We’ve done the right thing and become Bizfix

When we began piloting a brand new way for local businesses to get top quality business advice and support for an affordable fixed fee we knew we were doing the right thing.

We talked with some fantastic business leaders. They made it easy for us to know what local businesses want. They said give us proper advice and support that is:

1. easy to access
2. easy to understand
3. easy to use
4. based on the most important business issues
5. realistically priced.

So, while we piloted and did a tonne of research on our products and services, we didn’t research far enough about our brand and our website. Clients found our old website unappealing, and people were confused by our former name Do the Right Thing. Ouch!

So today we are delighted to launch a clear and easy to access website, which is packed with serious content for local businesses. We also fixed our name so it is easier to understand how we help businesses grow. Welcome to Bizfix, fine-tuning for business.

There are lots of new tools and tips to help local businesses grow so please take a look at www.bizfix.co.uk and let us know what you thing.

You can also sign up to our updated blog there!

Sell more to current customers

Sell more

 

Sell more to current customers   

There are only 4 ways to sell more to current customers. Are you doing all 4?   

1. Sell again

If a customer has bought from you in the past, are you making it easy for them to buy from you again? Are you communicating with them to remind them what a useful product or service you have? Are you reminding them that they may be running out of your product or need to update the service you gave them? It is the simple power of suggestion, if you remind them of the benefit your company brings to them, they are more likely to think of and buy from you.   

2. Up sell

They already like what you offer or they would not have bought it, so are you offering them the next level up. Are you selling add-ons, updates, the premium version of whatever you do? The absolute best thing about upselling is that premium products and services have higher profit margins (if yours don’t you need to sort out your pricing) so upselling means more profit per sale for you.   

3. Cross sell

If a customer buys one of your products or services, are you offering them the other related things you sell? Again if you are not cross-selling to your customer base you are treating your customers badly. We know they already like what you offer because they just bought it, so why wouldn’t you want to offer them the related things to make their lives even better?   

4. New sell

Sell them some new stuff. You already use every opportunity to find out what your current customers think of what you offer, and what they would like to buy that you don’t yet offer, right? So get offering what they want. It is the surest way to sell more to your current customers and without even trying to bring in new customers.   

For tips and tools to sell more, take a look at our Customerfix

If you can answer this small business question, you can dominate

Image via Wikipedia

Predicting business performance

There is one question I typically ask all our business clients. Whether they are a small local Cambridge business, or a multi-national looking for business advice, their ability to answer this one question is an excellent predictor of their business success.     

Customers, profits or innovation

No matter whether we are working with them on bringing in more customers, developing higher profit margins or developing new products and services, those businesses that can answer this one question, consistently outperform their business competitors. And the question is ….   

“What do you want to do with your business?”    

I know, radical isn’t it? You might think it is too simple for words but just try it. Ask a friend what the top management of their company is trying to achieve and you will get lots of hums and aahs but you will not get a succinct, direct phrase that makes it crystal clear where that company is heading.    

Think it is easy? Well try this exercise for yourself.    

1. Take a pen
2. Get a piece of paper
3. Write down:

Over the next 5 years I want my business to be known for ….    

The trick is you are only allowed one thing. And you will note that it stops you saying “I just want to make a mountain of money.” You have to have something that is more meaningful than that, then the money flows. If you find your plan talks about excellent customer service and valuing staff, and blah, blah, blah, you have missed the point. Rip it up and start again.   

Need some small business inspiration

Here are a few examples from big business that could work as inspiration for your business. They date back to the 1950’s but are still cracking today.    

• Boeing: Become the dominant player in commercial aircraft and bring the world into the jet age.
• Sony: Become the Company most known for changing the worldwide poor-quality image of Japanese products
• Stanford University: Become the Harvard of the West

What is the best business statement you have heard? Is it your own? Let us know by commenting below.

Related Articles

• Improve small business customer service with a personal touch (customerthink.com)

    

10 items for your proposals which will lead to closing the sale

In a snappy and thoughtful piece from the Business Insider, here are 10 things to include in your sales pitch to make sure you get signed.

