Small Business Can Do Big Things.

Small Business Has Enough Energy To Do Big Things!

Small business has a lot of energy.  Although most small business models are under-capitalized, they do have an abundance of energy and ideas.  The ideas they host are more valid than a big business in that small business models can immediately put their ideas into motion.  The bigger the business the less able they become to place good ideas into actual, workable motion.

This little difference between the big and the little is one of best kept opportunities that remain.  During times of tough economies, which we are living currently, this difference may be the great advantage a small business has against the larger models.  Good ideas can begin their action immediately in the smaller models.  When little ideas are exposed to consumers on a regular basis, the small models will begin to attract increased consumer interest.  This will help produce the potential for increasing traffic flows.

This Is An Unattractive Presentation

If you are a small business, begin working on the 'first things first' ideas.  Clean up your presentation policies.  Begin the work on identifying where you need to begin fixing, repairing, touching up and working to improve your 'attraction policies.'   Make sure you concentrate on the simplest things we tend to over-look.  Are all of the light bulbs working?  Are the fixtures free of dirt, cobwebs, and unsightly appearances?  Dig deep into these kinds of things.  They are cheaper than re-modeling and may be more effective than you are giving credit to recognize.  Look at the unsightly scuff marks on the base of your walls...clean them up.  The big business models cannot keep up with your effort and energy on this one.  They have likely laid-off the labor portions that used to perform these duties and many have cut back on their janitorial budgets.  By now, the big business models are beginning to look a little run down.  With extra tightened budgets, they are passing this subject up like it does not matter anymore.  Make it matter to them...be the competitor who looks sharp and ready to play!  Your customer is not ready to have their hard-earned money go to organizations who look and feel like they do not care.  If you are small, this is your best and cheapest opportunity!  Do not miss this opportunity to edge out the big guys!

This Approach Helps To Attract Customers

If you do not believe me, go visit the bigger outfits...you will notice a very run down appearance occurring.  Their parking lots are filled with trash, their carts are not collected as often and placed where they belong, neatly.  Their entryway glass doors are filthy, finger printed heavily and their light fixtures are burnt out sporadically.  They look unkempt and tired.  Their 'seasonal' small vignette displays may be very nicely arranged but all of the peripheral amenities are heavily ignored.  Many promotional and directional signs are in need of repair, upkeep and touching up.  They have a lot of voids in this area.  Look around and pay attention to their current lack of detail.  This is one of your great opportunities.  Re-energize your worn out energy.  This is one of your great assets.  Turn it up a couple of notches!  Slam dunk what they have come to ignore!  You will help energize your workers as well...and the difference in their pride and care will bleed over to their improved interactions with your customers.  What a great time to add gifts, coupon offers, specials and hand-outs that describe your uniqueness.  Load your customers up with these up kinds of things.  It is so much easier to do when your facility looks and speaks these kinds of upbeat things.  Vital!  Vital!  Vital!

In our facility, we clean the restrooms at least once each day.  This was a duty in the past that commanded only twice per week!  We want our facilities to smell fresh, look clean and be inviting.  Pay attention to these little details!  They are working deeply in the subconscious minds of your customers.  Help your customers notice the difference.  Your customers may never comment about the difference, but subconsciously, they notice.  It will add value to their effort as they spend what little hard money they have to share.  Give them a multitude of reasons why they should be spending it in your business.  This goes way beyond product and price!  Value is much deeper than opening your front door and supplying them tomatoes at a low price.

If You Close Early You Are Not Sorry We're Closed...Maybe You Are Sorry They Did Not Come Earlier.

Above all, do not open late or close early.  This smacks of serving your needs ahead of theirs.  Not something I recommend in these tough times.  Be smarter than that.  Some of this stuff is elementary, but often times forgotten or neglected.  It may only take once to wick someone off and turn them away forever.  I have sold a lot of people in my life who shared how a competitor was closed right now.  And one thing I noticed at that point, they did not examine the price.  Be 'open ready' when the hours of operations lend it to be a ready time.  Do not be unlocking the door at 9 A.M. when you open at 9 A.M.  Be 'open ready' at 9 A.M.  Remember, you are the one who wanted this business...now follow its rules.  The closer you get to the right stuff, the more potential you will realize.  So many business operators compromise these items and force themselves to learn to live with less.  Silly stuff.

