Now that we’re positioned to take advantage of a slowing market, let’s get a few things ready to go for this wave that’s going to take away our competition.

1. Think about creating a ‘package’ of your product or service that moves from the ‘luxury’ end of the spectrum over towards the ‘needs’ end.  People are looking to cut back and reduce their budgets.  How can your business help them with that?
2. Customer Service.  Maybe now is time to offer that amazing “100% Money-back Guarantee!”  If your customers are going to hand over their hard-earned dough, they will be more likely to do so with such a performance guarantee.
3. Cash.  Now is time to get a line of credit.  Banks only give money to people who can prove they don’t need it, right?  Even though we’re getting prepared for this wave, there are likely going to be a few tough months or weeks ahead.  In order to get through them as best as possible, it would be great to have a little rainy-day fund available.
4. Marketing.  Keep it going.  Don’t cut back.  This would be a great time to analyze your past marketing efforts and see what’s working and what isn’t.  Start reallocating your money to those avenues that have the greatest payoff.
5. Expenses.  Look over your expenses and identify places that you can cut back.  I  challenge you to find three categories of expenses that you can reduce by at leat 25%.  I know you can do it.  Heck, just start refilling your printer/toner cartridges rather than buying new ones.  There, that’s one.

In football terms, it’s time to hunker down with a good power running game.  Protect the ball and run out the clock.  When all is said and done, you will be in a great position.

We’re hearing more and more bad news about the economy. Ed McCartney of the Arizona Minority Business Enterprise Center sent me an article from the Phoenix Business Gazette which summarizes survey results by the Small Business Research Board. Basically, small businesses say they are pessimistic about the economy, are slowing hiring, and project slower growth. In fact, less than half (48%) predict any growth at all (in sales)!

Great news! You are one of the lucky ones. You see it coming, and you are making adjustments. You have secured your line of credit for cash flows and have designed special products or packages just for a recession. You have also identified places in your business that you could be more efficient, saving you time and money. The better news is that your competitors have NOT made these moves. In the end, this economy is going to be a wave that washes away the weaker competition, leaving companies like yours around to reap the benefits.

It’s not going to be easy, and it might not be fun either; but, it’s going to benefit your business. When good times come back around, your business is going to see a much-deserved growth spurt from your increased market share.

So, cheers to the economy!

Thomas Watson, founder of IBM, has an easy formula for success:

“It’s quite simple, really. Double your rate of failure. You’re thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn’t at all.”

Double your rate of failure.  In other words, if at first you don’t succeed…you know the ending!…try, try again!  I know at least three times in your life that you failed miserably, but kept trying, and eventually succeeded.  In fact, you went on to become pretty good if not an expert in each one.

You:

1. Learned how to walk after countless head-knocks on walls, doors and furniture.  I mean, talk about bouncing back!
2. Learned how to speak a language.  Do you know how ridiculous the English language is? But you didn’t give up!
3. Learned how to ride a bike.  Are you kidding me?  How many skinned knees did it take?

This all just supports the previous post about Resolve.  We can’t fail.  That’s why I say just remove that word from your vocabulary.  In each step of the way, you are just getting that much better at your business.  Your sales strategy is improving.   Your marketing efforts are paying bigger dividends.  Your customers service is getting to be top-notch.

As long as you don’t take your eye off the Big Picture, you are on your way to success.

Sorry…I couldn’t resist that title!

When it comes to marketing, one of the most powerful concepts is the Niche Market. I’ve found that many small business owners are reluctant to focus on a smaller segment of their market, for two key reasons:

1. They have a hard time actually defining that segment/niche
2. They are afraid they’ll lose potential customers that are outside that niche

Defining the niche is a tricky task, but your niche might just be sitting there waiting for you to run with it. Take a look through all of your customers. Is there a group that are just a real pleasure to work with? You know, the ones who pay on time and truly appreciate the value of your product/service! Or…Or! You might look at one particular product or service that sells the best. In either case, your potential niche might just be right there in front off you.

