Categories
Business Ideas

How Doing Good Can Grow Your Business

It can make good marketing sense to partner with a nonprofit or a cause.

Consider what my marathon friends did when they were raising money to participate in the 3-Day Walk (you walk 60 miles in 3 days to promote breast cancer awareness and raise money for research). They approached a local restaurant called Backburner, which was famous for their cinnamon rolls. For a week, every time someone bought a cinnamon roll, they donated $1 to my friends for their walk.

I personally hadn’t heard of the restaurant, but when I found this out, my husband and I went and had breakfast there (complete with a cinnamon roll of course!)

So this turned into a win-win for everyone. My friends won because they were able to get donations for their walk. Susan G Komen wins because they get more money to donate to research. The restaurant wins because they get additional promotion and good will helping out a good cause. And I won because I got to eat a yummy breakfast and discover a new restaurant. (We’re ignoring the calories I consumed here.)

More than ever before, consumers are socially minded. In many cases they want to know the businesses they patronize are also socially minded. Connecting your business to a good cause is more than just making you “feel good” it can also make good business sense.

So what are some ways to start? (Other than writing a check.) Well, here are a few ideas you can use:

1. I’m participating in a teleclass summit to help raise money for St. Jude’s Children Hospital. Why not put together your own telesummit and have proceeds go to a good cause?

2. Or if a summit is too much work, just do one teleclass, charge a low fee and let people know proceeds are helping support a cause.

3. Have a sale and let people know a percentage of proceeds are going to support a nonprofit.

4. Offer to give a product of yours for free if people donate. Or put together a special teleclass only for people who donate. (I would put a time frame around this if you do this, for instance they have 48 hours or a few days to donate.)

5. Put links to your favorite nonprofits in your newsletter or on your website. (But don’t make it so prominent you encourage people to click away from your site and not support YOU.)

6. Give away your time. If you’re a service professional and you find your client pipeline has slowed down or dried up, donating your time to a nonprofit can be a good way to jump start your business. The exposure can help you find new clients plus you can make it known you support their cause. (And don’t forget to get a testimonial.) Now, be careful with this strategy, I’ve used it myself but make sure you don’t go too crazy donating your time or you could end up getting really stressed out when you client work picks up again.

But whatever you do, make sure this is coming from the heart. People can sense if you’re not being sincere, so make sure you truly do believe in the cause if you’re going to publically help support it.

Categories
Operations

Want to Grow Your Business?

To get more clients and grow your profits, you must be willing to collaborate and to seek help from others. Whether it’s a coach, a copywriter, a programmer, a virtual assistant, or any other type of support staff, you’re going to need someone. You may even need a combination of “someones”.

When starting out, handling all the tasks involved with your business may not be too difficult. But as your business grows and things get more complicated, it can begin to feel as if the small details are taking up the bulk of your time and drawing you away from things like marketing and innovating—i.e., the activities that only you can do. Your support staff can help take the pressure off by unburdening you of those tasks that anyone can do. This will boost your productivity and take your business to the next stage.

As you’re reading this, you may be thinking, “That’s sounds great, but I can’t afford to hire a support staff.” This is an understandable concern, but the thing to keep in mind is that hiring this support staff will give you the time you need to get new clients, build your business, and bring in more income. It’s an investment that, if done right, can give you great returns.

Think of it this way: If you could get rid of those repetitive everyday tasks, how much more time would you have to work on your marketing campaign? If you had someone to help you, for example, with your phone calls and emails, wouldn’t that save you a huge chunk of time every day? And couldn’t you reallocate this time to focus on things that help build your business? Meanwhile, if you were to hire a coach to help you develop a new business plan and marketing strategy, wouldn’t this help your bottom line in the long run?

If you’re still having trouble justifying bringing in support, consider this finding from the International Coach Federation’s Coaching Client Study: “The ROI for [coached] companies can be significant . . . with a median return of seven times the initial investment. In fact, almost one-fifth (19%) [of coached clients] indicated that an ROI of at least 50 times (5000%) the initial investment, while a further 28% saw an ROI of 10 to 49 times the investment.”

Those numbers are based on hard data. With this in mind, you can’t afford not to have support.

Categories
Sales & Marketing

How to Price a Product

Your pricing formula (or pricing a product or service)

I recently received a request from one of my blog readers to do an article on pricing your product. He sent me some great articles he found on the net. After reading them I realized he may have been over thinking the pricing issues. To me it is fairly simple. There are only three outcomes to consider:

  1. Your product is priced too high and no action is taken (the competition is complacency.)
  2. Your product is priced too high and it invites the buyer to buy from someone else (I need to make sure I am getting the best VALUE.)
  3. You price your product to low and you introduce concern from the buyer because he wonders what is being missed (lack of trust.)