Do the little things well and you will learn that the big stuff will follow you just fine.  This is when a little business begins to do big things.  Big things are easy when you get the little things down correctly.  You can actually feel your way into the big things when your business is operating right.  If you cheat on these things, you cheat on your success potential.  Cheating has never compensated very well.  Each owner will determine at what level they will cheat themselves out of success.  We all do it.  Work on improving your 'attraction policies,' try to avoid cheating your business.

Cheating Will Produce A Lower Outcome...Good Luck

   

First Things First

Making a list of things to attack first in our effort to improve the 'attraction policies' of our business model is easy.  First we will list a few items in the physical category.  After that we will list a few items in the emotional category.

Find your Potholes!

    Then we will ask you to prioritize how to place these efforts into
    action.  First things first!  We need to repair the pot holes...fix the flat
    tires...then we can work on marketing, budgeting, product knowledge
    improvements, promotions, and all of the other very important aspects of running a successful business model.  First things first, however!

Let's Fix The Obvious Breakdowns.

Physical Category:

• Look at the curb appeal of your business model.  Go outside and look at the front, the sides and back of your building!  What needs repairs and improvements?  Check out the paint job.  Make a simple list.  Prioritize the list.  Place the work on a calendar.  Get started!  Assign someone or make it your duty to tackle this project.  Describe to the person you assign how important you have grown to recognize the appearance needs of your business.  Ask them what else they may see that is in need of some help.  Give them the responsibility to oversee this project.  Make sure you find a way to reward their efforts as they tackle the project, piece by piece.
• Make sure your signage is professional, helpful, current and clear.  If it is not healthy, change it.  Be smart, crisp, and professional.  It is alright to include a 'thank you' sign somewhere.  Make it simple and soft.  Look professional.  Be particular.
• As the customer enters your facility or web site is it clean, inviting and safe?  Is the clutter missing?  Good.  Eliminate clutter and confusion.  Open up the entryway.  Make sure it is swept up, cleaned and signed professionally.  Give nice directions to where they may go as they enter.  Give simple and professional directions so each customer knows where to go when they enter.  Do not assume they are clear.  Offer a trash can in the entryway, outside.  Be thoughtful.  You are trying to provide a good experience for them to adopt.
• Do you have seating available for those customers who need to rest?  And if so, is the seating clean and professional?  Is it convenient for them to use or is it tucked away in the back behind the display racks?  Some of the customers bring family members along who do not want to mill around with the ones shopping.  Help them find a comfortable place to rest as they wait for the shoppers to do their shopping.  Do not assume the shopper comes in with exact cross-hairs aimed at their target, expecting them to immediately grab the target and go to the checkout lane.  Many shoppers need time to mill around, browse, and examine many options before they decide what they need or want to buy.  Help make them more comfortable when they come in.  You want them to take their time and stay longer.  They will have a tendency to build a stronger bond to your place of business if they spend more time in your business.  Permit and help them to bond with your business.
• What does your business smell like?  Is it filled with an offensive smell?  Pay attention to these elements.  Make sure your customers senses are being coddled.  This is true about obnoxious noises, music volume, music choices, telephone ringing tones, buzzers, bells and any other elements that effect the senses.  Make an attempt to improve these unnoticed yet silent killers of your 'attraction policies.' 
• If some of these things are too difficult for you to change and improve, you do not have complete control of your business model.  You may need to examine who is actually in charge of your business atmosphere.  It may be a key and influential employee instead of you.  Take a very honest look at this condition.  If your employees prefer raunchy rock music, loud...and you permit it...you are not in control.  You would be surprised at how often someone has hijacked your ideas and desires for honoring great 'attraction policies.'  Who is actually in charge?  You will soon find out when you begin making these kinds of changes.
• How are your business hours arranged?  Do they reflect open times that are working well for your clientele?  Is your business facing a challenge of staffing which is limiting when you open and when you close?  Make sure you are offering the best open times available for your customer flow.  Do not try to be too budget minded on this one.  Most games are won by tiny margins of difference.  A percent more per year in sales may make or break your year!  Be as accommodating as you can afford.
• Have you considered some art or some character exhibits in your business area or building?  Think hard on this one and find a way to compliment your business efforts with some sense of artful continuity.  Get help on this one.  Run a contest or host an event that will add some culture to your business model.  Acquire a piece or item of permanent placement that will represent your efforts in this area.  Set yourself apart as a culturally aware business on at least one subject.  Learn to tie this effort in with what you sell.  This effort can provide you with a wonderful item that will boost your 'attraction policies' hugely.  For example, a farm store could host an annual pumpkin contest and keep a permanent display of pictures as a montage reminder, set in a frame that looks like a pumpkin.  Next to the montage photo display could be a permanent display of seeds for sale that have large growing expectations.  The display could be a year around reminder of the activity and its fun.  Get creative.  You can think of many opportunities for your business.  (Beware...think long and hard prior to introducing an activity...consider that you may never be able to remove it.  Are you prepared to do it forever?  Many of these projects become permanent.  Can you afford to do it year after year?)
• Are wires, cords, poles, blinds, phones, computers, registers, files, cabinets, plants, windows, doors, trims, walls, clocks, appliances, and the like clean, neatly arranged, straight, plumb, working, alive, and pleasantly appeared.  Look around, pay attention to these details.  Make the simple and necessary corrections.  Do not become sloppy in your physical 'attraction policies.'

