How Radar Can Improve Your Business
February 29, 2008
This is a guest post by Barbara Swafford of Blogging Without a Blog.
Most businesses are started with one great idea. We go for it, and put all of our eggs into one basket.
In reality, this can work…for awhile.
But, what happens when the economy takes a turn, your products/services lose their demand, or you get bored? Do you have another income source?
If not, financial ruin could result.
That’s where diversification comes in.
Being a story teller, I’ll share a small snippet of what we learned.
Years ago we started an excavation business. Knowing we could be shut down in the winter months due to snow, we incorporated snow removal into our plan. We later added mainline testing and wood recycling. Often, when one phase of the business was slow, other parts were not. Diversification kept the cash flowing, the jobs coming, and provided constant work for our employees.
If you have a store front, think beyond the obvious reason customers are coming in.
A gift shop sells gifts. A customer is coming in to find a gift (dah). Most likely, they will take the gift home, wrap it, and attach a card.
Add cards, wrapping paper, ribbons, bows, scissors and tape to your gift shop inventory. Consider offering a wrapping service for a small fee. Offer free wrapping with a purchase over $xx.xx. Expand this service to include wrapping items not purchased in your store, charging more, of course. The holidays could bring in tons of business. The key is to have beautiful paper, ribbons and bows. Make a statement, so others will ask “Where did you get that from?”
Take a Starbucks store for example. When you think Starbucks, you think coffee. But if you go into one of their stores, they offer bakery items, cups, prepackaged coffee, thermos bottles, candy, gift packs, and special blends (beans or ground).
A store front IT business could sell a small assortment of office supplies, or if you have a favorite brand of printer, consider becoming a dealer/distributor. Expand your services by offering the installation of upgrades. Set up an account files to notify customers when a new product is introduced to the market. Become a “computer doctor” who does house calls - not just for businesses, but for individuals as well.
A plumbing repair service could offer a small selection of faucets, shower heads, and hoses. Catherine, who works from home, could have an online store to which she could refer her customers. Also, when her employees go out on a service call, they could stock a few classic pieces in their vans, and offer to install a new one, if the old one is beyond repair. This could eliminate return service calls, saving time and money.
By analyzing your current business, there are many ways to add on sales, and/or to offer additional services.
We need to think like a customer. Make your business a “one stop shop”.
Most people are pressed for time.
Be prepared to give them what they need, even before they know they need it.
Use your radar.
Do you have a business you are trying to diversify?
Need help?
Leave a comment and let’s brainstorm.
You can read more great articles by Barbara at Blogging Without A Blog .
5 Business Writing Tips You Can Profit From
February 28, 2008
Business writing can be a fantastic way to make more sales. Whether you’re writing for your own business or copywriting for someone else, it’s one of most profitable ways to make money from words.
I expected business writing to be boring. In fact, I thought my last business had brought an end to my love affair with writing. No more writing fiction for pleasure at 4am in the morning – my whole day was dedicated to my business. But I soon discovered that business writing can be creative and it can also bring in amazing profits.
Five Things You Need To Know About Business Writing To Make Money
The Top Copywriters Earn Megabucks For a Reason: Not only do they need to be creative – copywriters also need to become a salesperson with a pen. And whilst you don’t need to be the best copywriter in the world to profit from your own business letters, you’ll save yourself heaps of time and money if you invest in a good copywriting book.
Put It In Your Own Words: You may be tempted to buy pre-written letters and adapt them for your business. But you’ll write a better letter if you use your own words. After all, you know your products and your customers better than anyone.
When I was a Rainbow International franchisee, they had their own prewritten letters. And the first one I read began something like: “A carpet is a thing of beauty”. Well, I couldn’t imagine saying such a thing – and I couldn’t see such a ridiculous statement appealing to my customers emotions. So the pre-written letter wound up in the bin.
Life Can Be Unpredictable – But You Can Overcome That: It’s useful if your business letters, postcards and promotions reach your potential customer at a time when they actually need your services. But, unless your business is seasonal, you’re not always going to know when that will be.
My biggest money earner in my last business was flood restoration. And much of our work was dependent on weather – which is always unpredictable. So, I made sure we were in the right place at the right time by sending several different mailings to potential customers, one after the other. And when the rain came so did the customers.
My persistence resulted in dozens of jobs from businesses we’d never worked with before. This approach can work for you too – just be persistent.
Don’t Let Anyone Tell You That Direct Mailing Doesn’t Work: “People in the know” used to tell me that writing to prospective customers alone doesn’t work. And what you need to do is call these people and also go out to see them regularly.
I can only assume those “people in the know” write letters that suck. I hate calling strangers as much as I hate receiving calls from businesses I’ve never dealt with. And although I do enjoy meeting people – my potential customers were spread all over the country. So visiting them all frequently would have been a never ending task.
Had I taken that route – I would have received a handful of jobs in the time it took me to get dozens.
Long Sales Letters Don’t Work For Everything: Long sales letters are wonderful but they don’t work for every single product or service.
When deciding between a long letter and a short one, consider the amount of time the customer might be willing to invest in making a buying decision. For example, if they’re in the market for a financial product that costs a few thousand dollars, an 18 page sales letter may be your best bet. But, most people won’t spend a lot of time choosing a low cost product, so sometimes a postcard will be enough.
Do you profit from writing in your business? Do you have any tips to share? Or have you ran a mailing campaign that flopped? What went wrong?
Useful Resources
21 Amazing Business Writing Resources
20 Ways To Cut Your Words and Help To Save The Planet
Ten Timeless Persuasive Writing Techniques
The New Spam - How Do We Deal With It?
February 28, 2008
There’s 4 new breeds of spammer lurking on the Internet. But how do we spot these new types of spam? And how do we deal with it?
