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BizBoost News Volume 7, Issue 21 For distribution 4/9/18; publication 4/12/18
Five Fun Customer Perks to Set You Apart in the Marketplace
It’s always fun to surprise and delight your customers. This puts a smile on your client’s face, boosts loyalty, and is fun for your employees too. Here are five ways to surprise and delight your customers with inexpensive perks.
1. Handwritten thank you note.
Email and social media have all but killed the handwritten thank you note. So when you send yours to your top customers, it will really stand out.
2. Promotional items.
Promotional items are frequently handed out at trade shows, but they can be used in other settings too. These are items where your logo is typically imprinted and you purchase them in quantity. Items that are useful and popular include coffee mugs, t-shirts, fidget spinners, screen cleaners, webcam covers, keychains, note pads, calendars, and more.
Choose an item that is similar to or a reminder of your business or product. An IT consultant might choose a screen cleaner, while an accountant might choose a piggy bank.
3. Coupon bag.
If your business is located in a strip center, shopping mall, or office building with other businesses around, go door to door and ask for coupons that you can put in a coupon bag to give to clients. Clients will be delighted to get a coupon for the dry cleaners, florist, and hair salon in your center no matter what type of business you’re in.
4. Random prize.
If your business has a stream of clients coming in a physical store or a virtual one, you can award prizes randomly to customers. If customers are grouped together as in a classroom or lecture hall, it’s easy – you can hold a drawing for a prize. Or you can select a random number and the customer assigned that number wins a prize.
Choose a prize from one of your services or products, or give something away that’s universal and “hot,” such as an Amazon Echo Dot.
5. Free samples.
The cosmetics industry has been giving away free samples and gifts with certain purchases for decades. Grocery stores often have free samples of food at a little booth staffed by a host at the end of an aisle. You might be able to apply this idea to your business with a little bit of creativity.
Think of how you can “sample” your service or product and package it up in a free gift or sample. If you offer a service, you may have to get extra creative. A consultant can offer a book that’s related to the service offered, a spa can have healthy treats while clients wait, and a divorce attorney can offer stress balls or fidget spinners.
With customer service declining in many businesses, try these five things to wow your customers and set your business apart.
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Insert a link to your newsletter, web site or blog before you post these:
Our latest blog: Five Fun Customer Perks to Set You Apart in the Marketplace. Subscribe here: [link]
Do you want to surprise and delight your customers with perks? Find out more: [link]
Biz Tip: If your business has a stream of clients coming in a physical store or a virtual one, you can award prizes randomly to customers. [link]
Here are five ways to surprise and delight your customers with inexpensive perks. [link]
With customer service declining in many businesses, try these five things to surprise your customers and set your business apart. [link]
Promotional items are frequently handed out at trade shows, but they can be used in other settings too. Find out more here: [link]
Do you want to wow your customers and set your business apart? [link]
Five Fun Customer Perks to Set You Apart in the Marketplace. Sign up for our newsletter: [link]
BizBoost News Volume 7, Issue 19 For distribution 3/12/18; publication 3/15/18
How to Evaluate Your Marketing Spend
One of the most important success factors of small businesses is the ability to generate revenue, and to do that, most businesses need to market their services and products to bring in new customers and sales. The challenge for small business is how to make their marketing dollars work the hardest, and this requires careful tracking and measurement. Here’s one way to get started tracking your marketing spending so that you can find out what’s paying back the most.
List your sources of revenue
First, determine where your sales are coming from by making a list of all the ways you are currently attracting customers. Here are a few:
Track your expenses by source or method
Once you have your list, it’s time to look to your accounting system. Create accounts or other types of tracking codes in your system to track expenses for each of these marketing methods. If you need our help, please feel free to reach out.
The goal of this step is to be able to get all costs associated with each of these marketing methods so that you have a total cost over time by method. Don’t forget labor: if an employee spends three hours a week updating your social media accounts, this should be included in your costs.
Determine the source of your sales
To the extent you can, match the sales that come in with the marketing source or method. In other words, if a customer knows you from the Chamber and spends $500 with you, match the $500 revenue with the Chamber marketing source. Do this for every sale you can. If you don’t know or can’t attribute the sale to any one method, then code it to an Unknown tracking code or account.