 Emotional Category:

How To Attract Customers

We have been working on improving our 'attraction policies.'

What are 'attraction policies?'

There are two kinds of categories to consider when we begin our 'attraction policy' work.




Number 1, we need to consider physical attraction policies.  These are policies that are visible.  How we dress, how we care for our physical appearances.  In a brick and mortar environment, how does our place of business look?  How do our employees look?  How does our parking lot look?  How does our signage look?  Is your location appealing, clean, neat and inviting?

In a web-based business, what does our website look like?  Is our site cluttered?  Is our site inviting?  Are the colors well coordinated?  Is the language friendly?  Is the information posted nicely, in balance and appear in proper order?

Trust me, appearance matters.  If anyone does not believe in this philosophy, you have inadvertently placed a limitation on your volume opportunities.  Learn to live with less.  The marketing world has spent billions upon billions of dollars programming our customers to think in particular ways during the past century.  Much of that work has created a customer acceptance level that is subconscious, but real.  Now that we have created the customer profile with all of these marketing efforts, we must address them in the ways in which they will respond more freely.  Learn to line your attraction policies up with all of that marketing effort.  You will attract more attention.  Customers are us, and we judge appearances.  End of seminar.

Learn how to line your business up with the appearance packages that will draw more attention to what you are parading for them to see.  Be clean, inviting, and attractive.  Add character, artistic values.  Be friendly in your appearances.  It does have an effect on your success to draw more people in.  We do not give this subject near enough credit.

Number 2, we need to consider emotional attraction policies.  What did you say to them?  How did you choose your words?  How do your employees address each customer?  How did you express your body language?  Did you welcome them or cause them to feel like leaving?  Did you insult them or compliment them?  Did you express how dissatisfied you were when they took all of your time with their multiple questions about pricing and as they began to leave your business without buying, your body language reflected your disappointment?  Were you enthused about them coming in anyway!?  These are all valid judgment points to review and repair when you go to work on developing healthy 'attraction policies.'  Business success is all about relationships.  Place this high on your list of efforts.

Do not underscore the value of these critical components to your business model.  Many business owners slide right past these vital components because they are focused on what they consider as more important issues of performance.  We tend to work on product, marketing and accounting components so deeply that we slip past the silent effects that our 'attraction policies' provide.  The next time you walk into your website, or your business building...stop for a moment...take a look around and be critical of what you see.  Be cognizant of how your business appears to others and how it works well in providing healthy and attractive conditions for your customers to enjoy.  Improve that part of their experience with you.  Do not assume that they do not care.  Remember, we have spent billions of dollars programming them to care, subconsciously.

Next time, we will begin building a long list of very specific things to consider as we build our 'attraction policy' improvements.  See you then.  In the meantime, go look at your business with a critical eye!  Be honest, is the parking lot looking like a trash collector?  These are very cheap repairs.    

How To Add Photos To Your Blog, Easy!

You can add all kinds of great photos to your blog.  This is what makes building your blog fun.  You can add all kinds of creativity to your blog.  Photos and pictures add so much character to your blog.  Most people respond to information by looking at pictures more easily than they do by reading words.  Help them out.  Give them pictures.  And it is easy to do.

Some Rocks Will Not Let You Down

The first thing you need to do is make a standard file folder for all of the
photos you will be using in your blog.  It is easy to make a file folder for pictures you will use or will be considering to use in your blog.  Go to your computer and find the file where you save pictures.  Open it.  In the body of that location, right click your mouse to bring up a quick menu of choices.  In the menu box, pull your pointer on your mouse down to the menu choice labeled, NEW.  Hold your pointer on it long enough to get the 'sub-menu' to come up.  When the sub-menu comes up, carefully slide your mouse over and up to select the "folder" choice at the top of the sub-menu page.  (It looks like a file folder.)  Left 'Click' the folder choice.  You now have a new folder in your pictures file to store all of your new blog pictures.  Rename it whatever you wish.  Now when you have personal pictures and online pictures you like and plan to use in your blog, store them or move them to this folder.  It is easy.

