10. March 2011 by Noel Guilford.

Let’s face it, if you are in business, it’s for the money plain and simple. While I’m sure that there are some people out there who feel like business is a good hobby they like to engage in, those people are few and far between. So, lets talk about you and your desire to increase your profits, or to have any profit at all. What I’m going to ask that you do is think of profit as something that already exists out there in the market. Guess what? Even at times like these, someone somewhere is making a profit, someone has always made a profit. Why? Because consumers have always consumed something that they wanted or needed. Let’s start with the assumption that you have something people want or need. All you have to do is create a business where the profit is going and collect it.

• Take Inventory of Your Resources

Pop Quiz! If one hundred of your customers were polled what would most of them say they like best about your business? Who are your strongest employees and why? Constantly reflect on the condition of your business as well as the level and condition of your resources. Reading  SWOT ‘Em and using the method is a good way to reveal many of your resources and their condition.

• What’s the Plan?

Where are you going? How are you growing your customer base, your employees, and your operations? If you only plan just to make it through the day then your business will reflect that. Planing your business’s future is one of those things that if you can’t do, or don’t have the time to do can affect the chance of your business being successful long term.

• Business is Your Business

Don’t be surprised by the statement that many business owners have very little training or experience in owning a business. With that, its difficult for them to know what it is that they need to know unless they have a very inquisitive nature. Want to know why your cost of business is going up? One of those reasons could be that the cost of business went up for one of the business’s you interact with. Well what made that happen? It could be the cost of a raw material, taxes, or other factors. Knowing more about how businesses relate to each other helps to anticipate some changes that can impact your business.

• Ride the wave

Choosing not to evolve is a gamble that many good businesses lose everything on. If you look around i’m sure you can see where the profit is going. We are in the Age of Communication where the ability to spread information quickly around the globe can transform a society. The next time you travel along a major highway take a look at the billboards and have a moment of critical thought. Yes, some can change the advertisement digitally! There is a big old tsunami of technology coming and you can get on the boat or drown.

• Make the waves

Sometimes the situation requires a “hail-mary” play. What can you do when riding the wave wont get you noticed? When the competition has had more time to refine their rendition? The only answer at that point is pure innovation. Tap into the pulse of your customer base and give them what they didn’t know they wanted yet. In business when you mix great innovation with outstanding marketing I call that “Profit Bait”.

• Talk to weirdo’s

You know when you go to purchase a game or movie, that one person you regret asking for help because now after the ten minute explanation you are even more confused. That person is a walking Wikipedia, or knows someone who is so talk to them. If you want to know what the new trend, fad, technology, or to brush up on your terminology trust me they know. Use that information to help you anticipate where the profits are going. When you get there just make sure you brought your product or service that is wanted or needed and “voila” like shooting fish in a barrel.

Posted in Creating the Culture, Being the Boss, Saving Money, Making Money | Print | 451 Comments »

16. January 2011 by Bob Griffin.

 **To my marketing friends - I like to make you think and push you to find better, newer ways to advertise. If this article bothers you, GOOD!  If that is all it did, you need a new job.  Start thinking creatively and find new and ORIGINAL ways to communicate with the customers.  Isn’t that why you got into marketing in the first place?? Operations can’t function without marketing but, it can’t function with bland marketing either.

I was looking through old pictures and ran across this one from last year of political ads that were jammed on the side of the road.  What a waste of time and money.  It looks horrible and it is trash.  I have never been a proponent of using these signs.  They are a weak way to grab attention at best and at worst, they are a blurry mess that drivers ignore.

First of all, if there is one of these signs, there seems to be several more that creep in over time.  It’s like a virus.  I drive down the road and there is one or two.  By the morning, there are several more and none of them make me want to stop and buy anything. Is there some kind of sign gnome that no one told me about that grows ugly signs in the middle of the night on the side of the road?  We should start hunting these damnable gnomes. Or at the very least set traps and relocate them to Las Vegas.  They’d love sign-growing gnomes there.

It may be my age (early 40’s) but I can’t read most of the signs because the typeface is too small to read. They jam too many messages into that small space and I can’t read it as I meander down the road at a whopping 45 miles per hour.  Who are they selling to?  It must be the speed readers with good eyes.  They are BIG spenders from what I hear.  For average people it looks like a blurry mess at any speed over idle.  Since there are stacks of them lining the roads, I mostly ignore them.  If you’ve seen one sign, you’ve seen them all.