1. A header testimonial – where an existing client sings your praises for similar work (see this for suggestions on how to pull in great testimonials)
2. Your opening statement showing your thanks for the opportunity and enthusiasm for the work
3. Scope of work statement – explain in headlines what you will do
4. Scope of work in detail – what will you do by when?
5. What actual deliverables will your client get – list them here
6. Pricing/costings ‘investment.’  Business Insider suggests calling your costings section investment to show the benefit the client will receive – do you think this is too cheesy for a UK audience?
7. Return on investment statement – how and when your client will reap the financial rewards of your work
8. Call to action statement – explain specifically what will happen next and what your client needs to do
9. Thank you – hopefully self-evident
10. Footer testimonial – show that what a satisfied client has said about your work to make them feel comfortable in signing with you.

Get the full details from the War Room at the Business Insider.

What else do you include in your sales proposals? If you regularly evaluate sales proposals, what do you look for and what is most likely to get you to sign the deal?

Related Articles

• The Importance of Good References (networksolutions.com)

Will your business survive?

Photographer: Ian Britton FreeFoto.com

The BBC website has been tracking 10 smaller-scale firms over the past 2 years. They are finding out how they cope with our turbulent business times. So what’s the verdict?

How small businesses can survive in a tough economy

Well not as much doom and gloom as you might imagine. Only 1 of the 10 businesses went under, but even that managed to resurface and is now “turning over double the amount that we were six months ago.” How have they survived? Here are the strategies they are using today.

Five survival tips for Cambridge’s small businesses

1. Build local business contacts to help keep your business going through associations like the local Chamber of Commerce
2. Renegotiate a new premises lease to lower a key fixed cost: rent
3. When a vital stream of revenue dries up you have to get more creative. So when a legal firm specialising in conveyancing was hit by the housing market decline, they added internet-based sales and boosted their activity
4. With fear that the future VAT rise to 20% in January 2011 will harm sales, one firm is pushing even harder to make sales before the end of this year
5. When customers started driving ever-harder bargains because of the economic climate, rather than suffer these cuts, this technology firm made internal savings and increased online coverage through new admin systems

Small business finance

But what of the things that they can’t control? One firm says they have been hit hard by suppliers going under leaving them with bad debts and by larger companies unilaterally extending their payment terms.

Have you faced these or similar problems, get advice from others on how they have handled them or tell us how you are coping by commenting below.

How to set up a loyalty scheme for your small business

If a stranger walked up to you and said, “Hey, I’ve just used this, it is the best product I ever found, you should get one” about how likely are you to rush out and buy? Exactly, it is not very persuasive. But if your partner, family member or best friend said the same, well we are already on to something.

Still not persuaded, well here it is in hard numbers. 90% of consumers say they trust recommendations from people they know, which is a full 20% ahead of any other type of referral route. This comes from Nielsen’s Global Online Consumer Survey of over 25,000 Internet consumers from 50 countries.

Given that we know this, why aren’t you making this free network of current customers work for you through your own loyalty scheme? You don’t have to be Tesco to run one, here are the 3 simple steps you need to follow.

3 steps to loyalty

1. Find out what your current customers value. Would it be 10% off their next order, or 3 for the price of 2 or an upgrade to the next level of service? Only they can know, so ask then you will know where to direct your loyalty scheme.
2. Give them an easy way to refer and friend and reap the benefits. It could be a simple as a slip of paper they write their name on and pass to their friend, or a code number linked to their account or some other way of linking their referral with the new customer.
3. Keep your scheme fresh. There is always a new season, a public holiday or cycle in your industry or some other reason to change the benefits offered through your loyalty scheme. Keep them interested and they will keep on bringing in their friends as your new customers.

To infinity and beyond

The growth you get is continuous and exponential. You develop a stream of new customers that replicates and expands like wildfire. If just 3 of your customers each recommend you to 3 of their friends, you get 9 more customers, and if they do the same, you have a further 27 customers and so on. And because your customers know exactly what kind of service you deliver, the people they recommend are more likely to match their expectations with your real-life delivery leading to more satisfied customers, and further chances of them referring in their friends.

Have you introduced a local loyalty scheme, or do you have questions about how to implement one? If so, leave a comment below.

