Why it matters.Making the customer's journey the best it can be. It might sound like a pretty obvious thing to do. You'd be surprised how many miss the mark on this. It's a really important part of the business. possibly one of the most important. You want to make the process as smooth and effortless as possible. Anything you can do improve this is certainly something worth concentrating on. Your customer's experience is what's going to set you apart from your competition and will imprint you in the minds of your clients. If you've spent lots of time creating or providing a great product or service, keeping that focus of detail on the customer experience makes sense, right? It's because your clients or customers will remember the whole process. From start to finish. It will give them their full impression of your business. A couple of things to consider. There are some excellent systems you can have in place. From your meet and greet, taking orders and processing payments to offering them something to return too. Having card readers are a smart choice, most people expect you to have them in place and are often disappointed when you don't, the data show that given the option most will choose to use card to pay for goods or services. It's simply about convenience, you can pick them up for little cost too. Offering a loyalty card is a great way to give your customer's a little something for shopping with you. The other thing to consider is Software, depending on your business type or industry. Having the right software's in place can help you to optimise, manage and facilitate the general day to day running of your business. This helps you focus your time or your staff's time on customer service, so you can really go the extra mile and drive your business forward. It also helps the staff and keeping your ship happy and working well, is easily observable to customer's if it not. For example, having an automated system that collects the data about your stock and sales inbuilt into your POS system saves hours for you or your staff from trawling through the stock inventory, for when you need to reorder, put on promotions or do stock takes. What's available in the market now is pretty impressive and you actually be surprised how cost effective it is. It used to be only big business that might consider these kinds of things, well now there is software that's affordable to smaller businesses too. Infact it would be affordable to even a solo Entrepeneur. There are some excellent POS systems available from Goodtill. Certainly, worth checking out. Whether you're a new business or considering changing from your current supplier, perhaps even thinking about upgrading. There is a selection of offers that can be tailored and are super competitive in terms of price. Give them a visit and see what they could do for you.
0 Comments
Times are tough.
In the current economic climate, the battle for customers or clients is fierce and it often determines which businesses can keep their doors open. As more businesses close their doors for the final time. Keeping a good strategy for growth isn't something that should be taken off the table. It can often seem like everything is an obstacle and much of your focus can be spent on simply trying to survive the hurricane of bad luck, they say it does come in three's. That's when you need to take a step back and give yourself some perspective, refocus your attention on the job in hand. If you have a quality product or service that gives value, it would be a travesty that by mere perilous circumstance your customer's be denied it. So, it's time to put your thinking hat on. That's right, it's time to take your mind out of survival mode. To perhaps reframe or reconsider how you are approaching your business right now. It might sound like a tall ask, but it is possible that your business can still grow despite the challenges you may face. Even slight changes can make a big difference. "In every difficulty, there is opportunity". I'm pretty sure someone said that. Maybe it's time to start reshaping your marketing or the way you are finding new business, or even the way that new businesses are finding you. It's easy to take your eye off the ball in the longer-term picture when you're reacting to an immediate challenge. We'll I'm writing this to tell you it's possible to do both. Here are a few simple ideas. How about making your customer's an offer they can't refuse. Reducing your initial profit margins on a particular product or service may seem counter intuitive but if your offer is good enough, you can actually gain more business than you otherwise would, this slight reduction in profit can pay pack dividends later down the line by building a great customer base, which you can perhaps reapproach with a fantastic new offer in 12 or 24months. When you might really need their loyalty. If the customer is getting a great deal, then they are happy, and you can start to build a new relationship and lifelong customer, providing you look after them of course. Some of the bigger businesses do this all time, you only have to pop into one of the chain coffee shops and get your loyalty card stamped to see how effective this can be. It works too. Another great way to increase custom is to sell packages at a reduced rate, this means you can offer your customer's several products together with a healthy discount. Whilst your profit margins per item is slightly reduced. For every one package you sell you may have several items in it, so your overall sales increase and your clients or customers get an absolute bargain. Who doesn't love a bargain right? This can be done for service provider's too, why not offer a package and throw in a little extra or a free sample of another service you offer. You can soon start to build your client base this way. Try something simple like letting your old customers know how much you appreciated them by sending a card or letter and adding a personal touch, after all they've played a crucial role in building your business. I'm sure they will certainly be grateful for you reaching out in that way, you don't need to add an offer. You can simply remind them, you're still in business doing what you're doing. You may get some returning to you. Maybe you could have a brainstorm, even writing down 10 bad ideas could yield 1 really good one. It's only time for a rethink and not a surrender. If you found this blog useful or know someone who might get some value from it. Please give it a share or check out some of these great books for inspiration.
