How to Revive your Business

I've seen it over and over again. The family business is passed down from one generation to the next. It happened in my family.

My grandparents started several businesses including a coffee distribution company, a bakery, and a restaurant back in the 1940's. One of those businesses is still around.

My Dad's oldest brother took over the restaurant and then it went to my cousin. 3 generations of Howard's running Howard's Restaurant in Colebrook, New Hampshire.

Each generation learned from their father and each son made changes to the business. There is a danger in a business that has been around for awhile. It can get stale, boring, out of touch. Sales can remain steady, which is the first step to decline. Anything besides growth is a problem. So how do you revive your business?

Start by looking at the way things are done now. Write down as many details in the form of a list. Get input from all your key employees, and from the non-key employees. Then ask the question, "What if...?" and purpose an alternative to any and everything that is on your first list.

Do not make any judgments yet. You want to stimulate the idea process, not stifle it. Then put the lists away for a few days.

A week later or so, take out the two lists again and start brainstorming. You are looking to eliminate non-productive tasks, routines and procedures and discover a better way to run your business.

Perhaps you are have been doing the same thing, the same way as you did when you started your business and haven't taken advantage of new technology.

Perhaps you switched to a new technology and in the process lost some of the relationship building opportunities with your customers.

You will probably discover ideas that could not just revive your business, but transform and revolutionize your business. You'll never know until you start with the question, "What if...?"

Why Word of Mouth Matters

Who do you trust?
Your Best Friend?
Your Spouse?
Your Neighbor?
A Co-Worker?
A TV Commercial?
A full page ad in the Yellow pages?
A Spam e-mail?

I'm willing to bet that you trust people that you know over any form of paid advertising. When you are looking for a good deal on a computer, the best gas prices, a good meal, a bargain on whatever, if someone you trust gives you a recommendation, you are going to give that more weight than nearly anything else.

It's human nature. We are all marketing machines for the products and services we like.

So, is your paid advertising and marketing efforts designed to go with this flow, or is it contrary to what will cause people to talk about you?

Let's say you have a shoe store and your major sale designed to stimulate sales is "15% off". That's it.

You are setting yourself up for failure. Create something worth talking about. How about instead of giving your customers 15% off; you instead team up with a worthy cause, a local charity and donate 15% to that charity?

If you do it right, and create an event, you have created positive word of mouth that will create a good feeling and emotional bond with your customers that they will tell others about. (Oh, and repeat this event every year too!)

Look at the numbers. Either way you are going to get 15% less on each pair of shoes sold. But with the second option, that 15% is going to come back to you in goodwill, positive word of mouth and an emotional bond with your customers. The first option only means you get 15% less in your cash register and minimal word of mouth.

Do something that will get people talking, not just saving money.

3 things to Eliminate from your store

Three things that no amount of advertising can overcome if these are going on:

1. A Dirty Store. (Make sure you dust, vacuum, get rid of bad odors, and keep the trash cans empty.)
2. Rude Employees. (Why do business with someone that doesn't want to do business with you?)
3. Inferior Products. ( I should get what I pay for, and I have reasonable expectations for the $1500 computer, and reasonable expectations for the $2.00 cup of coffee.)
   

Brand your Uniqueness

Distinct. Unique. Two words that should describe you. Two words that should describe what you do. Two words that should describe your business. Do you measure up?

It is not enough to be open for business and do a "good job". You need to have your own personality. Your own Brand. It needs to be something your competitor is not.

A few years ago, when one of my radio stations was a talk format station, we were near the bottom of 25 stations in the rankings for listenership. However, we were the number two talk station. That was unique.

I worked with helping a successful real estate agent brand herself a few years ago. At the time, there were around 6,500 licensed agents in the area. How would you like to set yourself apart from 6,499 competitors?

We began with narrowing our focus, and when we were done, we discovered she was one of the top 2 agents in her brokerage, which was the largest in this area. She went from being in the top 25 of 6,500, to number 2 with the number 1 firm in town. It all depended on how you looked at the numbers.

I urge you to find your uniqueness, your distinction, and if it is a positive attribute that customers relate to and are looking for, then brand it. You probably need an outsider trained and experienced in doing this to help you. (Contact me).

Brand it long term, not just for a few weeks, or months, but years. Use your Brand in everything you do, from answering the phone, to having it printed on your business cards. Include it in all your marketing efforts. This is one of the basics of marketing that will never go out of style.

Let's get Real

At the last Ad Fed meeting, our guest speaker, Dr. Susan Mboya, Global Director for New Business Development with Procter & Gamble, presented "Winning With Minorities: An Equal Opportunity Industry."

After her presentation, she and I reviewed some of her points and my notes and these are so important, that I'm sharing them with you.

First, Dr. Myboya did a comparison of advertising targeted to African-American Women in the General Media vs. advertising that was targeted to women in general in the General Media.
(General Media refers to networks such as ABC, CBS, NBC, etc. vs. networks such as BET)

By keeping it "real" with less hype, the African American Women in the Proctor and Gamble focus groups, responded more favorably than they did to general advertising, because they felt like the company connected with them and their reality.

What I also found fascinating, but not surprising, the non African American Women also responded more favorably to the ads that were targeted to African American Women and aired in the General Media. As I saw the women in our luncheon audience react and comment during the presentation, they were echoing the results of the research that P & G did.

Why did non African American Women respond more favorably to advertising that was not targeted to them?

The answer is simple.

It is because the ads dealt with reality, not Hollywood or Madison Avenue Hype. And our brains and emotions are wired to look for what is real and screen out the b-s.

Let this be a lesson to all of us involved in advertising and marketing, Keep it Real.