Top small business ideas – earn more, work less

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The calm relaxed power of Aikido, courtesy of Spiral Photography

The time you spend in your business can be divided into two parts

  • Money making time
  • Non money making time

The more time you spend making money or the more money you make in the time you allow yourself, the more time you can spend doing the non money making activities.

Just to be clear, my definition of non money making activities includes admin time, down time, talking time and time spent not being at work at all.  That is, leisure time.

So the challenge becomes how to earn more and work less and ultimately increase family and leisure time!

There are several ways to achieve this but here are three (3) that you should think about early:

Become a specialist

If you become a specialist then you can place a price premium on your work.  If you are a generalist who will do anything because you are desperate for work, then you place yourself in the price competitive category.  It is the dreaded scattergun approach and you feel as though you are competing with the whole world.  One word of warning though!  To be a specialist, you must be good at what you do.

Raise your prices

If you are like most new owners of small business, you take a vow of poverty before you make your first sale.  You become reluctant to charge too much.  When you are just starting out, you don’t have the confidence to place much value on your own time and you are also worried that existing customers will leave and new customers will stop coming.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

Customers do not place much value on a service that you give cheaply.  In the minds of many customers – if it is dearer it must be better, particularly if you do things a little differently.  People who are happy with your service rarely leave just because you raised prices.  It is too much hassle for people who have come to rely on you.

Play hard to get

Customers hate the feeling of missing out.  You will see this phenomenon if you watch restaurant browsers.  Customers walking past a row of restaurants will avoid the empty ones and go into the one where all the people are.  The famous movie line, “I’ll have what she’s having!” holds true.

Don’t be available ‘now’ all of the time.  For most customers, schedule an appointment.  For your best customers, make them feel special by giving your time at short notice.  If you make your time scarce to others, then you give the impression that you are busy all the time.  And if you are busy, you must be good, right?

If you want to read some interesting articles on Aiki-business (how the Japanese art of Aikido applies to Western business) visit my other blog at: http://www.aikido-secrets-to-calm-success.com

Thank you Dean Miscamble for your amazing action photo http://www.spiralphotography.com.au

Until next time!

Gary

Starting up your own business

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Famous Failures of the Most Successful People In The World

I was browsing YouTube when I stumbled on this.  What more can I say except there is hope for us all!

Enjoy!

Starting up your own business – business basics

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Electric Town - the Akihabara district of Tokyo by night

Dreaming up a good idea and using it as the basis for starting up your own business is a risky act of speculation that likely to end in tears and financial ruin unless you follow six (6) simple steps.

The basics of business are simple:

1.  Work to a plan

2.  Focus on customer demand

3.  Systematically convert shoppers into buyers

4.  Build relationships, trust and repeat buying

5.  Do whatever else is necessary to support growth and profitability

6.  Paint it all with enthusiasm and imagination

It really is a simple formula but it is astounding how many business owners focus on none of these.  Business is a connecting process, not an insular one.

The problem for most owners of small to medium businesses is that they try to do everything and, as a result, do nothing well.   It is rare that a good business planner is also a good sales person.  It is rare that a technician is also a good at admin.

It is also rare that people whose role it is to manage actually focus on steps 2, 3, 4 & 6 above.  It is more common that they focus on step 5 and if permitted, on what other people are doing.

That is why, in the execution of the six steps above, having a blueprint, working to a plan, delegating and outsourcing to people who have the appropriate expertise are so important.   After that, the owner-manager should be managing the profit process, not the admin process.

So many owner-managers default to the admin process and communication from a back room because it eliminates the obligation to talk to customers.  Somehow talking to numbers creates a more fulfilling life.

If you need good advice when starting up your own business contact me at gary@garyweigh.com

Until next time!

Gary

Starting up your own business – segment your market and focus on specific targets

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A group with traits in common at Disney Sea, Tokyo Japan

When starting up your own business, you may think that the whole world is your stage but if you are smart, you will want to play to specific and well targeted audiences who share a one or more vital characteristics in common. 

There are at least six common ways to segment your market.  Which one (or more) might be appropriate for you will be a matter of your specific opportunity, your research and your identified demand:

Segment your market by:

  • Age
  • Income
  • Gender
  • Lifecycle
  • Geography
  • Specific pre-condition

Segment by age

As people age, their needs change.  Consider accommodation needs!  Young single people seek to rent accommodation, but a decade or so older with a spouse and children, they seek to buy a family home.   As the children leave home they may be in the market for an investment house and, when they reach old age, they seek long term aged care living.