Has anyone thought about the fact that the signs are below the driver’s door?  Unless Wonder Woman traded her invisible jet for an invisible car she ain’t reading the sign.  For you, it is below the car’s window and can’t be read even when stopped.  If it is across the road, you aren’t even looking at it.  Believe it or not, the government figured this one out before marketing people.  Their signs are at eye level for most people or at least high enough that drivers can read them.  I don’t remember a Stop sign being inches from the ground.  Not sure that would work for traffic.  Put the signs up on higher stands and you are starting to get somewhere with your message.

Business owners, think about how you are talking to your customers when you spend marketing dollars.  I don’t have real numbers but I suspect there are more marketing people than lawyers…Yick!  Some want your money and are going to show you statistics that indicate they have the world’s best way to get customers.  Use your common sense and think like your customers.  Will customers be intrigued, interested, and stop in because of your marketing?  If not, don’t do it.  We talk a lot about simple ways to grow your business on Business Bulldog.  Speak volumes the right way and do something better than your competition.  As an example of the wrong way to do things, I have no idea who any of the people advertising in the picture claim to be.  They wanted me to vote for them.  I didn’t remember any of them when I did vote.  Blurry, bland marketing doesn’t work.

Just a thought, if those filthy gnomes grab me because I outed them, tell my family I love them.

Bob
BGriffin@BusinessBulldog.com

Posted in Marketing, Creating the Culture, Saving Money, Making Money | Print | 77 Comments »

26. November 2010 by Bob Griffin.

The insanity of the season is in full swing as I write this article. After Thanksgiving sales in the US have been going since midnight and this ritual has to stop. I understand the “shoppers thrill” of losing sleep to get bargains. That kind of craziness is where therapists pay for their retirements. The point at which you have good, hard working employees pulling ridiculous shifts trying to help sleep deprived people buy an X-box is when we need to draw a line.

I understand that businesses in this world-wide economic meltdown are desperate for any customer but to turn a profit on the backs of good employees is wrong. Small business owners get a break at this point because most of them work side by side with their employees. The ones who have no soul are the big box chains that have a hidden Board of Directors and a CEO who couldn’t work a POS system to save his or her life. Every employee who has never seen an executive on the sales floor and has worked for years with the same company should mail a copy of the Bulldog Rules for Business to them. All business starts with the interaction with customers. Any thought by a Vice President or higher in an organization that what they do makes the company money is a fantasy. Don’t misquote me on this subject. The need for strength at the top is critical, but the money is earned on the front-line. Real leaders live, work, and breathe on the front-line.

Where is the CEO at midnight or even 4am when the store opens? I have not seen a news story that mentions an executive helping out in a store the day after Thanksgiving. Leaders lead and don’t ask for more than they are willing to give. Want loyal customers? Be a loyal boss.

I am not writing this to stir the pot and make employees angry. The point is that often we make plans and hand them to the lowest paid person on the team to implement. If you work beside that employee, you can see the holes in the plan and make better plans. You will show any staff between your position and the front-line that you are not above doing any job and they dang well better not be either. Leadership starts with you. Show them, tell them, and then reward them for their hard work.

Be loyal to gain loyalty. Be respectful to be respected. Grow your business by growing with it.

Bob Griffin - CEO and Co-Founder

Email: Questions@BusinessBulldog.com

Posted in Customer Service, Creating the Culture, Being the Boss, Making Money | Print | No Comments »

6. November 2010 by Noel Guilford.

In the seventh season of Seinfeld, a very memorable character nicknamed the “Soup Nazi” was introduced.  This character was based on a real soup vendor out of New York that I actually had the pleasure of meeting. Notably portrayed as a business owner with a high quality product, and low quality service. For the record, while the low quality service displayed on television may be the product of a little embellishment, the high quality of the product is spot on. I’ve never had shrimp bisque so good but that’s beside the point.

What does this have to do with you and your business? Well, I’ll tell you. On the front lines of many service oriented industries you will find the “Coupon Nazi”. The Coupon Nazi as we will call them here is that front line representative that acts as a warden preventing customers from taking advantage of their company and its policies. They serve to make sure that no eleventh item makes it through any ten items or less isle, that no offer is taken after its expiration date or at the wrong location, and that each and every surcharge, add on, up sale, and hidden fee is applied and accounted for.

