and to build customer loyalty.

As with much of my advice, you can keep this pretty simple. A logo combined with a set of brand colours and fonts is all a micro business needs. Using these consistently across all of your marketing efforts will aid recognition and help build trust. When you have a recognisable brand and offer a consistently good service, customers spend less time researching you, and their buying decisions become easier.

I do recommend getting proper support with this though; to get all the benefits it does need to look like it’s been professionally done. I personally recommend Wondrous, who I use for my marketing communications. Ensure you find someone to help you get this right.

Website

Another fundamental is to have a company website. Apart from anything else, many prospects will want to look you up when completing their research prior to deciding whether to spend their money with you.

If you sell products, a website can be an additional revenue stream. Likewise, done well and with regular, useful content being added it can also draw potential new customers to your site.

Networking

If you can’t afford to pay a sales team, then networking could be your answer. This involves promoting the products and services of other members to your own clients, and crucially, they do the same for you! This creates warm leads.

Networking is another great way to raise awareness of your business but also has the hidden benefit of making great contacts for your own business. Meeting with like-minded business owners can help with sharing advice and problem-solving.

There are many free and paid events, check them all out and see which works for you. Find out more about the benefits of networking in my recent article: How to create strategic alliances that win sales.

Social media

71% of people say they are more likely to make a purchase from a brand they follow on social media (source).

Which channels to employ really depends on the product or service you offer. For B2C products, Facebook is a no-brainer while LinkedIn is best suited to B2B businesses. That’s not to say they can’t work the other way around though. Test the ones you think could apply and monitor responses and engagement to decide where you should focus your efforts.

There are lots of social media specialists out there who can help with this, and depending on your budget, you can could choose from one-off or ad hoc audits and training sessions, right through to full management including content creation and scheduling.

If you do decide to go it alone, just remember that social media should be social! So be conversational rather than overly promotional and be sure to also share content from other sources that your audience may like, it will help place you as an expert in their eyes.

If you need any help implementing any of my advice, or would like to investigate other marketing options available to you, why not contact me for a free new business review? I’ll spend two hours giving you professional coaching and will leave you with actions for immediate implementation.

Doug D’Aubrey.

 

‘Business plans don’t work’ is the common misconception of many business owners.

It’s a statement that as a business consultant, I’m often faced with. When discussing whether a business needs support, ‘business plans don’t work’ is a frequent objection. However when we explore why, this misconception has often been brought about by one of two things:

1. Plan created to secure funding

In many cases, business plans are created in order to secure funding from a bank. The plans contain whatever is needed to get the cash across the line and often bare little resemblance to the actual business. With funding in place, the business plan has done its job and is filed away. It’s little surprise in that case, if the business doesn’t grow as a result.

2. Lack of action plan

In some instances, business plans are created with a genuine desire for business growth. Unfortunately, the reality is often just an idealised view of the perfect business. It doesn’t factor in actual resource and business structure. Critically, what many business plans lack is an action plan. Without which, it’s unlikely to succeed.

So when I hear the statement ‘business plans don’t work’, my first question is always ‘did you follow an action plan?’. The old adage is true:

If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

What your business plan should include

Putting together a business plan shouldn’t be difficult. Simply follow this step by step approach:

Goals

What are your personal goals? Therefore what does the business need to achieve to deliver on these goals? Rome wasn’t built in a day, so break targets down into manageable chunks.

Objectives

Set objectives for the business and remember to ensure they are SMART ie:
Specific
Measurable
Actionable
Relevant
Time-bound

Strategy

Broadly, how do you plan to achieve the objectives you’ve defined? For example, if one objective is to increase sales, the strategy might be to start selling in new markets (perhaps online or overseas).

Action plan

With strategies outlined, you’ll need that critical action plan. Decide and document a list of specific actions.

Looking back at the example above, let’s say one strategy is to start selling online. Actions for this may include things like:
Build e-commerce website
Research shipping fees
Review pricing
Review packaging options

With a list in place, add to it who will do what and by when. Day to day service delivery can often get in the way of delivering on an action plan, so be realistic when deciding on deadlines.

Monitor

OK so your action plan is key, but only so long as you do action it! It sounds logical but you’d be surprised how many action plans are written but not followed. There are so many distractions as a business owner and I understand how easy it is to lose sight.

So, how to ensure this doesn’t happen? Put in a mechanism to establish some accountability. This might be via a regular management team meeting, or if you’re a smaller business it could be a regular meeting with your business coach. Get the time allocated in your diary each month to check everything is on track.

When you follow these steps and implement your action plan, you might just end up where you want to be! It’s just like getting in the car. Without knowing the destination, or without a pre-planned route you’re less likely to have a smooth trip, arrive on time or even get where you want to go at all.

To find out when you should be completing your annual planning, read on to my next blog here.

As ever, if you need any help building and implementing your action plan, 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.

As a rule of thumb, business plans should be compiled in the quarter before they’re needed.

In my last blog, I explained why you DO need a business plan (you can refer back to it here). Now you’re convinced, the next question is when to start? In fact, business planning should be an ongoing affair to sustain a healthy growth.

Implemented at the start of the business year, the plan should be continually monitored, adjusted and finally reviewed at year end (by which time, the following year’s plan should be ready to go). Large businesses have regular management meetings, small businesses should be doing the same. It’s the only way to stay on track.