Pricing your product can be simple if you let it but you must price it from the buyer’s perspective. As a business owner you need to know both your fixed and variable cost and ensure you cover those cost while remembering the buyer is not concerned with your cost. They simply don’t care.

From my perspective, here is what you need to be concerned about. What does your competition charge? This is important if the consumer has a preconceived notion of the value of the product. For example, if I go to a paint store and see a gallon on paint is priced at $50, I might go to another store to see if I can get the same quality (different brand) for a better price. I may have a belief that I am not going to pay more than $30 for a gallon of paint (or $20K for a car, or $3 for loaf of bread, or $1 for a pen, etc.)

The bigger issue for me is the value proposition. I believe people will pay to solve a problem and in many respects they will pay a premium if they believe you are the right and safe choice. Making the buyer understand that you are the right and safe choice is both hard and critical. Understand this is not a universal construct. For example, if I have $1 to spend for pen it may not matter if it is a BIC or another brand as long as it fits my budget. If I have a Rolls Royce for sale and my buying audience cannot afford a Rolls (or do not want it) then price it does not matter.

The hard work is the unique value proposition, helping other to understand your value, where and how to market your product and knowing how the problem you solve will allow you to charge more.

Pricing the product is in fact telling a story about the product. For example, why would I pay $50 for a gallon of paint when I can a similar product for 40% less? If price is not an issue, you can focus on the parts of the products story that are important to a client. The higher price for the paint can be told in a story: it is safer (less smell), easier to clean (important to a busy mother because it save time), last longer (don’t have to do it as often), provide a better finish (looks better), or is easier to apply (saves time.)  If those concepts are not important to your audience, you have a different kind of problem.

Sometimes price is not a consideration. If you are selling to high net worth individuals, they are buying prestige and convenience. The price is secondary. If I am buying a gallon of paint, price is primary.

Finally, pricing is impacted by the demographics of the audience. It is harder to sell your product using “pain” as the value proposition when selling to an older audience because their life experience tells them that “been there done that. This too shall pass.” Pain works better on younger people who have a need for more immediate gratification.

Bottom line is that pricing is an effective marriage between cost to produce, what people will pay, and the story that motivates them to buy.

Categories
Newsletter

BIZNESS! Newsletter Issue 147

BIZNESS! Newsletter

 

Cover Story

The Following Suitcase

Hop is a suitcase that follows the user. The suitcase contains three receivers that are able to receive, identify and triangulate different signals coming from the user’s cell phone. A microcontroller interprets…

Continued in BIZNESS! Newsletter Issue 147 >>>

 

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Categories
Human Resource

Making Sure Your Employees are Who They Claim

Employers never want to find themselves in a situation where they have to deal with false resume claims after they hire a person. An even worse situation is discovering that a prospective employee is not actually who he says he is! There are potential and unfortunate consequences of such issues that are not always apparent.

Falsified Details are Detrimental

The usual way businesses hire employees is by placing ads and waiting for the resumes to roll in. Hiring managers then go through the resumes to find candidates that have the right qualifications. Traditionally, hiring managers would then call a prospective employee’s previous employers and references to vet the information given on the resume. While that system is still useful, former employers are not always reachable, and references may not provide the best point of view.

Illegal Workers

Just as it is possible to falsify experience on a resume, it is possible to falsify work authorization. People can get photo identification in most places with very little information, and they do not have to present a Social Security number to get one. When it comes to providing a Social Security number for employment deduction purposes, a person does not have to present the actual card. In fact, the Social Security Administration recommends that people do not carry the card around with them to protect the number from being stolen.

Most employers take prospective employees at their word when it comes to that information. However, there are hefty monetary penalties a business can suffer when they hire illegal workers. Not only are there fines, but when an illegal employee is caught, the business is down a worker and out the expenses it paid to train the employee in the first place. Additional problems arise when a worker has stolen another person’s identity, whether the person is a legal resident or not.

Using Employment Verification

A business can only go so far to verify the information an employee provides on a resume and on tax forms. The ability to dig deeper is not something most businesses have. However, using a background checking service like LexisNexis employment verification is a great way to ensure prospective employees are who they say they are. Not only will a background check suss out illegal workers, but they verify previous employment and reveal criminal records, if they exist.

Trust is important in business, so knowing a person’s history provides a company with peace of mind. It also saves time and money in building the best possible staff.

Article contributed by Jenna Smith