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Marketing seems to be a major headache for many small business owners. Where to market to get your message to the right people, how much to spend, developing the right marketing mix or just getting the right message out there. It can become a very expensive endeavour, so it is important, especially in this tough economic climate, to explore ways to grow your business that doesn’t involve outlaying large amounts of money. It is equally important to ensure that the money you do spend is making you a good return on that investment.

Just who’s running your business? Most people would like to think that they were at the helm making all the important decisions in their business but in actual fact the people who have a big chunk of control are the ones who are dealing with your customers at the coalface each and every day. Yes – that would be your staff and they can make or break your business by the actions they take and the decisions they make on your behalf.

Marketing your business can be an expensive process and getting this aspect of your business working effectively for you can save you thousands of dollars each year. Every dollar you spend in advertising and marketing (no, they are not the same thing) needs to show you a good return on investment so it is important that you measure your results on any investments you make in advertising.

With the New Year already now firmly underway, many small business owners are hoping for a better year both professionally and in turn personally. Generally when things improve on the business front that leads into a more positive situation on the personal front, and who doesn’t want that?

What I am about to say will upset some business owners....get ready for it......not all advertising is good advertising!

Did you even know about the Ripple? Chances are you haven’t given it much thought, until now. Picture what happens when you throw a stone into a calm pond. Depending on the size of the stone, you will generate a different size ripple. This is the same ripple effect that good and bad customer service has on your business. We all know that our clients tell far more people (6 to 20 times more) about their bad customer service experiences (BIG stones) than their good customer service experiences.

This year is just whizzing by and, shock horror, we have less than 10 weeks until the festive season is upon us once again. If you are in the business of retailing, this should mean a very busy time ahead and now is the time to ensure that you are going to maximise your profits by implementing a few simple but invaluable ideas to boost your retail sales. Here are my top tips to make sure that you achieve the very best in sales over the coming few months:

Who wouldn’t want a business that was a PROFIT GENERATING MACHINE? No-one that I know and the good news is that it can be done and there has never been a better time to get started on turning your business around. No matter what doom and gloom you have been getting layered with this past year, you can make profits in your business and all it takes is a bit of courage, the willingness to change what you are doing and the perseverance to stick with the new plan.

It’s challenging and exciting being a business coach. I have the opportunity to work with a wide variety of businesses and business owners and I have never yet found any two to be remotely similar. This is where the fun part comes in though! Getting to find the profit gap in any business is literally like finding the gold at the end of the rainbow and often it is much easier to find than you would expect

When I am speaking to my clients about the need for ongoing staff training, I often hear “I hate spending the money to hold staff training, because eventually they will leave and I have wasted my money”

Unique Selling Proposition – what is it? It is the one thing that makes you stand out from your direct and indirect competitors. Here are some questions to ponder and, when you have the answer, act upon.

Times are tough – there’s no doubt about it! If you are going to thrive in this tough economic climate, changes will need to happen within your business. No longer can you just open your doors and expect people to arrive with a full wallet and an intention to spend their cash. Savvy business owners are realising that we have some time to go before things pick up and times get easier and they are reassessing their assets and looking for ways to make what they already have, work harder and smarter than ever before.

Statistics tell us that it is 91% cheaper to keep a customer than to gain a new one! Wow, that is staggering in terms of time and money needed to constantly be sourcing new customers when we could be growing our businesses week by week simply by looking after and keeping the customers we already have.

Not too long ago, I was working with a client who continually complained about one of their long term staff members. The staff member concerned was apparently not doing their best anymore and they had started displaying this lack of enthusiasm for their job by intentionally doing things that would rub their boss up the wrong way. Or so I was told.

Do you know what percentage of the time the Apollo 11 was on course to the moon in 1969? Would you believe just 3%. But they got there in the end!

I came across this excerpt recently and it struck a major chord for me. As the current financial crisis is hitting home for many businesses, both large and small, I see much panic and worry taking place. What I am not seeing is much “ACTION”.

Experience has shown us that businesses with too many leaders fail from their inability to manage and likewise those with too many managers fail because they do not innovate, motivate or change.

