Budgets are never a priority in a small business. But they do serve an important purpose in helping you and your business plan and stay in business for the next financial year.
Michelle gives us 3 good reasons to develop and plan a budget for your business.
If you have any questions about your budget, please do not hesitate to give us a call or click and we will be able to assist you.
A good marketer knows to adjusts to the ever-changing terrain of marketing without losing sight of what needs to be done to get people’s attention. Marketing is no longer a numbers game, but it remains a funnel. We are going to take you through the key steps that you can use to drive people down your sales funnel. The five below steps are pretty much straight forward and practical:
1. Contacts
Part of the marketing process is to make contact with the potential clients. Where ever you go, make sure to engage with people so that you can create contacts.
2. Categorize
Categorize people accordingly. Not everyone is a potential clients, but you need theses people because they might know someone who is a potential client, so you must be able to identify those and categorize them accordingly. Another category of people is those that can be customers but are not sure and ready yet. The last category is the hot customers. These are the customers that you must have immediately! They are ready, they know their needs and need your services. Sign them up today.
3. Clarify
Clarify your contacts. Make your contact details clear and what you offer clear to your clients. Send them your information. Clarify their needs that your company can meet.
4. Convert
Converting can be a lengthy process depending on what your organizations is doing. You can’t magically make it happen. You have to work on and be strategic about it. Encourage those visiting customers to engage with you on the various social platforms, the most prominent being Facebook or website.
5. Conversations
Building relations with your clients is key in marketing. It could be over lunch, via emails or wherever, make a plan to capitalize on the conversation that has been started by your client.
Watch the video on the sales funnel below:
February is the marketing month, a month where people go all out to activate and launch their marketing strategies for the year.
Here at EI, we have packaged all the information about marketing for you this whole month. This is to just help you market your business the right way in order for you to reach your target audience and grow your business. Remember, growing your business is our business.
In this video we focus on the four key factors you need to address when you do your marketing strategy:
– Get to know your product
You need to understand the problems that your product is addressing.
– Get to know your customers
Understand the problems that your customers have. Is your product trying to solve them? Understand what they need and want. Make sure it’s the problems that they want to get rid of, and not the problems that they are happy with.
– How willing are your potential customers?
Are people willing to spend their money on your product? Are they happy with their problems or are they willing to spend money to spend money on your product to solve their products?
– Learn how to connect with customers
You identified the problem, and have a solution, so how do you then connect that to customers?
Watch the video below for more on this briefly explained key factors about marketing.
There are three blocks of time we need to work on in our businesses. They are:
– Working IN your business
– Working ON your business and
– Working OUT of your business
I would like to focus on working out of your business, which many people turn to neglect and think it is less important.
Well, most of us do not know the importance of taking time from our busy schedules to relax, recharge and rejuvenate. We spend most of our time doing what it takes to pay bills or handling whatever sorts of other important tasks. We neglect the need to take time to relax and recharge our internal batteries. When we do so, the thought “work is pilling up” would constantly be running through our minds. May I reassure you that taking time to relax is not luxury at all, it is a physical need. It is important, no matter what profession.
Lack of rest lead to a stressful life and a stressful life may lead to physical ailments. So I encourage you to take time to relax. Sit by the river, enjoy nature and let your min re-prioritize.
It all good and well to make resolutions, set goals and visions for ourselves as the year starts. But very often we avoid facing our giants. All the things that keep us awake at night are our giants, but do we usually have a strategy on how to attack those giants in our lives?
These giants come in different forms and sizes. No matter how they come, when they come, how big or small they are, we need to face them.
So what are those things that keep you awake at night about your business? Is it cash-flow, marketing, client retention or sales?
Watch the attached video (Bruce on Business episode 11) as we unpack the three rules to face the giants in your life.
As 2015 draws to a close, we get to celebrate another year survived in business. Congratulations to all who join us.
