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The most important thing you can focus on today

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Have you ever heard the phrase, “all hat and no cattle?”

It’s a colorful description for someone who looks the part, dresses the part, but who actually has no substance.

If you spend all of your time on sales, marketing, PR, website, meetings, and accounting, you’re short-changing something extremely important: your actual product.

You will only achieve true business success when you maximize the time you spend improving your product or service.

All the rest is cowboy hat. Yes, it keeps the sun off your face, but it’s not the THING.

The THING is your service and the customers who buy it. (I’m not saying your customers are cattle…it’s just an analogy, folks!)

So prioritize, and focus on:

  • Customer ideation, getting actionable feedback
  • Adding features or services, actively innovating
  • Talking directly to your customers one-on-one
  • Re-looking at your offerings with fresh eyes, staying on top of market developments

Put these things in the back seat until the stuff above is done:

  • Reading Facebook posts
  • Coffee meetings (unless it’s with a customer)
  • Webinars on how to use Periscope
  • Fiddling with a new accounting software every week

If you keep your customer as your guiding star, it becomes simple to focus, and prioritize how you spend your day.

Another way to look at priorities is something I heard Becky McCray (of Small Biz Survival) say during a GeniusShared conference: “Do the things that generate actual revenue first.”

If you do that consistently, you are always building your business.

So stop worrying whether you need to get a SnapChat account, and go take a look at your product. Go get on the phone with one of your customers.

 

Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for Social Strata — makers of the Hoop.la community platform. Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee

Featured image via Flickr CC: Dave Young

How to Boost Revenue by Up-Selling & Cross-Selling

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By Jacklin Altman

Most of us recognize up-selling in its most basic form: “Would you like fries with that?” Cross-selling too, “would you like to pair that with a soda?” Sticking with that same example, if just half of the people asked say yes, think about that bump in revenue.

Seems pretty nice, doesn’t it?

Up-selling and cross-selling are valuable skills that you should engrain into all of your sales and customer service representatives. If a customer comes to you looking to buy a certain item, there is no harm in suggesting an upgraded version or attempting to cross sell an item that would pair nicely with it.

Who knows, they might love the pairing and always buy both from now on. They might recommend those items to their friends and so on. Now you’ve started a chain reaction that is sure to boost revenue.

Now, you see the benefits of up-selling and cross-selling but how do you go about it? Train your people. Have your customer service representatives be as well-versed in sales as your sales people. You will increase the efficiency of your workforce while simultaneously increasing your bottom line. There are many ways to go about educating your employees, and what you choose is entirely up to you.

You could go the old-fashioned route and hold a seminar where you, a sales rep, or a hired professional could teach up-selling and cross-selling tactics.

You could distribute reading material (though there is the chance that it will be ignored).

You could also try to pair your customer service reps with your sales reps to have your salespeople teach some of their best tips and tricks to your customer service employees. This will help foster healthy inter-workplace relationships, while also cross training your employees.

Additionally, your customers benefit. Their needs are better met when they receive better products and upgraded services, and more satisfied customers mean more customers, period.

A word of caution; avoid being too sales-y. People are quick to catch on when they’re being fooled, so don’t lie to your customers. Give them honest facts as to why your product is superior to others, and why they should buy an upgraded version or another item with it. If they politely refuse, don’t push it. You risk upsetting customers and scaring away business if you push too hard, so learn to suggest rather than force. Still not quite sure how to up-sell? Check out these up-selling and cross-selling tactics that work.

With you, your employees, and your customers all potentially benefiting, don’t delay. Train your customer service operators (as well as your salespeople) to up-sell and cross-sell to ensure that your company stays profitable and your customers receive the best products and services possible.

Author’s Bio: Jacklin Altman is the current Digital Marketing Specialist at LiveHelpNow (www.livehelpnow.net), a PA-based customer service software company. Jacklin handles new marketing initiatives, maintains the company blog, and handles customer outreach.