When you're choosing the right POS system for your business. It can be difficult to navigate through all the choices available. It's easy to get analysis paralysis. There are so many different offer's all with different functions and features. So what's going to be right for you? What exactly is it you need for your business? That's probably the best questions to ask yourself before you even consider seeing what's available in the market place. To get off to the best start, it's important to know and have a clear understanding of what you want it to do, understand how the POS system is going to benefit your business and add value, whether it's for time efficiency, improving functionality in the business or to give you greater control. Understanding this will give you insight, so you can make improvements and tweaks and choose the right equipment. Once you have an idea of what you want, you can then select what's going to be cost effective for you. Whether it's the transaction fee, or perhaps a contract, initial expenditure and so forth. It's import to get a grasp of the costs and understand this in the context of how much you'll use them, for example what percentage of customer's will pay by card for. Do you expect that amount to increase and so forth. It's not overly complicated but it can seem that way, however you want to keep it as simple as you possibly can. Obviously your POS system needs to be. Functional, fast because you don't want ongoing issues and it needs to do everything you want it to. Cost effective, something that's not going to tie you down and end up costing you the earth in long contracts and inflated transaction fee's. Versatile, it's got to be able to do all things you need plus be able to adapt with your business as it grows, they is no point making a purchase today that in two years you'll need to replace. Below you can find a link to an excellent offer which really does cover all the bases as far as I am concerned. It's suitable for businesses of all sizes and has features which can be added on as the business develops. It comes with great tech and plenty of extra's and price wise, it's right on the money. Have a look and see if it's a good fit for your business. You can can even request a free no obligation online demo. 1. It pay’s to shop around. It’s worth checking out all the services you are currently paying for and spending a bit of time exploring the markets to make sure you’re getting the best price possible. If you find a better price, let your current provider know, they might be able to match it or reward your customer loyalty.
2.Are you paying for anything that isn’t essential for your business, when was the last time you had a financial check-up? Often sometimes miscellaneous items or forgotten about subscriptions for services, utilities can easily go under the radar. Cutting back on wasted payments could save you big over time. 3. Reuse and recycle, you’d be surprised about waste, whether it’s paper, stationary or other essential items used for your business. If it can be fixed fix it rather than buying new. Not only is this practice going to save you money it’s also going to help the environment too. 4. Call in your favours where you can, okay so you might have been in business a while and over that time managed to do a bit of networking, perhaps you’ve offered a few discounts or gone the extra mile for one of your partner’s. Or saved someone a heap of money by recommending them to another different service you know of. It’s time to reach out to your network with a letter or a call perhaps, they might be able to return the favour. 5. When was the last time you spent a good few hour’s analysing your business to identify where you might be able to reduce your costs or increase you revenue? Sometimes simple changes or a cost tweak here or there could make a long-term impact, so get that thinking cap on. 30 minutes doing a simple brainstorm could payback dividends. When it comes to social media. You've heard it all before..........