Solving an “unsolvable” business problem

Genius

 

What do you do if there is something about your business setup that is not ideal but can’t easily be changed? Here is how one Cambridge business gets around a difficult issue of their location. It is a stroke of genius, and you are free to copy it. 

Click on the photo to see our 58 second video of how they solved their “unsolvable” business problem

How have you solved a difficult business problem brilliantly?  Leave a comment to tell us.

Cambridge sundays are for cycling

This post is not at all about cycling, it is absolutely about business stuff.    

Overpromised and underperformed

Overperforming

 

 I’m normally an optimistic kind of guy. But when it comes to quality of service, and delivery against expectations, well lets just say as I get way past my 30th birthday (so far in fact it now has a 4 in it, and I don’t mean at the end) I’m getting very used to companies who hype their products and services with hyperbole. They completely over-promise and then massively underperform. That is no fun at all.     

So when I get good service (see for example my Lakeland post) or find a great product, I find myself shouting about it like I’ve just discovered alchemy. So today’s alchemy shout goes to ….     

Abvio’s Cyclemeter

Abvio describe their product as “the most advanced iPhone application for cycling, running and more.” So there is a fair bit of hype there. But, please take a seat, and brace yourself for this… it actually works like it is described. In fact it does way more than they promised. I became so cockahoot about this as I cycled through Cambridge using Cyclemeter today that I spontaneously burst into song and I apologise to anyone who I was passing who was subjected to that.     

Underpromise and overperform is way better

While you may not personally be interested in the fact that it tracks your speed and distance and all sorts of other cool cycling stuff. You may not be interested that it features a slightly crazed woman announcing how slowly you are cycling and that your average speed does not quite make you Lance Armstrong. But what I hope you are interested in is being a business that tells its customers what it will do for them, then doing slightly more than your customer expects. It is a joy and will have your customers waxing as lyrical about your products and services as I am about Abvio’s Cyclemeter.     

So next time you are discussing with a customer what you will do, how about doing slightly more than you promise? It will be ready on Wednesday: get it to them on Tuesday (if that’s appropriate) and tell them how you pulled out all the stops because you know they needed it in a hurry. Virgin Wine promise you a case of 12 bottles of wine when you order, but 13 bottles will turn up. Sure they budgeted for that all along, but every time (even though I know it’s coming) I get more of a kick out of bottle number 13 than I do out of the other 12. Underpromise, outperform and you too can be the cyclemeter of your local business world.

Cambridge small businesses: you are not un-twitterable

Cambridge: “There is no money in Twitter”

I know hard-core small business owners are skeptical about Twitter and other social media. But from our research they are telling us on the one hand they can see that using Twitter can make a local company more money, BUT on the other it is probably not right for them. Their company is too small, too niche, doesn’t have the right kind of product for Twitter too, yada, yada, yada.

Cambridge: “There is money to be made from Twitter”

Well I’m here to say you are wrong (ouch) and I offer a challenge to the brave local businesses of Cambridge, UK. Show me a small business that you believe is un-twitterable and I’ll take up the challenge and show you how it can be done. If you need some inspiration for how Twitter can work REALLY well, take a look at these from the New York Times. I’m a particular fan of the ice-cream one!

9 (more) Words for small business profit

300% increase in signups?

 

9 words for small business profit

Last week we wrote about the 9 words you need for profit using Lakeland as a model for anyone selling from a physical shop. But what if you sell from an online store, and have no physical shop presence? Well there is an online equivalent and we are ready to divulge all.  

Maestro of affiliate selling

Head on over to some of the more social media savvy sites – like Michael Dunlop’s Retire at 21 site  or his Popup Domination site. Now click to buy one of his products but before you spend your hard earned cash, just hit your browser back button or try to close the window. What happens next is a little bit of magic.  

You see a window pop up, encouraging you to buy, and to buy NOW and Dunlop’s not being unreasonable. You were interested in the product or else why did you visit the page, and he is offering you a discount. Some have called this a cheesy approach, and we admit it is not quite a slick as Lakeland manage, but this is the closest equivalent we have found to those classic words used to get us to buy more when we are in a physical shop and according to Dunlop he has increased signups by 300% since adding pop-ups like this.  

My advice would certainly to be to do this with care. Have you tried this on your site? Have you seen an increase in traffic? Let us now by commenting below.