This step can be difficult, depending on your business type, especially if your customers are anonymous, as in retail or restaurant sales. However, every business can do better by asking “how did you find out about us?” to each new client that comes in and recording that answer.
For online sales, you can use tracking apps such as Google Analytics to help you measure digital marketing methods.
Do the best you can on this step, and implement procedures to capture this information as accurately as possible for future sales.
Analyze and adjust
This is the fun part. Once you’ve done all the hard work, you should be able to match sales to costs and determine the volume of sales that are coming in for each marketing method. Let’s say you found out that you are getting no sales from your nonprofit board membership, the Huffington Post article, and social media. You now have some decisions to make.
If you are doing these things solely for the purpose of marketing, you could cut them out and focus on the remaining methods. It could also mean that you need to redo your social media strategy; it’s not working now, but another strategy might. Or just one article in HuffPost is not enough, but three articles could start paying off.
At any rate, you have far more information than you did before you started, and now you can make smarter decisions about your marketing. If we can help you code and crunch all of these numbers, please reach out any time.
Our latest blog: How to Evaluate Your Marketing Spend. Subscribe here: [link]
Do you want to make smarter decisions about your marketing? Find out more: [link]
Biz Tip: For online sales, you can use tracking apps such as Google Analytics to help you measure digital marketing methods. [link]
The challenge for small business is how to make their marketing dollars work the hardest. [link]
Here’s one way to get started tracking your marketing spending so that you can find out what’s paying back the most. [link]
One of the most important success factors of small businesses is the ability to generate revenue. Find out more here: [link]
Learn how to evaluate your marketing spend. [link]
How to Evaluate Your Marketing Spend. Sign up for our newsletter: [link]
BizBoost News Volume 7, Issue 17 For distribution 2/12/18; publication 2/15/18
Is Your Workplace Female-Friendly?
Attracting and retaining talent in your small business can be a giant step toward growing into a mid-sized business. Beyond attracting new employees with salary and benefits, here are several perks, policies, and benefits to consider when recruiting women, and employees in general, to your workforce.
1. Flex work hours.
Everyone likes regaining control over their workday, and offering flex hours can be one of the lowest cost policies to implement. Flex hours support work-life balance and are especially important for employees who have school-age children who can plan work around their children’s day.
2. Wellness initiatives.
Large companies are able to offer a wellness program, but small companies can take small steps to reach the same result. Find a local gym to partner with for a membership discount. Bring in the occasional yoga teacher. Or hire a nutritionist to speak once a quarter to your employees. All of these small initiatives demonstrate to your employees that you honor a culture of wellness.
3. Maternity and adoptive leave.
Do you have a policy about time off for new parents? And more importantly, you’ll need a process to re-integrate the employees into the business when they return.
4. Child care support.
Even if you can’t afford to provide onsite child care, you might be able to partner with a local child care facility to provide reduced or subsidized rates.
5. Gender hiring goals and metrics.
Do you have an equal number of men and women in your workplace? If not, do you have goals in place to adjust the ratios when possible? If you have a disproportionate number of one gender making all of the hiring decisions, you may want to consider the effects of implicit bias on your hiring processes.
6. Mentoring.
One way to speed the growth of employees is to provide mentoring. All employees will benefit from strong role models.
7. Opportunities for promotion.
Both men and women will perform better when there is a clear path to promotion as well as leaders in current positions who demonstrate leadership.
8. Dress for your day.
One of employees’ favorite perks is to be able to dress casually when no customer meetings are scheduled.
9. Paid time off.
Paid time off, which used to be called sick pay, is a favorite. But now, with most employers, you don’t necessarily have to be sick or explain your reason for wanting to take a personal day from work.
10. Gender-neutral company events.
Many companies create events for employees and sometimes customers to enjoy and mingle. This can include the company Christmas party, lunches, and happy hours. It can also include sports events such as golfing and attending baseball games. For every traditionally male event, be sure to plan a traditionally female event to keep the options gender equal. Spa day, anyone?
These benefits are a great start to attracting top talent, boosting employee morale, and maintaining a happier workforce in your business.