With a tough time ahead in 2009, many small service providers have decided to tighten their belts. This is a good thing to do if it involves reviewing and cutting unnecessary expenditure within the business. Unfortunately many small service provider businesses don’t fully understand the value of a really well trained and resourceful person to run their front desk and hence have downsized their businesses by letting go a vital key staff member – their receptionist.

I think by now, everyone has heard the not so good news! 2009 is going to be a very tough year for business owners. Already people have stopped spending their money just in case their job security isn’t as good as it used to be. Luxury spending by the average income earner is often the first thing to feel the pinch as consumers are holding on to their earnings for a rainy day. This can, and often does, lead to a loss of jobs or at a minimum, full time jobs becoming part time jobs or even worse, casual jobs. And so the cycle is repeated with money being saved and not spent by those who fear for their job security.

Well 2009 is just around the corner and if you are like most small business owners, you are still getting over all the trials and tribulations that came your way in 2008. I will also go as far as to say that most small business owners that I have worked with, generally fail pretty spectacularly to plan for their successes in the coming year.

I was idling along, doing some much neglected work on my computer the other day, when a friend of mine emailed me to tell me about a great website that she had come across which offers inspirational books and dvd’s. It is called simpletruths.com and as I was having a quick look around their site, I came across a dvd with a title that piqued my curiosity. It was called “You Can’t Send A Duck To Eagle School”.

Does this sound like one of your usual team meetings? You, the boss, do all the talking ,telling and critiquing of your staff and they do all the listening and head nodding? Well if you are the one who is now nodding your head, then read on, because you are about to learn how to transform your boring (yes, that’s what your staff think they are) team meetings into vibrant, energetic and powerful sessions that will have you shaking your head and wondering why you didn’t do this sooner.

In the last newsletter, I talked about the first 5 of 10 identified “Difficult Behaviour” types, how to recognize them and more importantly, how to deal with them to achieve a desired outcome. Today, in Part 2, we will take a look at the final 5 Behaviour types, along with the coping techniques you will need to learn and use to keep you in control of your business. If you didn’t identify with any of the behaviour types in Part 1 of this article, see if you can identify with any of these!

From time-to-time everyone comes across someone they find it difficult to work with. However, your ability to work with your team and foster a relationship of openness and trust will increase your overall effectiveness and get you the results you want.

You are now about to receive the best coaching advice that you will ever get in this—or perhaps any other—lifetime! You are about to receive advice from a very wise old person. Listen very carefully to what this wise old person says.

You will have heard the old saying” When the going gets tough....the tough get going”. But how does that apply to the business owner who is starting to feel the financial pinch as customers begin to tighten up their purse strings and re-evaluate how and where they are going to spend their hard earned cash?

It is a broadly known fact, that every business’s success hinges on the performance of their staff. Without buy in, loyalty and enthusiasm from their key team members, no business stands a chance of becoming or remaining successful. After all, it is your team members who are providing service to your customers on a daily basis and it is absolutely essential that they feel motivated to be the best that they possibly can while they are in the workplace.

Discounting your products and services can be lethal to your business. Not only can it start a pricing war with your competitors (in which nobody comes out a winner) but try getting your customers to gladly pay full price once the discounting frenzy is over. Add this to the huge chunk of profit that you have just thrown away and well.....need I say more!

Just 7 short weeks away – can you believe we have arrived at that time of year again? We seem to have just finished packing away the Christmas decorations from last year and here thinking about doing it all over again! So, depending on what type of business you have, Christmas can be the busiest time of the year for you and it’s important to be prepared for it. If you are in the personal services industry you will be gearing up for the usual bedlam - requests for last minute appointments, unexpected no shows and the general chaos that goes along with doing business in the lead up to the festive season.

Every business needs quality referrals, especially small and micro businesses that don’t have the financial resources to plough into advertising to attract a constant stream of new customers through their front doors. Getting your customers to refer you to others in their network is a sure fire path to growth and has great economic benefits.

Every employer knows that when you have your staff on board 100% and sharing your vision, then day to day activities just seem to go a whole lot smoother. Not only do you want your valuable staff to turn up to work everyday but you need them to love to come to work.