" You need to get on social media it's the only way that your business will be able to compete", "Do you have Intsta , twitter, faceybook, pinterest, snappychatty. What the hell will they come up with next......... Well probably something. The truth is, most service based businesses can do quite well without social media, word of mouth is usually enough, especially if you are providing a good service. You might find most customer's call the number on your van or pick your service from a leaflet. Hear about you from a friend of a friend. So you might need all the fancy apps for what you do. All this tech stuff might not be, all it's cracked up to be. Well, that might be true, but hold your horses just one minute and keep reading, having at least one social media page might be a good idea, it's a great way to tell your story, and a bit about the work that you do. Lets face it, most people you know , will have and use social media. Can you think of anyone you know who doesn't? It's just fact of the modern world for good or bad, plus It's not going away any time soon either, in fact the chances are, as we see more tech developments there might be more on the way. So having a page might not be such a bad idea after all. They are pretty easy to put together nowadays, you can easily add your business number , email and other bits for customer's to get in touch. You can also list your services so customer's can easily choose what they want. The other main thing is that actually if you have active member's who comment on your post it actually gives the page a wider reach, by receiving likes , comments and emoji's your posts are shared on other peoples timelines, so it's kind of like free advertising. Makes sense, right? You don't need to be Bill gates, or some tech wizard either, you could probably put a page together in an HR. Meta makes the process pretty straight forward, and guides you with the process with hint's and tips. If you get a few new customer's it's probably worth taking the time to do. It might not propel you to millions, but do you really want that anyway? A simple page , helps your customer's get to know you better and you can assert your business in the community and position you as the go too guy/gal for whatever service you offer. You can collect reviews too, to give new customer's confidence you'll provide a professional service. If you're looking for ways to improve or grow you small business. Take a look a some of the offer's below, they are chosen with small businesses in mind, so they are cost effective products to help you grow and keep doing what your doing. Plus you can use them across social media too. If you're thinking about using social media for your business, these card readers have features which can make it easier for you to accept new business , take bookings and promote your business online. 🍔Self employed tradesmen are the most difficult to pull away from the belly buster sandwiches, which is surprising, because if they knew about the great offer’s that could could help them reach new customer's and improve their businesses they would literally spit out the soggy ketchup drenched sausage straight out of their mouths and gasp in wonder at the affordability at what's on offer and what they've been missing out on . 🙋🏽♂️ Well not quite, they would probably finish the sandwich first. They are the hardest to convince because they are usually not up to date with the latest low cost technologies that can actually really propel their business and gain new customers. They are already grafting, usually pretty hard so many just don’t want the extra work. Or they just are not that interested because it’s not a football. Okay that maybe a bit stereotypical but stay with me on this. It's true, too many self employed traders and small businesses aren’t considering these things, well it’s time to get serious, with the struggle of lock down and the prospects of inflation winning every customer is going to be a battle. So put down the coffee and put on the war paint.💪🏽 A little investment and time can really give you the competitive edge over your competition and separate the men from the boys or girls to be pc. Whether it’s creating a business page, media posts or advertising a lot don’t really see the value but they are seriously missing out. It’s one thing to do a good job, but a potential customer who’s never heard of you and your business doesn’t know that, and that’s where a bit of savvy marketing and branding can help you win the business. Instead of Joe Bloggs the joiner. (No offence Joe if you’re reading). It’s pretty simple to do as well, even if it’s not your forte, really. There are some good sites where you can design social media posts, logos and pretty much anything else you need plus with social media you have access to 1000s of potential new customers for free. The other thing to considering is how professional your page and business looks; this is the key to winning those new customers. Remember your competition will be fierce too. So how can you convince a potential customer that you’re the man for the job?🥇 It's why card readers are important, remember any Tom Dick and Harry accepts cash. Professional ones also accept card and it improves the customers journey with you. So put on your war paint and get yourself in position.👍🏽 The new card readers from sum up allow you to be able to accept any kind of payment without breaking the bank. In fact they actually only £19 in the sale whilst it lasts. There are no monthly fee’s to pay, no contracts or complicated terms. It’s basically a pay as you use device that you can take anywhere. The only fee is a 1.69% transaction when process a card payment. It’s simple to use and manage from an app on your phone, plus it’s mobile and fits in your pocket. So, for the price of a couple of belly busters sarnies, it’s a pretty smart buy for your business. 🧠 There are some other things you can do a swell like accept payments via, email , social media or txt. So if you’re wanting to beat your competitors and be the triumphant numbero uno. These slight tweaks are actually going to pay you back in return later down the line. 🙏🏽 Here are a couple of really good options for you that I’ve scoured the internet for, these will help you get your best foot forward, check out these great tools to have in your business arsenal and give you the edge. 🔻 🧑🏽🎨Artists, crafters and the creative types are often the eccentric, aloof or quirky ones that always manage to bring something special wherever they go. However, they often find it difficult to sell their work. They often produce brilliant works and I’ve seen all kinds of wonderful and weird creations. Many of them are things that people would love to buy. The problem with creative type are they become so invested in their creations that they often overlook other aspects of selling them like marketing, presenting and actually selling. It's pretty typical of creative types.