Planning ahead

To effectively plan for the coming year, you should be working on your plan 3 months ahead of when it’s needed. So for those businesses that run on a calendar year of January to December, that’s now.

For businesses running on April to March, January is the time to get plans together.

Getting support

While compiling a business plan doesn’t need to be daunting, it’s wise to gather some support. Sole traders can enlist some trusted friends or associates to help brain storm the coming year. Or of course, if you have a mentor, get them involved!

My previous blog details the stages you need to execute in order to finalise your plan.

Marketing calendar

In addition to your overall annual budget/plan it’s prudent to include a marketing calendar, detailing all the events that impact on the business throughout the year. This will aid planning for those crucial times when peak sales will be reached.

Wholesalers supplying retailers will need to have their Christmas offerings sewn up by June at the latest, ready for sales to commence in September. The hospitality industry will similarly need their Christmas plans in place by September and so planning for this should start at least three months ahead of this.

Find out more about how the marketing calendar works in my recent blog here.

Planning for the quiet times

Don’t forget to plan for the slower months too. If the new year presents a period of quiet then have your marketing activity in place ahead of this to drive revenue and avoid a drastic dip. My blog, Diversification: 3 ideas to increase sales can help with this.

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 to make positive changes. Click here to arrange yours now.

Effective selling comes when belief in your product or service is combined with an understanding of your prospects’ needs.

In my previous blog, Effective selling: know you product, I explained how a belief in what you’re selling increases sales. I also explained how to provide your salesforce with that belief. The perfect alchemy however is to use that belief to answer a problem for your prospect.

Understand customer need

No-one wants to be sold at. How many times have you been at the end of a phone call thinking, “you don’t even know me, or what I need”? A salesperson’s belief can be a turn off in that situation, they’ve found out nothing about you!

Before you can begin to sell, you need to understand the customer and what they need, only then can you offer your product or service as the solution.

Ask open questions

Asking open questions will assist your fact-finding. Let’s say you’re selling water coolers. What questions might be asked on a sales call? I found myself on a such a call recently, the seller simply asked “would you like a free trial of one of our water coolers?”. Firstly, this is a closed question, where there could only be a yes/no answer. The problem with closed questions? The prospect can say no!

Had the seller built up some rapport and found out more about my needs, the outcome could have been very different. Asking open questions would have facilitated this. For example, the caller could have asked things such as:

• How are you enjoying the hot weather?
• How are you coping with the heat at work?
• What are facilities like for making drinks?
• What’s the water like where you are?

Establish pain points

Asking these questions may have uncovered some pain points for the prospect, allowing the salesperson to present their water-cooler as a solution.

For example, through open questioning, the seller could have found out information such as the tap water is unpleasant, the kitchen is on another floor, there’s no air con and so on.

The seller could then have empathised and introduced the water-cooler as a solution. For example “I hate it when tap water has a funny taste to it too. Our water coolers are filled with natural spring water which is much nicer to drink than tap water. I can send one out on a free trial so you can try it out for yourself, can I confirm where to send it to?”

This is a very simple example, but demonstrates how much easier it is to have a conversation when you understand a customer’s need. When you do this, a sale becomes much more likely.

Examples of other open questions

Make a list of the type of things you could ask to uncover your prospects’ problems, to which you could offer a solution. Remember, open questions only! Here are some general examples to get you going:

• What’s your experience of…?
• Tell me about your business?
• How do you find the service offered by your existing supplier?

So, be passionate and believe in your product, but be sure to listen first! Uncover a need to which you can sell a solution.

As ever, if you need any help going through these processes, why not contact me for a free new business review? I’ll spend two hours with you giving you professional coaching on starting a business. I’ll leave you with actions for immediate implementation.

Doug D’Aubrey.

While there are many aspects to effective selling, a fundamental belief in your product or service has to be paramount.

The most successful salespeople genuinely believe in the benefit their product or service provides, and it shows. I’m sure you, like me, have experienced a lacklustre sales experience. When a salesperson has no belief in what they’re selling, it instils no confidence in you as the buyer and switches you off. However when there is belief, that passion is infectious.

OK, how to get that belief? If you’re a small business owner then I’ve no doubt you’ll have it in abundance. But what about if you rely on others to do the selling, do they share your passion?

Know the product

It stands to reason that the first step has got to be to understand the all the features and benefits of the product or service. Give the seller access to all relevant literature to give them this knowledge, talk to them about it and answer any questions.

Experience the product

The greatest way to get that belief though is to experience it, so facilitate this wherever possible. The proof is in the pudding, as the saying goes. With first-hand experience will come an inherent knowledge and passion that will expedite a sales increase.

Likewise, why not let your prospects try the product or service too? This can be achieved through physical samples when selling a product. For services, case studies and reviews will help give confidence.

Knowing and experiencing the product is only half the story though. Read on to my next blog, Effective selling: understanding customer need, to uncover how understanding a client’s need is as crucial to effective selling.

As ever, if you need any help going through these processes, why not contact me for a free new business review? I’ll spend two hours with you giving you professional coaching on starting a business. I’ll leave you with actions for immediate implementation.

Doug D’Aubrey.