In addition to sharing in the cost of creating a TV campaign and/or video to share out via YouTube and other on-line sites, local merchants can create their own “One Stop Local Shop Event”.  Much like  a “Trunk Sale” or “Trade Show”, the merchants secure a location that is centrally located in their community with plenty of parking like a Hotel or Banquet Facility in which they welcome the community to one location to shop for the holidays.  They each have a table or booth and share in the costs of rental space and advertisement for the one day sale event.  Adding entertainment like the high school band or chorus to perform, along with refreshments, babysitting service and a gift wrapping will help to make the event a success.

Holiday sales are often what makes or breaks small businesses so do not sit quietly in your store and think that business will magically follow.  Use creative ideas  to reach your potential clients, price your products or services in-line with your market, and be sure that you are creating a marketing message that clearly states why your product is the perfect gift! Finally, be sure to reach out to a marketing professional or advertising agency to help guide you to create the most effective marketing campaign and secure the best rates for your advertising dollars!

All my best to your success! ~ Charlene

“Success wears the Purple Diamond!”

Thanksgiving is over and businesses are in the home stretch for additional sales to end the year with their best effort for 2010, but this is also the time you need to review your marketing and advertising efforts and consider what you need to change and what efforts will be repeated and or improved.  Do you know your numbers? Have you looked closely at your existing client list and determined which ones are your top 20% key accounts? Do you know which clients are using up the most man hours with the least gain? Have you created a strong marketing strategy for the New Year which will assist you in reaching at least 50% of your 2011 annual sales goals by April 1st?

A successful year in sales depends on you  knowing where you have been, what worked or didn’t work, who your key accounts are, and what plan you need to launch to get you to the goal you desire.  This task is easy if you have kept detailed records of your business with active and inactive client accounts, detailed records of your marketing and advertising costs and performance, and continued to read blogs and published white papers about your industry and where it is trending towards.  If you are not using a business CRM system to help you keep this essential sales information for your business up to date and easily accessible, it is time to invest in the tools to help you be successful with your business.  And, if you are constantly losing files or wasting time looking for things in your office consider hiring a professional organizer to get your office space ready for the New Year!

After you have gathered all your information it is time to put it on paper so that it is easier to map-out a strategy for the New Year. Consider the core values and beliefs of your company and list these at the top of the  paper so that you do not lose the focus of why you are in business.   After that, start with a SWOT analysis. List 3-5 of your businesses strengths, weaknesses, opportunities  and threats in 2010? After that, list your client accounts based on revenue generated starting from the top key account to the ones that produce very little return, but require the most time invested to service. Finally, look at the marketing efforts and actions your company employed in 2010 and list which months these were applied and rate each on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the highest in terms of generating results that led to sales.  After you have everything down on paper spend a few days really with your marketing and sales team analyzing what worked and didn’t work in 2010 and if the time you spent with lower level clients might have been better served with your key accounts.  Creating a successful strategic plan for  2011 will be easier after you have completed this annual review and really have a complete knowledge of what you did right and what could have changed in 2010.  Do you need to add a blog or expand your social media marketing? Have you considered if it is time to spend more of your advertising budget with a visual form of advertising like TV or the use of video on your website and on YouTube? Are you being seen as a leader in your field and getting regular speaking engagements to talk about your industry? Are you offering the best customer service to your clients and getting regular referrals from them?  Have you considered additional revenue sources that could come from adding additional products or services?  Do you have strong strategic alliances in place that will bring you growth in the future? And, have you hired a marketing coach or advertising agency to help your business get the best ROI.  Make sure that by the New Year your business is positioned for success!

All my best to your success! ~ Charlene

“Success wears the Purple Diamond!”

How about businesses that do not have products or services that could be used as holiday gifts?  Can these businesses ignore the 4th quarter for sales?  Of course not….if your business does not  sell a product or service that can be sold to the holiday consumer market then your efforts to close business must be increased 100% to be heard over the noise of the holiday season.  If you sell computer services, financial services, personnel services, legal services, medical services or even products that just don’t often sell during the next 3 months, then I suggest you create incentives for businesses or consumers to do business with you now.  You might wish to offer an added bonus or a discount during this time or an extended warranty. The key is to get businesses or consumers to see the merit in hiring your company now.

Finally, be sure to use the next 3 months to connect with your key accounts. The new year is often a time when businesses reflect on what is working and what needs to be changed.  In years where the economy is sluggish or sales are not as strong as in past years, business owners are quick to make changes of vendors and alter the way they do business.  Do not hesitate to connect with your clients face-to-face and do your own review with them about your service.  Often even a client who was thinking of dropping your service could be saved with the face-to-face meeting that allows them the opportunity to be heard and positive changes made to improve your offerings.