Revenue is the Small Business Livesaver

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By Elaine Love

The facts are set in concrete; at this point it is wet concrete or perhaps quicksand because it can change. As it stands now income taxes, payroll taxes, capital gains and dividend taxes and employee health care benefit expenses are all increasing. With these indisputable facts in mind, what is the small business owner to do?

If you are like me, you concentrate on increasing your market share and your sales volume within your current market share.

Analysis, not Paralysis Wins

Think like your customer. If you were in your customer’s business, what would you like to have? Ask yourself honestly if you are delivering that ideal product or service. If the answer is regretfully ‘no,’ then what do you need to change to make it a ‘yes?’

GM suffered a devastating bankruptcy in 2009. Just two years later, they reported a record profit. With the announcement recently of a totally redesigned and improved Corvette, they are demonstrating their commitment to improved quality going forward. Even though the Corvette represents a miniscule portion of GM sales in comparison to its truck line, it demonstrates the resurgence of quality. The Corvette is the first vehicle to be launched since the bankruptcy. The customer demanded better quality and GM is responding.

What does your customer want? What are you delivering? If there is one place to cut corners, it has been proven throughout history that it is NOT in product quality, customer service or effective marketing.

Market Growth Sectors

When you started your business, you researched what was currently available in the marketplace, what you could improve on the existing offerings and what unfilled niche remained. Go back to basics and do exactly the same research all over again.

Market research studies, interviews of your customers and intelligent observations pinpoint areas in which you can improve your current product or service and add additional products or services to fill niches. Sometimes you need to create the niche by informing them of a benefit they had not fully realized they needed.

Remember Apple’s introduction of the first iPhone? Steve Jobs presented the advantages of the iPhone before the marketplace even knew they needed those features combined.

Sales Revenue

Once the areas to improve and expand are identified, take action. Make the improvements and launch to fill the niche. Keeping capital liquid allows small business owners the ability to capitalize on marketing opportunities.

Small businesses can react very quickly to sales opportunities. An unexpected but delightful powder dump (several inches of light fluffy snowfall for the non-ski informed) is an excellent opportunity to push the word out to get to Steamboat Ski Resort quickly. Take advantage of a last second deal with the airlines to offer an incredibly low rate for Valentines, ‘take your sweetheart for a spring ski trip’ deal on airfare and lodging. Search for new marketing opportunities and capitalize immediately.

Don’™t Get Ready –“ Stay Ready

If you have your postcard campaign ready to launch, call your printer and issue instructions to print and mail the campaign. Blast the offer out to the social media network; ‘the postcard is coming. Present the postcard for an extra deep discount or special bonus.’

Create a new brochure for the newly discovered market niche using brochure design templates. Create a sales campaign to highlight the benefit your product or service offers to fill the market niche, why you are the best one to offer that benefit and a compelling reason to contact you immediately for more information. When you create an impressive marketing piece and produce it through the services of a top quality printing company (for example, check out PrintPlace.com), you are proud to present your marketing materials to your sales force and the marketplace.

Consistent Brand Recognition

Expand upon the highlights of your new brochure and create booklets as additional distribution pieces. Duplicate the elements of your brochure and booklet into your website. Providing a consistent high quality image creates brand recognition. Customers need to see a consistent company image multiple times. They see your company online, see you in social media and hold your brochure in their hand; this repeated consistent image solidifies your brand in their mind and paves the way for a buying decision.

Combining high quality printed marketing materials with your online presence captures the marketplace.

Action Steps

Keep your money liquid and be ready to pounce on marketing opportunities. The best way to mitigate increased expenses is to increase revenue. Increase revenue through delivering superior products and services which fill market niches and high quality marketing to distribute your message to the marketplace. Increasing revenue is the small business owner’s lifesaver.

What is your strategy for growing revenue this year?

Author’s Bio: At home in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, Elaine Love writes about small business and the mindset for success so essential for an entrepreneur. She is the author of Emotional Ice Water. Find her on Twitter @elainelove44 or Elaine4Success.com