Five creative ways to promote your business
Whether you own a restaurant, retail store, or service business you likely be able to benefit from these five creative ways to promote your business.
- Hand Stamps – I actually seen this idea within an article on Entrepreneur.com and thought it was an awesome idea that I had to share. How often do you attend an event in which you get your hand stamped as evidence of having purchased a ticket? Why not work out deal with the organization hosting the event in which you supply the stamps, ink, and maybe even volunteer at the event to take tickets and stamp hands in exchange for your stamp to allow a branding opportunity. Perhaps the stamp could simply have a web address, a coupon for an after event dining experience, or whatever your creative mind enables you to implement. Just think of all the events that occur at your local middle schools and high schools; sporting events, plays, concerts, etc.
- Fill Er’ Up! – The goal of marketing is get to in front of as many people as possible and make a solid and memorable impression. How about arranging a few hours in which you spend at a busy gas station in which you agree to pump gas for the stations customers in exchange for the opportunity to pass out a flyer or brochure about your organization. The customer getting gas will surely appreciate not having to get out on a cold/hot day and pump gas plus you have the opportunity to meet the driver while waiting for the vehicle to fill up. Do you really want to be the talk of the town? Dress up in a silly costume while you do this and you’ll not only get the attention of people at the gas station but also amongst people just driving by. They almost always ask “what’s going on over at the gas station I seen a man in a pirate costume”.
- Purchase Word of Mouth Advertising – Ummmm… Contraire to popular belief word of mouth advertising doesn’t have to be from your most satisfied clients nor do you need to wait for it in order to get it. Hire a few people to go around town and spread the word through casual conversation. For example, they could stand a bus stop and ask someone waiting in line if they tried the new restaurant just around the corner? How about in elevator? While standing in line at the shopping mall or local ice cream shop? The opportunities are endless and the benefits good be quite beneficial.
- A Little Old School with Some New School – Depending on where you’re from flea markets might be the greatest thing since the invention of television or they might carry a reputation for being the poor man’s place to shop. Either way flea markets are becoming once again popular in light of our current economic conditions. They often times offer a decent amount of space for really cheap and enable you to get in front of more people than just sitting inside an office/store with no traffic or waiting at home for someone to jump onto your website and order.
- Conduct a TeleSeminar – I got a lot to know; so tell me what you know! I have yet to come across an industry in my head that wouldn’t be able benefit from hosting a teleseminar in some way, shape, or form. Simply promote through the newspaper, flyers, door knob hangers, postcards, etc. the date, time, and subject you’ll be providing a free teleseminar for and in order to get the phone number to call in they have to register either by phone or online; which enables you to capture their information. You then can provide consumers with information pertaining to your industry during the call or answer questions. For example, if you are in the mortgage business you could talk about how to purchase a home for zero down; real estate agents could discuss how to get more money out of your home when you’re selling; a doctor could talk about ways to stay healthy, the opportunity is endless and the opportunity to pitch your product or service has never been better as most conference call lines enable you to have 150-250 callers on at once. You can find free conference call lines/bridge lines with just a quick search on your favorite search engine.
Now take a moment and share your thoughts on these five promotional opportunities to grow your business and take the “article challenge” in your comment below!
Take The Article challenge: How creative can you get? There is certainly more creative ways to promote your business than just the five listed above. Take a moment to share you most unique promotional idea through your comment below.
Google’s great but are you losing out?
Google’s great but are you losing out?
You have a new/old website in which you are interested in taking to the next level. You perform a search on the popular search engine giant called Google. You spend time reviewing various articles, web sites, and blogs related towards the question “How to promote my website”. The results are likely and often filled with tips and suggestions on how to improve your rankings in Google or how to increase your “Page Rank” in Google.