The second problem is a little more difficult. I completely understand the hesitance at taking your current efforts and, in a sense, REDUCING the size of your target. The key is to make a smooth transition from a general marketing campaign to a niche marketing campaign. I hate to do this to you, but look at the law industry (lawyers). It’s very rare that you see a sign for a law firm that just says, ‘Lawyer’ or ‘Attorney’. They all dig out a niche: accident law, business law, sports law, divorce law, bankruptcy law, etc. In fact, they likely carve it a little deeper by sticking to a certain geography.

The other thing to consider here is the shear size of your market. If you did some research and counted the size of your current market, I’m positive you’d find enough of them to start getting more focused and still have plenty to sell to.

The point is that a marketing message designed to target a specific niche will be heard faster and louder by its intended audience. Isn’t that something we’d all want from our marketing campaign?

I did a seminar last week for a group of Realtors and was surprised that many questions related to technology and running a small business. So, I thought I’d throw together a list of the key pieces of technology that get me through the week.

1. YouMail : this is a great voicemail system. You can program an outgoing message for each caller (based on their Caller ID). This can really create an amazing impression when they get to your voicemail and hear, “Hi John! Sorry I missed your call…” Usually, a first-time caller begins their message with a little left-over laughter. Additionally, you can ‘ditch’ unwanted callers and retrieve your voicemails via email — which is easier to control and saves precious minutes on the cell plan!

2. The Voice Recorder. This is a must for my business. Seems that I have most of my brainstorms while driving. It can be difficult to remember these great ideas w/o a way to record them. I use a $40 Olympus voice recorder to take down these notes. Now, if they’d just make it water-proof for the shower!

3. Electronic Organizer. I know there are many out there that need to stick with the good old hand-written calendars. For the rest of us, I really recommend a Palm-based organizer (ironically, I’m on a BlackBerry…). This organizer easily syncs with Outlook. The part I like most is the drag-n-drop feature on the calendar. Need to reschedule an appointment? Just drag it to the new time and drop it. Done!

4. Other online tools.

a. Surveys. Create you own online survey with SurveyMonkey.com, ZapSurvey.com, or Zoomerang.com.

b. eNewsletters. I switched from ConstantContact.com to Aweber.com, but both work great and are easy to use.

c. Financial tools. I recommend QuickBooks online, PayPal, and Google Checkout.

How about you? What cool technology helps you run your business?

In a few conversations this past week, I was reminded of a great quote (by Ross Perot and others): “If you want to soar like an eagle, you can’t run with turkeys.” Now, that sounds pretty mean, but the gist of it is a good lesson. We need to surround ourselves with people who help us achieve our goals. So, let’s look at what makes an ‘eagle’ :

Eagles:

1. Are experts that allow us to benefit from their expertise. This helps save huge amounts of time. I read an article in a science magazine about how a family unit will collectively build knowledge. They start to rely, subconsciously, on each other for certain expertise, knowledge, and wisdom. I know I sure depend on my wife for facts and wisdom on sociological and educational topics! An eagle in your circle will help you expand your knowledge base.
2. Share a genuine concern for our success. Would you want to surround yourself with anyone else, but those who really care about our success? These folks are more ‘partners’ than vendors, suppliers, or customers.
3. Have achieved some of their own success. You can tell they are on the right path and heading toward ‘great’ things. I think they tend to be very goal-oriented.
4. Are giving in nature. They will spend more time asking about you than telling you about themselves. They are also more likely to work within the community to make it a better community or to help others.
5. Always look to find the positive in given situation.

Now that you’re thinking about eagles, I bet you have a few in mind that would be good to bring into your circle. Just like finding a good mentor, give these folks a call, set up a lunch meeting, and just do some exploration to see if there might be a connection.

