Cheap Market Research Options

Many small businesses do not have the funds, expertise or time to implement market research. However, without this they cannot track changes, trends and the buying behaviours of their existing or potential customers.

Most small businesses are also predominantly inwardly focused and usually miss important shifts in their target market’s behaviour and also changing opportunities in the market because they don’t utilise even the most basic market research methods.

There are three important things you should be doing to ensure you look outward from your business to connect with and listen to your customers’ insights, the competitor’s movements and, most importantly, market changes. Try one of these this week:

First: Call a meeting with all your staff that interact face-to-face or telephonically with your customers. Remember that these employees are your ear to the ground and ask them to share with you what the customers are currently saying and doing so that you can leverage this for your gain.

Second: Get out and meet with your customers by travelling with your sales team, getting behind the counter again yourself and personally phoning some of your most loyal clients to thank them for their business and, at the same time, as them what they like about doing business with you, what they don’t like and what they’d like to see you change in order to make doing business with you easier.

Third: Share information with your staff whether it is good, bad or indifferent. Often small business owners withhold information not realizing that it hinders the ability of staff to work harder and smarter for the benefit of the business. In order for your staff to respond quickly and efficiently you need to arm them with the information, tools and proposed action plan to be able to raise the bar and capture new business.

These are three simple steps you can do this week. They cost no money and take very little time, so select at least one to open the lines of communication and put it into action today.

Marketing under Pressure

The marketing discipline is taking a huge knock. What does that mean for you and how can you use it to your advantage?

As we all know the first thing that gets cut in a downturned economy is the marketing budget and many companies are finding out that they’ve been paying way too much for too little delivery.

Many charlatans posing as marketing professionals have been gaily having fun spending their client’s money without tracking and reporting back on the effectiveness of the activities employed against predetermined benchmarks. It’s given marketing a poor name and brought into questions the professionalism of industry.
If you’re not working with a team that provides regular feedback on their marketing effectiveness it’s time to look around for alternatives.

A few things to look for when selecting a marketing professional:
• Marketers that take the time to understand your business
• Marketers that don’t earn their livelihoods from the commissions they receive when spending your money
• Marketers that look for ways to connect with your target market cost effectively, yet creatively
• Marketers that care more about your bottom line sustainability than their creative awards
• Marketers that can talk business, not clichéd jargon

The recession is going to be great for the marketing profession. Hopefully it’ll show everyone’s true colours and there will be a shake-up of those that know what they’re doing vs. those that just love to spend your hard earned cash.

Perhaps think about joining our growing Business Forum, where you can share your highs and lows and get input and advice from other small business owners so you don’t repeat their mistakes but shortcut the learning curve in ways where you reach your goals faster.

Big 5 Business Tips

There was an interesting article in the Sunday Times this weekend about how Old Mutual base their financial education programme around the Big 5 animals and it struck me that their analogy is perfectly aligned also to what skills are required to grow a sustainable business.

In identifying particular traits of the Big 5 animals they say:

The lion eats first, before his pride. In other words you should pay yourself (in the form of investments) before starting to spend. This is certainly true in business, particularly in small businesses. If you don’t put away money every month for the rainy day, when it arrives, and without doubt it will, you won’t have the cash reserves to see you through. 10% of turnover every month needs to go into an interest bearing account so that you can sleep at night in good times and bad!

The leopard has realistic goals; while young he stalks catchable prey, graduating to bigger animals later. So set realistic and achievable goals. Don’t compare yourself to anyone else, try to keep up with the Joneses or waste precious turnover on non-essential expenditure. And, constantly go for stretch within all aspects of the business so that your goals stretch as the team’s skill base grows.

The elephant’s power is its perfect memory. Knowledge is power and networking is your trump card. You can’t grow your business if you stay behind the counter. Remember people, keep in touch and help them so that when you need help they’re willing to assist.

The rhino’s approach to a threat is to charge at it. Face up to your challenges, find out the facts and don’t play games with yourself. Sit down and develop a plan of attack and charge it with all your energy so that every day sees small, incremental improvements.

The buffalo is deliberate and steady, growing the herd over time. Be patient and harness the power of compounding, not only in financial compounding but the compounding effect of consistently driving improvement, customer service and flexibility within your business.