It seems to me that today it is all about Google. Google! Google!, Google! Quite frankly I am personally getting tired of hearing, reading, and seeing things about how you can improve your Page Rank within Google. Look Google has done an excellent, in fact awesome, job in branding themselves into being an everyday household term. After all when someone asks a question you don’t know you likely reply with a statement similar to “go Google it”. From a branding perspective they’ve done everything right. From meeting the needs of the average internet inclined individual they done everything right. From creating the hype about their search engine they’ve done everything right. However, there is one problem with focusing your marketing around Google and that is Google isn’t the only search engine out there.
It is easy to lose sight of the desire results at the end of the day with all this hype about Google but I guarantee that you’re losing out on additional opportunities if not more by focusing on how your site appears in Google. What about Yahoo, MSN, AltaVista, Ask, AllTheWeb, and all of the other search engines in which don’t get a lot of buzz? This may perhaps come as a shock to you but not everyone uses Google to conduct their online searches through Google. Bottom line is you’re missing out on those opportunities by falling into the hype of just focusing on marketing your site Google. Now don’t get me wrong I understand Google is huge and gets massive traffic to their site but are you looking for massive traffic or massive results?
Personally, I think that from a competitive standpoint you’ll be much more likely to gain results from marketing through other online search engines as they just aren’t as over saturated with the popular keywords you are likely seeking to market towards. Take my industry of Web Hosting for example. If I search Google for web hosting I get over 197,000,000 results but when I search in the search engine of Ask I get around 1/3rd of the results at 61,000,000. My point is really just this; you should market in Google but you shouldn’t just focus your strategies on Google as there are opportunities out there in many other search engines. I’ll even go as far as saying that listing well in other search engines will likely gain you stronger results in the form of leads, sales, subscribers, or whatever it is your end goal might be. So don’t hesitate to steer away from Google slightly and start focusing on getting stronger rankings into other search engines; even the much smaller ones can drive qualified traffic to your website.
Even Google themselves promote there organization on Television, Newspapers, Magazines, and Radio to build branding, gain new visitors, etc. Why wouldn’t you go advertise elsewhere as well to gain more for your business? I wish you the best of luck with your online marketing ventures and remember if you need affordable web hosting or just reliable WordPress hosting than look no farther than AvekHost.com.
Do I need a business plan?
Not everyone who starts and runs a business begins with a business plan, but it certainly helps to have one. If you are seeking funding from a venture capitalist, you will certainly need a comprehensive business plan that is well thought out and demonstrates sound business reasoning.
If you are approaching a banker for a loan for a start-up business, your loan officer may suggest a Small Business Administration (SBA) loan, which will require a business plan. If you have an existing business and are approaching a bank for capital to expand the business, they often will not require a business plan, but they may look more favorably on your application if you have one.
Reasons for writing a business plan include:
- Support a loan application
- Raise equity funding
- Define objectives and describe programs to achieve those objectives
- Create a regular business review and course correction process
- Define a new business
- Define agreements between partners
- Set a value on a business for sale or legal purposes
- Evaluate a new product line, promotion, or expansion
What’s in a business plan?
A business plan should prove that your business will generate enough revenue to cover your expenses, but a business plan may vary depending upon whom your audience is. If you are writing a plan for your colleagues and partners, for example, to expand an existing business, then the focus of that plan may be more operational than financial. Yes, you are going to show your partners how this expansion will mean more revenues, but they are going to want to know the nuts and bolts of how this new venture is going to be implemented.
If you are writing a business plan for a bank, your bank manager will want to see that your ideas are well thought out, but the most important aspect to him or her will be your financials. Are your assumptions realistic? And will the cash flow of the business be enough to ensure that you can make the monthly payments for the loan that you have requested? If your business is making $1,000 a month and your payments are $1,200 a month, the bank is likely to turn you away.
When considering an investment opportunity, most venture capitalists look at the obvious trends and market niches. Transcending the business elements, however, the most important factor in a decision to invest in a company is the quality of the people. In real estate, the three biggest criteria are “location, location and location.” The venture capital axiom is “people, people and people.” VCs will ask, how experienced are the people that are going to run this business? Do they have knowledge of the industry? Have they started successful ventures in the past?