If you are a creative type, read on. Yep that’s right sometimes a buyer just needs a bit of gentle persuasion. Many creative types don’t always understand that this is an artform of it’s own. So what’s the point in being passionate about your art work or creation if you don’t invest the same energy in being able to present it in front of the right people, at the right time who are potentially going to buy from you. Here are a couple of things to think about for all you creatives out there who are wanting improve your sales and reach out to new potential customers. You've done most of the hard work, maybe a few tweaks or suggestions might be all you need. Here are some selling tips and things to consider. This is where to disconnect from your art and think about it from a buyers point of view. 🎨 What separates your work from the thousands of others available on the market. Are you using different materials, new styles, techniques or communicating something different, are your pricing your work competitively compared to people who are offering similar style work? Pricing your work might seem a challenge in it's self, too low might be undervaluing your creation and too high might price you out. 🎨 Think about who your ideal customer is. Is it a couple strolling around the market stall or art fair. Some collector behind his desk on the internet, are they buying out of impulse? The other main consideration is why? Why are they buying, is it because they have a personal connection to your work or to add some decoration to a study room or kitchen for example, or are intellectually intrigued by it? Maybe it’s a little bit of everything. 🎨Once you have established who you potential customers are, it’s time to start thinking about where you are going to go about find them. Whether that’s starting a website, joining an art fair or getting a stall at a local market. You’ll have to put just as much focus on this as you did when you were making your creations too. 🎨 Make sure you’re making it simple for your potential customer to be able to buy from you, whether that’s accepting card, being able to offer next day delivery, or even having bags and wrapping so they can easily take your item. The more you can do for the customer, the more customers you will get. Think about it from their perspective. Walk through a sale of your item as your customer. Was it easy to buy? 🎨People often buy from people, although that’s not always the reason why they buy. Remember it’s always helpful to give as much info as you can, maybe a story about how and why you made your work. The thought process behind it, a bit about you like a biography or profile. It’s probably helpful to add this to the description of your work. Which you would want to be a as detailed too. So your buyers know as much as they can before making a choice. 🎨 Be ready to be able to take details for commissions, you may find that some would like you to make something like what you have but add a personal touch, having a form or pen and pad ready, even some business cards or leaflets to be able to promote your work. A potential buyer may take a few days to buy from you and there could be many reasons for that. 🎨 Social media and getting your work out into the public is probably one of the most import things you can do. How else will people know they can buy your work? So, a bit of time spent on marketing materials and building a social media following is a great way to do that. Social media is free too. There are a lot already out there so how can yours stand out from the crowd? Now, there are some other useful tools on the market to help you and empower you to do what you love. Look at the awesome card readers from sum up below. With only a small investment you can accept card payment from anywhere, so whether you’re at a stall, selling to friend or exhibiting your work. It gives you the ability make it easy for your buyers. They also have really useful features to grow your sales online, by being able to create payment links you can sell securely to anyone via social media , email or even txt. So, the next time someone messages you, interested in your work, you can drop them a link and hey presto, you’ve just sold some of your work. These are available from £19 with no contracts and only a small transaction fee of 1.69%. It’s an essential tool for crafters and artists, to be able to sell your work so you can focus on what you do best. So, what are you waiting for Picasso. The time of the struggling artist is over. Check out some of the great offers available and within a low budget below. Perfect if your just getting started out.🔻 💇🏽♂️Hairdressers are the worst.💇🏽♀️
Not a lot of people know, hairdressing is one of the happiest occupations. Which is surprising because whenever I approach them, they always seem so grumpy. They are probably the most difficult to pitch a great offer too, even if the product is an ideal match for their business. Here are some reasons why. 👍The main reason is they are so dam happy already, they don't care if the product or service going to improve their business. 👍They get annoying sales reps in their business all the time either popping into the shop or calling them on their phone and Blah Blah Blah they’ve heard it all before. 👍 A hairdresser is a kind of artist who is focused on the work they do. So why the hell are they going to give some annoying sales consultant the time of day? Especially when they are already so dam happy. Hairdressers don’t need the gimmicks and offers. The business probably runs just fine as it is. Although with that in mind if you are a hairdresser and reading this, you’ll know that customers will be asking if you accept card for payment your services, and the data is showing that more and more people are choosing to pay by card where they can. This is an increasing trend, so just like the trendy Mohicans, buzz cuts and curls. It’s a trend that hairdressers at some point will need to consider for there business too. A lot of the hairdressers I've spoken too think they are going to be tied into expensive contracts and that accepting card for payment is going to cut into their hard-earned profits. The thing is, there has been huge advances in the technology that allows this