Yes, the holidays are coming and the end of 2010 is less than 90 days away. Are you ready? If you need help please consider calling Purple Diamond!

All my best to your success! ~ Charlene

“Success wears the Purple Diamond!”

If you start a business and your first thought when you receive your first payment from a client is to pay yourself out of that check you are hurting the foundation of your business.  Cash is essential to the operations of your business and marketing and advertising costs are something business owners hate to spend money on, but they are the driving force to helping you make sales.  If you cannot go without drawing a paycheck for at least a year or two so that you can build a reserve of cash for your new business and use the money from your sales to generate more sales with a marketing strategy and an advertising campaign, then chances are you will never get your business off the ground.  No matter your great ideas, if you do not have the cash flow and the belief in your company to invest in your business,  your company will probably be one of those statistics that you hear in the news about the percentage of businesses that fail within the first few years.

So, as you are reviewing your business plan, do you have a marketing strategy and a real budget for advertising your business? If I called you today would you know how many items you have to sell or services you need to provide in a week, a month, or a year to hit a break even point in your business so that you could actually know when you are making a profit? Do you have set sales goals in place and a sound marketing plan to help you reach these goals? Do you have money in the budget for advertising? In short, do you truly believe in your own business and are you willing to make positive steps to building a strong foundation to grow on?

If you are still not working with a marketing coach or an advertising agency, perhaps it is time to invest in an area that is key to your success!

All my best to your success! ~ Charlene

“Success wears the Purple Diamond!”

The order that I see these 3 components is the following: marketing, advertising and then sales.  Though there are numerous definitions to these key terms, my definition for “Marketing” is the process of creating an interest for your product or service by defining  who is  your potential customer  and what value does your product or service offer to the client and what sets you apart from your competition.  “Advertising”, often paid,  is the process of communicating a persuasive message to a large group of people or audience to purchase your goods or services. The advertising should be in-line with your marketing message and strategy so that it will help to support the brand of your business.  Finally, the last component is sales. “Sales” is simply whatever it takes to close the deal or get a contract with a signature on it.  Some organizations create a team approach to selling and some decide that they prefer the one on one process that might have a commission incentive attached, but either way it is when you engage with a potential client on a more personal level.

Having a strong background in all 3 of these areas of expertise  is why Purple Diamond continues to offer their own brand of success for business owners north of Boston and beyond.  Whether you are a sole proprietorship or the CEO of a large corporation, consider the benefit of working with a company that understands the entire process of how to get you more sales and can easily identify where you need the most help and offer you a strategy that works within your budget.  Even if you have a marketing director and a sales manager in your employ this does not mean that you have all 3 areas covered effectively.  Often I have seen large organizations have a breakdown between the marketing and sales departments and it has cost them potential clients.  Bringing in an outside agency as a consultant who specializes in this area will improve the performance of your business and help you to close sales and improve the working relationship between departments.

All my best to your success! ~ Charlene

“Success wears the Purple Diamond!”

So, what does a small or medium size business do when they do not have the budget to have their product appear in a new hit movie or popular TV show and they need to find a new way to get their message out?  Create a bigger than life splash with the target market you are trying to reach using the resources you do have. Make sure your website looks great, comes up high on SEO rankings and that you are creating current blog content and using the popular social media marketing sites like Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin.  Be sure to look for ways your product or service can align itself with larger corporations that already have strong brand recognition.  If your business is B2B in the local area, seek out the most successful businesses in your network and make them part of your inner circle of businesses that you attend events with, “friend” on Facebook and sign-up for their email newsletter.  If you’re trying to extend beyond the local market, take the time to join targeted networking groups on-line and be aggressive on Twitter and other sites for promoting your own blog so that you start to develop a loyal following.  There are many ways to use the technology of today to enhance your business and it will keep changing so be sure to work with a marketing specialist that will help you to understand what you need to do right now to help your business grow. Don’t ignore how much today’s technology has impacted the way your clients shop!

All my best to your success~
Charlene

“Success wears the Purple Diamond!”

In addition to the referrals from your direct clients, consider other strategic partners that can help send business your way.  For instance, if you know other businesses that already sell to your target market and are not direct competitors, you could approach them to be a referral partner to your business by offering them a fee for each referral they send to you.  This also works great if you approach non-profit organizations that are looking for ways to raise money for their organization and offer to give back to them a portion of your sales for every referral they send.  Anyone who has a school age child has seen this work extremely well for wrapping paper, magazine subscriptions and food products.  When my own children were in elementary school there was a local Chinese Food Restaurant that teamed up with the school and gave a portion of the entire night’s sales to the school. The school promoted the event and  sent home notices that Wednesday was the night to have dinner ordered from this local business.  The program was so successful that it continued to be a regular fundraiser event.

