small business resource

Ten Ways to Manage a Rapidly Growing Business

While some new business owners face the issue of not enough customers, others face the issue of too many customers/clients. Both are serious issues and must be dealt with carefully. There are many lists on how to find new customers/clients. Here is a list of 10 ways to deal with a rapid influx of new customers. The goal is a steady flow of just the right customers/clients.

1. Know the customer/client that is right for your business.
Get really clear about your ideal client or customer so you can be selective when there are too many business opportunities and you do not have time to accept them all.

2. Have a specialty that you are known for.
Specialize so that you get really good at what you are doing. You can then service more customers/clients quickly.

3. Eliminate clients who drain you.
If a client/customer takes too much of your time, that client/customer is costing you money. Look for ways to predict who will be a time-consuming customer/ client and avoid them. Find ways to eliminate those customers/clients.

4. Create systems to support you.
Examples are: a good business development system* that provides you with the customers or clients you need, a good bookkeeping system to keep track of expenses and revenue, a customer/client tracking system with a database of customers/clients names, addresses, and other useful information. Even though it may seem like you have too many customers at the moment, that flow will stop unless you keep marketing.

5. Off load routine tasks to others.
What are the repetitive tasks you hate to do but which you know are necessary to run your business? Many administrative tasks are easily taught to a support person and by doing so you make more time in your day to see customers/clients.

6. Leave time in your day for reflection and self-care.
Doing the tasks of the business is of course necessary. Many get so focused on their task lists that they never have time to take a strategic look at the business. Putting aside time every week helps you to find more ways to work with the customers/clients you want to. Leave some time too for taking care of you. This means making time for doctor’s appointments, hair care, massage therapy, exercise, meditation and anything else that provides for your health and well being.

7. Set firm boundaries.
Don’t allow a client/customer to play on your sympathies and convince you to do something you know you should refuse (i.e. too time consuming, not your specialty and/or for free). Doing favors for others is not a favor to you!

8. Raise fees.
If all the clients/customers coming to you are your ideal clients/customers then it is time to raise fees/prices. This will sort the clients/customer that are willing to pay more for your services and those who are not. Revisit your fee/price structure at least once a year.

9. Refer to others.
When clients/customers are not your ideal clients/customers or when your ideal clients/customers cannot afford your fee, have a list of other business owners to whom you can refer.

10. Hire someone to help you do the work.
Once you have off loaded all the repetitive tasks it may become necessary to hire another worker who does the work that you do to work with you.

About The Author

Alvah Parker is a Business and Career Coach as well as publisher of Parker’s Points, an email tip list and Road to Success, an ezine. Parker’s Value Program© enables her clients to find their own way to work that is more fulfilling and profitable. Her clients are managers, business owners, sole practioners, attorneys and people in transition. Alvah is found on the web at www.asparker.com. She may also be reached at 781-598-0388.

Filed Under: Business Management Tagged With: small business, small business management, small business marketing, small business resource, start a small business

Success From Failure Is As Simple As Focus, Plan, Execute 1

Success From Failure Is As Simple As Focus, Plan, Execute

You excitedly signed up for that pre-made money generating website you saw in a popbehind window. You signed up for the affiliate IDs. You set up your autoresponder and signed up for several “traffic generators”. You read the writings of all the internet gurus. Then you sat back and waited to pull in those MASSIVE PROFITS!

Its now a year later and what do you have to show – 150 subscriptions to your ezine and a couple of downline affiliates. You are disgruntled, dejected and more broke than you were when you started this venture. You feel that it is time to give up.

Don’t.

A major breakthrough leading to increasing success in your home business may be just around the corner. Here are a few steps to take before throwing in the towel.

Why did you start?

When you first signed up there were circumstances in your life that led you to look for a home business opportunity. These may have been due to a job loss, desire for more time with your family or need to supplement retirement income. Whatever the reason, most likely they still exist. Write them down. Put it in big letters on a single page and post it where you will be likely to see it several times a day – on the bathroom mirror, on the refrigerator, on a kitchen cabinet, the bedroom door – somewhere that you will see it and remind yourself of the ultimate goal.

Focus

When you started you become excited about a product or service. But along the way you have been bombarded with the “next best thing”. It’s easy to get started but then but when it comes down to DOING what you start, it gets hard and doesn’t happen as fast as you would like it to.

