heartharmony.com.au

What was the hottest item in Brisbane this Xmas – Wii. How do I know? I joined all of the crowds on Boxing Day to find an additional Wii controller and spoke with many many many shop keepers. All said the same thing – there were none to be had.

So what made Wii so popular this year? It wasn’t major advertising push – Wii were relatively quiet. It wasn’t as if they offered major discounts or cutting prices. There weren’t any supply problems. There was no major new release or upgrade.

All the shop keepers can put it down to is the power of groups. People talked with other people they valued and trusted. Blogs raved about Wii and the latest games. People on Facebook talked about it. This combined made Wii the hottest computer game item for Christmas 2007.

Basically a good product was promoted by lots of people. What can businesses learn from this? Social media on the internet is now a major force to be reckoned with. Businesses need to learn how to harness this media for maximum results. Ads and traditional marketing are reducing in impact – businesses need to learn the new media and new skills or be left behind.

So … are you on Facebook yet?

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff
Heart Harmony

www.heartharmony.com.au
Facebook- Ingrid Cliff

Small business needs to be aware of business trends. What if in real time you could see what people are buying around the world – would that help you to know what to stock?

Ebay has a funky tool called Pulse, where you can look at the most popular searches from the past week. Why is this important? It tells you there is a market out there wanting these items.

Go to http://pulse.ebay.com for international ebay or http://pulse.ebay.com.au for Australian searches.

Remember just like regular ebay you can dig deeper – go into the drop down categories button and explore. For example – Harry Potter is the hottest book in demand today, and Phantom comics are the most popular ebay comics. In business the most popular item is an excavator while the most popular craft remains scrapbooking.

Happy searching

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff
Heart Harmony

www.heartharmony.com.au

Marketing is about being aware of your customers – their thoughts and feelings, wants and desires. It is also about being aware of trends so you can capitalise and respond to them.

If you run a business you need to be seen as adding value to your customers. You also need to be seen as the expert in your chosen area.

One of the ways to do this is through reading and responding to blogs. Yeah – but who has the time? I mean you can waste hours on reading through blogs each day.

What I do to stay on top is a website called Bloglines (www.bloglines.com). Bloglines allows you to have all of your RSS feeds for your favourite Blogs in the one place. I quickly scroll through my list of feeds to see what is happening, choose which ones to respond to and save hours in the process. … And best of all Bloglines is FREE!

So – try out Bloglines as a way to manage both your time and your information.

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff
Heart Harmony
www.heartharmony.com.au

As a business owner you can waste hours each week setting up rosters – only to have team members come back with changes they want to make (particulary during school holiday periods). This can set you into a spiral of chasing people to swap shifts to cover your roster.

A well considered HR policy should include some basic admin processes

Have a shift request book – that way if someone can’t work they should write it in the book before you do up the rosters (and remember to check and rule off the book when you do up the rosters for that week).

Get people into the habit of trying to find their own replacement from other staff if they can’t work a shift.That way they come and tell you that they are not available but Mary Joe will cover for them.

Have people initial their rosters to say that they have seen them.

Firmly and equally apply your “no show – not sick – no pay” policy.

By being clear on your rostering rules and procedures you will save hours of your precious time each week as well as reduce your overtime bill.

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff
Heart Harmony

www.heartharmony.com.au

A few months ago I worked with 2 companies in retail. Both companies had similar problems -their store presentation was dreadful. Floors not swept, stock not dusted, crowded aisles, stock scattered and not logically grouped and faded/tattered price ticketing and point of sale material.

They had lived in that environment for so long they couldn’t see the slow spiral down. From an outsider looking in I interpreted what I saw as a company that didn’t care about the details, that didn’t care about their stock, that were disorganised and made it really hard to buy from them.

One was willing to take the step – so with a major spring clean and shiny new tickets, stock that hadn’t moved in 18 months was sold in less than a week. They maintained the presentation level and sales have boomed.

The other one made a half-hearted effort but no lasting change. They rang to tell me this week that sales had been dreadful these past few months and they were closing their doors.

