Americans look to small business owners for help in growing the economy

Many people in America are expecting owners, of small businesses, to provide the leadership and energy to guide our country out of this economic situation, thus lowering unemployment rates.. How likely we will be able to achieve these expectations rest upon more than the country’s money supply and availability of credit.

People have to have confidence in the future direction of the government and financial institutions, the availability of jobs, and the security that comes with a regular paycheck. However, there are a few things we, as business owners, can do to help. The following suggestions may strike you as being too general, but they represent the bedrock of a successful business owners approach to managing and growing a company. Further, every successful company has employed the six factors described below, to one degree or another, since the founding of our country.

To meet the challenges of our current economic crisis, business owners need to:

1. Adapt to the current situation: If you haven’t rethought your costs, refocused your marketing plan, adjusted your business plan to account for shifts in the economy, you are already behind the curve. Business owners should look for ways to meet the changing needs of your customers. Start by presenting a revised pricing strategy and a new advertising and marketing program of information that addresses your customers’ current expectations.
2. Anticipate future changes: As you have probably noticed, the economic landscape is shifting rapidly throughout the world. Even though, our market may be located, for the most part, in one or more counties of the Bay Area, the economic decisions reached in Europe, Asia, South America, and the Middle East are directly impacting us as well. We need to stay informed and look beyond our borders to anticipate, as best we can, how the economic decisions in other parts of the world, as well in the United States, may impact businesses tomorrow.
3. Strive to insure a strong work ethic in yourself and your employees: Productivity, either by new technology or manpower, requires a constant focus on the output of the resources we have at hand. This means making sure the products and services our businesses offer achieve the results required to best meet the needs of our customers at a profit margin that will sustain a company’s viability. This will mean extra effort by everyone concerned with the business surviving.
4. Enhance the general well being and education of all in your community: This should begin with you and your employees by learning as much as you can about changes occurring in your field and other areas of interest. By increasing your knowledge, you can gain an edge on your competition while improving your chances for surviving the current economic downturn. As for the rest of the community, focus on their improved awareness of educational services offered in secondary and college courses. Finally, always remain involved with the education of the youth in your community. They may very well be future employees or customers, thus their economic success will benefit your business in the future.
5. Provide incentives for excellence: Set high standards for yourself and your employees, make sure you meet, or, better yet, exceed them. And, never accept excuses or explanations that are lame or inappropriate. The challenge for you and your employees is to understand the importance of the problems facing your business as well as the fragile nature of your current situation to stay afloat during these trying times.
6. Encourage a sense of perseverance and frugality: Don’t quit! Hold on as long as you can, continue to find ways to shave costs, consider options to meet your customers’ needs, and look for ways to add new products or services. Of course, you have to be practical, so, focus on changes or modifications, which have a proven record of success or, to the best of your knowledge, have the highest possibility of succeeding.

Those are my thoughts. What’s your opinion on how we, as business owners, can help in solving our current economic situation? I look forward to learning your thoughts on this topic. Until next week stay positive, persevere, we will get beyond our current problems and be in a position to take advantage of the next growth cycle.

Creating an Effective Ad (Part 2)

This is a continuation of the Creating an Effective Ad post from Dec. 2; please read that one first, if you haven't already.

Advertising is effective if you follow a few basic rules. Part 1 focused on customer needs. Part 2 will suggest a few practical steps to assure you a successful ad campaign. These steps should be used no matter if your ad is; on a card, a letter, a coupon, or some other format.

Here are a few common sense advertising practices that will improve your advertising program:

Credibility

You want your customers’ loyalty; your customers want a fair deal. Your credibility is based upon how you relate with customers, this needs to come through in all your advertisements. Your attitude and sense of a fair deal must be evident in all your ads to build successful customer relationships.

Offer

To get a potential customer’s attention, you need to give them a reason to consider your product or service. The best, and easiest, way to get attention is to make a special offer. However, the offer must be clearly stated, simple to understand, and able to draw people into your business. Discounts or something free are typical examples.

Copy

Keep written copy in your ad brief, to the point, timely, and engaging. Make sure you carefully proof read every ad that goes out several times with your eyes wide open and your brain completely focused on the topic matter, offer, and any possible misunderstandings in the copy.

Target

Make sure you have selected the correct market population that is close to your place or places of business if you have fixed locations; if a service business, make sure you have targeted the correct homes or apartments in your service area.

Follow Through

If your ad has generated a potential customer, make sure you have given them the maximum attention required to make a sale, and always attempt to continue an on-going dialog, even if they did not use your service or product after their initial inquiry. They originally came to you for a reason; timing is every thing, the following months may allow for a better opportunity for you to assist them. Never quit following up on past customers or potential customers, I am amazed how many times a simple phone call a year or two after an initial contact has lead to a successful sale.

Cultivate People

Don’t try to close sales too quickly. By engaging a potential customer into a conversation, when practicable, will, in some cases, lead to larger sales or additional opportunities to provide other services or products.

Repetition

The key to any effective ad campaign is repetition. I cannot stress this enough. Write on your note pad, post it on your desk, paste it on your bathroom mirror, remember to say it at least every morning, noon and night . . . REPETITION, REPETITION, REPETITION. In other words, send the same message or offer or variations of an offer, and always keep your business name in front of your target population as frequently as financially possible.

O.K, that’s it for me. How effective your ads are depends on a number of things, but this brief list is a very good start. Now, you have my opinion. What are your thoughts on effective advertising? Many people are starting to comment on my weekly ramblings, I welcome your comments as well.

Considering Financial Risk & Judgment

Judgment is a mere lottery, sometimes you are right, and sometimes you are wrong. For most of us it is more likely that 2% of us are right 50% of the time; and, even if I am wrong, which is most likely, the odds are not very good even if 50% of the population are right most of the time. Benjamin Franklin, the author of Poor Richard’s Almanac, wrote, “At twenty years of age, the will reigns; at thirty, the wit; and, at forty, the judgment.” Luckily, research is identifying specific actions, to help those of us who are judgment challenged at any age, to make better decisions.

A new field has emerged over the past few decades that may hold the key to unlocking how we evaluate and determine the appropriate course of action in making a broad range of economic decisions. This new discipline is called behavioral economics, and studies the impact of our decisions on our lives.

Today, people, typically, consider our economy in one of two possible ways: some people are saying taxes are too high and regulations are stifling the economy; thus, businesses have no incentive to invest or create new jobs; while, others are saying: demand is too low, if wages were higher, consumers would buy more and businesses would then produce more and hire more employees. But, in a new book entitled Think, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, suggest a different factor is at play. He describes how our judgment and levels of risk taking affects our behavior. The book presents a number of interesting experiments, conducted by Dr. Kahneman and his colleagues, to understand how people make decisions. Kahneman’s findings indicate our minds operate in two distinct ways: one is fast and emotional, while the second is slower, study and more logical. The former is more uncertain in its decision making and obsessive. The latter is slow in making choices. Each day we use these two forms of thought, shifting from one to the other, without even thinking about it. Situations determine our choices, but, just as often, external factors can stimulate one method of thinking against the other.