Jack Humphrey, in his article “Focus and Fear of Success – The Biggest Monkey on Your Back?” http://tinyurl.com/5zr6e says “The problem lies with your focus and your fear of success. You must CHOOSE the opportunity you are passionate about, or create a product you stand behind and love, and then hunker down for the long-haul! Make yourself do everything you are taught to do to build your business and build it – all the way or not at all.”

Create/retool your marketing plan

You may or may not have created a plan for marketing your opportunity. The two must haves to be successful are a large and growing opt in list and massive traffic to your website. In all those forums you probably learned several methods to boost your online presence, including:

1. Listing your ezine in ezine directories
2. Signing up for pay-per-click advertising
3. Exchanging links
4. Buying leads from a lead generator
5. Signing up with traffic generators, such as searchestate
6. Buying ezine advertising

You may have tried these and several more. But did you have a plan?

Stone Evans, the Home Biz Guy, in his free ebook, 30 days to success http://tinyurl.com/63rfj, says ”Some of the key marketing activities that you should perform on a regular basis are starting to show up once every week: write and article, submit your article, create links back to your site, network in forums… I strongly recommend that you keep these vital practices up for the life of your business.”

“ You see, it is very unlikely that one BIG event is suddenly going to make you an Internet marketing success story and cause you to become rich overnight. In truth, it’s all the small things you do that add up over time and ultimately allow you to become successful in this or any business undertaking.”

Execute the plan

Now that you have refocused on your goals, narrowed in on your product and built a marketing plan all that’s left is to execute that plan. Set aside time every day that you will spend on your plan. Write an article on Monday, submit it on Tuesday, exchange links on Wednesday and so on.

Ultimate Success

You had your reasons for deciding to start your own home based business. You must always keep your reasons in the forefront of your mind. You must always be able to rely upon your own self and your dedication to the success of your business. Success is within your reach, if only you can stay focused on your goals. You must decide to reach for your goals, and then, you must have the discipline necessary to reach them.

About The Author
Timothy Spaulding is the owner of the Work At Home Business Resource Center www.workathome-awesomeopportunities.com. He has been employed in the restaurant, retail and aerospace industries.

Filed Under: Business Management Tagged With: small business, small business management, small business marketing, small business resource, starting a small business

Customer Loyalty

Loyal customers are the foundation of almost every business. Going the extra mile to provide outstanding customer service is the first step to customer loyalty. But there is more. Of course – your products and services in general need to be good. If you offer lousy uptime there is not really a reason to be loyal when being a customer. You just don’t deliver, period.

Here are a few more suggestions to gain customer loyalty.

1) Be smart. Be smarter than your customers are. Make sure you and your staff always (no exceptions) have more answers than your customers have questions. Most people are very loyal to expertise and proven skills.

2) Pay Attention. Pay attention to what your customers really want from you and what they really are hoping to find. If you see a pattern – follow it and adjust accordingly.

3) Attitude and outfit. Show positive attitude. Always be on time; never ever run late when a customer is involved. Be professional, act professional. If you meet with a customer – don’t look like coming from a .COM company (even if you are) where shorts and T-Shirts are business attire. Don’t over-dress either.

4) Dump any strict policies. Don’t make customers think, that doing business with you is a risk. Be generous and flexible. Every situation is unique – so can be your decisions. If a customer is not satisfied, give him the money back and try spinning this into an even bigger sale.

5) Don’t hire unlikable people. Nobody likes to give money to someone they don’t like. Even if your staff might never really talk to customers and only communicates via email or forums – a personality will always shine through. A customer will feel after a while, who he is dealing with.

6) Don’t be pushy. Don’t try to push a customer to something they don’t want, they don’t need or they are not sure about. Show options, be patient. Customers like that more than a stupid sales pitch.

7) Offer superior products. Add a little more to each product or service than necessary.

None of these things alone with get you loyal customers, but a combination of things will make it very difficult for a customer to leave. If you get a customer to this point, you are able to ask for a higher price for your products and most of them will be happy to pay a little more so that they can continue to enjoy the service and the products that you provide.

Filed Under: Business Management Tagged With: business startup, how to write a business plan, running a small business, small business resource, starting a small business

Successful Business Plan – Simple Techniques for Writing Your Own

The very first business plan I ever wrote was praised by the Small Business Development Center counselors and loan officers and immediately accepted and forwarded to the local SBA representative for approval. And no, I didn’t use canned software.