process to happen and it’s super cost effective too, but trying to get that across in a salon while there is a que of waiting customers is a impossible task. You can't just waltz in with all the chutzpah of Austin Powers and explain that the card readers actually pair with a mobile phone and can be managed from an app, transactions fee’s are really low from 1.69%. with no monthly contract or hidden fee’s and you can purchase a card reading device for under £20. Yep that’s right. You'll get swiftly escorted out of the door with stern frowns of discontent. So how is a hairdresser supposed to know? That the card readers are simple to use, there's no stress and no messing around with complicated contracts or hard to use devices. Now you can literally accept card from tapping a button in your app on your phone in flash. It’s really as simple as that with no big snips in the profits either. In fact they are super low cost to use. If the customers are asking for it, and the customer’s want it. It’s probably time to get one. You might think that 1.69% is an un needed cost. Well hold on, pleasing your customer is one thing that's important on it's own, then there are actually features in the app that can help you manage and grow your business too. Right in the palm of your hand. Plus, It’s easy to keep track of your income, and you can actually create useful payment links for social media, email or txt. Great if you want to reach out to new customer’s take bookings or reach out to old customer’s that you might not of seen for a while. I know if there is one thing hairdressers hate, it’s spending cash but fear not. There is a big sale on with huge savings so cheer up and remember this is an investment in your business. Yes, it’s true, the way that people are choosing to pay has already changed and more and more will start to ask you, if they can pay by card too. So, put the scissors down, bite that dreaded bullet, put your happy smile back on and take a look at these beauties on offer.. Trust me, your customer’s and your business will thank you for it.🔻 🙋🏽♂️A lot of small businesses are here today and gone tomorrow, business is tough at the best of times. Small businesses have already been hit with corona virus and many suffered during lockdown from loss of custom, other's adapted and changed how they worked. Now a new challenge lurks around the corner. The dreaded cost of inflation making it harder to compete for new custom as people have less free money to spend. So what can you do and how can you make sure your business is one that lasts? Keep reading.
You've spent time building your business from a great idea, and brought it to the market place, you know customers will love your services and products but you're struggling to get the word out about the great offers you have. A lot of small businesses underestimate the power of marketing, a lot of the time it's a dirty word. We've all been there and had those spam spam spam messages and promotions after promotions it just reeks of desperation and isn't really a good look either it can often turn people off, even if your business is great. Well I'm here to tell you it's not a dirty word especially if it's done right and it's your secret weapon in a time of inflation. 🤷🏽So what's the fine line between getting it wrong and getting it right, attracting new customer's and really getting people excited about your business. Well the first thing is that you actually have some great free tools already at your disposal, if you have a social media account with a bit of time spent on a business page and some research on Facebook groups you could probably get your business on the front of 10,000's of your ideal customers feeds. It's access to customers at your finger tips. So many small business miss these opportunities, and the potential of social media, because they believe they need to be tech savvy. Surprisingly, It's actually pretty easy to do. All you need to do is put together a page, you can use Canva which is a great design platform and have a free option if you want to keep your budget down. spend a bit of time creating the right promotion and create a couple of posts. You may think it may seem time consuming but building an online presence is a really good investment, mainly because the returns of investing your time can be much greater than the time you invest. By gaining new customer's and building a strong brand for you business. It matter and it's what people remember🎀 It can be a lot more cost effective than running an ad in a paper or website. Plus it's free access to 1,000s of potential customer all looking for your service. There are a few way you can use some low cost tools to help you achieve those goals. You've probably heard of Sum Up, good because it's a great and has features where you can actually create payment links which means you can accept payment directly from social media email or even txt message. This is a really great feature especially if you are wanting to reach out to new customers or secure business when someone shows interest in your product or services. Plus you can also reach out to old customer's who may of used your services in the past but you have seen them back as a customer for a while. By sending them a loyalty promotion or or quarterly news letter. You can keep them interested in what you have to offer. Just take a look at the home page and see if it's something that you could use to build your business. 🧑💻It's a good idea to give yourself a bit of time to plan out what you intend to do, set yourself some goals and a strategy. it will come back to you in new customers and people will have a greater awareness of your services, which is what marketing is all about. Consider why these things matter too you first. You can find some carefully selected low cost and free options on my services page which will give you every thing you need to get started and get ahead of your competition because in the current climate anything you can do to give you the edge will matter, and separate you from the other small business that are fighting for the same customer's. Take a look and see which ones you can give your business the edge. 🏖️Summer. It's not all sunshine and rainbow's all of the time. 🏖️
|