Attracting More Customers

This article will be of interest to you if you want to strengthen your marketing presence, increase awareness of your products and service, make them more accessible, and increase your revenues and profits.

Phil’s Profit Points™ in Brief:

• Marketing isn’t just about advertising.
• Marketing has a much broader definition and includes the product’s unique characteristics, value to your customer (this can vary for each customer), pricing (when combined with unbundling, this is the fastest way to increase your profits), promotion (includes advertising and many other things), distribution (how do they buy, how do you deliver), online presence and branding.

Attracting More Customers

• Characteristics — what does your product look like or feel like. What does it do? For service companies, it’s very important to make the intangible parts more tangible. Does you customer need responsiveness, quality or low price? They can’t have all three. Which characteristics are most important to your customer?
• Value to your customer — your customer makes an intentional decision to acquire your products and services. Do you know why? Why do they purchase yours instead of someone else’s? The best way to answer these questions is to ask your customer. What are the logical and emotional needs and wants that you meet?
• Pricing — the best pricing strategy is to have multiple price points reflecting different levels of value. Give your customer choices. Too often, entrepreneurs include everything they can think of to make the sale. Unbundle and price separately; just like manufacturers who sell warranties or service firms who sell responsiveness options.
• Promotion — advertising is the most expensive form of promotion. Giving away some of your knowledge and expertise for free can be a more cost-effective way to attract and retain customers than advertising. Your best promoters are your happy customers. Do you have a formal referral system? The yellow pages are dead: “Long live the yellow pages.”
• Distribution — where, when and how do you deliver your products and services? Technology is making it easier, faster and cheaper to provide services across borders and around the world. Amazon ships globally. I provide mentoring services to clients in Canada, the United States and Australia; all with the free Skype service.
• Online Presence — your website and blog are critical pieces of your marketing strategy. They enable you to demonstrate your expertise and differentiate yourself from your competitors. How often do you update your website and blog? Are you talking about yourself or providing value that is building your credibility?
• Customer Experience — how does your customer feel when they deal with you? Even in industrial or construction environments, emotion plays a part in decision-making. A contractor wants to feel confident that their materials will arrive on time, as ordered, and in great condition. How do you reduce your customer’s stress?
• Branding — what is your brand? Branding can be defined as your customer’s perception of your business. How do your customers and prospects perceive your business?

Tough Question

How much time do you spend on improving your marketing compared to running the day-to-day operations?

From The Piggy Bank

Most companies under-invest in marketing and over-invest in production — but nobody knows they have a better widget.

Have a profitable week!

Phil Symchych, C.A., M.B.A., is the president of SYMCO & CO., author of Phil’s Profit Points™, and owner, or part-owner, of four businesses.

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If you find this information valuable, please feel free to forward it to a fellow entrepreneur, friend, customer, supplier, banker, advisor or business associate. We are improving entrepreneurs’ lives and strengthening our economies. Thanks!

You may subscribe and encourage others to subscribe by clicking here.

We are now on iTunes! Check out our podcast series called Phil’s Profit Points.

How to Increase the Value of Your Business
Part III: Business Strategy

This article, the last of a three part series on increasing the value of your business, will be of interest to you if you are thinking about selling your business, want to evaluate or enhance your strategy, or just want to make your business great!

Phil’s Profit Points™ in Brief:

• Strategy is best described from your customer’s perspective: how do you help them be more successful?
• When strategy guides your operations and marketing, you have increased your alignment, and made your business more valuable.
• Strategy is defined as the intentional alignment and focus of your resources in order to deliver value to your customer.
• Be specific in defining your strategy to your employees, your customers and your prospects.

Value To Your Customer

Your customer purchases, consumes or utilizes your products and services every day. The key question is: how do they use it to enhance their business? When you understand how your customer uses your products and services, you can analyze your different value points such as:

• Price — Competing purely on price is best left to huge companies such as Wal-Mart or to natural resource companies such as potash mines who are continually trying to lower the cost per ton. If you are a small or medium business, your best strategic choices are differentiation, focus or a combination of both.
• Differentiation — How are you different or better than your competitors? You can spend a lot of money trying to tell the market that you are different. Some differentiation factors include speed, convenience and quality.
• Speed — How quickly do you respond? Are you faster than your competitors? Do you provide quick advice and results? Customers don’t like to wait. My lawyer and my banker take my calls right away. There is minimal phone tag or time wasted.
• Convenience — How do you deliver your products and services. Do you deliver in batches when you customer needs your materials? Do you provide your services at your customer’s site? A drywall supplier ships the exact quantities to each house under construction as the materials are required. The contractor does not need to carry inventory.
• Quality — How can you demonstrate your quality difference? If your your customer had unlimited cash, would they buy your product or service? Can you provide your customer with different levels of quality so they can choose? One service company provides its customers with different levels of service plans and corresponding response times. Quality can be very subjective so it’s best to hear this straight from your customer.
• Focus — Focus is one of the most powerful strategies for small and medium businesses because it allows you to apply your core competence for a specific type of customer.

The most profitable businesses that I’ve worked with don’t try to be all things to all people. They do have a clear focus, achieve operational excellence, and can do a few things really well for their specific customers. They grow their businesses by getting better at what they do, attracting more and larger customers, and continually enhancing the value that they provide to their customers.

Tough Question

How would your customers or your employees describe your company’s strategy?

From The Piggy Bank

If water can cut steel, at 60,000 pounds per square inch of pressure, just think what your business could accomplish with similar focus.

Have a profitable week!

Phil Symchych, C.A., M.B.A., is the president of SYMCO & CO., author of Phil’s Profit Points™, and owner, or part-owner, of four businesses.

Share the Wealth

If you find this information valuable, please feel free to forward it to a fellow entrepreneur, friend, customer, supplier, banker, advisor or business associate. We are improving entrepreneurs’ lives and strengthening our economies. Thanks!

You may subscribe and encourage others to subscribe by clicking here.

We are now on iTunes! Check out our podcast series called Phil’s Profit Points.