One chapter, entitled “The Engine of Capitalism”, will probably be of interest to business owners because it focuses on “the blessing and curse” of optimism. Kahneman’s studies show that people, typically, exaggerate their ability to predict the future. This leads people to believe their goals are achievable when, in fact, they are not even closely obtainable; in the same way, personal confidence leads many of us to become entrepreneurs when statistically a little over a third of the small business startups survive the first five years in operation; while, almost two-thirds of those who start a small business believe they will succeed!

A positive attitude does have advantages: it breeds endurance in the face of obstacles, it tends to enhance the chances you will be an effective leader that enables you to motivate employees and close deals. Entrepreneurs energize people to provide money and resources to expand and development new businesses, and create enormous growth in our economy. Without a group of positive thinking, risk takers, our economy would have less growth, our society would have less innovation, and our citizens would certainly have a lower standard of living.

All this is good, in small doses, which is why a variety of small businesses are beneficial to our country, the failures are small enough to be absorb by the economy; whereas, misguided optimism by large business owners or government executives, who use our money to invest in high risk projects that fail, cause extraordinary losses and negatively impact our economy. The point is: we recover from many small failures that are spread over the country-side. Whereas, one very large, complicated project can have a huge financial impact on our economy when it fails.

So, go slow, realistically evaluate your options, tackle projects in manageable proportions, and don’t believe everything you read or hear about yourself; stay optimistic in relationship to your capabilities and the limitation of your resources.

Creating an Effective Ad

Part 1 of a 2 part article.

Every person in business wants to increase sales, enhance product or service awareness, and improve their image. The trick, however, is to make your product or service out shine the noise of countless other advertisers competing for ad space, airtime, or web site. The following might help you in promoting your business.

Take time to think about the benefits your product or service offers, Identify your customers’ needs, expectations, and how much they know about your product or service. Consider the effectiveness of past advertising efforts, for example, which ads brought you the most customers, what was it about previous ads that appealed to them, what modifications would you make to previous ads, and, the kicker, what wording, graphics, colors, and customer interpretations were most effective in promoting your business?

The point is: You cannot force a sale through advertising without first considering customer needs. Your existing customers come to you or use your services because you offer something they need. It is as simple as that!

Advertising does not make sales; Understanding customer needs does

Advertising is very good at giving your company name and brand recognition through associating your ability to meet customer needs. Your loyal customers may not be able to explain their positive feelings, but they know they like and use your products or services.

Meet your customer’s needs and you will, in most cases, make a sale; However, It is not enough to just meet a specific need of your customer.

To get a person to use your product or service, you need to demonstrate, some how, you can meet their needs. This can be with the right message, an appealing offer, or, in some cases, a simple color scheme. Whatever it is that moves your customers to select your business, you must be able to understand and appreciate the key customer needs you meet that cause your sales success.

Once your customers’ needs are understood, DON’T OVER DO IT.

Meeting customer needs is a very effective way to increase sales and grow your business because you have established credibility in your customers’ eyes. However, meeting customer needs is like predicting the weather . . . it is always changing.

So, stay flexible and know you customers’ needs. At the same time, make sure you communicate your understanding of those needs as often as you can in as many ways as you can afford. Advertising does work, just use it effectively.

Setting the Right Price to Attract and Hold Customers

Pricing is a challenge because it must represent your cost of production as well as meet your customer’s value for your product or service. Typically, a business will set a selling price on either a value based or a cost plus based system. Market conditions dictate, which approach, is used. For example, to use a value based approach you need to set the selling price at a level the consumer is welling to pay because the product or service meets their needs (it has value). A value based method is practical in highly competitive situations since the customer has alternative suppliers of comparable services or products, while the costs of providing such a service or product various. The cost based approach is generally used when your competitors are operating from the same costs of production and the pricing is highly competitive.

Find the Costs

Finding the costs to provide your product or service is a critical first step. The process includes identifying your production costs; this includes fixed and variable outlays involved to offer your product or service. Rent, salaries, property taxes, insurance and any other expenses that remain constant are considered fixed costs, while variable costs include those expenditures that fluctuate with the number of products produced or services offered, and, may include raw resources, hourly wages, sales commissions, and other related costs. Generally, you would add up all of these various expenses to determine your product or service cost per unit sold. Next, you will want to establish the markup value of your product or service. This will require research and discussions with a number of people in your industry, trade, and community; your objective is to determine a competitive percentage of markup. Of course, a number of factors will play into the percentage of markup that you establish, and, even then, you will vary your price on occasion to meet the marketing needs you encounter.

Remaining Competitive

The most critical questions to be answered in establishing a selling price are your competition and the price you pay to produce the product or service you offer to consumers. Your competitive edge is always driven by the purchase price you paid to offer a service or product. In today’s world, this can mean other local venders, but, just as likely, it can mean large multi-state or even international companies, such companies have the ability to buy larger quantities of products or offer a wider range of services, thus, the potential to offer a lower price. In this case, you may have to adopt a market strategy that involves business practices that attracts customers for other reasons than price alone. This means to remain competitive you may need to depend more on service, location, or other strategies.

Remember to remain flexible

Remember, you can set different prices for different customers to take advantage of higher profit margins when possible and, alternatively, seek higher volumes when lower prices justify market penetration.
The point is remain flexible in your pricing policies by taking advantage of the uncertainties in the business cycles, stay alert to your consumers’ values of your business as well as your competitors. The guiding principle in setting prices is to focus on the amount of gross profit produced by the volume of sales in relation to operating costs. Thus, know your operating costs to measure your survivability in pricing your product or service, be aware of your customers’ needs, and be watchful of market trends to avoid any adverse changes that might affect your business.

How Adaptable is Your Business Model?

Good ideas help your business evolve.

In a market economy, variation and selection are always at work. New ideas are created by scientists and engineers, meticulous middle management in large corporations or daring entrepreneurs.
Failures are culled because bad ideas do not survive long in the market place: to succeed, you have to make a product that customers wish to buy, at a price that covers costs and beats obvious competitors. Many ideas fail these tests, and if management does not shut them down, a bankruptcy court will.

Trial and Error

Good ideas spread because competitors copy them, the staff leaves to set up their own businesses, or because the company with the good ideas grows. With these elements of variation and selection in place, the stage is set for an evolutionary process; or, to put it more crudely, solving problems through trail and error.
In a complex, changeable world, the process of trial and error is essential. That is true whether we harness it consciously or simply allow ourselves to be tossed around by the results.

Elements at Work

Most real-world problems are more complex than we think. They have:

1. The human dimension
2. The local dimension

Dealing with Complex Problems

First, seek new ideas and try new things. Second, when trying something new, do it on a scale where failure is survivable. Third, seek feedback and learn from your mistakes as you go along.

