A new light!

I love going around Dorking, Surrey, as it has so many things that I enjoy.

Walking to and from on the Surrey Hills is great, Dorking Hall is a great place to go for a concert, the Sports Centre is super and, of course, it’s always fun to see the Dorking Cockerel on the way in (if coming by road in the right direction).

But, what I like the best are the shops. There’s a brilliant model shop, a shop with fishing tackle, lots of antique shops (including Arms & Armour), plus I’ve eaten at a couple of restaurants that I think are excellent.

On my last visit I discovered another exquisite shop; it was full of lamps, plates and bowls. They looked beautiful, so I popped in to see more.

I heard the person running the shop say to the person that they were helping that everything came from Turkey.

When the customer had left I was asked if I could be helped, and I asked where from Turkey the items came. The answer was Istanbul, and in return I said that, ‘I loved Istanbul.’ And, from there, we had a long chat; covering why I had been to Istanbul, what I liked, and of course, about the shop and all of the products.

The business sounded amazing, opening in August 2019, with the online shop opening in June 2020; all of this, of course, during Covid.

There are two things that truly impressed me with Ali’s Emporium; one is that the lamps, textiles, ceramics, and paintings are directly from Turkey (Istanbul) and two, and most important, that the owner is a lovely person to talk to and they will help you choose the perfect thing for you. It’s not just sales.

In business, the right attitude can make a major difference to your success; I have left shops and businesses (without purchasing), when I’ve not been treated well. Business lost – then and for good.

So, something to think about, are you and all of your staff (and I do mean all), thinking about how best to help your customers? Your sales should increase attractively if they all are.

Certainly I will be back to Ali’s Emporium very soon.

Digital Networking Tool

This week I had a very good 1-2-1 with a friend of mine, Mark Rouvray, in Esher (at a coffee shop); our first face-to-face meeting since Covid began. I have to say it was both enjoyable and much more useful than a chat online.

We talked about his business, web design, and how it had changed and improved over the last couple of years. Not based on being locked-down, but more about major software development and type of customer supplied.

Just about everything was covered and some things just mentioned, like digital business cards. A good, productive, website can’t just be thrown together, as design, layout, content and simple little things, like three dots, have to be carefully thought about and planned, if good results are going to be possible and actually happen.

But, having run a printing company for over 30 years, business cards were in the back of my mind; after all, a very good business card is so much more than just a way to give your contact details to people.

If done correctly, not only contact details are given but they give a personal touch, a great first impression, build trust, show that you are a professional and can be a wonderful networking and marketing tool. And, of course, they can lead to your business being referred.

So, I had to find out more about the digital business cards.

A big thing is that they are not just for in-person meetings, but also for online networking and virtual events. If you hand one to someone you meet, you’re more likely to continue your conversation later.

Plus, in the digital era, it’s essential to use digital business cards to share all of your contact details in one convenient view. Digital business cards are easy to share and perfect to consolidate all of your accounts and contact details in a single view.

The point of a digital business card is to create a single, simple, shareable file with all of your contact details. That way, the receiver has no difficulty to follow your account on social media or contact you using the details.

Mark showed me one of his digital business card designs for a customer, and I have to say that going forward they truly are a great thing for your business.

So, unless you already have one, I recommend that you have a look.

What’s your challenge?

I bet you have a challenge. In fact it wouldn’t surprise me if you had a few challenges in your head.

Something like ten sit-ups this week, a 5k run in 29 minutes, swimming 50 lengths, cooking a delicious paella, getting up on time, eating more vegetables, to drink a pint of water, sort out the pile of papers on your floor, call a friend, stop watching four hours of TV every day, to climb a famous peak, the list is endless and personal. But, of course, the challenge is achieving them.

And, this brings me to your business. What are your challenges? Your goals? Your targets? How will you achieve them? And when?

In fact have you got any challenges set?

More business, more effective marketing, keeping customers longer, happier and more productive staff, a first holiday, a better return, a five year plan.

What have you planned? And, do you know how to accomplish it?

Let’s say that you need five new customers (and, of course, what type). What’s your conversion rate? Shall we say one out of three? So, you need to offer your product/service to 15 prospects. Then we have to know how many people we have to market to in order to get those 15 prospects and of course how to achieve this. What method to use?