By focusing on these Big 5 analogies you have a simple process for building sustainability in your small business. Remember, it’s not about dramatic changes, but constantly striving for 1% improvement in key areas every day. By doing this your future is secure.

Business Plan in a Box?

I read with interest an ad recently from a leading IT retailer offering a R200 discount on a Business Plan Maker bringing it down to R500. And it got me thinking.

Why would anyone walk into a retailer and purchase software that less than 1% of them will actually load and use (if the statistics are anything to go by) rather than spend less and purchase an online product that will be tailored for their own business and supported by real people with real world experience?

It just doesn’t make sense, but then a lot of marketing doesn’t. Perhaps that’s why they now have to discount it by R200!

The Small Business Toolbox’s suite of programmes aren’t plug and play, kitset, one size fits all programmes that have been developed to hoodwink the unsuspecting impulse purchasers. The programmes have been developed by experts in their field in a user friendly, layman’s terms, step-by-step process that you can use in your own space and at your own pace.

It’s about time practical tools were developed to assist the small business owner to move from what Robert Kiyosaki calls the Self Employed Quadrant and into the Business Owner Quadrant. That’s when your business earns money and is sustainable whether you are there or not.

Personally I’ve been striving for this for a number of years, in fact since I first read Robert’s first book. I realized that the only way to achieve my goals was to share the knowledge with more people quickly, cost effectively and efficiently, while imparting key small business skills, was to find another delivery mechanism other that one on one meetings and strategy sessions.

So I really do shake my head when people say you can find solutions in a box. My experience with small business owners is that they are incredibly talented in their chosen field/discipline/industry but that they have usually got little or no business management skills … and a box can’t supply that!

Small business owners need valuable, practical and cost effective advice if they are going to move from the self employed to the business owner quadrants and it is certainly our primary objective to supply these skills in bit sized chunks that you can easily chew, digest and transfer into renewed energy within your business.

Financial Scams – Beware!

It seems that there is no end to the number of people who are able to set up supposedly legitimate businesses and proceed to use them to relieve the unsuspecting public of their hard-earned cash and increasingly much of their retirement funding.

It appears that we have learnt little from Masterbond, Supreme Bond,Fidentia, Bernie Madoff et al. Now we have another alleged scam in the Frankel Chemical crisis. It also seems that the South African public are as gullible if not more so than our overseas counterparts.

There is one very simple rule in investing money – if it seems too good to be true, then it almost certainly is. When the market is paying around 10-12% and someone tells you that he can give you returns of 15-20%, that is the time to look very deeply into the package you are being offered. It is alleged that the latest debacle of the Frankel Chemical Corporation is yet another elaborate “Ponzi” scam and that it could run into billions of rands.

Recently in KZN, an investment business taking funds from investors for ostensibly investment into private companies also appears to have hit the wall – and hundreds of investors – mainly private individuals as it appears is the case with Frankel – will in all probability lose their money. And all this despite the fact that the Financial Services authorities have apparently been bolstered and certainly legislation has been tightened up.

So what are the lessons for us in small businesses? Well, whilst you will come across the odd brilliant entrepreneur who has spotted a gap in the market and is charging through it making an undivided fortune, for the rest of us, making money equals hard work, long hours, persistence and endurance mixed with the odd stroke of good fortune and a great deal of vigilance!!

So when someone approaches you with one of these “too-good-to-be-true” offers or schemes, your first reaction figuratively should be to button the pocket in which you keep your wallet. And when you do look at opportunities, leave no stone unturned. And when someone resists your efforts to check every detail and every supposed “fact”, then run a mile and carry on protecting your hard earned cash.

The more successful you are in making money, the more you are likely to attract those who may have schemes and ideas which may be less than honest. If it looks too good to be true, then think again!!

It is difficult if not impossible to flout the laws of the market – to consistently produce returns that are 5-10% ahead of what the market is paying is just not a realistic proposition.

Time will tell how much the investors in Frankel will lose – but one thing is certain, they ain’t getting all their money back! And this should set the warning bells ringing in the heads of any local investor with a grain of common sense.