After an exhaustive study of businesses in the United States, 43 companies were selected as being excellent examples of successfully run enterprises. Out of this effort Tom Peters and Robert Waterman wrote "In Search of Excellence" to great acclaim in the early 1980’s.

Peters became one of the most highly recognized management consult gurus of the late twentieth century because of this work. However, after only two years, 14 of the 43 companies were in serious financial trouble. That’s a whopping 1/3 of the original 43 companies. To be fair the early 80’s were going through some very serious financial times.

Peters’ effort to identify the truly most outstanding companies in America fell short. Why?

The Ideal Hierarchy

Even an ideal hierarchy can backfire. The three elements of the idealized, decisive hierarchy: a “big-picture” view produced by the refined analysis of all available information; a united team all pulling in the same direction; and, a strict chain of command. Sometimes, even being able to check all three of these boxes can still product catastrophic results. The “ big-picture” information that could be summarized and analyzed centrally may not be the information that matters. A loyal, unified team can leave no space for alternatives perspectives. And, the strict chain of command can neatly suppress bad news from further down the organization before it reaches top management.

In an idealized hierarchy, a “team player” is an asset that does not disrupt an effective organizational objective, but they may not be as effective as allowing opposing views to introduce another perspective. Never confuse loyalty and expression of disagreement. Loyalty is valuable asset in an employee. As the owner, manager you need to judge the loyalty of your staff by very specific criteria. Expressions of disagreement are not necessarily one of them. Unanimous advice should be viewed with caution.

A strong team – a kind of family- can quickly fall into the habit of reinforcing each other’s prejudices out of simple team spirit and a desire to bolster the group. It is far better to more aggressive about demanding alternative opinions, exhaustively exploring risks, and breaking up your advisory groups to ensure that they don’t become too comfortable.

Don’t always rely on “big-picture” information all the time, focus instead on the specifics of the situation before you to solve a tactical or strategic problem.

It is not enough to tolerate dissent: sometimes you have to demand it.

It is simply impossible to know in advance what the correct strategy will be. That is why trial and error will always be a part of how any organization solves a complex, ever-shifting problem.

Eight Reasons for Customer Defection

Customers come and go for all sorts of reasons. It is unrealistic to expect customers to rely indefinitely upon one vendor or service company; we must accept that a portion of them will leave for a number of reasons. Market analysis of customer behavior has demonstrated eight specific factors that influence decision makers’ actions; six of these are controllable by you and your employees, and will be discussed further in the next post. For now, we will briefly explore each of the eight possible reasons customers switch from one business to another.

Price

This one seems fairly obvious, but for a variety reasons can be difficult to understand why a customer would choose someone over your product or service; especially, when, all things considered, you are both offering comparable items or services. Certainly, discounts, and such, will have an impact on customer behavior. Other factors play a role in pricing, too, for example, the economic level of the community, employment patterns, and mobility of customers. The last influence leads to our next reason for defection.

Inconvenience

Location of your business is critical in attracting and retaining customers. This holds true for you and your employees as well. If your client base is located at a great distance your travel time and expenses will adversely affect your ability to meet the customer’s needs. Equally, the distance customers must travel to acquire your products or services can negatively impact their decision to use your company.

Product Failures

Not too surprisingly, this is a major reason for customers to stop coming to your company completely. Quality control is critical in the opinion of most consumers. Your selection or use of products will have a direct impact on customer satisfaction.

Employee Responses to Service Failures

How your employees (and you for that matter) handle mistakes, shortcomings, or poor quality of a job performed will directly influence how your customers consider doing business with you in the future.

Ethical Problems

Fairness in your dealing with customers will always payoff in terms of customer satisfaction. Any sleight perceived by your customers can be cause for defection. In some cases, you or your employee may not even be aware of such negative perceptions because your business environment may not consider the implications of some of your company’s actions.

Involuntary Effects

Sometimes bad things happen for no good reason. Life is like that on occasion. Good luck and continue on as best you can.

Competition

Free enterprise has proven to be one of the greatest inventions of the modern world; however, it can cause us to stay up at night. If you have been in business for more than an hour, you know how your competition can influence negatively your customer base.

Service Failures

Delays in deliveries, misunderstandings, and a whole range of other mistakes fall into this category. Any one or another of these can jeopardize customer retention. In our next post, we'll explore various means by which you can overcome at least six of these reasons for defection, so hang in there! I am sure you already have experienced some the issues discussed above and probably have many suggestions of your own on how to overcome these problems. Please feel free to let us know in the comments how you would cope with these problems or any others that you have encountered.

Finding the Right Price to Attract & Hold Customers

Pricing is a challenge because it must represent your cost of production as well as meet your customer’s value for your product or service. Typically, a business will set a selling price on either a value based or a cost plus based system. Market conditions dictate, which approach, is used. For example, to use a value based approach you need to set the selling price at a level the consumer is welling to pay because the product or service meets their needs (it has value). A value based method is practical in highly competitive situations since the customer has alternative suppliers of comparable services or products, while the costs of providing such a service or product various. The cost based approach is generally used when your competitors are operating from the same costs of production and the pricing is highly competitive.

Calculate Your Costs

Finding the costs to provide your product or service is a critical first step. The process includes identifying your production costs; this includes fixed and variable outlays involved to offer your product or service. Rent, salaries, property taxes, insurance and any other expenses that remain constant are considered fixed costs, while variable costs include those expenditures that fluctuate with the number of products produced or services offered, and, may include raw resources, hourly wages, sales commissions, and other related costs. Generally, you would add up all of these various expenses to determine your product or service cost per unit sold. Next, you will want to establish the markup value of your product or service. This will require research and discussions with a number of people in your industry, trade, and community; your objective is to determine a competitive percentage of markup. Of course, a number of factors will play into the percentage of markup that you establish, and, even then, you will vary your price on occasion to meet the marketing needs you encounter.

A Competitive Edge

The most critical questions to be answered in establishing a selling price are your competition and the price you pay to produce the product or service you offer to consumers. Your competitive edge is always driven by the purchase price you paid to offer a service or product. In today’s world, this can mean other local venders, but, just as likely, it can mean large multi-state or even international companies, such companies have the ability to buy larger quantities of products or offer a wider range of services, thus, the potential to offer a lower price. In this case, you may have to adopt a market strategy that involves business practices that attracts customers for other reasons than price alone. This means to remain competitive you may need to depend more on service, location, or other strategies.
Remember, you can set different prices for different customers to take advantage of higher profit margins when possible and, alternatively, seek higher volumes when lower prices justify market penetration.

Remain Flexible

The point is remain flexible in your pricing policies by taking advantage of the uncertainties in the business cycles, stay alert to your consumers’ values of your business as well as your competitors. The guiding principle in setting prices is to focus on the amount of gross profit produced by the volume of sales in relation to operating costs. Thus, know your operating costs to measure your survivability in pricing your product or service, be aware of your customers’ needs, and be watchful of market trends to avoid any adverse changes that might affect your business.