Segment by income

Income segmentation is used by many retailers of lifestyle goods.  In general luxury products are aimed at the more affluent segments of the market, regardless of their age or gender.  Motor cars are an example of this.   Basic models are aimed at middle income earners, while the more prestigious and luxury models are aimed at higher income earners.   This is not to say that age, gender and lifecycle segmentation does not occur simultaneously.

Segment by gender

Gender segmentation is commonly used in the clothing, cosmetics, personal care and magazine industries.    Another example is the motor vehicle industry.  Just think of some of the ways that cars are presented in advertising – utilities and tray-backs for blokes and tradies, strong colours and powerful engines for young males, fuel efficient cars for families and small, easy to park town cars for females.

Segment by lifestyle

Lifestyle segmentation is used by retailers and wholesalers of holidays.  The adventure backpack holiday that might appeal to young single people probably won’t appeal to the majority of people in their 50’s and 60’s who are more likely to go for a comfortable and safe group tour or buy a caravan and tour the country.

Segment by location

For some products and services, it makes a big difference whether you live in the country or in the city.   Farm equipment for example is more likely to be sold in country areas where there are farms.  They are simply not required in the city although they might be displayed there on occasions, or the sale made through a city based corporate office.

Segment by a specific pre-condition

It might be the case that you are providing a service to a market group that requires a pre-condition.  In my case, as a business coach, it is a pre-condition that you own a small business or be considering starting up your own business to be a likely customer.  If you are in the car or boat accessories business, then only those people who own a car or boat (or are thinking of buying one) are of interest to you.

If you seek startup advice or a powerful online business presence when starting up your own business visit http://garyweigh.com/business-startup

Until next time!

Gary

Starting up your own business – Research! Don’t assume

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I couldn’t stop researching the Salmon Shop in Granville Island markets, Vancouver CA

It is a common problem when starting up your own business to assume that consumers want to buy the very thing that you have to sell.  Most people do it but it is a very dangerous assumption to make.

You may have had an incredible light bulb moment where your business future became clear to you in a flash of light, but your great idea must first be converted to a saleable product, and that product must be supported with a reliable service offering.   You must also think about what your prospective customers are hoping to achieve by buying from you.  Are you solving a problem for them?

It is a truism in business that “More small businesses lose customers because of poor service than bad products.”  What consumers demand these days is more than your bare product.  All consumers expect you to be reputable and ethical but depending on what you are doing, they also demand:

  • Technical information
  • The chance to ask questions
  • A fair refund policy
  • A guarantee or warranty
  • Ongoing education
  • Regular contact
  • Periodic review
  • Automatic upgrades
  • And the list goes on …

But above all, consumers want the experience that your product and service promises, even though you may never explicitly promise it.  You may have the most technically sound product but it still might fail to deliver on an emotional level.  While you are thinking ‘technical’, they are thinking ‘lifestyle’.

Consider a wedding as an example!  The bride and groom want their wedding day to be the most happy and memorable day of their lives.  It is an experience that they are buying.  Gowns, dresses, suits, flowers, cars, church, reception, music, food, drink, cake and photos are some of the products commonly involved, but without extraordinary service from each of those suppliers, and some deft coordination, the experience could easily turn out to be a nightmare.

The key to understanding the length and breadth of consumer demand for your product is to do some research rather than assume.  In other words, “do your homework!”

Where to start?  Well your future customers are currently buying from others at the moment.  Those ‘others’ will soon be your competitors.  So have a good hard look at what they are doing and how they do it.  Learn from your competitors, especially the ones who are doing it well.  Understand their success factors!

There is a wealth of information on the internet.  And it is free.  Just search on any topic and you will find websites, blogs and discussion forums galore.  Most of your competitors will have a website.  Back it up with some mystery shopping.  Industry associations also have a lot of industry specific information, some of which is free.  In Australia, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has a lot of information, most of which is now free.  There are also many free resources provided by State and federal governments that offer encouragement and incentives if you are starting up your own business.

If you seek startup advice or a powerful online business presence when starting up your own business visit http://garyweigh.com/business-startup

Until next time!

