Archives for October 2015

October 27, 2015 by RonTester Leave a Comment

3 Great Marketing Ideas for Small Businesses

Looking for Great Marketing Ideas to Grow Your Small Business without Breaking the Bank?

Of course you are. You know marketing is incredibly important but you also know money doesn’t grow on trees. Every week small business owners ask me about marketing ideas for small businesses. What works and what’s a waste of time and/or money? How can I make the biggest impact with the smallest investment. In my business, I teach my marketing folks that they should imagine their marketing expenses are coming right out of their wallets. If they wouldn’t spend the money out of their own wallet on something, they shouldn’t spend the company’s money on it.

If you’re a small business owner, the idea of marketing expenses coming right out of your wallet may not be far from the truth. Yet you know you need to market your business to grow and serve your community. How do you do that? Here are three great ways:

Publish Great Content. I know it’s cliche at this point, yet so few small business owners really take this to heart. If you want to capture someone’s attention, you can do it by interrupting them (think radio and television commercials or annoying pop-up ads on websites). The better way, and the way that will make people not want to change the channel or shut down your website or hate you, is by publishing great content. Great content is stuff people actually want to experience. If what you’re producing doesn’t grab my attention, I delete it or ignore it unless I’m doing research on bad marketing. On the other hand, I love to engage with commericals, ads, popups, etc. that are actually interesting to me. This weekend, for example, I looked up a music video on Youtube and ended up spending more than two minutes watching an ad by Revlon. I wasn’t the target market (directly), but the ad was about relationships and the way a woman’s sense of her own beauty affects the relationship. It was brilliant. I even wanted to share it with a friend! Interesting is in the eye of the beholder, so you need to know your market, but the more interesting and relevant you make your content the more likely you are to gain readers, viewers, audience and fans. I once heard a world famous copywriter say, “Make the advertisement itself valuable.” That should go for all your content.
Hold a Contest. I was at a conference recently where a small business owner shared how he was able to cut his Google AdWords spending from more than $4000 per month to $200 per month while improving his site traffic and increasing his sales. His secret? Hold a contest. Engage people and get them to share with their circle of friends. The gentleman who spoke started doing monthly contests and increased his customer engagement, sales, and bottom line while spending 1/20th of his previous spend on Google advertising. What sort of contest should you hold? The sky’s the limit. Consider a contest that makes sense given your business, that is cost-effective and engaging. Be sure to track your metrics, figure out where people are coming from and what they’re spending. Run a series of small tests and, when you find something that gives you a big bang for your buck, repeat and refine. Tweak the contest through multiple iterations to see what works best. Be careful not to find something that works once then run it again and again without paying attention to your metrics. You could turn a winner into a loser through neglect.
Build and Email List and Stay in Touch with Customers. If you are consistently publishing great content and holding contests that grab your audience’s attention and keep them engaged, you will have plenty of opportunities to build an email list. Be sure to get your audience’s permission for you to send them relevant communications, then do. What kind of communications? You can tell stories of people that love your product. You can tell stories about how your product helps people. You can share new ideas about how your service can save people time and money. You can share testimonials. You can ask your audience to complete surveys so you know how to serve them better. If you are reaching out to them in ways that people appreciate and don’t ask the world of them, most people are happy to receive your emails (or at least not be cranky about receiving them). Two bits of advice about emails: use a service such as Aweber to manage your email accounts. With all the laws and regulations out there right now, you don’t want to get your email efforts wrong and end up paying a huge fine. For very little money, Aweber and similar services can and will keep you compliant and out of trouble with the Feds. Once you have an email service, be smart about what you send. Always be thinking, what do my customers really want? What makes sense to share? Would I be happy to be getting this email? I am on some lists where all they do is pound me with offers to buy stuff. They use formulaic headlines and false scarcity to try to get me to open their emails. You know what I do instead? Delete. Delete. Unsubscribe. Delete. If you wouldn’t send that email to your mom or your best friend, don’t send it to your email audience.

Those are three inexpensive ways to market your small business without blowing your budget. They all take some time and none of them are “set it and forget it” tactics, but they will work. And if the shoe were on the other foot and someone was trying to establish and maintain a relationship with you as a customer, would you prefer honest interaction with that person/business or would you like to be the recipient of a “set it and forget it” campaign designed by marketers from the home office? When it comes to establishing relationships with small businesses, I’ll pick personal over impersonal relationships every time. I may not care about having a relationship with Exxon, but I want to know my butcher. And my massage therapist. And the guy who runs the gift shop downtown.

What other ideas do you have to market your small business without blowing your budget? Please share in the comments or email me.

October 23, 2015 by RonTester Leave a Comment

How to Hire a Consultant for Your Small Business

STOP!

Before you even consider hiring a consultant for your small business, make sure you’ve read my article on The Pros and Cons of Hiring a Business Consultant. If you’ve read it and determined you do need some kind of outside help for your business, read on to find out how to hire a consultant for your small business.