What makes a successful business plan?
- Presents a well thought out idea
- Contains clear and concise writing
- Has a clear and logical structure
- Illustrates management’s ability to make the business a success
- Shows profitability
Bringing it all together…
Your business plan is like your calling card, it will get you in the door where you’ll have to convince investors and loan officers that you can put your plan into action. You want your calling card to look impressive, so make sure your business plan is printed out on good quality paper, you have checked the spelling and grammar and that your numbers add up. Anyone who sees errors while reading your plan will wonder whether you are going to make similar errors in running your business.
A great business plan is the best way to show bankers, venture capitalists, and angel investors that you are worthy of financial support. Make sure that your plan is clear, focused and realistic. Then show them that you have the tools, talent and team to make it happen.
Source: bplans.com
Design Your Plan to Fit Your Business
Design Your Plan to Fit Your Business
Business planning is about results. For every business plan, you need to make the contents of your plan match your purpose. Don’t accept a standard outline just because it’s there.
In the United States business market there is a standardization about business plans. You can find dozens of books on the subject, about as many Web sites, two or three serious software products, and courses in hundreds of business schools, night schools, and community colleges. Although there are many variations on the theme, a lot of it still falls into the same standard.
What is a Business Plan?
A business plan is any plan that works for a business to look ahead, allocate resources, focus on key points, and prepare for problems and opportunities. Business existed long before computers, spreadsheets, and detailed projections. So did business plans.
Unfortunately, people think of business plans first for starting a new business or applying for business loans. But they are also vital for running a business, whether or not the business needs new loans or new investments. Businesses need plans to optimize growth and development according to priorities.
What’s a Start-up Plan?
A very simple start-up plan includes a summary, mission statement, keys to success, market analysis, and break-even analysis. This kind of plan is good for deciding whether or not to proceed with a plan, to tell if there is a business worth pursuing, but it is not enough to run a business with.
Is There a Standard Business Plan?
A normal business plan, one that follows the advice of business experts, includes a standard set of elements. Plan formats and outlines vary, of course, but generally, a plan will include standard components such as descriptions of the company, product or service, market, forecasts, management team, and financial analysis.
Your plan depends on your specific situation. For example, if you’re developing a plan for internal use only (not for sending out to banks or investors), you may not need to include all the background details that you already know. Description of the management team is very important for investors, while financial history is most important for banks. Make your plan match its purpose.
What’s Most Important in a Plan?
It depends on the case, but usually it’s the cash flow analysis and specific implementation details.
- Cash flow is both vital to a company and hard to follow. Cash is usually misunderstood as profits, and they are different. Profits don’t guarantee cash in the bank. Lots of profitable companies go under because of cash flow problems. It just isn’t intuitive.
- Implementation details are what make things happen. Your brilliant strategies and beautifully formatted planning documents are just theory unless you assign responsibilities, with dates and budgets, follow up with those responsible, and track results. Business plans are really about getting results and improving your company.
Can you Suggest a Standard Outline?
If you have the main components, the order doesn’t matter that much, but here’s the outline order we suggest in Business Plan Pro software:
- Executive Summary: Write this last. It’s just a page or two of highlights.
- Company Description: Legal establishment, history, start-up plans, etc.
- Product or Service: Describe what you’re selling. Focus on customer benefits.
- Market Analysis: You need to know your market, customer needs, where they are, how to reach them, etc.
- Strategy and Implementation: Be specific. Include management responsibilities with dates and budget.
- Management Team: Include backgrounds of key members of the team, personnel strategy, and details.
- Financial Plan: Include profit and loss, cash flow, balance sheet, break-even analysis, assumptions, business ratios, etc.
We don’t recommend developing the plan in the same order you present it as a finished document. For example, although the Executive Summary comes as the first section of a business plan, we recommend writing it after everything else is done. It will appear first, but you write it last.
Source: Articles on bplans.com
Business Plan Mistakes
Business Plan Mistakes
By Palo Alto Software, Inc.