Gary

Starting up your own business – get up close and personal

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Lunchtime up close and personal at Kiyomizu Temple, Kyoto Japan

If you are starting up your own business, it is not enough to simply open the doors and assume that customers will somehow find out about it and start buying.  Although you may have the best top small business idea, it just doesn’t work that way.

Those who do realize that you exist will often have some concerns about your newness.  They may not take you seriously.  Will you survive?  Will you be around for a long time?  Do you know what you’re doing?  Will you do the job properly?  Are you trustworthy?

Time in the market may speak volumes about your tenacity and long term intentions however you can’t afford to wait months or years before people are happy to give you a go.  You need to short cut that process so that customers develop faith within your time frame and start buying early.

So it is not a time for you to wait for people to come you.  Your business strategy implementation must include ‘customer attracting’ strategies need to be active rather than passive and personal rather than impersonal.

The assumption that all internet marketing strategies are impersonal while all bricks and mortar businesses are personal is a fallacy.  Everyone knows of at least one bricks and mortar business that has less personality and customer interest than the bricks that houses it, just as there are plenty of online businesses with personality that focus on building quality relationships with their customers.

With the incredible growth of online social networking, the internet is fast changing its impersonal image.  So if you want to get up close and personal on the internet, think about sending out your messages in multimedia – words, pictures, video and audio.  For example:

Consider an interactive blog platform instead of the traditional static billboard in cyber space

  • Become an authority site by writing and posting original articles on your site and then distributing them to other relevant sites and article sites that may pick them up
  • Reach out to the vast YouTube audience by making and uploading your own video content.  All you need is a camcorder.
  • Think about imaginative pre-sale promotion, consistent post-sale follow up and account maintenance activity.  It works just as well online.

If you are starting up your own business and you are looking for more top small business ideas then stay tuned.

If you seek startup advice or a powerful online business presence when starting up your own business visit http://garyweigh.com/business-startup

Until next time!

Gary

Top small business ideas – money saving ideas

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Chili's restaurant in beautiful Banff, Alberta, Canada

I would like to share with you some more top small business ideas.  These are money saving ideas to keep in mind during your business strategy implementation phase:

  • Negotiate rent free periods on leased premises
  • Buy second hand furniture and equipment to start
  • Prioritise your spending so that you put more into areas that the customer sees and less into areas that they don’t see.
  • Review your need for advertising.  It can take a long time to find out what works and what doesn’t and you can chew through a lot of money in the meantime.  This is an area of enormous waste in many businesses, both small and large.  Small businesses however have much less capacity to get it wrong.
  • Advertising is generally passive and impersonal form of marketing.  Try getting out there and becoming more interactive and personal.
  • Use online printing services (e.g. Vistaprint) for stationary and marketing materials. It is great for testing campaigns because you can get small amounts of material at low cost and some products and services are free.
  • When starting up your own business, shop around on your merchant services because you may find some big savings.  A fraction of a percent on practically every sale will add up over time.  Also make sure that you are charged a flat fee per transaction (rather than a percentage) on debit cards.
  • During business strategy implementation, not everything goes according to plan.  Start a ‘Grow from our Mistakes’ book where everything that goes wrong, that loses time or money, or causes customer inconvenience is recorded.  Write a few lines about what happened and when; the estimated $ loss and how it was fixed.  This serves two purposes.  Mistakes are assigned a dollar value and when recorded, very few mistakes are ever repeated.  The key to a successful Mistake Book is to keep it low key and not make it the subject of an inquisition, otherwise people will cover up mistakes.  Over time, it can become a valuable book of solutions – i.e. this is the way things are done around here.
  • If you are starting up your own business and you are looking for more top small business ideas then stay tuned.

If you seek startup advice or a powerful online business presence when starting up your own business visit http://garyweigh.com/business-startup

Until next time!

Gary

Starting up your own business – a budget is pure gold

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lunch on a budget at the world famous Japadog stand in downtown Vancouver

by Gary Weigh Business Coach Mentor

Before you actually start up your own business and embark on your business strategy implementation, I want to talk about the incredible value of creating a budget for your proposed venture.

Let’s say that you sell a line of home-made jewellery at $20 a piece and your gross profit percentage is 45%. That means for every item sold, you will have $9.00 left over after paying the cost price ($11.00) to buy or make that item.