Now that you’ve established you need help, you need to figure out what sort of consultant your business needs. Are you in need of a specialist to help you increase your profitability through decreased cost or increased efficiencies? Someone to design a compensation plan for your sales team? Perhaps you’re looking for someone to run your social media marketing. As we’ve discussed, some consultants serve as advisors and other consultants come in and fix a particular issue within your business. Determining ahead of time your needs and goals will save you and your business valuable time and money. Your needs and goals may change over time and after talking with your consultant, but you have to start somewhere.

How do you find potential consultants? Ask your friends or peers who they might know and recommend. If you don’t know anyone (I didn’t when I first started looking), call the local Chamber of Commerce or visit a networking group and ask around. If you still can’t find anyone, consider visiting a local Rotary meeting. In many communities, Rotary is the service organization where movers and shakers congregate. There’s a good chance that someone there will be able to help you in your search for a consultant.

You can also Google “small business consultant” + your city or a large city near where you live. For example, I might Google “small business consultant Denton, Texas” and, if I don’t find anyone that seems like they might be a good candidate, I would Google “small business consultant Dallas, Texas.” If you are looking for someone to help with a task that is limited in scope, you could be even more specific. Try Googling “small business social media consultant, Dallas, TX.” Depending on the nature of the work, you might not even need to put a specific location. It’s relatively easy to communicate via Skype, email, etc. with people from all over the world, so don’t be afraid to try. On the other hand, if the scope of the project is relatively broad or will require more face to face contact and hands on work from your consultant, don’t be afraid to make their location/accessibility a “must have.”

After you’ve found at least 5 consultants you think might be able to provide you with the results you need to achieve, you need to vet them as you would a potential employee. Ask to see the consultant’s resume, portfolio and any previous work samples they have. That’s a start, but it’s not sufficient to make a hiring decision. TRAP: Don’t be swayed by their education and resume. They may have graduated from Harvard Business School and been Secretary of the Treasury. The real question is: can they help businesses like yours fix the problems or reach the goals you want to achieve?

Check up on the consultant’s references and ask those companies why they chose this particular consultant over another one. Look for specific, detailed recommendations from references. You must get details and find out what sort of results were achieved. A reference without specific details is a red flag. Some people are afraid to say anything negative so they will say things like, “He is a hard worker. She is very punctual. They really know their stuff.” Honestly, are you hiring a consultant because you want a hard-working, punctual person who knows their stuff? Of course not. You’re hiring for results. If the job requires certain certifications, make sure they are up-to-date. Does the consultant have a website or a newsletter? If so, check them out to make sure they don’t handle problems with a one-size-fits-all type mentality. Also, don’t be afraid to perform a background check of the consultant. After all, a consultant will be handling an important part of your business and ensuring they are quality material is crucial. When you are looking for a consultant, you should be thinking about 1) results and 2) value. Are they going to deliver the results you need for a reasonable investment?

Chemistry is important when working with anyone and is no different when selecting and introducing a business consultant to your team. Do you feel at ease with this person handling this part of your business? If not, they probably aren’t a good match. Do they listen to you and your company’s needs? If they aren’t really listening, they can’t help you tackle the problem at hand. Do you like being around them? This may seem petty, but the truth is you will probably be around them a lot. If you don’t like being around them but hire them anyway, you are dooming your project from the start. The consultant should be asking you questions as well to better understand your business needs. Can they be assertive when needed or provide encouragement and positive feedback when appropriate? During the interview you should ask specific questions based on what they have actually done in the past. This will help you get a feel for how the client would work with you and address your business needs. Don’t ask, “You don’t have any trouble getting along with people, do you?” Instead ask, “Give me an example or two of a time when you were working with a company like mine and you had a significant disagreement with someone at that company. How did you handle that situation? What was the outcome? What would you do differently if you had it to over again?” Those kinds of questions will give you much more insight into whether this consultant might be a good fit for you and your team.

Finally, once you have chosen the consultant, it’s time to get specific and get things in writing. Make sure the consultant is available for the duration required as some consultants take on multiple clients simultaneously. Be sure to write an agreement outlining what your business needs and the scope of the work required. Deadlines and goals are important tools for gauging success and should be included this agreement. Writing down who is responsible for what is also important. Within this agreement, you should outline the pay schedule as well as any types of reimbursements and how they will be paid. Furthermore, it should detail the working relationship between the consultant and you and your business. Don’t leave anything unspoken, even if the matter seems obvious and even if (or especially if) the topics are uncomfortable to talk about. Don’t assume anything. Assumptions can cost you time, money, energy and the will to see the project through to completion. Both parties should sign this agreement as means of protection for you and your business.

Finding a consultant can be scary but it doesn’t have to be hard. The biggest challenge is finding an appropriate pool of potential consultants, then wading through the candidates and finding the right match for your business. While you may not find the perfect consultant that fits all of your requirements, using these tips you should find someone who matches most of them. At the same time, if you go through this process and don’t find a consultant you are excited about hiring, DON’T HIRE ONE! Take a step back, review the process, then try again. You know what’s worse than not finding the right consultant? Settling for the wrong one because you’re tired of looking or because you believe “something is better than nothing.” That’s not true. A good friend of mine told me he’d rather be married to the right girl for 10 years than the wrong girl for 20. The same can and should be said when it comes to hiring a small business consultant.

If you have questions or comments, please email me or leave a comment below.

October 20, 2015 by RonTester Leave a Comment

Hiring a Business Consultant for Small Businesses: Pros and Cons

When people ask me whether hiring a business consultant is a good idea, I am torn.

My answer is usually “it depends” or “maybe.” There are so many red flags. As a business owner you may have identified problems in your company, yet you just can’t figure out how to get over that particular hurdle. Perhaps you can’t quite pinpoint what would make your business run more efficiently. Or maybe you have a project that only requires someone for a short period or a specific task. Hiring a business consultant can help you tackle these problems more efficiently and improve your bottom line. At the same time, many of the consultants I have hired have been terrible, costing a lot of money and not helping me very much. Working with the wrong consultant feels like speeding down the highway throwing money out your car window. I hated that for me and I would hate that for you. So let’s take an in depth look at the pros and cons of hiring a business consultant.

PROS

First, a good business consultant (or consulting firm) can help find and implement solutions to problems you have already pinpointed in your business. If you keep banging your head against a problem, a business consultant might be able to get you over, around, or through that problem. If that’s what you’re looking for, make sure when you are interviewing potential consultants that you ask that person for their specific experience in addressing this type of problem. “Just to make sure we’re on the same page, I’d like you to share three to five times you’ve worked with a company like mine to address a problem like this. What went well? What went poorly? What were the main reasons those projects succeeded or failed? Of course I don’t want you to reveal any private or proprietary information.” If they can’t give you at least three projects they’ve personally worked on like yours, be very careful. If they can’t give you any, but talk about how their firm “has been doing this sort of work for 87 years,” RUN!

A good business consultant can also guide you and your business in a direction needed for greater growth and efficiency. By mapping out a clear cut plan, business consultants can give you feedback about your goals and, if appropriate, can help get you to your next goal. A good business consultant should always be looking for the right opportunity, making sure you have the right resources to achieve the goal, and making it clear how they are going to provide you with the right solution for your problem. Do NOT settle for glittering generalities or base your hiring decision on hope. As former Mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani once famously said, “Hope is not a strategy.”

Business consultants can also provide a sounding board for business owners. If you are going to use a business consultant as a sounding board, make sure they have either worked in companies like yours, consulted with companies like yours, or preferably both. I once hired a consulting firm dripping with MBAs. I figured these guys were the masters of the universe so they would obviously have all the answers to my problems. The problem was NONE of them had ever worked for a small business like mine or done enough consulting in businesses like mine to offer me real, helpful advice/feedback/guidance. Their advice might have been helpful for a hundred million dollar company, but not for a five million dollar company like mine.

Another potential advantage of business consultants is the ability to reduce overhead. Some projects may only require a certain amount of time. Hiring an employee in this case could be costly due to labor burden (insurance and benefits, etc.), work space, and more. By hiring a consultant, you only use them when needed and thus save on paying a salary for the same type of position had you hired an employee. Remember though, consultant fees vary based on the work, so weighing the length of time needed and type of consulting required are important factors in deciding on hiring a consultant.

CONS

The biggest potential disadvantage of hiring a business consultant is hiring the wrong one. That’s painful and can be costly in terms of morale and money. If their advice is misguided, it could actually sink your company, so be careful. Another potential downside is consultants can create a relationship of dependency for businesses. In this case, the business owner spends more time and money with the consultant and thereby the business ends up losing money. Let me be clear, in the long run, the wrong consultant can end up costing you truckloads of money. Being clear about the specific problems you need help with, checking out references, and performing a rigorous interview is crucial. If the potential consultant bristle at your vetting process, move along. You’re not hiring a best friend, you’re hiring a consultant to have a positive impact on your bottom line.

The bottom line: consultants can be an important member of your business team, especially in situations where hiring a full time employee for a particular project would be overkill. Weighing your options and your business needs is paramount when deciding on whether or not to hire a business consultant. Take enough time to know exactly what problem you want to address, what goal you want to achieve, and why you think hiring a consultant may be the best option to fix the problem or achieve the goal. Once you know those things, you can decide whether hiring a consultant is really the best thing for you, and you can find the right consultant for your situation.

When people approach me by asking why they should hire me as a consultant, my response is something along the lines of, “I don’t know. Maybe you shouldn’t.” Until both of us know your specific needs and situation, neither of us has any idea whether I can help you or not. Neither does any other consultant worth his or her salt. Don’t be bamboozled. As a small business owner, you’ve worked to hard to let someone else screw this up.

If you’d like to discuss your situation and see if I might be able to help you, please email me so we can set up a time to talk. If you’re afraid I’m going to try to smooth talk my way into some sweet consulting gig, don’t worry. I won’t. I’ve been in your shoes and I know what it’s like.