One Satisfied Customer Leads to More Referrals

The end goal of every business is to make a profit. Many marketing studies show that a company’s resources are better spent by keeping existing customers than acquiring new ones. This may be true in some cases; however, for the vast majority of us, the reality is we need to continually add new customers to just stay even, let alone, to grow. How we achieve the goal of a profitable business depends upon the marketing approach or pricing scheme employed.

Let Happy Customers Create More Business For You

For the purpose of this article, we will focus on the benefits of seeking new customers through our existing retained customers. The fact is successful businesses are those which manage to enlist their satisfied customers to partner with them to develop new customers because customer retention influences your company’s profitability by lowering expenses and operating costs. There are a number of ways an increase in customer retention rate can increase profit, but, it should be noted, the person easiest to accept your offer is likely to be the one who is the quickest to defect. Price discounts are clearly an ideal means to obtain new customers; your challenge is to retain the customer. To be effective in retaining new customers, two factors, typically, considered as essential elements for retention customers are perceived service quality and customer satisfaction.

Many of our clients have explained to us how they, through the use of direct mail advertising combined with a strategy to generate customer satisfaction by providing quality services, have been able, within a years or two, to increase the number of customers as consistent, frequent users of their products or services. These customers have more than paid for the advertising costs. Further, marketing studies have identified significant benefits of retained customers, such as, they tend to prefer stable, long-term relationships, inherently spend more, pay promptly, and require less service.

We have found the most important benefit of a retained, satisfied, consistent customer is their ability to generate second and third generation leads by referrals to your business. The company’s return on investment in advertising cost will certainly be increased. The multiplier effect of one retained customer generating just one other retained customer who in turn generates another retained customer is very significant to the company’s bottom line. And, this is not even calculating the number of customers who are drawn to your business because of casual referrals by your retained customer. But, this is certainly how your business grows when you cultivate your customers through a business strategy that involves you and your employees in finding and recruiting customers by producing better products and services that have value to your customers and their referrals.

Know Your Customer's Values

Too often, we promote our company’s values to the neglect of the customer’s needs. A common mistake is to sell your product or service from the first meeting without understanding the needs of the prospective client or customer. The classic example is trying to sell your product or service on price alone, typically assuming the lowest price will close the deal. This may be true in some cases, but a number of marketing studies show that that approach, overtime, if carried too far, will reduce your profit margins to a drastic level of inefficiency. Rather, you should start any initial presentation by focusing on an understanding of the prospective customers perceived values. A customer’s definition of the value of your company’s services or products are limitless. Thus, you need to be alert to the different ways in which a potential customer will determine their level of need to use your company. Each potential customer, even in the same line of business, will consider different factors before they elect to obtain your services or products. You cannot assume one approach will work in all cases.

Get to Know Their Needs

Start your initial conversations by having prospective customer tell you about their business and some of the issues that keep them up at night. From these early comments, you might begin to ask questions that would cause your prospect to tell you the values they consider important to solve their problems, they will then be able to identify the level of significance, relevance, and interest necessary to achieve resolution to their concerns. Your objective should be to have a conversation with your prospect that includes so much value that they thank you for speaking with them, and that they welcome future conversations with you. How do you achieve this degree of acceptance by your prospects? Well, as it turns out, it is easy. Most often, none of us are asked meaningful questions that help us clarify our problems and how much they cost us. Offering clarity of thought and appropriate business information is enormously valuable. People will see you as a person with unique skills and will want to have further conversations with you. These types of conversations will develop an on going relationship that will allow you and your prospect to possibly identify ways in which your company can be of assistance. In most cases, this approach will have gained for you an appreciative customer who is receptive to listening to your suggestions because you seem to understand their needs and the value they place upon certain approaches to running their business. You have in essence, provided a valuable service by helping to solve a problem and justified a buying decision that added value that your prospect accepted as mutually important.

Creating an Uncluttered Ad

Have you ever flipped through a magazine, or a newspaper and came across an ad that just had TOO MUCH STUFF on it? I know that I have and sadly, it happens all too often. It seems like so often, a business owner will sit down and look at the space that he is given to advertise his business and think to himself  "Since I am paying for the space I need to put as much information on this ad as I can," but this can be one of the worst things a business can do. Too much information = too much clutter = No one will stop and look at your ad!  I would like to share with you some of my secretes to creating a clutter free ad; whenever I start working with a new client we will always go over the following goals and steps. Come on, play along with us. Write down your goals and follow the steps as we go and by the end of this article you will have created a clean, readable, EFFECTIVE ad.

What are your goals with this piece of Advertising?

What is your Primary goal?

1. With any advertising, it will likely be one 3 things:
2. To bring in more customers IMMEDIATELY
3. To build up your brand identity
4. To promote a new service

Sometimes it can be all three, and there are occasional exceptions, but as a business owner who is putting together an ad, you should always ask yourself which one is your primary objective.

What is your Secondary Goal? What do you want your customers to do?

Call...Come In... or go to a website? When your potential clients knows what you want them to do, they will be able to either call or come in to find out answers to their specific questions. The majority of businesses will see a better ROI when they have potential customers call or come in. With these 2 methods the business owner can ask the right questions and help solve their customer's problem.

What Message would you like to use?

Keeping your goals in mind, make a list of everything that you would want to put on an ad. For the purposes of this exercise, I'm going to create a list for a pizza restaurant.

Primary Goals

1. Bring more customers in immediately
2. Build brand identity and recognition
3. Promote free delivery

Secondary Goal

Have people come into the restaurant

Step One: List ALL information you'd like to put on the ad

• Company Name
• Phone Number
• Logo
• Address
• Map
• Shopping Center or Landmark
• Menu
• Type of Restaurant 
• 50% Off Any Pizza Offer
• Free Delivery
• We are the best pizza in town
• Find us on Facebook and Twitter
• Accept cash and all credit
• Open 7 days
• Open Late
• Hours of Operation
• Photo of Restaurant
• Photo of Pizza
• We Cater
• We have a banquet room
• We are New York style pizza
• We have thin crust, thick crust and stuffed crust

 WOW that's a lot of information!

Step Two: Prioritize the information

Keeping your goals in mind, choose your top 10 most important points and number them in order, with 1 being the most important.

1. Company Name
2. Phone Number
3. Logo
4. Address
5. Hours of Operation
6. Photo of Pizza
7. 50% Off Any Pizza Offer
8. Free Delivery
9. Map (Only use if your location is hard to find!)
10. Find us on Facebook and TwitterShopping Center Name or Landmark

Accept cash and all credit
Open 7 days
Open Late
Photo of Restaurant
We Cater
We have a banquet room
We are New York style pizza
We have thin crust, thick crust and stuffed crust

You might be asking yourself "Why did she not rank the others?" To answer your question, it's important to focus on the really important info, instead of piling every single thing on the ad. There are certain things that are generally known and accepted. By inlcluding your hours of operation on the ad, you've covered that you're open late AND seven days a week. If you have a map on your ad, it will surely have the name of the shopping center on it. If you design the ad and feel that it could use a few other pieces of information to help the design, then keep on with the numbering so that you're adding elements in order of importance

Voila! That is it you have created a clutter free ad that works and gets all of your needs met.