First you need a target and then the way to achieve it. It’s a great challenge and one that can give you amazing results.

So, have you a real target planned and set? If not, there’s your first challenge.

Let me know if you would like a little help. I might even tell you mine!

A lady on a train!

At the weekend I was travelling by train from Birmingham (I had no petrol) back to home (Surrey). The carriages were packed, with many people standing, and someone was already in my booked seat.

We had a quick chat and it turned out that her seat was the empty seat beside her, so I said no problem, I was happy to sit there instead. 

I had been to a two-day business convention, so for the first 20 minutes of the journey, I just thought over some of the very useful ideas that had been given to us (there had been over a 1,200 delegates at the ICC) and which I would implement first.

It was at this moment that I glanced across to the lady next to me working on her laptop and saw that she had an Entrepreneurs Circle email on screen. I couldn’t believe it, as that had been the convention I had just left. So, I asked her if she had been there as well; and, of course, she had.

For the next hour we talked about what we had liked, a little bit regarding what we weren’t so sure about, the people we had meet, but most importantly what we were going to be doing in the future and essentially what we would be doing in the coming week.

Because, as I’m sure you know, it’s not what you learn that counts but if you actually do it. That’s what will make the difference.

Neve’s (the lady I was sitting with) main business, Speaker Studio, sounded perfect for just about everyone in business, as how you say something really makes a difference, and certainly would help everyone who networks. Including me!

We had a very good ‘meeting’ and will be meeting again.

So, if you are a little nervous, or not too sure about how best to speak, then I can suggest you have a chat with Neve, as she is very helpful.

Speak your way to Success.

Do you feel like you are on your own?

Many business owners feel like that they are on their own, that they are the person at the top, so it’s their job to sort things out.  After all, who can know more about their business than they do?  And, wouldn’t it be a sign of weakness, if they let anyone else know they had a problem?

They are the captain of their ship.  But then, we know of captains who have gone down with their ship, because they didn’t ask for help. 

Yes, no one else will know more about your business than you, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t be helped and asking for help is everything but a sign of weakness. It is in fact a sign of strength!  It means that you are big enough to know what you are not so good ‘at’, and will ask for help from someone that is.  The result? – a much better company.

The reason I mention this, is that over the course of a number of conversations, three conversations were exactly the same.  They had the same problem, at almost the same time.  It doesn’t matter what the problem was, but my point is that they battled through the problem on their own, only just making it, and they didn’t have to.  All three were shattered, but knew they had to keep going.

A business mentor could have helped, because the mentor may have already been through what they were going through and therefore could offer guidance, but at the very least a mentor would have been someone to unload on and so take some of the pressure away.

But, maybe even better still, would have been to join a business group, where business owners get together to discuss their businesses: their problems, successes, ideas and much more, most importantly finding out that they are far from alone.  Groups offer help, support and guidance and can make a big difference to the success of your business.

So, if you want more success, less stress, and not to feel like you are totally on your own, why not join a group and discover the benefits for you and your business?

Your 3 a-day

No I’m not talking about your fruit or vegetable intake or, in fact, your health. However, I am talking about the health of your business.

We hear a great deal about setting goals. Your five-year plan, your three-year plan, one-year, and I myself really promote the one-month plan. Of course you need a long -term plan, something big in the future, but the reason that most long-term plans fail is because there are no one-month plans made in order to reach the bigger plan.

But even if you have your one-month plans in place, they won’t work unless you take some action; actions that will make your plan possible.

Here’s a simple example. Let’s say you want to double your turnover in the next two years. Not a bad plan – just imagine what that would do to your business.

Now at a very simple level, you would know how much business you would need in order to double your turnover. But, assuming you didn’t get any extra business from your existing customers, do you know how many new customers you would need?

Assuming you know that number, how would you go about getting that number of new customers?

How many new customers per month would you need?

Depending on your conversion rate how many customer meetings would you need?

And how many leads do you need to get to a customer meeting?

So far we haven’t even thought about extra staff, resources, cash-flow and a whole host of other things.

But even when you have done all of this work, at the moment it’s still all just theory. And this is when the action comes in. What actions will you need to take in order to make your plan, your goal, a reality? Because without any actions you will never achieve your goal.