Often you may hear about what a business plan consists of. While including the necessary items is very important, you also want to make sure you don’t commit any of the following common business plan mistakes:
1. Putting it off.
Don’t wait to write a plan until you absolutely have to. Too many businesses make business plans only when they have no choice in the matter. Unless the bank or the investors want a plan, there is no plan.
Don’t wait to write your plan until you think you’ll have enough time. “There’s not enough time for a plan,” business people say. “I can’t plan. I’m too busy getting things done.” The busier you are, the more you need to plan. If you are always putting out fires, you should build firebreaks or a sprinkler system. You can lose the whole forest for paying too much attention to the individual burning trees.
2. Cash flow casualness.
Cash flow is more important than sales, profits, or anything else in the business plan, but most people think in terms of profits instead of cash. When you and your friends imagine a new business, you think of what it would cost to make the product, what you could sell it for, and what the profits per unit might be. We are trained to think of business as sales minus costs and expenses, which equal profits. Unfortunately, we don’t spend the profits in a business. We spend cash. So understanding cash flow is critical. If you have only one table in your business plan, make it the cash flow table.
3. Idea inflation.
Plans don’t sell new business ideas to investors. People do. The plan, though necessary, is only a way to present information. Investors invest in people, not ideas.
Don’t overestimate the importance of the idea, particularly the importance of the uniqueness of the idea. You don’t need a great idea to start a business; you need time, money, perseverance, common sense, and so forth. Very few successful businesses are based entirely on new ideas. A new idea is much harder to sell than an existing one, because people don’t understand a new idea and they are often unsure if it will work.
4. Fear and dread.
Doing a business plan isn’t as hard as you think. You don’t have to write a doctoral thesis or a novel. There are good books to help, many advisors among the Small Business Development Centers (SBDCs), business schools, and there is software available to help you (such as Business Plan Pro, and others).
5. Spongy, vague goals.
Leave out the vague and the meaningless babble of business phrases (such as “being the best”) because they are simply hype. Remember that the objective of a plan is its results, and for results, you need tracking and follow up. You need specific dates, management responsibilities, budgets, and milestones. Then you can follow up. No matter how well thought out or brilliantly presented, it means nothing unless it produces results.
6. One size fits all
Tailor your business plan to its real business purpose. Business plans can be different things: they are often just sales documents to sell an idea for a new business. They can be detailed action plans, financial plans, marketing plans, and even personnel plans. They can be used to start a business, or just run a business better.
7. Diluted priorities.
Remember, strategy is focus. A priority list with 3-4 items is focus. A priority list with 20 items is something else, certainly not strategic, and rarely if ever effective. The more items on the list, the less the importance of each.
8. Hockey-stick shaped growth projections.
Have projections that are conservative so you can defend them. When in doubt, be less optimistic.
Source: bplans.com
Business Plan Maintenance
Business Plan Maintenance
A business plan is not a one-time document, at least it shouldn’t be. Most businesses put together a business plan during their start-up phase to organize, attract partners and employees, and to try and get a loan or financial investment. This is a great use of a business plan, however far too often once the company has started up the plan isn’t touched again.
Ultimately, a business plan is about results, about making your business better. If you don’t think doing a business plan will improve your business, then don’t do one. Planning for planning’s sake is a waste of time.
Where a plan is most likely to make your business better is by allowing you to:
- Set priorities properly
- Track plan vs. actual results and make course corrections
- Plan and manage the critical numbers that aren’t intuitive: not just profit and loss, but the relationship to cash flow, balance sheet, and ratios
- Communicate your plan to others: partners, employees, lenders, and investors. You may have a great plan in your head, but as soon as you need to explain it to others, you need to write it down
Reviewing Your Plan
So how do you maintain your business plan? We have to first establish that without regular review — monthly or at least quarterly review of your planned vs. actual results, with practical analysis of the reasons for variance — planning is likely to be a waste of time.