Why is Customer Retention Important?

The purpose of this piece is to suggest a cost-effective way to leverage a new customer from whatever means used, whether it is by direct mail, news paper advertisement, radio, phone book or some other resource. Customer retention has been a central concern of just about every marketing strategy since the Stone Age. The only difference between then and now is we use fewer clubs, hopefully.

Customer Retention = Higher Profit

The simple answer to the title question above is: customer retention leads to greater profits. In other words, keeping customers leads to selling more services or products. Cultivating an existing customer is far less expensive than seeking a single purchase customer. This is the most obvious advantage of customer retention because value is added through effective services or quality products that creates customer satisfaction. Repeat business benefits both the provider of the service or product and the customer through lower cost to the business, while the customer reduces their expenditure of time and money by not having to switch vendors.
Your business can directly benefit in a number of other ways when you and your employees focus on a customer retention strategy.

New Customers Cost More Than Repeat Business

Obtaining new customers can, depending upon the type of business, cost you five times more than satisfying and retaining existing customers. Obtaining new customers has certain costs associated with the effort. These include advertising, follow up, sales demonstrations, travel and meeting cost, to name just a few. Repeat customers already know your products or services, are aware of the order or renewal process, and can anticipate the quality of the transaction. All of this reduces the costs of attracting and servicing a new customer.
Further, repeat customers enhance the potential for other channels of advertising your business, for example, word of mouth. Word of mouth advertising is actually satisfied customers recommending you to their friends and neighbors.

Increase Your Customer Base

Increasing your customer base through development of repeat customers allows you the opportunity of building a relation with your customers that focuses upon meeting their specific needs and requirements. Thus, you have expanded your marketability while offering a service to your customers. As you gain a better understanding of your customers’ expectations, you will better able to meet their product or service needs. Thus, fostering an effective retention strategy will allow you to serve more satisfied customers. A number of studies have demonstrated how customer retention programs lead to improved relationships and increased sales through long term patterns of use of the same vendor.
Finally, customer retention has a direct impact upon your business’ profitability. Several studies have shown that a two (2%) percent increase in customer retention has the same effect on profit as cutting costs by as much as ten (10%) percent!
Service companies differ from retail businesses in terms of the average number of customers lost per year or service cycle, i.e., the number of useful years a product or service has before it must be replaced. The reality is that every business losses a substantial portion of new customers every year. A reduction of 5% a year in customers lost can represent an increase in profits as much as 25 to 125 percent, depending upon the type of business.
The bottom line is this: customer profitability rates tend to increase over the time you retain a customer.

Your Attitude and Your Success; They go Together

How is your attitude? A simple question, but rarely easy to answer. For most of us, the quick response is “positive”. However, in reality, a truthful answer is far more complicated. To begin with, each new day posseses its own set of issues which require a unique set of reactions. But, for our purposes, let's just focus on a few key elements that affect a successful business.

Are you inspired?

What motivates you each morning to open your business, to meet customers, to buy supplies, to repair equipment, to close a sale, or to pay your bills? The driving force that moves us to be in business and the degree to which we believe in it is our inspiration. Thus, the simple question “are you inspired” plays a key role in your success as a businessperson. How committed you are to your business, your products or services, your employees, and your customers will convey the level of inspiration you command. Your ability to perform effectively is based upon your belief in yourself and those who help you achieve your objectives because it ultimately determines, to a large degree, how effective you are in accomplishing your business goals.

Are you inspiring?

Of course, to reach all that you hope to accomplish will depend upon how well you are able to convey positive leadership qualities? Are your employees motivated to achieve your business goals? Inspiring people to want to work with you to meet your expectations is clearly one of the major challenges of every business owner. How well you accomplish this is central to your business success. This means conveying to your employees the inspiration necessary to motivate your customers to purchase services or products. And, this is achieved by clearly understanding your business values.
The image you and your employees project to your customers is based upon a heighten belief in shared business values. What you consider a fair price for your products or services is one. Another is customer service, such as, conduct of employees when dealing with customers, return policies, and the level of quality you demand in your products or services. These are just a few examples.
The point is this: You need to be inspired by the principles under which you want to operate your business.
This holds true whether you are a sole proprietor with no employees or have a large work force to manage. If you have employees, the critical factor is motivating them to share your business values. If they share your values then you are well on the way to a successful business future. But, make sure of your answer. Too often, we assume our employees are on board when the fact is they do not have a clue as to what their employer expects of them. Thus, it is your responsibility to inspire them by clearly articulating as well as demonstrating on a regular basis your business values. Consistency and frequency of your values, as demonstrated by you, will inspire your employees and customers because they will recognize commitment to principles that have lead to your success.
How committed you are to meeting your customers needs will be evident by your ability to successfully answer the questions above. Your ability to consistently follow through in meeting the challenges of a business owner are enhanced by your ability to inspire.

The Power of Referrals

Word of mouth advertising is the hallmark of any successful business. The importance of such advertising, besides bringing new customers, is its low cost. The trick is getting new customers in order to build your referral network.

Building your Referral Network

Advertising is an effective means of targeting potential new customers, be it coupons, online, telemarketing or phone book ads. However, getting the customer to call you is only the FIRST step of the process. Customers need to have a positive shopping experience; someone who has a good experience will typically refer their friends to your company. Statistics show that if a customer has a negative experience, they will tell many more people about it than they would a good one, so that's just one more reason to always go above and beyond.

When your product or service provides value and your customer is satisfied, the chances are that that experience will be conveyed to others. How do you generate such outcomes? Well, to begin with, people need your product or service. If this criterion is met, your next step is to provide excellent customer service, in a timely and courteous manner. Most businesses recognize this and put a great deal of effort into these functions to generate referrals.

Here is the best part, the more time and energy you put into developing referrals that you convert from existing or new customers, the more likely you are to increase the number of new referred customers. Thus, improving revenue flow and making your business grow.

Managing Referral Leads

Here are a few thoughts on how to successfully develop, reward and monitor your referral leads:

First, a referral lead from a customer or coupon is unique and should be treated as such. Every customer is special, but referred customers should be handled in such a way that they will refer other customers as well. Never miss the opportunity to sell customers on how important you consider their patronage. Make such customers feel important with a special offer or an event. Your sales and administrative staff should be involved in this effort as well. By doing this you will have sent a very important message to your customers that may cause them to send other friends or neighbor to your company.

Second, make sure you treat each new referral as you would any other customer, i.e., make sure you learn what they need, how your product or service will best meet their needs, and how you will assist them in selecting the right product or service to meet their needs. Almost all customers need to understand how your company’s product or service will give them added value. Do not assume they are completely sold on your company.