Our latest blog: Is Your Workplace Female-Friendly? Subscribe here: [link]
Do you want to boost employee morale? Find out more: [link]
Biz Tip: Offering flex hours can be one of the lowest-cost policies to implement. [link]
Here are several perks, policies, and benefits to consider when recruiting women, and employees in general, to your workforce. [link]
These benefits are a great start to attracting top talent and maintaining a happier workforce. [link]
Attracting and retaining talent in your small business can be a giant step toward growing into a mid-sized business. Find out more here: [link]
Do you want to maintain a happier workforce in your business? [link]
Is Your Workplace Female-Friendly? Sign up for our newsletter: [link]
BizBoost News Volume 7, Issue 15 For distribution 1/15/18; publication 1/18/18
Five Tips to Make Tax Time Painless
Tax time is probably not your favorite time of year, especially if you have to pay the government your hard-earned dollars. Here are five tips on how we can make it just a bit less painful.
1. Have patience.
Practicing patience will go a long way when you’re dealing with taxes. Keep in mind that for tax professionals, the months of January through April are as crowded and hectic as a shopping mall in December. Parking is scarce, the sales clerks are doing the best they can, and customers are all trying to shop for presents, party items, and decorations in a very compressed time period.
Be patient with yourself as well. You have the skills to manage your business and do well at your career, but it may not be at organizing paperwork or dealing with numbers. That’s where we can help.
2. The tax stack.
Set aside a permanent place on your desk to be the tax stack. When you receive something in the mail that is tax-related, place it in the tax stack. You’ll save valuable time later not having to look for documents you need.
Similarly, create a folder on your computer for tax items. Under Documents, create a folder called Taxes. Within that folder, create a folder for the tax year, such as 2017 for the year just ended. Move all of your tax-related computer documents into that file.
At your leisure, scan in or take a cell phone picture of the paper documents in the tax stack and place the digital file in the Tax folder. Now you’ll have everything in one place and you’ll be so organized that your tax accountant will be surprised!
3. Catch up.
If your books or records are behind for 2017, get them caught up now to beat the rush. If you wait until the first week of April, you’ll probably need to file an extension. Keep in mind that an extension only grants a paperwork extension; it doesn’t delay any tax payments that are due. If you wait too late, you’ll have the stress of waiting until the last minute, the stress of paying estimated taxes, and the stress of waiting until your return is finally filed.
4. Early bird.
Connect with us or your tax professional early to agree on what services will be offered and to get your documents turned in as soon as you receive them. Getting your things in early will mean less waiting time for preparation and filing. Wouldn’t it be great to be able to say that you’re done with your taxes in February? Your stress will be less, and your energy can be redirected to new projects.
5. Avoid a large tax payment.
The worst thing about tax time might just be writing a big check, possibly with penalties, to the government in April. Instead, plan ahead and spread out your payments for next year by adjusting your payroll withholding or making quarterly estimated tax payments. Spreading your tax payment throughout the year will have you writing a smaller check, if any, in April.
Try these five tips for tax time, and you’ll have more energy for other, more important things in your business.
Our latest blog: Five Tips to Make Tax Time Painless. Subscribe here: [link]
Are you stressed about tax season? Find out how to have a painless tax season: [link]
Biz Tip: Set aside a permanent place on your desk to be the tax stack. [link]
Try these five tips for tax time, and you’ll have more energy for other, more important things for your business. [link]
Tax time is probably not your favorite time of year. Here are five tips on how you can make it just a bit less painful. [link]
Practicing patience will go a long way when you’re dealing with taxes. Find out more here: [link]
Tax time not your favorite time of year? Our advice for an easier tax season. [link]
Five Tips to Make Tax Time Painless. Sign up for our newsletter: [link]
BizBoost News Volume 7, Issue 13 For distribution 12/18/17; publication 12/21/17
How to Write Your Mission Statement
Mission statements are not just for large corporations. As an owner of a small business, you can benefit from going through the exercise of writing your mission statement. It can not only re-connect you with your “why,” it can also communicate an important part of your business to all of your stakeholders.
What Is a Mission Statement?
A mission statement answers the question “What impact will you have on the world?” It’s your core purpose, your reason for being.