As a business owner I’m sure that you agree that policies and procedures are in place for a reason. In many cases this is true with the exception of customer conflict. For example, let’s say that a customer needing to perform vehicle maintenance decides to use an offer sent through the mail for 20% of their total cost. The customer is looking to spend roughly 800 dollars on various repairs and maintenance. The Coupon Nazi notices that the coupon expired several days prior and immediately notifies the customer that the coupon is expired. In some cases the customer is very apologetic and accepting of the policy. For the sake of argument let’s say that the customer is not so understanding and the inflexibility of the Coupon Nazi drives the customer away.  The Coupon Nazi’s victory just cost that business owner an immediate $640 dollars and any residual sales generated from repeat business over the lifetime of that customer. In addition they also have ensured that those sales, immediate and repeat, will go to one of your competitors. Looks like employee of the month material to me (note the sarcasm).

In the previous example it may seem easier to see the effects of our Coupon Nazi because the immediate sale is high. In an instance where the immediate sale is low you may have a higher number of customers who will leave and yet it is more difficult to see the effects because it takes longer for the consequences to add up. Consequently, Coupon Nazi’s are created by the short leashes of upper management. It is possible to identify and deter this behavior but policy change must start from top to bottom. Here are some general rules to go by:

1. If a policy is causing the loss of customers it may be time to evaluate the priority of that policy.
2. Never assume (especially openly to the customer) that customers are attempting to somehow manipulate your policies for their own gain. Is it ever true? Yes. Is it always true? No.
3. Policies should reflect customers buying and shopping habits not conflict with them.
4. Company policy should make your company and its employee’s competitive customer service experts not offensive “customer service napalm”.
5. Empower employees to go the extra mile in the name of customer service without the fear of punishment from management above them.

Simple steps will help grow your business. Ignoring the issue is costing you!  Bulldog Rule #8 - Re-examine your business often.

Posted in Marketing, Customer Service, Creating the Culture, Training, Making Money | Print | 53 Comments »

28. August 2010 by Bob Griffin.

I was speaking with a class of management students this week at the University of Georgia.  My topic was on getting customers, but I veered off topic a little when we got to communication to customers and word-of-mouth marketing.  I mentioned that bad word of mouth marketing - the media saying bad things about you or your business - can actually help you if it is played well.  Since it was a group of students and Thursday is the unofficial start to the weekend, I was impressed when they sat up and took notice of my statement.

There are exact times and places when bad word-of-mouth marketing works when nothing else will.   Seems counter-intuitive, but it is true and we have real world examples of this to point to.  BP has been dragged through the mud (or mucky oil if you wish) with little hope of recovery.  When the oil platform exploded and people died, that was a low point for them.  When millions of gallons of oil washed up on shore killing wildlife and the economy of several states, that was another low point.  It seemed that there was no end to the bad news and the CEO, Tony Hayward, was not helping the situation…except he was.

When bad things happen (and bad things will always happen) you have two ways of handling it.  Fight it or deal with it.   The first part, fighting it, seems to be what Tony wanted to do and we can see how far that got him.  He was covering his company’s rump with as much actions as he could stand, but he was ill prepared to make much positive change since he really did not understand why everyone was upset with him.  He wanted things to “go back to normal” as fast as possible since the accidents did not impact him directly.  He was mad and all of the actions he showed indicated he wanted to fight back.  To the families who lost a loved one or the people who live and work by the Gulf coast, they wanted to fight too.  One man against a population who have been harmed is ugly.

So, when the cap was attached to the pipe and the oil stopped gushing out of the well, they fired old Tony.  Look back and you will see, the bad press for the most part stopped as well.  All of the bad word-of-mouth marketing ended when the target - Tony Hayward - left the scene.  BP and the Board of Directors were smart enough to see that they had a chance to let the bad press go when they let Tony go.  No face to the business means the press is unable to fight and the population has no target for tough words.  Did the problem go away? No, but the bad word-of-mouth marketing was carried away on Tony’s shoulders.  Now, any news is going to be compared with the bad news that Tony endured.

Timing is everything.  If they fired Tony before they capped the well, it would still be BP that was the bad guy.  With a built in bad guy, they waited and made the change when good news was available.  BP is a media savvy company.

I was going to add in examples of other industries and celebrities, but you get the idea.  Since bad things happen, you have a choice in what you can do.  Fighting is sometimes an option.  Tony Hayward thought so.  BP let him fight. Then, they let him go away with the bad press.  Will BP bounce back? Yes.  Exxon did and they did the same thing with the Captain Joe Hazelwood of the Exxon Valdez.  There are ways to let things work out without losing your business.  Are you ready for all of the kinds word-of-mouth marketing?

Posted in Marketing, Being the Boss, Saving Money, Making Money | Print | 89 Comments »