A New World Order

I have just returned for my ninth visit to China. What I have learned over the time is that China is a rich, vibrant and colourful tapestry. It is like one of those paintings that every time you go back to visit you find something you hadn’t seen or realised was there before. I would encourage anyone genuinely interested in finding a new market to visit. However, this note is not about doing business in China. That is for a completely separate series that I will post over time. For now, I wanted to discuss what for the foreseeable future is the new world order.

For all of us involved in small to medium business, international trading and foreign affairs might not matter or at least it didn’t. Now with the economic upheaval in our traditional markets created by the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) many SME’s are finding their home markets contracting and traditional export markets are in disarray. Customers are now looking for longer term credit and finding their Banks are not keen to advance funding even against documentary letters of credit (LC’s). So what to do about it? For some it is too late but for those still hanging in there it is time to determine if you have what it takes to venture outside you traditional markets and marketing methods.

Brazil (read South America), China, India and SE Asia are growing. It is their domestic middle-class, which is expanding and starting to consume more foreign goods than ever before. Traditionally Western companies have moved into these markets to set up manufacturing and tap cheap labour for re-export of their products to the West. Now these countries are importing to satisfy their own domestic demand. For those of us who have been watching this is no great surprise. In 2008 I was recommending that companies focus on selling into China rather than trying to find cheap manufacturing sources in China or Malaysia. So now, there is a new world order. Manufacturers need to find their niche in these new markets. Country of origin does matter to this new breed of consumers. They will pay for quality and reliability. Is it or will it be an easy path? The simple answer is no. However, with focus, patience and determination, opportunities abound. I will be penning my thoughts on approaches to these markets in the near future, so stay tuned.

In the meantime, keep on keeping on!

Your ever alert to new business opportunities coach

Neville Calvert

neville@thesmallbusinesstoolbox.com

February Financial Year-End?

February is a fabulous month with signposts along the path reminding us to live better and love more. With summer now well and truly upon us we can all look to the sunshine and warm days to find optimism all around us. Isn’t it time to steal your share?

For many February also brings in a financial year end and this is a time for assessing achievements and planning targets and goals for the next fiscal.

As one financial year draws to a close the stepping stones need to be laid to lead your small business to the destination you want to be a year from now. Choose to adopt a positive mindset and chart your own course.

This is the key to developing a business strategy that will have you seizing opportunities with gusto and making 2010 your best year yet.

Yes, 2009 was a tough year for many and you may well feel scarred from the lack of activity in your industry or sector. However, with the blank canvas that is the year ahead it is important to review last year’s activities, failures and successes, acknowledge the lessons learnt and move forward towards a more successful new financial year.

Globally, economic shifts have left entrepreneurs spinning. Now more than ever the business strategy you commit to for your financial New Year must give cognizance to all the practical knowledge you have acquired, take traditional business guidelines into account and rock with chutzpah!

To develop a business strategy that will have you taking the profits off your competition and growing your own debtors book visit TheSmallBusinessToolbox.com now and find out about an easy, practical, step-by-step programme that will have you smiling all the way to month end.

Filling the Sales Funnel

Any small business owner knows all about the need to keep the sales funnel full, and the pain that comes if it dries up.

The “sales lead funnel” is the phrase used for the methodology employed to take a person from the initial cold call stage right through to the first (and hopefully repeat) orders being placed. We all know that not everyone you or your sales team speaks to will buy from you so if your funnel isn’t full, neither will your pipeline be!

The old saying goes that, on average, you have to make 10 calls to get 1 sale! However if you don’t have 10 irons in the fire none of them will get hot and the funnel will dry up.

There are a few things you need to think about in order to improve your sales success rate. Today we’re going to take a look at three basic selling tips that are critical in order to keep your funnel full:

First: Make sure you don’t lose any leads. Keep name, telephone numbers and email addresses in a system that you can quickly and easily access … and don’t ever throw a lead away, you never know when your sales will depend on being able to contact that person.

Second: Determine your sales pitch. You don’t have to be the pushy, hard-core salesman; you just have to understand the value of a lead. So much of your selling style depends on your industry, your needs and your personality. However, a process is required to take a person from initial contact through to a successful sale. Sit and think about how to handle objections, how to defer a no today to a maybe in six months time and how to mention something that connects with the contact. Only by having a system, trying it out, tweaking it and retrying it can your sales conversions improve. Remember to assign your leads with the future lifetime value they could have for you, only then will you treat them in a way that will connect and resonate with them.

Third: Convert your lead from being a suspect to a prospect and then through to being a loyal customer. There is only one way to do this, follow up relentlessly! You or your sales team need to be there when your prospect decides it’s time to buy. If you aren’t in regular contact you won’t be top of mind when the buying decision is ready to be made and they’ll have forgotten about you and go to whoever is convenient or whoever called on them the day before. Get to know your leads so that you understand them at a more personal level, then connect with them one on one and look for ways to give them something of perceived value for free. That way they’ll feel indebted to you and feel more receptive to your buying signals in future.

Selling and the sales process is one of those challenging areas in small businesses that are fraught with the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. At The Small Business Toolbox we know this and that’s why we’ve focused on getting our next programme, The Small Business Sales Toolbox, underway. Stay tuned it’ll be going live in time to set your sales strategy and sales targets for 2010!

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.

Business Marketing Plan

There are always a number of critical success factors that you need to take into account when developing a business marketing plan.

First, you need to assess what your desired outcome is. What’s your business objective, what are the milestones on which you’ll determine whether the marketing’s been effective, or not effective? If you clearly define, up front, what you would like marketing to do for you, you are better positioned to manage the business marketing planning implementation and therefore are more likely to stay on track.

Second, you need to take a good look at the macro environment within which you trade. Is there anything happening that could affect your ability to maintain sales or pick up additional sales? For example is there a strong chance that a change in legislation could significantly impact your ability to run your business effectively. How is the current economic crunch going to affect the spending habits of your existing/potential customers? You need to look at all the macro issues to ensure you are not caught unawares with a side on swipe that capsizes your marketing and business needs.

Third, clearly define who you are targeting. What makes a good customer for you? A lot of business marketing plans define “everyone” as their target market, but this clearly cannot be the case, it’s just lazy strategy development. Challenge yourself, and your team. Describe the type of people that have problems you can provide the solution to. What is the problem? Who are the people? Where do they live? What do they read etc? Really focus your brainstorming and drill it down until you get into the minds and hearts of the type of people that are ideal customers for you. Focus in this area will ensure the rest of your marketing plan will be based on a solid foundation. Lack of focus in defining your primary target market will mean a business marketing plan that is wishy-washy, unstructured and ineffective.

Last but not least, decide what you want to tell those people about you, your products or your services that will make them sit up and take note. For example what are the benefits of people using your products/services in order to solve their problem? What makes you an essential product/service?
People only buy products and services because they have a need (real or perceived) that needs satisfying. The job of your business marketing plan is to determine what that need is and then work with your team to deliver the solutions to those needs profitably!

If you’d like to develop an effective business marketing plan follow the link now.