So, work out what actions you need to take for your goal to succeed. There will be many of them; and then take three of those actions each and every day. As they say, actions speak louder than words, and in goal achievement this has never been truer.

How are your ten best customers doing?

Do you ever wonder how your ten best customers are doing?  In fact, do you know, right now, who your ten best customers are?  If not, I really urge you to find out without delay.

Depending on your type of business, knowing who your best customers are today, six months ago, a year ago, can give you a valuable insight into your business.  Is the order changing.  Have some customers disappeared and others taken their place?  Is their spending going up or falling?  Armed with this information you can not only thank those spending well, but, more importantly, if sales are falling, find out why, and hopefully, be able to do something about those customers before it is too late.

However, back to my original question.  Do you know how well your ten best customers are doing?  Why should you care?

Well, if you know how your best customers are doing it is a good predictor of how your business will be doing in the future.  If your best customers are doing well the odds are that you will be as well.  If, on the other hand, your best customers are finding trading difficult then again it is likely that you will be too.

If, as is more likely, some are doing well and others are not doing so well, do they come from a particular market sector?  If the answer is yes, perhaps it would be worth looking for more business from a successful market sector.

Can you offer this successful market sector something extra?  Something that will get you recognised as a leading supplier in the market place?

Then again, if a client is finding trading difficult, how can you best help them?  Or maybe you should be careful as to what level of business you do with them.

Knowing who your best clients are and how they are doing can be a real key to your own success.  So, please take some time this week to find out who they are and how well they are doing and you could have a great idea as to how well your business will be doing over the coming months.

The book you don’t read won’t help you!

I was asked recently why I was always reading a business book and my answer was very simple: development. After all, you can always learn.  Plus, the more you know, the easier things become.

One of the benefits I find is that by reading more than one book on any given subject is that I learn more.  The reason is that one author will explain a subject slightly differently to another and this difference, plus the repetition, helps me to fix things in my head.  Even then, I can always learn more about the subject.

What is most important as a business Start-Up, SME, is that you learn, continue to learn and develop.  If you come from the corporate world things are very different in the world of small business, and if you are an expert in your chosen field that doesn’t make you an expert in business.  So, you must learn if you are going to achieve real business success.

The more you learn and understand about business, not only will you be increasing the odds of you staying in business, but it is likely that you will have more fun and make more money along the way.

Every book you don’t read won’t help you, and, what is more, every book you don’t read can’t help your business.  So, please buy or borrow a business book today and just see what a difference it makes to the way you think about business.  Almost any business book will be of benefit, but think about one of three areas: what you are good at, what you are not so good at, and motivation.  Then choose something that covers one of those areas.

And, don’t just think you have to read. Audio books and CDs are ideal for the car, train, plane, etc.

Here are a few books that I can highly recommend: The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs by Carmine Gallo, Playing with Fire by Gordon Ramsay and Blowing the Bloody Doors Off by Michael Caine.  Each could make an amazing difference to your business and will completely change the way you run your company.

Networking – the biggest mistake: selling!

I was at a networking event recently with well over two hundred other business people.  About half way through the evening there was a speaker. He asked us all a question.  ‘How many of you are here this evening with something to sell?’  Just about every hand went up.  He then asked us another question.  ‘How many of you are here to buy something?’  For the second time my hand didn’t move, but what was more to the point, only a few hands went up.  The speaker then said, ‘Well you are all pretty much stuffed then aren’t you!’  Everyone laughed, but he had made his point!

So, what’s the point of networking?

Well, it’s certainly not to sell.  If you think about it logically, what are the chances of someone you don’t know, wanting to buy what you are selling, just at that exact moment?  Answer: just about zero.

There is only one reason to go networking and only one.  Forget collecting business cards, eating great food, or not so great food, and having a glass of wine.

Networking is all about the beginning of a relationship.  Finding people that are also interested in exploring the possibilities of a future relationship and who are happy to meet at a later date for a coffee.  That’s it! Nothing more.

So, forget all of your sales brochures and samples, and instead find out who is at the networking event, who may be a good contact for you, and how you in turn may be a good contact for them.  Locate them, introduce yourself politely, ask lots about them, ask interesting questions, listen intently and see if they would like to meet another time.

I promise you, you will soon have a diary of appointments, and not just a desk piled high with soon forgotten business cards.