Real planning requires regular reviews just as much as navigation requires knowing where you are as well as where you were and where you wanted to go.
Every real plan needs to be full of specific dates, budgets, forecasts, and management responsibilities. People involved have to know there will be tracking and following up on specifics. Then that plan must be reviewed against results, and those reviews should produce course corrections and fine tuning.
Generally a business hopes for a consistent long-term strategy built on short-step incremental changes, not major revisions. Consistency is important to strategy, and the business should avoid the temptation to jump around from one strategy to another so quickly that no strategy is ever really implemented. Remember that even a mediocre strategy well and consistently implemented is much better than a brilliant strategy that wasn’t implemented.
However, businesses do come to crossroads demanding major revisions in their business plan. These are some signs that indicate its time to review your plan:
- Major changes in market situation. Look especially for changing market factors and changing market behavior.
- Have your underlying business assumptions changed? As an example, the Internet has changed the business landscape so enormously that in some industries almost any plan that was developed without a view of the Internet may need revisions. That may not be true for a landscape architect or restaurant, but for a travel agent, graphic artist, or market researcher it’s obvious.
- Do you have new competition? Have new competitors emerged, or existing competitors changed the business landscape so much that you need to review and revise?
- Has the product or service picture changed? For example a new technology may have emerged, changing the market perception of what you sell. There may be new products or services offering related solutions to the same user needs you satisfy.
- Major changes in internal situation. The most obvious major changes are changes in ownership, which are frequently the result of changing partnerships, divorces, deaths, and investment. The company takes on new partners, or sells out to a larger company. On a more ominous note, the company suffers significant declines in sales, profits, and financial health.
Always keep the revision in perspective. While you do want to review and correct constantly, you don’t want to change a strategy unless you are sure it isn’t working or you see real changes in the underlying assumptions that formed the foundations of strategy.
Maintaining Your Plan
The purpose of maintaining your plan is to use business results to guide your future decisions. The plan itself has no value if it doesn’t help you improve business. That’s regardless of how good or bad, how brilliant the ideas, writing, or how elaborate the tables and charts. Its value is the decisions it leads to.
That means, of course, that to make a plan worth the effort of developing it, you’ll want to follow it up. Whether that’s every month or every quarter, you need to track results, analyze the difference between plan and actual results, and manage. Change things that need to be changed. Compare what you planned to what happened in reality. Ask yourself the following questions:
- What went wrong, and how can we fix it?
- What went right, and how can we take advantage of it?
- What changes took place in the competitive landscape that could be updated in the plan?
- What changes took place affecting our market that could be updated in the plan?
- What changes took place internally in our organization that could be updated in the plan?
After you’ve answered these questions, update your plan accordingly, set new budgets and milestones, adjust your financials, and repeat the process with another review of your plan again next month or next quarter. Update your plan accordingly again, and keep repeating. You’ll find that maintaining your business plan gives you a better grasp on your business, your market, and everything else that happens with your company.
Source: Articles on bplans.com
Gathering Information For Your Business Plan
Gathering Information For Your Plan
A common problem people encounter when writing their business plan is finding information about their business industry and competitive companies. Fortunately, in recent years the Internet has made information gathering simple and easy, but sometimes the best information is found much closer to home, with real people, in real time.
Always take a look at other businesses similar to your own, as a very good first step. If you’re looking at starting a new business, you may well be starting one similar to one you already know. If you’re doing a plan for an existing business, you are even more likely to know the business well. Even so, you can still learn a lot by looking at other similar businesses.
- Look at existing, similar businesses
- Find a similar business in another place
- Scan local newspapers for people selling a similar business.
- Always shop the competition.
If you are planning a retail shoe store, for example, spend some time looking at existing retail shoe store businesses. Park across the street and count the customers that go into the store. Note how long they stay inside, and how many come out with boxes that look like purchased shoes. You can probably even count how many pairs of shoes each customer buys. Browse the store and look at prices. Look at several stores, including the discount shoe stores and department store shoe departments.