When I realized a business plan would be needed for my small business startup I scoured the Internet and read books and was so intimidated by all the required financial reports I put it aside for two years. But I knew a business plan was going to be a necessity if I was going to get serious about my business idea.

It took me only three weeks from beginning to end and was about 15 pages long. And it contained every single required report. How did I do it? I scoured the Internet for information. I did searches on business plans and compared several outlines against what was recommended at the SBA’s (Small Business Administration) web site. What I quickly discovered was that there was one generally acceptable format that contained very specific essay and financial reports.

At first glance it looked so daunting. But I was so tired of the corporate grind and I wanted so much to have my own business that I pressed forward. I took it one step at a time.

One of the required items was the business description. Within that section was to be a description of the competition. Easy. The reason I knew my idea was a winner was because there was very little competition in the immediate and surrounding area. I simply did a short write up describing those businesses and added a quick comparison showing how my idea differed from and improved upon those existing businesses.

That wasn’t so hard. Maybe I can do this. With newfound confidence I forged ahead to the next section. Marketing. More specifically defining my target market. Who was my customer? I was going after the wedding industry’s customer base. So I hopped on the Internet and went to the census bureau’s site www.census.gov and did a search for marriage statistics in my state. From that I was able to determine how many people had gotten married in recent years. I wrote a few paragraphs about that info.

Two sections down with just a few more to go. It wasn’t such an insurmountable task after all! I realized the essay portions could be written in such a way that I was able to summarize my information into a few concise paragraphs for each section.

The secret to the essay portions was to use an exciting voice with very descriptive adjectives. I wanted to grab the reader’s attention and see why I was so excited about this business. I especially took great care to write the Executive Summary as a brief, but stimulating and provocative attention grabber. (It is extremely important to hook the reader from the get go so they continue on with the rest of the plan.)

The financial statements were just as easy to tackle. The first thing to do was the assumptions. To do that I simply took the selling price of my service (or product) and determined how much I would make in sales per day, week, month and year. That basic information was the basis for the remaining financial reports.

For example, the Cash Flow Statement is simply a detailed “budget”. You take your monthly sales assumptions and add any other incoming “cash” (loan dollars for example) and subtract your expenses. Carry over any extra (or loss) to the next month until you have populated the statement for 12 months. Voila! Another section completed.

Three weeks from start to finish.

When it was completed I took it to the local SBDC office (usually housed in community colleges) for their review and advice. They were floored that I had completed it myself without software. And better yet, they loved it so much they said it was good to go. They suggested local banks that were favorable to start ups and off I went.

The loan officer was equally as impressed. She said that she normally did a quick glance and rarely read entire plans, but was so captivated by the opening Executive Summary that she asked me to wait while she finished reading. She immediately agreed to forward it to the SBA representative for approval. That was an exciting moment indeed!

Why didn’t I just use a template or ask the SBDC or SCORE folks to do it for me? Because it was my baby. I was going to ask for funding from a bank and I felt that I needed to be aware of every minute detail of the plan. This way I could, with full confidence, defend the data should questions arise. I also reasoned that if I couldn’t get this one item taken care of, then maybe I had no business being in business for myself.

Don’t let this one item keep you from realizing your dream. You can do it too!

Sylvia Talo has authored the step-by-step manual, “You Can Write Your Own Successful Business Plan”, now featured in the One Stop Business Start Up Kit. Visit her web site http://smallbusinessstartup.biz a one stop site to help you start your own small business.

Filed Under: Business Plan Tagged With: business plan, business startup, how to write a business plan, small business resource

19 Questions to Supercharge Your Business Plan

Whether you are seeking capital for your company or are optimizing your
business strategy, the most important element – particularly for outside
investors – may be your written business plan. You can tune-up and supercharge
your plan using this 19-step checklist. When your written plan firmly answers
yes to each of these 19 questions, your market/product strategy is in terrific
shape plus you increase the odds of attracting investment capital.

If you don’t already have a written business plan – write one! Your business
plan is a blueprint for your whole company. It describes in detail your goals,
the financial and technical viability of your goals, and the strategy you will
use (or are using) to reach those goals. And your business plan is a working
tool – it is a yardstick to measure your progress and a compass to keep you on
course.

Must a business plan be written?

Yes! A plan which is not written usually has not been thought through fully.
And despite what you may have read, it is doubtful that any business ever
attracted capital on the back of a napkin.

Use this checklist as a way to identify where your strategy, as spelled out
in your business plan, needs work. Each of the questions below highlights an
area considered critical to technology investors.