Third, you need to show your appreciation to the customer that gave you the opportunity to serve the referral. How you decide to do this is really a personal preference. Some gesture of appreciation such as a thank you note or a discount for subsequent purchase may be in order. Whatever you decide, make sure you communicate how important their faith in your company is appreciated.

Even if you are already obtaining a number of referrals, imagine the improvement to your bottom-line could be if you were to increase your effort in this regard by as little as five percent.

Facebook for Business: Setting up your Page

Last week, I told you all about the benefits of setting up a Facebook Page instead of a personal account for your business. Today, I'll show you, step-by-step, exactly how to do it!

This is a very basic tutorial; the customization possibilities are endless! (I'll give you some customization resources at the end of this post...)

First off, log in to your PERSONAL Facebook account. Because you must have a personal account linked to the Fan Page, it's best to start there!

From the Home page of your profile, scroll down to the bottom of the page, and look in the right corner. You'll see this:

 Now, click where it says "Create a Page" (I know, tricky, right? :))

Once you've clicked that, you'll see six large buttons, with categories, as shown below:

 Because we're talking about setting this up for a business, that's what I'll be focusing on, but notice the different options here; you can create a fan page for your favorite celebrity or TV show, or your personal website... many bloggers will set up a page as a way to increase their readership as well... there's a category for everything!

Once you choose the "Local Business or Place" button, you'll be prompted to choose a more specific category, and to fill in your business name, address and phone number:

 Once you've filled that out, you'll be asked for a Profile Photo. Even though you're given the option to skip it (small text next to the Continue button) I don't recommend it. Speaking from personal opinion and general experience, an account that lacks a profile photo is often ignored or overlooked as junk or spam. Even if it's just your logo, putting *something* there is better than nothing! It only takes an extra moment, so I really encourage you to do so at this time.

 Once you've uploaded your profile photo, you have the opportunity to invite people to Like your page... you have both the option to invite  your existing Facebook fans, and to pull email addresses from your contacts.

 And there you go! It really is that simple to set up a basic Facebook Fan Page!

When you're ready to take your page to the next level, there are limitless options... if you set up a "Welcome" tab instead of just having new fans land on your Wall, you have a higher probability that they'll Like your page. You can google "facebook welcome tab design" to find help on how to do it yourself, and there are also professionals that can help you with this service as well, if that's a better option for you.

Some companies who are really taking advantage of the custom possibilities are Red Bull, Hotel Max, and Mazda USA. Have you done something really interesting and fun with your company's Facebook Page? Link me up! I'd love to see it!

Facebook for Business 101

So, your company wants a Facebook page... Facebook, with its 750 MILLION active users, is "the place to be" online, and the cornerstone of many corporate social media efforts.

You've probably had your personal page for years; maybe you're hooked on Farmville, you enjoy keeping track of old friends from high school, or you use it to coordinate your kid's busy social life and share photos with friends.

Whatever you use Facebook for now, the way to use it as a business is different, and for good reason. I'll be describing some of the things you should keep in mind along the way, as you set up your company's Facebook Page.

Personal account vs. Page

One of the most common mistakes I see is when a company sets up a personal account like it's a person: first name Miller & Sons, last name Painting. One quick way to tell is to see if, at the top of the page, you see a "Send Friend Request" or a "Like" button. Pages allow people to "Like" them, and personal accounts add friends.

When someone "friends" you on Facebook, the information that you're allowed to view is different than what's available to you when they "like" your Page. As a Page, you have fans instead of friends, and you're limited in that you might not see their status updates or the photos they share, but the information that you gain access to is invaluable to a business looking to track the effectiveness of their Facebook campaign.

The Facebook Insights Summary

If you ask me, the best thing about a Facebook Page is their Insights feature. It tracks what kind of reaction your posts are getting; it shows you, on an easy to understand line graph, when you're getting new fans, and when you're getting comments and likes on what you're posting. It breaks down all of that information and shows it to you, right inside your Facebook account.

Facebook Insights User Overview screen

Besides being able to see this information, you can export this data to an Excel file to track it long term. It's also nice, from an efficiency standpoint, to be able to switch back and forth between your personal account and your Page.

Just click on your name to switch accounts!

When you're set up as a Page, you can grant other people access as an Admin, so you aren't the only one responsible for posting content. Have someone else assigned as an Admin and they can also post on your behalf, so your account doesn't sit ignored just because you're on a much-needed vacation!

Now that I've sold you on the benefits of a Facebook Page instead of a personal account for your business, the next step is setting it up! Come  back next week for step-by-step instructions on how to do that, and please feel free to leave any questions you might have about Facebook, and I'll do my best to help you out!

Importance of Consistency in Coupon Advertising

Photo credit: Steve 2.0 via Flickr

We have found that consistently advertising in the same area gives you the best results, and by repeatedly advertising to the same consumers, you are able to better design, target, and utilize this important method of promoting your business or service.

What do we mean by consistency? Consistency is providing information about your company and offer on regular, frequent basis to the same mailing area over an extended period of time. We have some clients who have mailed a coupon regularly in our products, to the same areas, for fifteen or more years. Of course, we have many others who have mailed for far shorter time frames. The point is, we have validated the increased success of frequent, consistent mailings repeated

ly to the same mailing area has a higher return rate compared to just mailing to an area infrequently.

We believe this is possible because the people begin to identify coupons that they receive frequently as reliable, successful businesses. The consistency of a particular coupon advertiser becomes a comfortable, dependable potential resource to be contacted and used when needed. This is also why it's an excellent idea to maintain a consistent look across all advertising and marketing materials.

If your business is seasonal in nature, such as a chimney cleaner or a holiday specialty store, this strategy will not be as practical, except as it relates to those times of the year when your business is providing a specific seasonal service or product. Thus, for the vast majority of businesses, a well-designed, effective coupon message can enhance customer volume by participating in a specific mailing area consistently.

If you are looking to increase your customer volume (and who isn’t? :)) consistency of exposure has proven to be a very effective method to insure additional response. Plus, you gain the added advantage of enhanced name recognition in the community.

How to Create a Marketing Plan

A marketing plan is, very simply, a written out plan that states the steps of how to accomplish your company's marketing strategy. A marketing plan will to cover at least one year and up to five years. The purpose of it is to show a very detailed, step by step plan of action, and can also cover budget planning for future marketing needs.

What you will need:
First off, you'll want to refer to your marketing strategy - Once you've compiled your marketing strategy, you will have a better idea of what your business goals are, your description of your product and services as well who your customers is.