Look for connectors in your own circle of doing business as potential partners for referrals.  My hairdresser received a stack of my business cards when I first opened Purple Diamond to hand-out to  clients she had that owned their own business and was needing help with marketing or advertising.  In return, I gave her coaching on how to market her own business while she styled my hair. We both were happy with the arrangement.

Always be looking for new ways to develop and maintain referral partnerships.  The most successful businesses have adopted all of these techniques and continue to grow their list of clients  rapidly.  If you are not getting the success you need today in your business be sure to call Purple Diamond and see why our tag-line is:  “Success wears the Purple Diamond!”

All my best to your success ~ Charlene

The right time to advertise is not when you are closing the doors to the store you have loved and owned for 25+ years, but this can also be a key time for running an advertising campaign.  No, if you want to stay in business and come out of this slow period as a strong leader in your industry you need to call an advertising agency TODAY!  There isn’t a miracle with any form of marketing or advertising even though many reps would like to tell you that their product will get you instant results, but if you continue to stick your head in the sand and take no action at all you can be sure that it won’t be long before your business becomes part of the growing statistics of fall-out from today’s economy.  You need to be visible and maintain a marketing presence and get in front of your prospects.  Don’t discard traditional forms of advertising like TV, radio, billboards, etc and think that you can substitute these for social media marketing.  The truth is you need to do both traditional and non-traditional and do them aggressively.

If you need help with your advertising and marketing please call!  Though I love writing this marketing blog and giving marketing tips and ideas, your business deserves immediate attention and a plan to take action. If you are on the fence about what really works and if TV or radio in your area is affordable and effective or if buying Google Ad Words or ads on Facebook equals sales for your business, call! Don’t get caught as one of those businesses that the first call they make for advertising help is  to promote a “going out of business sale”.

All my best to your success! ~ Charlene

“Success wears The Purple Diamond!”

Beyond the obvious of the “good-will”  and potential PR opportunity or marketing exposure a business gets by sponsoring a community event, it also helps to build a strong environment and richness to the community your business has made home.  When the community is attractive it draws attention from others and brings in the best candidates for positions that may open up in your business in future years.  The popularity of community organizations in your local area and their well attended events will also create excellent business networking opportunities for your business without you needing to travel a great distance to connect with key prospects.  The home court advantage of sponsoring the local community event that is only a few miles from your office helps you or your sales team to easily get prospects to consider stopping over to your office while they are in town or to schedule a tour of your company at a later date.   When people become familiar with an area and they associate it with a positive experience, they are more willing to return or do business in that area and that helps your business.

So, what does a company do if they do if they only have $2000 a year  to give to the community organizations  or  events or an amount that is considered small compared to larger businesses? You can choose to give that one lump sum to one event in a sponsorship or donation, or you can divide that amount up in to $100-$200 increments and donate throughout the year to more than one community group.  My advice is to reach out to more so that more groups benefit and connect with your business.

Also, do not discard the importance of volunteering your skills or physically helping during the actual community event.  This is a great way to get to know key people within these organizations and also to connect with some of the larger corporate sponsors of the community events.  Smaller businesses may not have the cash flow that some businesses have, but volunteering your time or giving a gift certificate or gift basket with your business name on it to be auctioned or raffled off at the event is a great way to be part of the larger picture and get the exposure you need to grow your business.

Finally, if you are actively helping the community and there is a chance for a photo opportunity or a press release to be sent please do not be shy about sharing this on-line and with the newspapers and other media organizations.  Put it up on your own social media networking pages like Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter and blog about it as I have done here.

All my best to your success~ Charlene

“Success wears the Purple Diamond!”

The key to marketing is to help people remember YOU and to connect what you do with something they need or want!  A picture in the business section of the newspaper, a press release or an ad in the paper is just a small part of the strategy that smart business owners employ.  It is the additional press that comes from strategically using Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter and other sites to bring that one article or photo to the attention of others in a way that shares a story about your business and why doing business with you is special.  Never over look the power of having business friends via Facebook or Linkedin who share your message and recommend your work.  Just by stating that they are a client is their own endorsement of your brand! And, the newspapers understand this and that is why they have created their own “Fans or Like” pages on Facebook and have set-up on-line articles that can be shared quickly and they encourage their readers to post their own views and comments.   On-line banner ads that link directly to a business website and the new commercial video ads are starting to get the attention of the business community and their potential clients.  Newspapers, once thought of as a thing of the past, are stepping up by using the internet strategically to get the attention of both the readers and the business community.  If you have not been in the paper lately, perhaps it is time to consider submitting a press release with a photo or taking out an ad that will be seen in both their paper version and on-line site.

All my best to your success! ~ Charlene

“Success wears the Purple Diamond!”