In one of my past businesses, there was another shop in the same industrial complex owned by an ‘eagle.’ The two of us really formed a strong bond, and he was instrumental to my success. To this day, if you ask him about our relationship, his answer would sound like I was the eagle, not him. Very selfless. I always found myself saying that I was more successful just by hanging around this guy.

Find your eagles and watch how high and how far you will soar!

Have you seen that inspirational video that’s going around? You know, the one about the difference between 211 degrees and 212 degrees of water. Just one degree is the difference between steam power and just water.

Here, take a look:

To get your business to the 212 degree boiling point, you must have many flames burning: marketing, sales, operations, cash flow, teamwork, goals, etc. There are two keys to being able to do this:

1. Keep that Big Picture view of your business. This is the temperature of the water, your company’s raison d’être, it’s ‘reason for being.’ Call it strategy, bird’s eye view, the view from 20,000 feet, whatever you want. The point is to know maintain this focus while working on all the small flames that will boil your water!
2. Manage all the flames (goals, plans and details) that will bring that water to its boiling point. Which flames are contributing to your boiling point? Which are not? Which need more fuel to burn, which can use less? As business owners, we have many flames burning, and we need them all to get that water to its boiling point.

To help you balance your flames and keep an eye on the big picture, I recommend a good plan. Sit down and map out your plan:

1. Strategy: Map out your strengths and weaknesses in your market as compared to your competitors
2. Cash Flows: forecast your sales, plan your monthly expenses; compare these to actual results each month and make adjustments
3. Marketing: Write out your promotional plan for the year and make sure you do it each month
4. Goals: identify your Big Picture Goal and figure our what its going to take to get your there (all the flames)
5. Metrics: find the numbers that will give you the pulse of your business: sales, profits, sales per transaction, etc.

Then, keep an eye on these plans every month. Pretty soon, your water will start to boil.

This is one of the most favored lines of an entrepreneur: “I work twelve hours a day!”, or “I work 80 hours a week!” I’m starting to wonder, “Do you really love what you do, or are you just bad at it?” I think as entrepreneurs, we are too creative and innovative to put up with working those kinds of hours.

Now, I know that if you’re a small business owner, you are probably putting in these long days. My point is not to insult you, but to get you thinking about a new way to exist. If you sat and took a good hard look at your day, would you realize that you could take just as many steps toward reaching your goals in much less time? How many hours could you cut out of your schedule each day or week?

I propose getting onto a Time-Loss Program (as opposed to the good old Weight Loss Program). Use these tips/ideas to help you get rid of waisted time:

1. What tasks can you delegate or outsource?
2. Where can you move from “perfect” to “good enough” in order to save time?
3. How could you better manage your calendar to save time in travel, meetings, and events?

Once you start thinking this way, you’ll be amazed at how much time you can get back: time to think big; time to explore; time for yourself.

I found this search engine on my favorite blog (Cosmic Variance). The point is that it uses slightly less energy from your monitor each time you search using Google. I have added it as the main search engine when I use the search bar in my FireFox browser.

Besides, the black looks pretty cool, too!

The site is www.blackle.com.

Do you remember these commercials for the dandruff shampoo and the detergent? Even now, when I scratch my head, I cringe at the thought that I’m sending the signal, “I have dandruff!” That commercial made a simple, effective connection between scratching your head and the need for their product. You can see the same thing with the ring-around-the-collar. Both of these products (Whisk! and Head and Shoulders) did a fantastic job of tying their product to something you see in your daily life.

Now, think about your business. If you were to tell somebody, “A good lead/prospect for ME is…”, could you pick out an object that would spark their memory to connect you to your customer next time they see it? A couple good examples I know of are these:

• The membership sales team at a chamber of commerce and ‘Coming Soon’ banners

• A non-slip floor treatment company and the yellow ‘Slipper When Wet’ cones

• A cracked windshield and the windshield repair company

Go figure out your marketing symbol. And while you do, enjoy this trip down memory lane!