The Spammer Who Doesn’t Read: I was discussing this type of spammer with Barbara of Blogging Without A Blog the other day. We’ve noticed that some spammers will simply glance at the title of a blog post or article and leave long comments that are related in some way. But it’s obvious they’ve not actually read the original post. They just want to benefit from the inbound link, or the chance to have their post title noticed in CommentLuv. Pretty pointless isn’t it - as they’re just making themselves look stupid.
The Spammer With The Stupid Name: Most bloggers like to engage with their readers. But it’s difficult to have a conversation with someone who uses a keyword stuffed name, or the name of their website instead of a real one. Michael Martine has written an excellent post on keyword stuffing here. And I’m thinking of adopting his policy of deleting comments made by these keyword stuffers.
The One Liner Spammer: Ok, so one liners can be funny sometimes. But some people make a habit of zooming round blogs, making a one line comment on each one. All they ever leave is one line and you get so tired of seeing it. Now, I move the ones that simply say “great post” into the spam box immediately. But what do you do with the rest? When someone always leaves one line comments on your blog, is it time to say bye bye to their comments too?
The Keyword Stuffer: Some comment spammers stuff their comments with keywords they want to rank for in the search engines. And some go one step further.
I get a reasonable amount of traffic via searches for my own name - in various forms. But, a few days ago I searched my name and discovered that a comment spammer wanted to rank highly for my name too. So, he’d gone round various blogs and mentioned my name in several comments. Now, I find this type of spam really low and offensive.
Any type of comment spam is annoying. How do you deal with it on your blog? Do you ignore it, delete it, contact the spammer and let them know you’re onto them, ban the IP of persistent spammers? Or do you have other ways of dealing with them? Please share.
Success: Are You On The Wrong Path?
February 27, 2008
Do you believe your success depends directly upon the actions you take? Or is it partly down to luck? I used to believe you made your own luck. But, I now believe that it’s all half luck and half chance.
Let me share a true short story with you. It happened around 19 years ago, but it had a massive impact on my life.
It begins in an ordinary looking kitchen. Two women sit at a small wooden table. The older woman peers through finely rimmed spectacles as she shuffles a plain pack of playing cards.
The younger woman twirls her blonde hair round her right index finger. This is not what she expected. The woman looks quite ordinary - nothing like a fortune teller at all. Not that she cares. She’s only here because she agreed to come with a friend who’s waiting in the room next door. It’s just a bit of a laugh - a load of old cobblers really.
The fortune teller speaks at last and begins to tell the girl about her past. The girl yawns. What’s the point in going on about her past - she already knows all that.
“And you’re far from perfect,” the fortune teller says, and begins to rhyme off the young girls past misdemenours.
This is too much. The girl looks down at the surface of the table, to avoid the fortune tellers glare. This is awful - she doesn’t need to be reminded of her past screw ups. She wants this woman to stop right now.
“Forget all that - what about my future?” the girl interrupts.
The fortune teller slams the cards down on the table, removes her glasses and rubs her eyes.
“What do you want to know?” she asks.
“I’m quite ambitious, so I want to know what I’ll do with my life - will I be successful?”
“You’re going to be very successful.”
“At what?”
The fortune teller ignores the question. “I can tell you one more thing. You must keep away from that girl,” she nods towards the door. “The one who’s waiting for you in the other room. If you don’t, she’s going to do you serious harm.”
The girl shuffles in her seat. She wants to go now. This is ridiculous. Why would anyone harm her and how? Anyway, the old woman hasn’t even looked at the cards for ages - she’s making all this up to scare her.
But, she decides to ask one last question - just in case.
“How much of this is set in stone?”
“It’s basically half luck and half chance,” the fortune teller explains. “Many things are planned out for you, but what actually happens depends upon the choices you make.”
And that was how it happened. I never took a lot of notice of what the fortune teller told me. I didn’t even think about it again for a long time. And I might have forgotten about it all together but some of the things she told me came true.
I don’t know if something in my subconscious made me avoid the girl - the one who was meant to do me serious harm. Maybe our lives just went in opposite directions. But, I barely saw her until our paths crossed again four years later.
And the fortune teller was right. Something terrible did happen - and that girl and some others did cause me serious harm. It was so bad that I was ill for a long time and had to give up work. In fact, sometimes I felt as though my life was over.
But it wasn’t and that’s not why I’m telling you this story. I’m sharing this for another reason. Do you remember how the woman said although some things are planned out for us, not everything is set in stone?
Well, shortly before that terrible thing happened, I had a strong gut feeling that I was going down the wrong path in life. In fact, my behaviour had begun to change - I had become reckless and I knew I should stop. But, I ignored my gut instinct and walked directly into the path of the danger the fortune teller warned me about.
Have you ever had that feeling that you’re on the wrong path? When you do, it’s worth listening to it.
As for the success part - I believe I’ve done well since, but I probably slowed things down when I took the wrong turn. Although I guess I did learn a lot from the experience.
But, I often wondered why the fortune teller didn’t tell me the exact place and situation I should avoid. And why didn’t she tell me what I needed to do to be successful? Perhaps she didn’t know that much detail. Because, as she said - the future also depends on the choices you make. It isn’t set in stone. Besides, even if she had been able to tell me, it wouldn’t have done me much good, because I wouldn’t have learned anything.
Do you believe part of our lives are already mapped out for us? Have you ever had a gut feeling that you’re on the wrong path and need to change direction? Did you listen to it? If not, did something bad happen as a result?
Or do you think it’s all just a bizarre coincidence? I might have done - had the woman not told me exactly who was going to cause me harm. Please share your thoughts in the comments section.
