Small Business Ideas

Labels: demartini

With your team if they have had nothing to this level of detail in place it will be a cultural shift for them. I suggest starting with training your managers first on their roles and responsibilities. Talk them through the manual in some depth – make sure each manager has access to a copy. For the first time they do anything with the new rules – such as recruitment or performance review, sit with them while they go through the process to help them learn as they go.

Your managers will also want input into how the procedures work in their area. They may want to edit the words to better match their understanding or the internal operating processes of your company. Allow that editing process if you can, but you retain final approval of the changes.

Once your managers are aware of the content and have started on the editing, then inform the employees of the manual and its broad contents. Once you have a final version for your workplace I would run a training session where you talk through all of the most important policies with your employees – almost like a new induction.

Make sure each person can access the manual – either electronically or through a printed copy in each work team. Set a realistic timeframe for them to read it and ask any questions – two weeks to a month is time I would give. If you leave it longer they won’t read it. If you leave it too short, you disadvantage some people.

Hold another meeting to answer any questions that may have come up, make any final edits and then a week later the manual comes into effect.

Labels: employee manual, implementing employee manuals

Labels: Anzac Day

Labels: consistency, diversity

Labels: entrepreneurs, small business entrepreneurs

Labels: computer back-ups, disaster recovery

• 12:32 Stunning Sunshine Coast Aerial Photos tinyurl.com/6nmfs2 #
• 13:22 Beautiful Brisbane - worth moving north for! tinyurl.com/5cbz99 #
• 13:43 OK - I admit I need a holiday - Aerial Photos of the Gold Coast tinyurl.com/6g6mqk #

Labels: leadership

Labels: marketing campaigns

The best part of the weekend is that it's done on a pay what you can basis (seriously). Meaning - you don't pay anything before you go and you only pay at the end what you thought it was worth based on what you can honestly, afford.

Here's the basic info.

WHAT? Radical Business Intensive (marketing training for 20 or so conscious entrepreneurs)

WHERE?

• CALGARY: May 1-4. 16 spaces left.
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FOR MORE INFO AND APPLY TO COME: http://tadhargrave.com/RBI

It's worth checking out!

Labels: marketing tips, tad hargrave

Strike While The Iron’s Hot
There will never be a better time to book the patient in question than right now. Whether they’re on the phone, or standing at your front desk, do it now. The patient who doesn’t book now is going to come back fewer times. Or never. It’s that simple.

Tell, Don’t Ask
You need to approach booking from a place of confidence. Adopt the attitude of assuming patients will book/rebook. Why? because your inner confidence is reflected in how you speak, in subtle ways that shift the likelihood of success.

• Wrong: “Did you want to schedule a follow up?”
• Right: “Let’s schedule your follow up.”

Small difference in words. Big difference in outcome.

Leverage Our Love of Routine
Humans tend to be creatures of habit. We like consistency. Giving your patients recurring appointments in the same time slot makes it easy for them, and gives them a sense of ownership in the process.

• Wrong: “When would you like to come back?”
• Right: “If this time slot is convenient, I can get you in at the same time on Wednesday at 10:30.”

If you can’t offer the same time, offer the same time of day: “We can get you in again on Wednesday morning next week.”

Narrow the Options
While you’re at it, consider offering just two options for any appointment. It’s easier for everyone. There’s some surprising research that shows that people buy more when their choices are not overwhelming.

• Wrong: “What day is good for you?”
• Right: “We have an opening on Wednesday at 10:30 again, or Thursday at 2:15.”

1. Go for immediate action - get someone to act now, not later.
2. Assume a sale - always assume a sale/positive outcome and ask or write accordingly.
3. Get a routine happening - make doing business with you regular, systematised and expected. For example I always have my newsletters in your in box by Friday mornings - people begin to expect to hear from you regularly. It also helps build your reputation for consistent delivery.
4. Narrow the choices - too many choices means people have difficulty making ANY choice. With your copy give a maximum of three choices on price points or packages - any more and you lose customers.
5. Remind people - if someone contacted you for more information then you need to keep in touch and remind them you would love to work with them. You can do this simply through autoresponder programs or drop them a postcard.

Labels: appointment strategies, copywriting, marketing tips

• 19:30 Currently Browsing: tinyurl.com/6ymaaf #

Labels: mobile phones, small business ideas

• These employers don’t see looking over employees’ shoulders as the way to ensure good work. They trust employees, but hold them accountable and focus on results.
• They don’t see the individual employee in potentially heroic terms. It is the team that must deliver performance.
• They don’t think that automatically putting “customers first” above employee concerns is the best way to succeed. They have learned that a workplace that addresses staff issues has a staff that is more responsive to customers.
• They don’t think that killer hours are the only route to profit. They try to ensure that their employees have the time and space for renewal to do their best work.
• They don’t say that “only work-centric employees need apply.” They find that dual-centric employees – who contribute to their communities and are involved with their families – are among their most committed and productive employees.

Labels: HR articles, hr tips

If a man can make a better mousetrap, though he builds his house in the woods the world will make a beaten path to his door. Attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson

Photo by Simon Welsh

In the early part of the 20th Century, the Animal Trap Company of America sold a five cent mousetrap. For years, the president of the company, Chester M. Woolworth, had tried to improve it, and in 1928 he succeeded.

Yet, he couldn't sell it. One problem was that it sold for twelve cents -- almost two and one-half times as much as its predecessor. Another is explained at page 8 in Venture Capital: A Guidebook for New Enterprises (U.S. Govt. Printing Office 1972):

Mr. Woolworth failed to look carefully at the way the average family used a mousetrap. The mousetrap was normally purchased by the husband who set the trap at night after the children were in bed . In the morning, the husband hurried off to work leaving the dead mouse in the trap. The housewife did not want a dead mouse around all day so she would pick up the trap and dispose of the mouse and the trap.

Unfortunately for Mr. Woolworth, the new trap looked too expensive to throw away. So, the wife was forced to remove the mouse and clean the trap. Obviously, the average housewife felt much happier with the old five cent trap which could be thrown away. While the husband might buy the improved trap, the wife did not want it to be used. Thus, sales of the improved mousetrap were very low.

When any small business creates a brilliant invention or new idea, it doesn't necessarily mean that it will be successful if they haven't taken into account the context in which the invention or idea is used.

Always do your research on your clients, dig into their minds to find out why and how they buy from you and your opposition and get to know what is truly important to them.

Selling is not about forcing a product that they don't need or want onto a customer.In my world view it is all about knowing what your customer needs and wants. If your product genuinely helps fill those needs and wants then your job is to show them how your product or service can fill their needs and wants in the best possible way.

I look at it as if someone you cared about was struggling with a problem. If you knew a solution to their problem - wouldn't you want to share it with them? That to me is what selling with integrity is all about.

So ... back to the mousetrap. Just because you have created a better mousetrap doesn't mean your customers want or need a better mousetrap. Before you leap off and try and sell something - stop and put yourself in your customers shoes first.

Until next time

Labels: small business ideas, small business marketing ideas

Labels: small business marketing ideas