Try some examples...if you want to show crazy rock formations, do this...Go to the web and Google 'crazy rock photos' and select a website that offers you a bunch of crazy rock formations.  You will see many choices.  Pick one.  Save that selected photo in your new file folder.  Then come back to this edit section to select the photo tool.  Follow the selections on how to insert an image.  Select your pictures file, then your folder file where you are saving pictures for this blog.  Select the photo you just saved from the web.  Bingo...crazy rock pictures.  You can place the curser in the body of your text to select where you want the picture to appear.  It will move text around based upon the choices you select on the picture menu.  Try it out.  You cannot make any mistakes that you cannot fix.

 Let's try another picture.  Maybe this time we will look for something like jets in the sky.  We need to Google 'jets in the sky' photos.  Let's see what we get.  This is the one I picked for this blog.  I saved it into my pictures blog file folder.  Then I selected with my curser where I wanted this blog to insert the picture, clicked that spot, then selected the picture tool to go get my new 'jet' picture.  Amazing...there it is.

Play around with it to get a feel for how you can arrange the text and photos of your post.  You can do a few things with the moving around.  It will not hurt and you will not destroy your computer!  Experiment a little bit.  Let the mistakes you make teach you how to do more really cool things.  Have fun with it.  It is really a very cool tool.

This Is A Real Experiment

Let's end with another wild photo!  Let us try 'underwater fun' this time.  See you next time.

Build Attraction Policies

Gravity is invisible.  But it still works perfectly.  The same holds true for 'attraction policies.'  But they, too, are invisible.

Draws One Closer

Most of what you will learn to increase your business success will be lessons of the invisible nature.  Somehow we have a tendency to be wired for the concrete and the 'obvious' nature of things.  The way most of us are wired we are attracted to doing the things in our business that we can see, touch and feel.  Unfortunately, it is the invisible things that count the most and provide us with the greatest success.  That is why they are invisible, we cannot see them.  We have a difficult time quantifying what we cannot see.  As a result, we do not expect what we cannot see as being valuable.  Therefore, we do not perform the invisible nature of things.  We need better 'hooks' than invisibility.  Now the real problem with this kind of business approach is that all of our competitors are behaving exactly the same way.  Ask yourself this question...what makes you truly believe you can do what they are doing, better, by doing the same thing?  I suspect the only gain you will discover in this process is that you will have to do more of what they do to gain an edge.  How are you going to win that one long term?  Let's redefine how we will go about this process of addressing the invisible nature of success.  Invisibility is very uncomfortable.  Working on developing great 'attraction policies' is very much like working on the invisible nature of things.

I suspect the real fault in this concept is that many of us are not result driven.  We are activity driven.  We tend to measure the work and activities we put in and spend little time in measuring the 'real' results.  When the results grow small, we work harder and put in more of the same activities thinking we will gain greater success.  We do what we think we should be doing.  We perform the tasks that feel good for us to do.  If the results are not well enough, we decide to do more as if more activity will produce more volume.  We work harder.  It is as simple as doing more of the wrong stuff so we will produce more of the wrong results.  Gobs of business operators do a lot of this stuff.  They work harder.

Stop Doing The Wrong Things

Stop it.

You are searching for answers for a very good reason.  Change what you are doing and change it right now.  Let go of the things you are familiar with in your operations and begin to work on developing uncomfortable things that are at present very invisible to your understanding.  The invisible things you will learn to do will eventually mature with time and begin to work like magic in producing increased volume.  At first, the new 'attraction policies' you employ will not produce what you are expecting to receive.  This will cause you to believe that these invisible things are not working well in your efforts.  Be patient.  Allow the invisible things enough time to mature and grow.  Building a successful business model is not a microwave-type deal.  It is a slow cooker process.  Be patient.  If you lack patience, grow up.  Learn how to overcome one of the traits that will eventually kill your long term business success...impatience.  Impatience is a very bad dagger to business greatness, get rid of it.  Find a way.  It is not ATTRACTIVE.