Now it is time to reflect and relax before the start of 2016 – it is going to be a rough one: get ready.
With the recent issues within the South African Government, we take a look at the effect on small business and the economy. We also look at the year gone and take a view to what is to come.
Last
week I had the task of joining another South African queue, this time at the Home Affairs office in Wynberg. When I got there, I was issued with a queue number: No 92, and told it would be about 2 hrs until I was attended to. So we stood and waited like many of others around us. Now the number system thing allowed us to not have to stand in the actual queue to claim our position, so many wandered off to get breakfast or to browse the local shops in the centre.
One shop caught my attention and perked my interest: a local coffee chop. They say location is the secret to success in retail, and this coffee shop, although small in size was located right next to the Home Affairs office and had a daily captive audience of over 300 people standing waiting right outside their doors. What an opportunity for any small business. But they have just not seen this as any sort of marketing strategy at all. The 4 hours that we were there in the queue (another story for another time) they only had one customer (in picture) who spent a whopping R15 on a take away cup of coffee.
Take a look for a moment at the photo. See the frustrated people in the queue. No look at the coffee shop, nothing, no customers, no invitation to come in, no pleasant greetings at all. Cafe Ombre needs to open their eyes and see what is right outside their doors. The owner/manager sits behind that small curtain area all day doing who knows what and the floor waitress was often just walking around the centre and not even in the shop.
A few marketing strategies are required, here are my suggestions:
This is just an example of many other businesses that we come across each week that have failed to engage the opportunities that often sit right outside our doors. A simple SWOT analysis exercise will reveal a whole new world for this coffee shop.
It’s the end of the year, and at this time of the year many people psychologically st themselves up to be tired and drained. it make sense because all we had to do all year is to chase the goals that we made for ourselves at the beginning of the year. Now its time to pause and check if those goals were achieved.
For entrepreneurs, it is also a n important period of the year because that is where we press pause to look at the way things went in the business. Few things that you can do as an entrepreneur is to evaluate your company’s goals and achievements. come up with a top 5 list of achievements and top 5 non-achieved list. find out what worked and what did not and the reasons why.
The end of the year is a great time to reflect on the company’s performance, talk about challenges and accomplishments and plan for the year ahead. Have a meeting with the stuff members before your holiday party so that the festivities don’t have to involve talking business. Bring everyone to the table and set goals for 2016. stand up and seize all the opportunities with both hands.
We’ve just come to the end of the Global Entrepreneurship Week, and its been a week of activities – talks, workshops and competitions all over the world.
Cape Town had a whole host of interesting talks and workshops all around. Did you have a chance of attending any of the workshops or talks that took place around Cape Town? If not, then worry not, you can find most of the recordings online.
Our very own workshops here at EI can be found on slideshare.com. Please take the opportunity to go and catch up on these awesome workshops that will empower you.
It has also been an interesting week fro those living in France. We all know what has happened over there. After all that has happened, we are seeing a continuation of sagas, uncovering plots, blame and everything. But a number of things have come out of this. and i wanna remove myself from the emotions of the lost of life and distractions of property and violation.I wanna sort of, look at the way the world reacts to this type of a thing.
First, it is shock and disbelieve. Then it is anger, and then blame. we wanna go around pointing fingers and blame someone for what happened. And when it becomes hard for to blame someone who has blown themselves up, we begin to point fingers elsewhere and want to find someone, somewhere whom can be nailed for what happened.
All of this is similar to the way we run our businesses. When things start going bad in our businesses, we close our eyes and pretend it’s not happening. Then we hope it will go away, When it does not go away, we get angry and frustrated. and as time goes on, we want to look for someone that we can blame. That is what we call emotional immaturity.
In situations like this, We need to take responsibility of our actions, all the time. We need to man up and look for solutions instead of playing the blame game. We need to find a strategy of moving from chaos to clarity. That will make you a better entrepreneur.
Watch Bruce on Business here: