small business guerrilla tips

SMALL BUSINESS TIPS TO KEEP MOVING FORWARD IN HARD TIMES

2010-05-20T04:14:00.000-07:00

In episode eight of the World War II HBO movie “The Pacific”, there’s this scene where Gunnery Sergeant John Basilone was telling his troops, who were pinned down under heavy enemy fire, to keep moving forward…to “get off the beach or die!” Apparently, your survival rate is a lot better when you’re moving forward than when you’re just lying flat out in the open beach waiting where the next round’s going to hit.

Similarly, during hard economic times, you stand a better chance of surviving these hard times if you keep moving forward exploring other business possibilities than just sitting idly and hoping the crisis boils over soon. During hard times when you are so discouraged and on the brink of giving up on your dreams and goals, when you feel hopeless and helpless, pinned down under a relentless barrage of financial burden, the worst thing you can do is to accept defeat and just stop fighting. As Gunny John Basilone put it so eloquently, “Get off the beach or die!” You need to keep fighting. You need to keep your small business moving forward.

Here are some tips to boost up your energy and keep your small business moving forward in hard times:

Set your small business goals clearly in your mind and heart. The clearer your goals, the greater your determination to achieve them. Visualize yourself savoring the benefits of achieving your goals.
Keep yourself highly motivated. Dedicate your success to someone you hold very dear (your parents, your spouse, your kids, your pet dog). In spite of so much bad vibes going around you, keep a positive outlook by surrounding yourself with successful role models and staying away from negative chicken littles and doubting thomases. Investing a few dollars to hear motivational speakers is highly recommended. You not only recharge your motivation level, you also get to relax for a few hours and maybe even meet new potential clients.
Never get sidetracked from your goals. With so much happening today around you affecting your focus and determination (politics, love, FaceBook), your attention and energy can easily get diverted elsewhere, slowing you down or even pulling you away from your own goals.
Reward yourself after each victory. Whether its a shiny new bling bling or just a cold glass of your favorite beer, rewarding yourself makes achieving your small business goals so much sweeter and motivates you to reach for even bigger goals.
When you’re on a winning streak, keep rolling. Maintain that winning momentum. If you have a tendency to slow down after a victory, DON’T!
Keep a record of your past victories (photocopies of your biggest commission checks and purchase orders). Frame them and put them on your wall if you want to. Heck you can even post them on FaceBook and maybe your friends will like you even more. These will be like trophies to constantly remind you that you have done it before and you most certainly can do it again. You can even dare yourself to get an even bigger commission check than the last one you have.
Time keeps moving forward even if you decide to stop. Remember you only have a few finite years to realize your goals (forty years on average). Any amount of time you waste today moping idly, you can never ever recover tomorrow.
Avoid burnout by managing stress. If you can afford a vacation, go on a vacation. Or learn a new craft or skill that can broaden your horizon. After recharging your batteries, you can come back to your small business filled with new ideas and feeling like a winner.
Keep moving forward by exploring new challenges. Nothing motivates more than the excitement of finding and exploring something new. Even in these hard times, it’s still a good idea to start new projects, or diversify into other areas related to your small business. Before you know it, you would have multiple income streams where before there was but one.

Whether its war in the Pacific, or a battle for small business market share, you need to keep moving forward towards the strategic high ground to survive and dominate the field. Staying idle and static will only lead to defeat.

EFFECTIVE REPLIES TO MOST COMMON SALES OBJECTIONS

2010-04-24T23:28:00.000-07:00

The most difficult, yet most important step in the sales process is handling sales objections. Unless you are effective in overcoming most common sales objections, you cannot expect to sell.

Believe it or not, every time you call on a prospect, a sale is made. Either you sell your prospect a product, or your prospect sells you an objection. If you are not effective in handling sales objections, then your prospect wins and you go home empty.

Fact is, your prospect already has an arsenal of sales objections to deal with every sales call. How effective you are in handling sales objections determines how much you can sell.

When you call on a prospect, do you easily give up as soon as you hear an objection? Do you feel relieved that the “encounter” was brief? Don’t you wish you could have done more? Well, the only way you could have done more was if you anticipated and prepared your own arsenal of effective replies against common sales objections you have encountered over time. In fact, if you can reply to three sales objections your prospect throws at you, you have three times as much chance of making a sale than if you had easily given up on the first objection, and this makes a lot of difference. If your prospect still objects after your third try, then let your prospect go and look for another. Persistence is good. Insistence is not.

Below are examples of effective replies to three most common sales objections:

• “I’m not interested”

Of course you’re not interested. How can you be interested in something you have not yet seen, right? Give me two minutes. If you don’t like the numbers I show you, then go ahead and tell me you’re not interested. Deal?

• “No money”

That’s ok, I’m won’t be asking for your money today. All I need from you right now is your two minutes for me to show you some very interesting numbers. Can we talk?

• “Busy, no time”

I understand. I’m quite busy myself. Did you know there are 1440 minutes in a day? I only need 2 to show you some really interesting numbers. Can we talk?

Take note of the pattern in the examples shown: First, EMPATHIZE: make your prospect feel you understand his objections. Second, WITTY REPLIES: make sure you have a BENEFIT you can offer to your prospect. And never, ever, antagonize your prospect with your replies. Be tactful. Third, TIME FRAME: let your prospect know you will only take a few minutes. Stick to that time frame. Finally, ACTION STATEMENT: always end your replies with a statement urging your prospect to take action allowing you to proceed with the sales process. (Can we talk?, Don’t you agree?, Can we meet?, etc.). Unless you can get the prospect to give you the green light to proceed, you’re basically stuck at first base.

Try this yourself. Recall all those frustrating objections you encountered before and develop those painful, traumatic experiences into an arsenal of effective replies you can use to anticipate and counter those most common sales objections.

SMALL BUSINESS IDEAS: GREEN BUSINESSES

2010-03-21T03:52:00.000-07:00

With the growing awareness on climate change, global warming and the environment, small business entrepreneurs have come up with creative ideas and solutions that not only made their operations green but have also turned these ideas into green businesses.

General Mills used to have contractors haul their solid waste to landfills at a costly $100 a ton. But when they realized they can use solid waste such as oat hulls as alternative fuel for their boilers, General Mills started going green by recycling and even selling as much as 86 percent of their solid waste, in effect making a business out of their solid waste.

Dell’s “Take-Back Program” recovers an average 40 thousand tons of “old” equipment from their users annually for recycling old parts to create new ones, helping to lessen the 4 thousand tons of e-waste per hour that , according to Greenpeace, pile up on dead hardware mountains in India, Africa and China. This not only projects Dell as a leader among green companies but also opens an opportunity for Dell to sell new hardware to replace what their users have returned. Green ideas are also smart business ideas.

Retail giant SM Department Store have recently implemented a “Bring –Your-Own-Bag” policy to encourage their shoppers to re-use old SM plastic shopping bags. Although this is but a small percentage of the more than 500 billion plastic bags being used globally each year, re-using plastic bags will lead to lower carbon emissions from the manufacture of new plastic bags. Re-using plastic bags will also drastically reduce the 80 million barrels of oil required to make plastic bags annually. Re-using plastic bags decreases the volume of trash that clog up sewers and trigger massive flooding.

Taking the cue from these green companies, if the big boys can go green and make a profit off of it, then small businesses have no reason to not go green. From the smallest paper clips to the office heating system, take an audit…a green audit…around the office and shop floor to see where green ideas can be suggested and implemented. Implement green goals such as reducing scrap by X% or reducing heating costs by Y%, and then make these green goals part of your overall business goals. So much waste can be reduced in the workplace if small business owners will implement their own green policies.

Even better, over these past few years, small business entrepreneurs have taken the opportunity to ride the green bandwagon and started up their own green businesses ranging from offering their services as a green consultant, providing green home design services, installing green energy sources such as windmills, biogas plants and solar panels, or re-selling recycled building materials and surplus electronics.

Green businesses take pride in their belief that they can do their own little share in saving the environment and make a little profit while doing so. Green is definitely IN, and going green is one small business idea that’s bound to be a hit.

THE PERFECT SALES EQUATION APPLIED

2010-02-24T07:54:00.000-08:00

Several years back, probably around March 1997, I bought a number of books from the knowledge ship DOULOS when she docked in Manila. Among those books was Richard Carlson's "Personal Selling Strategies for Consultants and Professionals". Over the years, this particular book was borrowed several times by friends and their friends and their friends until it eventually went AWOL. From notes I have made while this book was still with me, there is this one particular equation, The Perfect Sales Equation, that I have taken to heart and have, in fact, applied in most of my sales and business efforts. Very briefly, I would like to share with you The Perfect Sales Equation and how this equation can be applied in any small business.

Simply put, the Perfect Sales Equation states that selling is a 2-step process:

First, you MUST verify what your prospect really needs and make your prospect feel the loss or inconvenience of not addressing that particular need. This opens your opportunity to sell.
Second, based on your prospect's verified need, the solution or proposal you present MUST have a benefit your prospect can verify or quantify either through credible testimonials or statistical data. And you also must make your prospect feel how much better his life will be if he buys your product or service. Your proposal should answer the question, "Why should I buy from you?".

To illustrate how the perfect sales equation is applied, if for example you sell life insurance policies, you must first conduct a needs analysis with your prospect to verify out how much life insurance coverage your prospect still needs. You then make him feel the consequences of not having adequate life insurance coverage such as his kids not being able to finish college or his home being foreclosed should he meet an untimely death without adequate life insurance coverage. After your prospect realizes that there indeed is a need, you now have the opportunity to present a life insurance quotation showing how much benefit he can leave behind for his family. You make your prospect feel secure that his family will go on living comfortably and not be left out in the cold should he suddenly die. You have given your prospect the reason to buy from you.

The perfect sales equation can be applied in practically whatever type of small business you operate. Whether you sell homes or build boats, keeping this simple equation in mind and applying it in selling your small business can greatly improve your odds of closing more sales.

SMALL HOME BUSINESS: BE A LIFE INSURANCE BROKER

2010-02-23T01:53:00.000-08:00

Being a life insurance broker can be a very profitable small home business if you love meeting and communicating with people on a very personal level. And it does get very personal since you will be discussing with your prospects the thorny issue of death. Not too many people are open about discussing this topic, especially if your prospects do not know you personally. But if you have the skill to effectively communicate with people, if you have a wide and endless social network of prospects who may want to get life insurance, and if you possess a high degree of PERSEVERANCE to endure tons of objections, then selling life insurance would be perfect for you.

Start-up cost for a life insurance business is minimal. You will, however, be required to undergo a rigorous training program to get your license. Returns can be quite rewarding, especially on first-year life insurance premiums. And there are residual income from "old" life insurance policies you are still servicing. If you can seriously commit your time and effort in servicing your clients, presenting life insurance quotation, and continuously looking out for new prospects, then being a life insurance broker is one small home business that promises potentially high returns on your investment.

SMALL BUSINESS FACTORING FOR COMMERCIAL FUNDING

2010-02-15T07:54:00.000-08:00

As a small business owner, you want to deliver your customers' orders right away. Oftentimes however, you come face to face with a problem every small business owner dreads: CASH FLOW. You need the capital to operate your small business but your money is tied up in 60-day accounts receivable and unpaid invoices. Will your customers wait until your receivables get paid? Obviously not. If you cannot deliver, they would probably just buy from your competitors. You could apply with a bank for a small business line of credit but, assuming you get approved, it could still take quite some time before commercial funding comes in. And that money from the bank is considered a debt. So what else can you do? You could consider funding your small business without incurring debt through business factoring or invoice factoring.

Using unpaid invoices from your credit-worthy customers as an asset, invoice factoring turns your accounts receivable into immediate cash you can use to continue serving your customers. Unlike other sources of commercial funding, invoice factoring is not a loan. The factoring company, called the "Factor", buys your unpaid invoices from you at a discounted rate and immediately advances to you as much as 85 percent of the amount as an initial payment. The Factor, in turn, obtains all rights and risks associated with the invoice. The Factor bills the debtor account and after the invoice is fully paid, the balance is then paid to you less the factor rate.

Whether you are an established corporation or just a start-up small business, invoice factoring can provide you a number of benefits:

immediate payment, providing you with much needed funding right away;
your small business credit line grows as your sales grow;
easily get approved within just a few days;
the factoring company assumes all risks associated with the invoice;

As much as you dread it, extending 30 to 60-day terms to your customers is an unavoidable and necessary inconvenience in operating a small business. Exploring all available options, such as invoice factoring, to mitigate any cash shortfall resulting from these extended credit terms is vital to the survival of your small business. Get a more in-depth study of small business factoring and see if this option is suitable for your business. Search online for providers of invoice factoring in your area. Get quotes from these financial institutions and see which offer is most advantageous for your small business.

BRAND POSITIONING GUERRILLA TIPS

2010-02-09T01:33:00.000-08:00

Whether you are starting a new business or you have a new product to market, brand positioning - the art of building brand awareness and grabbing your market's attention - is key to your small business success. Unless the market knows your brand exists, you cannot expect the market to buy your brand.

With so many products out on the market competing for attention, you need an effective brand positioning strategy to be able to stand out in the crowd and be noticed. Here are some brand positioning guerrilla tips:

Find your own niche market. If you're a relatively new player in an industry that's already filled up with well-entrenched competitors, you will find it extremely difficult and very costly to compete head-on against the "old" players. Differentiate your brand from the competition. Emphasize your brand's niche attributes and build your brand marketing around these unique attributes.
Run a marketing campaign focused on the niche market you positioned your brand in. Emphasize on unique benefits your niche market can derive from your brand. Depending on your marketing budget, your marketing campaign can be as inexpensive as a half-page flyer or as costly as a 30-second TV ad on primetime.
Build a website optimized for keywords in your niche market. Better yet, build several websites to test which niche attributes work best with your brand positioning. Add a blog to your website to encourage visitors to subscribe, leave comments and provide feedback. Make it a point to reply to each comment.
Utilize social media platforms such as FaceBook, Twitter and Friendster for positioning your brand in your "friends" minds. But do be careful not to spam them or your brand will forever be labelled a spammer. Post something useful and interesting everytime and your "friends" will ask for more.
Got promos or upcoming sales? Use your blog to tell your niche "community" about it. Encourage them to "spread the good news" by providing loyalty awards or incentives. Consider online purchase . Set up a "special discount" link where members can conveniently buy your brand online. Everybody loves a quickie so deliver promptly.
Post Google Adwords or other Cost Per Click ads on non-competition websites or blogs relevant to your niche market. For linking purposes, leave comments on these sites as well.
While lower prices alone will not convince consumers to switch brand loyalty, reasonable pricing coupled with other positive attributes (friendly staff, honesty, fast service, competence, fresh ingredients, clean restrooms) that appeal to your niche market can leave a positive first impression on consumers.
Would you consider delivering a basement waterproofing proposal dressed in scuba gear? Or showing your prospect around a property development aboard a hot air balloon? Sometimes, just doing things out of the ordinary makes people remember your brand.

Avoid going against the "big boys". Don't do things the way everybody else does. Dare to be different and create that all important brand awareness. Positioning, or repositioning, your brand will go a long way towards your small business success.

GETTING FIRED? START A SMALL BUSINESS

2010-01-29T06:52:00.000-08:00

Afraid of getting fired? Fight back. Why not start a small business?

Anita Campbell recently wrote about 10 Small Business Trends for 2010. In her article, Ms. Campbell discussed 10 trends that small businesses are likely to adopt this year. Among these 10 trends, she mentioned there will be a sharp rise in the number of sole proprietorships in 2010.

In the aftermath of the recent global recession, either due to desperation or sheer inspiration, many who recently lost their jobs will use their severance pay and the skills they have learned on the job to start a small business. A lot of these start up business may even go as far as to compete with their former employers, raising questions of business ethics and unfair trade. If the "big boys" were so afraid of the "new players", maybe they should not have fired them in the first place!

Getting fired is NOT the end of the world! You don't just curl up and die. NO! You fight back! You start a small business and you become even more creative and more resourceful than before. Suddenly, you are no longer working for a bunch of people who never really cared about you. Getting fired, you now have the opportunity to work for YOURSELF! Start a business and you now have the luxury of earning as much as you want for yourself. Freed from the limits of the bundy clock and a regimented 9 to 5 job, you enter a whole new exciting phase in life when you start a small business. It's not going to be easy, but five years from now you can proudly say, "Getting fired was the best thing that ever happened to me!".

Of course, you can always go down on your knees and ask the boss not to fire you...

SMALL BUSINESS IDEA: SELL BENEFITS

2010-01-21T00:31:00.000-08:00

What makes a person "BUY"? This is perhaps the paramount question on every entrepreneur's mind. The answer, quite simply, is that a person with a specific NEED will BUY a specific product or service only if that product or service offers BENEFITS that will satisfy his need. The most successful products or services are those that sell clear and distinct BENEFITS to a customer. Although this sounds obvious enough, a lot of small business entrepreneurs tend to overlook this key business idea and still sell features.

To illustrate:

A hungry traveller finds a fruit stand selling fresh, red apples picked from the finest orchards. The hungry traveller happily buys the apples not because they were fresh or red or picked from the finest orchards (FEATURES). The traveller buys the apples mainly because he was hungry (NEED) and the apples can satisfy his hunger (BENEFITS). The traveller couldn't care less if the apples were red or blue. All he needed was to satisfy his hunger.

The small business guerrilla needs to keep this business idea in mind: people buy BENEFITS, not features. The guerrilla needs to clearly tell his customers how his product or service can make their lives better. The small business entrepreneur needs to position his business around these benefits. He needs to sell BENEFITS !

SMALL BUSINESS TIPS: HANDLING OBJECTIONS

2010-01-13T07:04:00.000-08:00

Don't you just hate it when people say "no" to you? From a polite "No, thanks!" all the way to having the door rudely slammed in your face, objections, unfortunately, are a necessary evil in everyday business. Objections are roadblocks that test the limits of your determination to succeed. On one end, objections can frustrate you to the point of giving up. On the other end, objections challenge your creativity in developing strategies to overcome further objections. Your attitude in handling objections will determine failure or success.

While it may not be possible to totally avoid objections, here are some proactive tips you can follow to lessen the volume and severity of objections you encounter in your small business:

 Avoid surprise attacks and ambush tactics. A startled prospect will always run away.
 Never push or pressure a prospect. Trapped into a corner, a prospect will turn defensive and resist.
 Find your niche market and sell mainly to that market. A prospect in a shoe store searching for shoes will probably not be interested buying weight loss supplements at that moment.
 People rarely say "yes" to strangers. People buy products from brands they know and from people they are familiar with. Be a friend, first and foremost. Establish trust and credibility before even attempting a sales pitch.
 Anticipate objections. Be proactive. Make a list of the most common objections you have encountered and develop creative responses to each objection.
 There's a reason we all have one mouth and two ears. Talk less. Listen more. Try consultative selling. Encourage your prospect to express his needs. Offer benefits that will satisfy your prospect's expressed needs. How can your prospect object to something he knows he needs?
 Make your prospect feel he's in control of the conversation. The instant your prospect senses he's being led around, he will most likely break off the conversation.
 Never object to an objection. Never show hostility towards a valid objection. Show your prospect you value his objection.
 Determine and confirm the root cause of the objection and "consult" your prospect how he thinks would be a good way to lessen or eliminate his objection. Note that you have given him control of your conversation at this point.
 Be persistent, but not insistent. Never give up on the first "no" you hear. Try to overcome objections 2 or 3 times before letting your prospect go.

Handling objections proactively can often uncover your prospect's reasons for buying and gives you a wealth of information you can use to continuously improve the product or service your small business offers.

Thank you for dropping by. I hope you find this article useful. I would be happy to get comments (or objections) from you.

FIVE EASY WAYS TO LOSE A GOAL

2010-01-09T01:55:00.000-08:00

How bad do you really want your goal? Are you willing to exert extra-ordinary effort to achieve your goal? Or would you rather take the 5 easy ways to lose a goal? Truth is, not everyone is gifted with extra-ordinary perseverance and will-power to go the extra mile and achieve their goal. While many have taken the road less travelled and achieved their goal, even more have chosen to just sit on the sidelines, content in their comfort zone, idly watching as champions pass by. While many have ran their race and won gold and glory, still many have chosen to take these 5 easy ways to lose a goal:

1. No clear, written goal:

“If it’s not written, it did not happen”

Unless you can define your goal clearly and have written it down, including your plan of action and daily goals you must accomplish along the way, you’re likely to lose enthusiasm and eventually forget your goal. Everyday distractions at work and at home can easily steer your focus away from your goal. A clear, written goal constantly reminds you where you need to be.

2. Unrealistic goal:

“Shoot high, hit high”, sounds nice, doesn’t it? But in reality, this phrase is probably the single most common cause of frustration and depression among businessmen, sales professionals, and other goal seekers. Nothing can be more frustrating than to shoot for an unrealistically high goal and then only hit 40 percent of that goal. On the other hand, had you aimed for a more realistic lower goal, that same effort would have landed you so much closer to your goal, boosting your confidence and encouraging you to continue and shoot a little bit higher next time. Nobody knows you better than you. You know what you are capable of accomplishing. You know at what point reality ends and fantasy begins. Keep your goals within realistic limits.

3. Lack of motivation:

Usually, when you start off on a goal, you are so full of positive energy and enthusiasm. Midway towards your goal, this motivation gradually tapers off due to factors such as frustration, problems, doubts, and other distractions. Left unchecked, the motivation to move forward eventually fades, and so does your goal. Lack of motivation is a direct consequence of not having a written goal and of having unrealistic goals. Having a realistic goal clearly written down allows you to see your progress and motivates you even more to move forward.

4. Failure to include “other essential items” into your goal planning:

How many times has this happened to you? You set up a goal to save enough money to buy an item you’ve always wanted. And just about when you reached your goal and ready to buy that item, somebody gets sick and you have to pay the hospital bills. And your goal suddenly goes poof! While we cannot anticipate everything that might happen, it’s always a good idea to include essential items into your goal planning. These essentials would include items that you normally pay for regularly (rent, utilities, taxes, insurance, groceries), items that you cannot afford to neglect as you strive for your goal. In effect, including these “other essential items” into your goal planning becomes a reality check since you can already determine whether your goal is still realistic.

5. Lack of commitment:

Aside from being S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-bounded), a goal should also be Personal. Commitment to a goal only comes when you know you will personally gain or suffer personal loss with your goal. A goal should be your own personal goal and not something somebody else forced upon you. A goal with no solid commitment behind it will never prosper.

Achieving goals is never an easy task. Depending on how intense your desire is to succeed, you can either work hard towards your goal, or you can take these 5 easy ways to lose a goal.

SMALL BUSINESS TIP: AVOID BOOBY TRAPS

2009-11-15T07:02:00.000-08:00

According to the Office of Advocacy, in 2008, as much as 99.9 percent of the 29.6 million businesses in the US are owned by small business entrepreneurs. In that same year however, while there were an estimated 627,200 new business enterprises that opened, some 595,600 business establishments closed shop. Data from the US Department of Commerce Business Dynamics Statistics show that 7 out of 10 new business firms last for only 2 years and only about 51 percent of these business start-ups will survive beyond 5 years.

Knowing that almost half of small business start-ups will fail within 2 to 5 years, it would be vital to the survival of the small business guerrilla to recognize and avoid these most common small business booby traps :

Lack of BUSINESS PLANNING :
setting up daily goals let's you know if you are on target.

Borrowing too much SMALL BUSINESS LOANS :
avoid ending up using much of the income from your small business to pay off your loan

Inability to APPLY FOR A SMALL BUSINESS LOAN:
on the other hand, not having enough capital to run your small business can also spell start-up trouble. You need to have at least 6-months worth of operational capital at your disposal.

Too much OVERHEAD COST :
if you are working within a very limited capital, you need to initially keep your overhead cost at the bare minimum. You might even consider a Small Office / Home Office set up at the onset and instead invest more on promoting your small business.

Poor PRICING STRATEGY :
in a price-sensitive market, you run the risk of pricing yourself out of the market if your prices are too high. On the other hand, pricing too low just to attract business can also backfire as you may have to cut corners just to make up for the price-cuts and risk poor quality and sloppy customer support.

Failure to get professional legal and FINANCIAL ADVISERS :
it would be wise to get professional opinion on matters such as taxes, contracts, and legal issues as making a mistake on these areas of your business, whether deliberately or not, can ruin your small business.

Putting all your eggs in ONE BASKET :
do not risk the future your small business on just a handful of "loyal" customers or on just a couple of product lines. Loyal customers will always check out new players on the block. Products get phased out, leaving you without a product to sell. Diversify your products and services and explore other possible niche markets you can serve.

Failure to utilize INTERNET TECHNOLOGY:
if you haven't gone on-line yet with your small business, chances are, you're missing a large chunk of your market. And what if your competition is already on-line? Build a small business website.

Failure in MARKETING :
so what do you do after you make that sale? Say "thank you, come back soon" ? You could do better. True marketing starts as soon as you make that sale. Spend a few seconds chitchat with your customers to know more about them and listen for needs. Right away, you can actually suggest products or services your customers may have not thought about.

Failure to interpret DATA and NUMBERS :
any business, big or small, rely on numbers in making business decisions. Read the numbers wrong and you're likely to make wrong decisions.

Failure in DELEGATING :
operating your small business almost entirely by yourself makes your small business look really small. Not too many customers would want to deal with a really small business.

Premature BUSINESS EXPANSION :
whether on the battlefield or in business, expanding too soon and spreading your limited resources thin can spell defeat. It is so easy to feel optimistic and cocky when your small business seems to be doing well. It would be wise to curb your enthusiasm and check the numbers first before making a decision to expand your small business.

Bad BUSINESS LOCATION:
just recently, a newcomer to our community opened a small pharmacy within our village. That would have been great except that just outside our village, no more than half a kilometer away from this start-up pharmacy there are three other large drugstores operated by a well-established giant drugstore chain. Really bad idea.

Poor CUSTOMER SERVICE SUPPORT :
after you make a sale, it is vital that you continue the sales process even after the customer has walked out the door. Keep in constant touch with your customers through newsletters, small business website, discount cards, or even just a simple phone call to say "Hi !".

Poor EMPLOYEE TRAINING :
it takes just one little mistake by one of your employees to drive a customer away. And bad publicity can spread around really fast, ruining your small business.

Underestimating BUSINESS COMPETITION:
in the Art of War, Sun-Tzu says: "Know yourself but not the enemy and you will lose in half your battles. Know yourself and your enemies and you will win every battle."

Excessive LINE OF CREDIT offered to customers:
while offering credit line to customers can keep your customers "loyal" to your small business, too many credit lines or too long payment terms will eventually hurt your operating fund. It gets even worse when some of these receivables eventually go unpaid and some "loyal" customers "disappear".

There are so many booby traps that can lead your small business to ruin. Knowing how to avoid these booby traps can significantly improve the survivability of your small business.

10 SMALL BUSINESS SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING TIPS

2009-10-30T09:34:00.000-07:00

I'd like to share with you a very informative article I came across from MASHABLE: The Social Media Guide written by Ross Kimbarovsky, co-founder of crowdSPRING. In the article, Ross offers 10 suggestions how your small business can "supercharge" your marketing efforts by utilizing social media.

Just to summarize, Ross lists down 10 great ways you can take advantage of the more popular social media networks that are available to you on the internet. Ross offers basic as well as advanced strategies for each of the 10 social media he discussed. These 10 social media marketing tips are:

Facebook: with over 300 million users, Facebook offers a very powerful platform on which to build your presence.

Twitter: growing tremendously over the past year, Twitter offers your small business an incredible marketing platform. CLICK to see how Twitter can help your business.

Your Company Blog: although there’s more attention focused today on social networks than on company blogs, blogs continue to offer great value for small businesses.

LinkedIn: a business-oriented social network for professionals with 50 million users from over 200 countries.

Participate on other Blogs: it might seem counter-intuitive for you to spend your valuable time by participating in discussions on other people’s blogs, but the payoff can be very valuable.

Mobile Social Networks: as discussed in my earlier post, in two years, as much as 40 percent of internet transactions will be done using a mobile device.

Comments and Conversations about Your Company: whether or not you are a party to the conversations, people will talk about your company. How do you monitor and, when appropriate, join those discussions?

Multimedia Platforms such as YouTube and Flicker: although a bit more complicated to execute, videos, photos, and podcasts provide excellent social media marketing opportunities.

Maintain Brand Consistency: there are hundreds, if not thousands, of social networks on the internet, and new ones spring up every day. That means that your customers will have many different ways to find you. But they won’t find you if your brand is scattered across social networks using different usernames and profiles.

Combine Social Media Tools: one of the best ways for small businesses to leverage social media marketing is to use various social networks in combination with each other.

Social media marketing can be a phenomenal marketing channel for your small business.To read more of Ross' very informative small business marketing tips, CLICK HERE

GUERRILLA TIP No.2: BUILD YOUR SMALL BUSINESS WEBSITE

2009-10-20T23:07:00.000-07:00

As a guerrilla small business entrepreneur, you explore every possible media to constantly keep your small business in front of your target niche market. Using brochures, t-shirts, discount coupons, post-it notes, or even complimentary gummy bears, your small business needs to be on top of your prospects' minds when they search for a particular product or service that you provide.

The small business guerrilla learns from www.internetworldstats.com that as of June 2009, there are 1.67 billion internet users worldwide, with 704 million in Asia, 402 million in Europe, and 251 million internet users in North America. From the year 2000 to 2009, internet users in the Middle East and Africa grew by 1360 percent, while Asia had a 516 percent growth over the same period.

Furthermore, the small business guerrilla knows that a small business with a website sold more than one without a website. In an eBay-commissioned survey conducted by ACNielsen, more than half of the 400 small business entrepreneurs who participated stated that the internet equals profits. A small portion reported that without a website, they would not have a business. The survey showed that 51 percent of the respondents indicated the internet improved the profitability of their small business, and as much as 58 percent said the internet has helped their small business expand. A good 15 percent of the small business owners surveyed said the internet is essential to their survival. The survey results clearly suggest that both the Internet and eBay have enriched the opportunities for small business success.

Mobile marketing and mobile devices will also definitely change the way consumers shop. In two years, as much as 40 percent of internet access will be through a mobile device. In fact, eBay generated US$400 million in business from consumers browsing products, bidding and selling via iPhone and other mobile applications. The small business guerrilla knows he, too, has to evolve in order to remain competitive.

Given these impressive facts, the small business guerrilla knows that to build a website for his small business is definitely well worth investing into. But it is not enough to just build an informative small business website. With thousands, or even millions of search results on the same search topic, the small business website has to land, ideally, on page 1 of search engine results for the website to be effective. Not too many internet users will bother browsing all the way down to page 28 of search engine results. And with thousands of other websites competing for page 1, the small business website also needs to have a strong Page Rank to be able to stay on page 1. To land on page 1 of search engine results and rank strong, the small business website needs to go through search engine optimization, either through link building, article marketing, or other similar optimization techniques. While search engine optimization is actually a fun and interesting activity, it is also very time-consuming. And time is a very valuable resource for the small business owner. If the small business guerrilla does not have the time to do SEO himself, he can always outsource this activity and let web developers or a Search Engine Optimization company do the optimization on his small business website for a small fee.

If everything works out as planned, the small business website on page 1 of search engine results has a high percentage of converting search engine traffic into buying customers. What’s more, monetizing the small business website with non-competing ads and affiliates can bring in additional revenue for the small business guerrilla.

SMALL BUSINESS GUERRILLA SELLING TIPS

2009-09-19T21:24:00.000-07:00

The small business guerrilla believes that selling tactics that have not evolved over the past twenty years may soon become obsolete. He needs to adapt to a rapidly changing digital market. Among a vast array of selling tips and strategies to increase productivity for the small business, the guerrilla entrepreneur always employs these top 3 guerrilla selling tactics:

Benefits

First and foremost, the small business guerrilla is obsessed with benefits. He knows by heart what benefits his small business can provide for his customers. The small business guerrilla is a master of the Needs-Benefits Sales Equation, able to intelligently offer a verifiable benefit for every need he uncovers listening to his prospect. The small business guerrilla, in effect, operates his small business around providing his customers those benefits.

Trust

The small business guerrilla knows that no one will talk to, or buy from, a stranger. Trust is the basic foundation of a meaningful business relationship. The small business guerrilla will maximize every single minute of his first meeting with a prospect to establish trust. He makes absolutely certain that come next meeting, the prospect would have full confidence and trust in him and be able to talk with him at ease.

Quality Service

Give your customers top quality products and service and your satisfied customers will go viral and spread the good news. Give them trash, and they will spread that news even faster. The small business guerrilla provides his customers with quality service, knowing that positive word-of-mouth promotion and the referrals that quality service brings in are key to the survival and success of his small business. Using fliers, discount coupons, affiliate programs, and loyalty incentives, the small business guerrilla encourages satisfied customers to tell others about their happy experience with his small business and even rewards them for their referrals.

Aside from these top 3 guerrilla selling tactics, the small business guerrilla is also an expert in the art of listening. He asks brief probing questions and allows the prospect to do much of the talking. His gestures and subtle movements show his concern and interest to what the prospect is saying. He listens for needs the prospect expresses and he thinks of benefits his small business can offer based on those expressed needs.

The small business guerrilla will intentionally “forget” his business card when he meets a prospect for the first time. This gives the guerrilla an opportunity to go meet with the client again in two days to “give him his business card”.

The guerrilla business card itself actually contains very little information. The small business guerrilla will never stuff all his services in a tiny 2x3.5 inch card that his prospect may never even bother to read. Instead, written across the center of the business card, in big, bold, red letters is the website address to his small business.

Increasing productivity is a team-effort. In his small business, every employee- from the tool keeper to the accountant- is trained to be effective lead generators and sales people.

The small business guerrilla swaps clients’ lists with his trusted suppliers, multiplying his referrals ten-fold. This is a mutually beneficial tactic since the guerrilla and his suppliers will both benefit from this.

Obviously, there’s a lot more that can be added onto this list of unconventional selling tips... we'll just have to add more to this list as more ideas come in. Feel free to share your own small business guerrilla selling tips...

GUERRILLA SMALL BUSINESS FINANCIAL GOAL

2009-09-08T00:09:00.000-07:00

After you have determined the minimum DAILY and MONTHLY GOAL for your small business, you now attack this target via a two-pronged maneuver: CUTTING COST on one end and INCREASING PRODUCTIVITY on the other.

CUTTING COST

Start off with reducing your utilities costs. You can immediately reduce your electric bills by as much as 30 percent just by unplugging non-essential office equipment after office hours. If you are not expecting faxes or e-mails after office hours, unplug fax machines, modems, computers, AVRs, and other peripherals. The fact that they feel warm when touched tells you they're consuming electricity even if they're idle.

Do this exercise with your troops: Have them recon the office or shop area, listing down every electrical equipment they see and where they found them. Afterwards, gather your troops and have them make suggestions how to reduce electric consumption on each electrical equipment they listed during recon. Make the troops feel they are part of the solution. Focus on high-wattage electric equipments such as airconditioners, refrigerators, heaters, and motors as reducing consumption on these equipments can immediately and drastically cut your electric bill.

Office supplies and consumables also cut a big slice in your expenses pie. Again, involve your troops on how they can save on office supplies. Here's a tip: Reduce the volume of paper you order by 10 percent. The less paper there is, the less paper to waste. If possible, reduce it even further next time. The nice thing about reducing paper is you tend to double check your documents before printing them out. In effect, you actually also save on printers and inks.

Monitor telephone, transportation, and representation expenses. Needless to say, these 3 are probably some of the most abused items in your expense column. Personally, I know of at least two companies who eventually folded up due to unrestrained expenses on these 3 items. Especially at this critical time of economic slump, it would be a good idea to tell your people to be responsible in utilizing whatever little resources are available to them.

It is important to let your people know that you are cutting costs together as a team, and as a team, together you will defiantly face the challenges ahead. Reducing your expenses can definitely make it easier for you to meet your small business financial goal. But reducing costs alone will not be enough. You also need to increase productivity. Next post we will talk about increasing productivity ala-guerrilla.

GUERRILLA TIP No.1: SET A DAILY GOAL

2009-09-01T01:53:00.000-07:00

You can't hit what you can't see. This is why it is absolutely necessary for the small business guerrilla to set a target first before anything else.

From an income perspective, you need to determine the minimum gross monthly sales you have to make just to stay afloat. This is your break-even point. Take into account all expense items such as rent, utilities, salaries, credit card bills, and other recurring monthly expenses. The reason you want to compute for the minimum amount is you want to keep your expectations low. Not pessimistic low. Just realistic low. Some of you may argue and say "If you aim high, at least you'll hit something high." And yes I believed in that wisdom. But I also believe that nothing can be more frustrating than to shoot for something high and never even come close to hitting it. At this critical time when small businesses are hurting from this global economic crisis , frustration and depression can defeat your resolve to survive. On the other hand, hitting your minimum goals everytime feels positively good and can motivate you to raise the bar every month. It's just like a champion marathon runner who started off just trying out for 2K sprints and gradually ends up doing cross-country runs.

Besides, as a guerrilla entrepreneur, you are expected to be unconventional; to run against the flow. So if you raise some eyebrows following this tip, that's expected. You're a guerrilla!

It would be a good idea to input a modest profit of around 20 percent on top of your minimum gross monthly sale. Again, go low. The phrase "undersell but overdeliver" keeps popping in my head as I was writing this post. Anyway, adding the minimum gross sale plus the 20 percent profit gives you your minimum MONTHLY GOAL. Dividing MONTHLY GOAL by the number of work days for that particular month (usually 20 to 24 days) gives you your minimum DAILY GOAL.

Listen up! DAILY GOALS ARE IMPORTANT! If there is just but one lesson you can take home from this entire site, it is this: DAILY GOALS ARE IMPORTANT. Daily goals enable you to see right away at the end of the day whether you are "on track". Daily goals show you immediately if you are ahead or lagging behind. Daily goals enable you to react swiftly to compensate for today's deficit.

Enough said for now. If you have read this up to this point, then perhaps I can invite you just a bit more to go get pen and paper and do the math as I have explained here. Take ten minutes and compute for your DAILY GOAL. Don't do it because I said so. Do it because you know this helps a lot. I would love to hear your comments or violent objections. We'll talk again next post. Carry on...

SMALL BUSINESS GUERRILLA TIPS

2009-08-30T19:37:00.000-07:00

Small businesses form the backbone of the American economy. According to the International Data Group, in 2005, there were 8.1 million small businesses employing a total of 130 million American workers, paying as much as 44.3% of the total private-sector payroll in the U.S. In 2005, Small businesses produced more than 50% of the non-farm Gross Domestic Product in the U.S. or roughly US$6 trillion. In 2008, a study by Robert Fairle showed small business entrepreneurs generated nearly 12% of all business income in the U.S.

However, with the recession that has recently plagued the global economy, small businesses have been adversely affected. Poor sales, inflation , and limited access to credit were among the top concerns of small businesses, forcing companies to re-evaluate their business, postpone expansion plans, freeze hiring, and eventually lay-off workers. In 2008, around 3.1 million Americans lost their jobs, with nearly 1.7 million jobs lost in the 4th quarter of 2008 alone.

As an entrepreneur facing the challenges of a global recession, you must be willing to adopt unconventional tactics where conventional wisdom have all but failed. You must be willing to become a guerrilla entrepreneur.

Typically, a guerrilla is described as a small, independent, irregular unit capable of employing unconventional tactics against very specific targets with great speed, flexibility and mobility. Guerrillas hit where they are least expected. Similarly, for the small business owner, whether you sell homes, offer pet grooming services, operate a flower shop or sell life insurance, survival in the face of economic adversity require employing "outside the box" unconventional thinking that often run counter to the norms of conventional logic.

Where conventional thinking dictates that businesses spend a fortune on advertisements and sponsorships to entice a shrinking market, the guerrilla entrepreneur will target a very small, focused niche market. The guerrilla sells to individuals, building relationships one person at a time. The guerrilla entrepreneur would rather reach out and touch 10 people with a message that works than broadcast to 10,000 with an ad that has no impact or feedback.

Where the norm forces small businesses to fire employees to cut cost, the guerrilla entrepreneur sees the value of keeping his team intact, for better or for worse, endearing the employer to his employees, improving morale and consequently increasing productivity. The guerrilla knows that firing people is but a temporary quick-fix that eventually results to ill-will and bad publicity. Instead, the guerrilla trains every employee of his small business, from the toolkeeper to the corporate secretary, to be effective lead-generators and sales people, doubling his sales force at no extra cost.

While other small businesses cut back on suppliers, the guerrilla entrepreneur sees the potential of exchanging clients' lists with his suppliers, multiplying his referrals ten-fold. The guerrilla entrepreneur may even consider affiliating with suppliers, promoting their products and earning commissions or mark-ups in return.

Contrary to the norm, the guerrilla entrepreneur never sells. He builds relationships.He establishes trust with his clients. He explores his customers' needs and offers solutions to fill those needs. The guerrilla entrepreneur is passionate about benefits and operates his small business around delivering on those benefits.

The guerrilla entrepreneur never cold calls. He banks on the relationship and trust he has developed with his customers to provide him with a continuous stream of referrals and word-of-mouth promotion of his small business.

Learning from research that small businesses with websites have outsold businesses without a website, a guerrilla entrepreneur creates a website for his small business and tweaks with search engine optimization to land his website, and his small business, onto page 1 of Yahoo! and Google Search Results. The guerrilla entrepreneur participates in on-line forums and chatrooms relevant to his small business. He is a top contributor to Yahoo!Answers, never failing to include his URL everytime he posts his answers. The guerrilla entrepreneur likewise submits informative articles to article directories, presenting himself very knowledgable and an authority in his industry.

These are but a few unconventional ways by which small businesses can stand defiant and survive the global recession. So much more can be done. Be creative. Think "outside the box". Think guerrilla.

(Same article submitted to Amazine and Ezine article directories by this blogger)