Remember, we are going to work on 'attraction policies.'  What does attraction mean?  "DRAWS ONE TOWARDS ANOTHER."  Isn't this fun?  If this is too much for you now, your lessons are likely over.  Going to the next step may be a waste of your time.  It might be safer for you to get busy doing a lot more of the things you are already doing.  We are not trying to feel good about tricking you out of your attention.  We are here to help you gain new knowledge on how to build a growing business.  We are not here to trick you into believing that the changes you will make are going to be fun and easy on you.  Because they aren't.  I know, I do them every day.  They suck.  But they work well.  Become more results driven and add more patience than you ever thought possible.  I am not kidding, here.  You will either trust these truths and change some things, or continue to struggle, or maybe fail.

If you have not noticed, the first step in developing great 'attraction policies' of success is to form a high level of patience.  It will be a level of patience you have not yet become comfortable to perform constantly.  Remember this truth each time you reach a point of discouragement.  It will serve you well.  Be patient.  Let it mature.  Allow patience to grow up within you.  In this effort, be aware of the clear difference between procrastination and patience.  They are not the same thing.  They have similar disguises, but will produce greatly different results.  Be careful not to switch them up.

Be patient...next time we will add more to the idea of developing 'attraction policies.'  It looks like it might be a fair time for producing a small list of things.  In the meantime, begin your work on forming more patience in your leadership efforts, in your business decision-making.  Begin the work on that change.  Become more patient.  Let's work slowly and effectively.  See you soon.  We will keep the list small.

Attract And Keep Customers

We Hope We Get Lots Of Customers

Traffic, traffic, traffic and more traffic.  Creating a good flow of traffic is crucial in developing growth in your business.  Just think of it this way, how much growth potential will you have with one customer per month?  Having one customer per month does not mean they will purchase any of your wares.  Although managing one customer per month is relatively easy to do, not much money will come in to pay for your business bills.  One customer per month is fairly easy to do.  If you want an easy business, you need to go to some other website for different information than what you will receive on this blog.  Business is not easy.

How much growth potential will you have with 3,000 customers per month?  How much growth potential will you have with 13,000 customers per month?  The idea is to create an environment in your business model that will attract gobs of people.  What's more, many of the personal ideas you have on how to achieve high traffic flows are not accurate.  They will not develop high traffic activity.  Sorry, but it is true.  Live in your business with this truth.  It will help you develop the 'difficult-to-understand' skills on how to create increasing traffic flows.  Just begin this process by accepting the fact that you do not understand how to increase traffic flows.  This approach will help cause you to consider searching for traffic building ideas more often.

You need to be hungry for ideas and be wide open for ever-changing efforts of trial and error.  Do not be sleepy on this one.  Working to create increased traffic flows is hard work and will add a lot of stress to your limited schedule of important activities for running a business.  But if you fail here, nothing else really matters.  You will not have enough income flowing in to pay for the work you are already doing.  Your stress levels will rise anyhow.  You will just be more broke because of it.  Traffic, traffic, traffic and more traffic will help to isolate you away from broke stress factors.  However, increased traffic will increase your stress levels.  Face it.  The increased money will at least help you to tolerate it.  Do not trick or fake your mind out here.  Easy to miss this one.  Working hard to increase traffic will be a stressful experience that will not go away.  It will be one of those things that come with owning a growing business.

Once you find some components that work in creating traffic flows, you will need to learn how to add energy to your traffic flow.  Energy does not mean buying activity.  Buying activity is the by-product or result of having good energy in your business model.  Energy is also what helps to develop repeat traffic flows.  Adding energy is related closely to developing good 'attraction policies.'

Energetic Crowds Work Best For Volume

It is vital to the growth of your business to not only attract increased traffic flows, but to learn how to retain them as they come to check you out for the first time.  The main question you must examine is how well did the relationship between the first time customer and your business model grow?  How did they connect with your model?  Did they find your model worth returning to visit?  Was their first experience high enough in value to consider another visit?  Did your business model offer more for them to come back to investigate?  If it did not, you may have a business model that works extra hard on bringing them in but not holding them within.  You will eventually loose that game...unless you live in a high transient area where people come and go a lot.  Even so, I recommend that you develop a model that learns how to hold them.  It is less costly to 'cause' them a reason to return.  Pay close attention to the variety of things that will improve the relationships they acquire while they are in your business presence.  You need to 'get it' on this one.  Likely you will not find these kinds of things natural.  You will need to develop them, share them, teach them and cherish them with unending effort.  Do them until they wear you out. Let us call these characteristics, 'attraction policies.'  Let's find out what elements help to create success in your effort to develop 'attraction policies.'

Develop A Long List Of Attraction Policies

Next time, we will discuss a long list of characteristics that produce healthy 'attraction policies.'