1. Can the key ideas behind your product or service be stated in one or two
sentences? (y/n)

2. Does your company have at least one unique and compelling competitive
advantage, which cannot quickly or easily be duplicated? (y/n) Examples are a
special feature, a cost advantage, a technical refinement, a new delivery system
or a special supplier.

3. Is your competitive advantage proprietary? (y/n) That is, can it be
copyrighted, patented, trademarked or otherwise protected? Can you keep it
exclusive to you?

4. Is your industry segment growing by 25% or more? (y/n) If not, can your
new product dominate its segment? If the answer is no, you probably won’t be
able to generate the kind of financial returns investors look for.

5. Does your product or service create a new market? (y/n) Although generally
positive, this could be a trap – in a brand new market, the potential can be
slow to develop. Lotus Notes created a new category but took years to create
value for investors.

6. Is your market in “early momentum” – the market growth phase where market
revenues have recently taken off? (y/n) Venture investors prefer markets in this
stage because the time-to-create-value is shorter and the growth potential still
large.

7. Is your target market segment 1) tightly defined over a population sharing
common characteristics, 2) large enough to support significant profits, 3)
served by communications channels to reach that market – i.e., trade or special
interest publications, response mailing lists? (y/n)

8. Is your company filling a gap in the market, or do you have a “gee-whiz”
product which you think is so terrific that customers will surely want to buy
it? (y/n)

9. The benefit of your product or service to users is 1) significant, 2)
quantifiable and 3) cost-justified? (y/n). If you provide a benefit which is
important, and you can prove it – there is a much higher probability of
generating sales.

10. Is there a demonstrated market for your product? (y/n) If you have an
existing product, is your customer base expanding? Investors would rather fund
sales and production than product development.

11. Is there wide appeal for your product or service? (y/n) Are there enough
potential customers in the target market that you can earn significant profits,
for a long time? Are there follow-on products to sustain revenue and profit
growth?

12. Does your company have the ability to sell your product? (y/n)
Particularly in companies where the founders have technical backgrounds, a
question to ask is “Who is going to sell your product or service?” What about
outside distributors?

13. Is there an experienced management team? (y/n) Investors would rather
fund a solid team instead of one lone genius with a great idea. The team should
be highly qualified in marketing, sales, finance, and the product/service area
itself. Of course, a demonstrable track record helps.

14. Can you demonstrate a likely return of 5-15 times investors’ capital,
over a period ranging from three to seven years? (y/n) The actual parameters
used by venture investors will vary based on which stage you are in (idea,
startup, development, expansion, turnaround).

15. Is there a clear exit strategy for investors? (y/n) The most common
strategies for returning investors’ capital are 1) going public; 2) acquisition
of your company; 3) new investors; 4) founder’s buyback or management buyout.

16. Have other investors already put money into the company, particularly the
senior management team? (y/n) This reduces the apparent risk, reduces overall
exposure, and shows that management “has its money where its mouth is.”

17. Have you clearly defined a structure for the investment you seeking?
(y/n) The structure should include: who is involved, how much capital is needed,
what minimum investment you will accept, how much equity that will buy – and, of
course, the projected return on investment.

18. Are your financial projections realistic? (y/n) Have you soundly
justified your projected growth rates and other financial assumptions?

19. Have you clearly examined the risks? (y/n) Investors like to know that
you have considered the risks. This is key – can you turn your risks into
opportunities?

Too many no’s? Remember, each “no” opens up an area for you to strengthen
your business. Even if you aren’t seeking capital, each question highlights a
critical success factor – which, when mastered, will increase your profits, your
performance, and your future success.

In order to help you discover hidden value and opportunities in your
existing business, and to make it easier to spot potential problems while you
are just starting out, I’ve created the Discover Hidden Value Business Building Guide. A remarkable aid
to accelerating the growth and profitability of your business, this program of
insight-provoking questions and checklists enables you to rapidly diagnose,
troubleshoot and optimize every part of your business, from marketing to sales,
customer service to product development and finance to production.

About the Author

Paul Lemberg’s clients call him “the unreasonable business coach” because he
insists they pursue goals and take actions far outside their comfort zone to
make more money than they previously thought possible. To get business
coaching tips, tools and strategies like these, visit www.paullemberg.com.

Filed Under: Business Plan Tagged With: business plan, business startup, how to write a business plan, small business management, small business resource