How many sales are you losing because of your presentation and organisation? You want to make it easy and enjoyable for people to do business with you – so take time to clean, improve your tickets and store presentation.

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff
Heart Harmony

www.heartharmony.com.au

Marketing for small business is also about learning from bigger businesses. They do the research (hopefully), and spend the big dollars exploring different strategies, so look at what they do and apply them on a smaller scale to your business.

One thing to consider is loyalty programs. You have all seen them – the cards at coffee shops – buy 5 coffees and the sixth is on us. They are there because they work at getting people back into the store.

Most businesses (even service based businesses) can benefit from some type of loyalty program. Consider gift vouchers with a $ amount or % off their next transaction or service.

What about a buy 2 massages in the same transaction and recieve a gift voucher for the third free. Or 5 toner refills and the 6th one free. I have even seen smart Avon ladies offer 5% off for every 5th purchase.

All of these are ways to invite your customers back to your store and for you to retain some great customers.

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff
Heart Harmony
www.heartharmony.com.au

When you need to recruit, take time to think through the role in detail. Too many businesses leap into recruitment without planning the person they need to fill the role best. As a result they get a mismatch in personality or skill.

Think through what tasks need to be performed and to what standard. Do you need a bubbly extroverted person to talk with people or a quiet person who prefers just to get on with the job?

What sort of skills are needed to be able to successfully perform the role? What personality traits and work ethic do they need to fit in with the team

Where do they live? What sort of salary expectations should they have?

The time taken in thinking through your ideal candidate will pay dividends when it comes to advertising, interviewing and selecting.

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff
Heart Harmony
www.heartharmony.com.au

Personal preferences flow into copy. People who reflect and think a lot can tend to the verbose and fluffy side with their copy. They want to make sure they have dotted every i and crossed every t.

Reading copy that is overly padded can feel like being punched around the head with a feather pillow. It can smother and people want to get away rather than stay and read it all.

But … long copy statistically outperforms short copy. So what do you do?

Keep each sentence short, to the point and build to a climax. Read each sentence out loud. If you run out of breath before the sentence is done … it’s too long!

And if you know you have a tendency to use 40 words when 5 will do – hire an editor or copywriter to take to your copy with a pruning saw.

Until next time

warm regards

Ingrid Cliff
Heart Harmony
www.heartharmony.com.au

Business development through copywriting

Client relationship management is a critical part of doing business.

My “A” category clients are all super special to me and I go out of my way to do whatever it takes to help them out. This has seen me help out on stands at trade shows, unload trucks or whatever they truly needed to make their lives happier – in addition to my regular business development, copywriting and human resources work.

However … last weekend was interesting. Have a look at this photo – I would love your thoughts on whether I had gone too far to help out a client.

Some background context – my clients had a float at a Christmas parade and needed help handing out brochures. I was happy to help out – but this was awaiting for me when I arrived!

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff

Heart Harmony

www.heartharmony.com.au

Business development for small to medium businesses through … wearing bon bon costumes in street parades

Recruitment and selection is not an easy artform. How do you attract the attention of people you want to have work in your business?

New Scientist reported in July 2007 of one of the strategies Google uses. Giant billboard ads appeared in Silicon Valley the USA and other places where geeks hangout with the message (First 10-digit prime found in consecutive digits of e).com.

Unless you knew what you were looking for this would be total gibberish. But the answer was the first 10-digit prime number in e (one of the most revolutionary numbers in maths – if you want to learn more about e read New Scientist 21 July 2007). The answer 7427466391 appears in the 101st digit of e.

For those that figured it out and went to 7427466391.com another even more tricky maths challenge awaited. Those who figure that out correctly were taken to another website from Google – asking them to submit their resume to Google’s research laboratory.

So – what can we learn from Google’s recruitment?

1. Think outside traditional advertising mediums
2. Get to where your candidates are likely to hang out
3. Talk to them in their language – triggering their interest in working for you
4. Don’t make it too easy – you want the people with the right skills and right attitude in your workforce. Attract the right ones!
5. Create some buzz about your business.

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff

Heart Harmony

www.heartharmony.com.au

Business development for small to medium businesses through human resources