If you sell 20 items in a day, your total sales for the day will be $400. The cost to buy or make those 20 items will be $220 (i.e. $11 x 20), and you will have $180 (i.e. $9 x 20) left over to pay for all your other business costs – i.e. your overheads. In simple terms, your overheads are those expenses that don’t relate directly to the buying or making of your product; but they are necessary to run your business.

If you didn’t have any overheads, then the $180 per day (calculated above) would be your profit. But of course, you will have other expenses to pay. Even if you work from home, you will have telephone, internet and other communication costs. You will probably have some stationary and some promotion / advertising costs. It is also likely that you will incur part of the cost of running a car. And don’t forget that your own time and labour is not free. You must pay yourself just as you pay other people.

These are just a few typical expenses, but if they happen to average out at $180 per day, then you will not make any profit. (Think of profit as your investment or entrepreneurial return for taking a risk). In fact, you will be at your breakeven point – no profit, no loss! From here you can make a profit (or increase profit) by:
• Increasing the number of sales you make each day
• Increasing the price of each item (but that might result in less sales)
• Buying or making the jewellery at a cheaper cost price
• Cutting back on your overhead expenses.

So before you begin starting up your own business, you can gain some idea of revenue, direct product costs, overhead expenses and likely profit. It is called a Business Operating Budget, because it relates to the ongoing business operation.

Before you get to business strategy implementation (the operating stage) you will firstly need to spend some money to set up your business (e.g. fit-out, furniture, equipment and website). You can create a budget for this too. It is called a Business Setup Budget.

Keep your two budgets separate so you don’t mix one-off set up purchases (e.g. office furniture) with regular ongoing operating expenses (e.g. monthly phone bill).

By setting all of this on a spreadsheet (e.g. Microsoft Office Excel), you can change the important variables and test the result (on paper at least). You can try various levels of price, volume, product cost and overheads. This is called ‘What if’ analysis. By doing this, you can create a business with a level of spending and a bottom line to suit your purse. It’s part of planning your own business.

If you seek startup advice or a powerful online business presence when starting up your own business visit http://garyweigh.com/business-startup

Until next time!

Gary

Gary Weigh – a short introduction

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Click to listen to short introduction from Gary
To all of you who harbour the small business dream, turn on your speakers, get to know me and use this blog as part of your business education.

Gary

http://www.garyweigh.com

Top small business ideas – business storytelling

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Make sure that you're still telling the same business story when it is translated into English

by Gary Weigh Business Coach Mentor

As you plan your business strategy implementation, remember the magic of stories. Business storytelling ranks up there with the top small business ideas. Stories build families and communities. They build emotional connections and it is well known that people buy largely on emotion rather than logic. Stories build faith but only if the story becomes real for the listener personally. Once people make your story their story, you have tapped into the powerful force of faith.

Can you remember when you were a child and one of your parents read you a story at bed time. Remember how it fired your interest and imagination. In business, a good story is more valuable than a thousand words of information and techno-babble.

When Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop, was asked why she chose skin care, she replied: “Because it’s storytelling. In every group I have spent time with, women will always corral around a well and tell stories about the body, birth, marriage and death. Men only have conversations or memories about their first shave. But women will always use the body as a canvas, a playground. ”

Traditionally, good stories become better in the retelling. It is the stuff that myth and legend is made of. The Anita Roddick story (below) is a great example. Although she died in 2007, her legend lives on. That is why leaders and successful merchants tell stories. They know that stories captivate attention and allow the listener to connect on an emotional level. Stories are remembered forever, whereas information is largely forgotten by the end of the day.

People, with whom you have made a story connection, become more relaxed, more interested in what you have to say, and have fewer objections. There is a much greater chance that your audience will reach the same conclusions as you and enlist in your cause. In other words, they like you and trust you and have concluded that they will buy from you.

There are many types of stories that you can tell to get your business message across. For example, your business storytelling can be about your self and your journey, the origin of your innovative product line, or you can share your vision and values. Make it an integral part of your business strategy implementation. But please – make it short; make it interesting and, above all, make it honest. Oh and one last thing – don’t let your inner demons tell the story unless you can also tell the story of how you overcame them.

For more top small business ideas visit Gary Weigh, Business Coach Mentor at http://www.garyweigh.com

Until next time!

Gary