Find a similar business far enough away that you won’t compete. For the shoe store example, you would identify shoe stores in similar towns in other states. Call the owner, explain your purpose truthfully, and ask about the business.
Contact the broker and ask for as much information as possible. If you are thinking of creating a shoe store and you find one for sale, you should consider yourself a prospective buyer. Maybe buying the existing store is the best thing. Even if you don’t buy, the information you gain will be very valuable. Why is the owner selling? Is there something wrong with the business? You can probably get detailed financial information.
If you’re in the restaurant business, patronize your competition once a month, rotating through different restaurants. If you own a shoe store, shop your competition once a month, and visit different stores.
It takes a little hard work but by using the Internet and doing some research at local businesses, you should be able to gather all the information necessary for your business plan.
Source: Articles on www.bplans.com
Marketing Plan Pro powered by Duct Tape Marketing
Marketing Plan Pro powered by Duct Tape Marketing® – $179.95
Marketing Plan Pro Software
Marketing Plan Pro powered by Duct Tape Marketing is simple, practical marketing plan software that makes it easy to plan and carry out the marketing activities you need to grow your business.
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Marketing Plan Pro is powered by Duct Tape Marketing. We have worked closely with John Jantsch, the best-selling author, blogger, and small business marketing guru who created the Duct Tape Marketing system.
With Marketing Plan Pro powered by Duct Tape Marketing, you have everything you need to develop an action-oriented marketing plan.
Learn more about Marketing Plan Pro
Your first marketing plan – in 30 minutes!
Creating a marketing plan doesn’t have to take months. In fact, John Jantsch recommends starting with the simpliest marketing plan outline and then returning to add detail as implementation of your marketing plan progresses.
- Follow the Duct Tape Marketing process
- Focus on action, not words
- Choose your level of detail
- Get practical advice at every step
- Create forecasts and budgets
- Present your plan in style
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- Publish your plan securely online
- Get free books and more
Get built-in plan coaching
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Plan For Success With Business Plan Premier
For planning experts, consultants, executives and CPAs. When the plan counts, rely on Business Plan Pro Premier to smooth the process and get your team on the same page. Business Plan Pro Premier is the most advanced business-planning software available. No other business-planning product compares with it’s functionality and flexibility. Business Plan Pro 11.0 Premier contains all the features of Business Plan Pro and more, including:
- Powerful collaboration tools which enable you to work efficiently and effectively with your team to create an impressive plan.
- Combining several plans into, to see the big picture and track results.
- More advanced financials, including expanded sales forecasting, personnel planning, and profit and loss statements.
- Enhanced cash flow management with the graphical Cash Pilot™ tool.
Learn more about Business Plan Pro Premier
The Online Power With A Loss Of Touch
The benefits of the World Wide Web have far exceeded consumers than the negative. Consumers now have the ability, to name just a few, to learn more, shop wisely, stay connected with those far away. Businesses have the ability to compete on a global scale and grow there businesses. At the same time businesses are subjected to higher levels of competition and the need for a competitive advantage has never been greater.
Unfortunately the most important competitive advantage is often times ignored in the online world. The ability to reach out and touch each of your clients. Perhaps, we simply think and believe that because the consumer is online we should continue to interact online and only when we are contacted. If you want a true competive advantage over your competition then you’ll want to devise a plan that will enable you to reach out to clients more often through various different means. The goal is to build loyality which gains you more sales and more word of mouth advertising.
So what are some ways you can reach out to your prospective and active clients?
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A quick personalized email
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A quick telephone call to check in on them
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A happy birthday card (via snail mail)
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A hand written thank you card after gaining there business or additional order
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A special gift for your most valuable clients
The list can go on and on but if you want to increase the word of mouth and repeat sales you gain then simply give your prospective/active clients the WOW feeling and add the personal touch to online marketing strategy. Take a moment and leave a comment with an idea you might have on how to WOW clients; you’ll even get to link back to your site when you do…