• A binder You will want to refer to it quarterly if not monthly. You can have your marketing strategy here, tabs for putting in monthly reports on sales so you can see what it working or not working and ideas that you would like to try for the next year.
• Time It can take a couple of months the write a plan and should not be taken lightly. Give yourself time to write out all the steps that you will need to be able to get your plan off the ground. For example you may put that you would like to start a website for your business. Break this task up into smaller easier to chew task. Do you have a logo? Do you want to put before and after photos? Planning out each step out will allow you to see a better idea about time frame and budget. You also want to allow your self to think out ideas and it is okay to allow yourself to make changes.
• A team Discuss what goals you would like to accomplish over the estimated time period. Determine who your target market is; would you like to specialize in a niche market? Make sure that you give detail information about the product and service that you would like to use. A marketing budget should be esitistmated, you want to make sure that what ever you start should be able to run for at least 3-5 times. Your team could be a spouse, your staff or a business mentor.

Ideas of types of Marketing you can use in your plan

• Networking either in person or online
• Online advertising
• Direct mail - Solo or with other local companies
• Trade Shows
• Write Articles or educate in person about your product and service in your local community
• Advertise in print media - News Papers or in a magazine
• One to one selling - either door to door or cold calling

These are just a handful of ideas; there are endless possibilities out there!

Here are some tips:

• Concentrate on finding ways to attract new clients
• Set up a plan that once you start working with a new client what can you do to make sure they stay a good client for years to come
• You want to make sure you have a program set up to contact clients whom you have not talked to in a while
• Be prepared to revise your plan and make changes as time passes

Your goal in creating a marketing plan is to create a road map to help your companies future. It is important to take your time a study the market to see what your different options are and the measured effectiveness. With careful studying you may be able to even find a new niche advertising market that no one has tried
Good Luck and Happy Planning!

More on Signs

Signs are a great tool you can use when creating your marketing plan.

A sign is a method of advertising that allows business to communicate effectively with their consumers. It is important to keep in mind what a sign can do for a business; signage can build an image, give information and providing advertising. These are some very powerful features and it's important to make sure that when designing your sign you don't get carried away and lose track of your original intent

When you sit down to design your sign keep in mind these 3 very basic principles.

1. Make sure it's big enough to read! I can't say this enough; I hate when I see a person holding up a sign or a truck drives by and I can't make out what it's saying, even when I'm stopped at a light or in traffic. Hold up the sign and ask a friend to walk back, way back. Can they tell you what your message is in 3 seconds? If not, then you may want to head back to the drawing board! I also want you to have someone who had not helped you work on the sign help you with this assignment. I can not tell you how many times I have worked on an ad from start to finish and been very proud of what my team and my I came up with, to only have another salesperson walk by and ask what the ad is for. This is a sure sign that I've lost track of my intent, and this the ad gets reworked ASAP.

2. Make it Short and Simple Too much information or poorly designed logos will detract from the message on your sign. This is true to many forms of advertising; you always want to consider ad content whether is is designing a business card, a logo, or a business sign.

3. What is your message? Ask yourself: "What is this sign meant for? To build an image, give information and provide advertising?" Choose one, and in the end you will make your sign more powerful with a clear, direct message.

As always make sure you check with your landlord and city planning regulations before ordering your sign. Depending on where you are located, some types of signs are not allowed so it always better to double check first!

Book Review: Good to Great - Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don't

Good to Great - Why some Companies make the leap and Others Dont By Jim Collins

What made Good to Great standout to me was how the book was based on years of collecting and studying data. Five years of research went into finding out what differentiates good companies from the great companies. Collins even put a section in the back of the book to answer the toughest critics most asked questions.

I was very impressed with how the book combined simple explanation, true stories and interviews to tie in the factorial finding all in an easy to follow format.

Here are some tid bites of information that I walked away with
Level 5 leaders primary ambition are the success of the company and not of themselves. This idea of person humility, a savvy business mind and strong work ethic gives this leaders an advantage over their ego centrical counterpart. A good leader knows that he can't make a company great by themselves and that they need to have a team that will stand with them. First who and than what, you need to concentrate on getting the right people on the bus and the wrong people off the bus before you can concentrate on where to take a company. If you can't trust that a person will do the job they were hired for, maybe they should be placed in a different position or maybe they are not in right for the company. We all need to Confront the Brutal Facts. For example we all know that our economy is not at its best. That is a fact, however we do know that one day the economy will start to get better. We need to rise above unrealistic optimism by acknowledge simple facts that are around us without forgetting that in the end you will prevail! You may not know when or where but at some point you will prevail. Once you have the right people then you can start evaluating if your company is staying true to its Hedgehog Concept, A hedgehog concept is simply three circles. Circle 1. Be the best in the world for what you do. Circle 2. Can your business economical support the idea and Circle 3 Are you passionate about the business at hand. The concept is so profoundly simple that it seems almost silly not to practice the hedgehog concept, dont you think.

I came away from reading this book Inspired and Motivated, Jim Collens gave me the tools and the hope to improve our business.
I look forward to hearing the ideas that you got out of this book as well.

More than just a pretty face: What colors represent in logo design

I've covered steps to create a logo, and things to keep in mind when you're designing and ad. Well, what about color? When you're designing your logo and marketing materials, the colors you use will have an impact on how they make people perceive you and how you come across.

I'm going to give you a little bit of insight into what colors mean and what images they can conjure up, so you can make sure that you're putting everything to work for you and taking the best advantage you possibly can.

One thing to remember, though, is that color references like the ones I'll talk about below are very culture-specific. What means joy in one culture can be a color of sadness or luck in another. I will be basing our color philosophies on the American culture at large, since it's what I know and where most of my personal customer base exists.

These color associations are good to keep in mind when designing for your business; whether your logo, a direct mail ad or a website. If you're a diet clinic, do you want a color in your logo that makes people hungry? Might not be a good idea! For an aerobics instructor, you'd want colors that make readers feel energized and excited, instead of drowsy and relaxed.

Red is a very strong color. It's very noticeable and is often used for caution and warning signs; It's associated with stop or "beware". It’s a hot color that evokes a powerful emotion of passion, sex, energy, blood and war. Red is a good color to use for accents that need to take notice over other colors. Red is often used in flags for nations, as it is a symbol of pride and strength. Many car manufacturers choose to use red to model their flagship vehicle styles, since it portrays a sporty feeling.

Orange is a combination of red and yellow, a bright and warm color. It represents fire, the sun, fun, warmth and tropical images. It's considered a light, fun color that has appetizing qualities to it. Orange increases oxygen supply to the brain and stimulates mental activity, and it's highly accepted among young people. As a citrus color, orange is associated with healthy food and stimulates appetite. Any design relating to the tropics, something fun, easy going and youthful should incorporate some type of orange into the design. A darker, richer shade of orange can be associated with autumn.

Yellow is the brightest color to the human eye. It represents fun, happiness, sunshine and other light playful feelings. It is a cheerful energetic color. Yellow is often used for children’s toys and clothes. Yellow is often hard to read when placed on a white background so designers must be careful when using yellow, that it isn't’t too difficult to read or notice. Though yellow is a bright cheerful color, as it starts to darken it, however, quickly becomes dirty and unpleasant.