Here are a couple of mission statement examples from large companies you’ve probably heard of:
Harley-Davidson: We fulfill dreams through the experience of motorcycling, by providing to motorcyclists and to the general public an expanding line of motorcycles and branded products and services in selected market segments.
Darden Restaurants: To nourish and delight everyone we serve.
FedEx will produce superior financial returns for shareowners by providing high value-added supply chain, transportation, business and related information services through focused operating companies. Customer requirements will be met in the highest quality manner appropriate to each market segment served. FedEx will strive to develop mutually rewarding relationships with its employees, partners and suppliers. Safety will be the first consideration in all operations. Corporate activities will be conducted to the highest ethical and professional standards.
Ford: We are a global family with a proud heritage passionately committed to providing personal mobility for people around the world.
Levi-Strauss: People love our clothes and trust our company. We will market the most appealing and widely worn casual clothing in the world. We will clothe the world.
At Microsoft, we work to help people and businesses throughout the world realize their full potential. This is our mission. Everything we do reflects this mission and the values that make it possible.
NIKE: To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world.
The mission of The Walt Disney Company is to be one of the world's leading producers and providers of entertainment and information. Using our portfolio of brands to differentiate our content, services and consumer products, we seek to develop the most creative, innovative and profitable entertainment experiences and related products in the world.
A mission statement differs from a vision statement because a vision statement communicates what the company wants to be.
Ask yourself what your business’s core purpose is. What is the impact you want to have on the world? Once you know, you’ll be able to write your own mission statement.
Sharing Your Mission Statement
There are many ways you can share you mission statement.
A mission statement is something to be proud of and something that should make people smile. Yours should motivate and energize you. Once you’ve written yours or if you already have one, be sure to share it with us.
Our latest blog: How to Write Your Mission Statement. Subscribe here: [link]
What Is a Mission Statement? Find out more: [link]
Biz Tip: Ask yourself what your business’s core purpose is. Once you know, you’ll be able to write a mission statement. [link]
As an owner of a small business, you can benefit from writing your mission statement. [link]
A mission statement answers the question “What impact will you have on the world?” [link]
There are many ways you can share you mission statement. Find out more here: [link]
Does your mission statement motivate and energize you? [link]
How to Write Your Mission Statement. Sign up for our newsletter: [link]
BizBoost News Volume 7, Issue 11 For distribution 11/20/17; publication 11/23/17
Spice Up Your Marketing with Storytelling
One of the ways to impact your marketing is by adding stories. Everyone loves a story, and stories are more memorable compared to almost any marketing copy. Here are a couple of tips on how to use and place stories to share with prospects and customers.
What a Story Is
All stories need to be personal and evoke an emotional response. They can be about the company, the employees, the founder, the customers, or each individual product. Many stories revolve around why the company was started. Others focus on what you can achieve with the product.
Here are some ideas for stories for yourself:
To be most impactful, a story should be far more than a history lesson or a mission statement. The best stories describe an inspirational transformation.
Stories can be told in a video or in text and graphics. Two things make a story powerful. First, use details rather than general descriptions. This means going through your story and making sure you have a lot of descriptive adjectives. Second, use all five senses. The reader or video watcher should be able to feel like they are right with you in the scene, knowing what you felt, saw, heard, smelled, and even tasted.
Here are some examples to get you inspired:
Nike’s The Chance: https://vimeo.com/40035962
Warby Parker’s Why: https://www.warbyparker.com/history
SoulCycle Who We Are: https://www.soul-cycle.com/our-story/
Every Product Has a Story – Jewelry: http://www.ephas.com.au/our-products/jewellery/necklaces
Think about your story, and share it with the world.
Our latest blog: Spice Up Your Marketing with Storytelling. Subscribe here: [link]
Is there a story to tell about why you started the company? Find out more: [link]
Biz Tip: A story should be more than a mission statement. The best stories describe an inspirational transformation. [link]
Here are a couple of tips on how to use and place stories to share with prospects and customers. [link]
Everyone loves a story, and stories are more memorable compared to almost any marketing copy. [link]
One of the ways to impact your marketing is by adding stories. Find out more here: [link]
What is storytelling? How can it impact your business and marketing? [link]
Spice Up Your Marketing with Storytelling. Sign up for our newsletter: [link]