Green is the color of nature and health. It represents growth, nature, money, fertility and safety. Green is a relaxing color that is easy on the eye and has a healing power to it. It is often used to represent anything having to do with health. Many pharmaceutical and nutritional companies use green in their logos and material to advertise safe natural products. Dark green is commonly associated with the military, money and banking, but it can also be associated with being new or inexperienced as being green or a "green horn".

Blue is a calming color that shows creativity and intelligence. It is a popular color among large corporations, hospitals and airlines.  It's a color of loyalty, strength, wisdom and trust. Blue has a calming effect on the mind. Blue is the color of the sky and the sea and is often used to represent those images. Blue is a color that generally looks good in almost any shade and is a popular color among men. Blue is not a good color when used for food as there are few blue foods found in nature and it suppresses the appetite.

Purple combines the stability of blue and the energy of red. Throughout history, purple has been associated with royalty and prestige. It symbolizes mystery, magic, power and luxury. Purple is often used to portray rich powerful kings, leaders, wizards and magicians. Purple combined with gold can be flashy and portray wealth and extravagance. Light purple and pink is good for a feminine design and is a popular color among teenage girls. Bright purple along with yellow is commonly used in promoting children's products. It gives the appearance of something that is fun and easy to do.

Black is often a color used to portray something evil, depressing, scary or even death in western civilization.  It has negative imagery with it at times such as "blackmail" or "blacklist". Black is also a very powerful color that also portrays one of class elegance and wealth.  Classy clothing is designed in black from the "power suit" to the "sexy black dress" to formal "black-tie attire". Black combined with other colors can have a very strong statement.  Black is a color that can fit into almost every design to add contrast, type, and make the other colors stand out more.

White is often associated with being pure, clean, fresh and good. The color of a fresh snowstorm brings up images of a peaceful and pure winter scene. White is a common background for Webster's as it is easy to read black or dark text on it. When used with a design using lots of negative space it gives a very clean look to it. White is also used lots for charities and non-profit organizations to denote something good and positive. Hollywood often portrays their characters in white as being good; the white horse, the cowboy with the white hat, the white wizard etc.  White usually is associated with being pure and almost heavenly. White is associated with hospitals, doctors, and heaven.

Spending Time Wisely

I often spend a lot of time thinking about how to get the most out of my days. I shared with you a last month some of my favorite time saving tricks and thought that you might be interested in a few more!

1. You already know this one, but it bears repeating: Eat right, and get enough rest and exercise! You might be reading and this and thinking, "I thought that you were going to tell me how to get more done not add to my list of things to do!" Well that's not the case! Scientifica studies will tell you that the above is the fundemental key to a productive life!
Food is the fuel our bodies need, and what we put in them makes a difference to our energy levels. Sugary foods, coffee and soda will give you energy, but they will also make you crash after a limited amount of time. If you eat 3 small, healthy meals a day with high protein snacks in between, you will find that your energy will be consistent throughout the day.
Anything that gets you up and moving counts as exercise; take the dog for a walk, take your kid to the park, or go for a bike ride! Not only is it  good for your body, but it's a great way to relieve stress. If you do not have a current workout routine, be realistic and cut yourself some slack. Go for a walk for 20-30 minutes before you try and run 3 miles.
Sleep is so important, and we've all heard the studies, so I will not go into that yet again. :)

2. Set up a time limit to complete a task. As a business owner, you have email to check, bids to get out, appointments to go to and so on and so on. Checking emails alone can take the entire day. Set time limits for each project, at the end of the set time, move on to your next project. Depending on where we are in our production schedule, I can be handling 5 separate types of jobs. I create a folder for each one and cycle through them, I make sure to prioritize whatever is most  important and I spend my time accordingly.

3. Know when you work best. Each person has a best time of when he or she does business. Start 
tracking when yours is and plan your days accordingly. I prefer to into the office really early in the morning, to get my paperwork done and free up the middle of the day to meet with customers, and then come back to the office and work on projects that require more paperwork. For some reason, I can concentrate on paperwork better from 7-10:00 am and 3-5:00 pm than I can in the middle of the day, when the phone is ringing and there are lots of other people in the office.

I really hope that these tips help! I will share more with you soon 
and I would love to hear some of your favorite tips!

Make a Mark - Signage for Business

Wikipedia defines Advertising as "a form of communication used to persuade an audience (viewers, readers or listeners) to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering."

Well-thought out signage can be the perfect tool to add to your current Marketing Campaign. You can use signs to effectively communicate both who you are and what you have to offer. The great thing is, there are many types of signs to fit all business needs and budgets. There are endless ways you can use signs for your business.

Lawn signs are great if you're in the home service industry! When the homeowner is RAVING about how wonderful your workmanship is, and the professionalism you show, to all their friends at the neighborhood block party, your lawn sign will be a great point of reference so those new potential clients to get your contact information.

Vehicle signs How often do you find yourself running errands and are thinking about that long list of things that you still have to do? You walk by a van parked that is advertising mobile dry cleaning. How easy it for you to jot down the number and voila! one thing less on your to-do list. Here is a list of cars and vans that I saw driving to work today that advertise their business with vehicle signs: Cat groomer, housecleaning, pool cleaning, plumber, landscaper, BBQ restaurant and a mobile dog grooming. All of these were locally owned companies, some had elaborate paint jobs others just had a sticker with their logo, name and phone number.

Guy on the corner I drive by a pizza parlor on my way home from work, and everyday there is a young man or woman spinning around a sign with the restaurant's dinner special. They are listening to music and are very creative with their moves. I always enjoy the show and definitely know where the restaurant is now.

Banners and Flags Get your message across in bright bold colors and for an affordable cost, I have seen new business use banners as their temporary signs or more establish businesses use banners advertise a special offer or promotion. Please do check with your city ordinances regarding the use of banners; some cities and shopping centers place restrictions of these kinds of advertising.

Building Sign Let your customers know were you're located with a sign. The ideas are endless of where you can put a sign and how you can make it look. It is important that you check with your landlord and the city to make sure you are in compliance.

Electrical Signs -Don't be left out in the dark, be seen no matter what time of day it is! I think electrical signs or backlit signs are great if you want to attract business to your location at night.

Point of Purchase Signs The signs that your customers see when they are ready to make purchasing decisions; right at the register. This can be anything from banners, printed posters, floor signs or digital media boards. These can be a great tool for letting your customers know about other products that you offer and as well as other in store promotions.

Printed Posters A great way to display color posters of your products. How fun is it to show the latest hair cuts or your best selling product nice and big for all your customers to see?

Promotional Products This includes everything from pens to tee shirts. This can help reinforce your brand name and recognition, and people always like getting free stuff! I have seen companies create to-do list notebooks and give them to clients, magnets and re-usable shopping bags. These are great ways of getting your name out to the public.

Get creative and advertise your business (always check with you local rules and regulation to make sure it is legal please!) We all know how important advertising is in the success for a business. It is so important to make sure that your name is out for the public to see. Whether you are a store front, a contractor or a mobile service you can use signs to increase your business!