Bridie Nelson
I’ve gained more clarity than ever before and I’ve now got the confidence to step my business up to the next level.
Sales
Information vs. Action
If you ask me you can never give away enough information.
I am happy to share a great deal of ‘information’ for free, because I know that for it to be effective, for it to ‘do’ what it’s shared for, it needs to be put into action.
The difference between information and action is why people buy from you. And this makes a huge difference to how you market and ‘sell’ what you do.
Be Bold! (or just move things a little!)
Sometimes it’s absolutely the right time to do something big, new and bold. Other times it makes sense to just move things a little bit. But you do need to move – onwards, upwards, sideways, longways, anyways 
Standing still might seem like a good idea if you’re having a wobble or a panic or just not sure about something, but actually it’s very rarely the best plan. If you stand still you can’t see what’s possible, you can’t tell if something is a good idea (or not) until you try it. Keeping yourself in one place (literally or metaphorically) isn’t always a safe plan. No one wants to be a sitting duck!
Step back and sell the benefits
Transformations are what sell what you do. Features need to be listed of course, but it’s the results that count.
Typically we buy results – the transformation – more than we buy ‘what it is’.
I love it when a plan comes together!
You absolutely need a plan in business, and while I am not a big fan of the v-e-r-y long (and let’s be honest sometimes quite dull) ‘business plans’ that your bank manager might want to see, you absolutely DO need a plan.
Not having a plan is like navigating in the dark with no idea of where you’re headed. Things work out so much better when you have a plan.
Not getting paid? You choose your customers remember…
I was having a conversation with someone recently about starting up in business and as ever the usual reservations and fears came up – what if it doesn’t work, what if we don’t make enough money, where will we find customers etc, but there was one fear that was bigger than all of them – what if we don’t get paid?
Now getting paid is important in business, but what you have to remember is that YOU are in charge.
The DFS effect. What happens when you’re always on ‘sale’
I see it all the time. I even take advantage of it. Some businesses have too many discount sales and special offers – in fact it can seem like a permanent sale. I call this the DFS effect
But what happens? – no one buys at full price.
Selling online – How we design and build ecommerce websites
Selling online can be as straightforward as adding a PayPal button to your website, but if you’re looking to manage a full catalogue you really need something more sophisticated.
Every customer has their own agenda
Everyone who buys your product or service has their own agenda — they want ‘their problem’ solved, or ‘their need’ satisfied. This explains why customer segmentation is so important if you want to sell more to your best customers…
What does your perfect customer ‘look like’?
So who is your perfect customer? This is a really important exercise to undertake. Your perfect customer ideally is already your most profitable ‘best customer’(s), but it might not be…
Not all customers are created equal…
Now, while I do believe it’s true that all men (and women) were created equal, in business it’s very important to remember that not all customers are created equal. What I am talking about here is customer segmentation, and identifying the ‘best’ customers for your business…
Well, what a surprise… customers like good service! and they aren’t always bothered about price
Now, you may be thinking that, in these price conscious times, that having the best (lowest) price is all it takes to get customers. But, in many instances, this is just not true… in fact, pricing is less important than good experiences and service. That’s pretty vital to remember in business, whatever you are selling…
Are you special? Can you explain your uniqueness?
I was reminded again at the weekend (I am being Masterminded by Jonathan Jay) how important is it to be unique in business. We were talking about USPs, and why a business owner must know what their USP is before they can market their business with success.
USP stands for Unique Selling Point, or Unique Sales Proposition. I was reminded how hard it is to define these — to really make them totally unique.
It is quite easy to come up with a USP only to realise under scrutiny that it’s not, in fact, unique and could easily be applied to other businesses. So it was good to have the Mastermind group of business owners challenging each other to be unique.
When new business is staring you in the face… and you look the other way!
Lots of businesses are turning away customers every day… and they probably don’t even realise it.
I’ve made a few calls over the last few days to travel companies (not all my own holiday research, I have to point out!), and it was incredible the number of the companies that didn’t even take my contact details. I could have walked away from them forever.
Here’s the range of responses I got…
Getting your ‘business head’ on (and why you need to keep it on!)
This morning I visited my friend Nicola, who’s just started running her own business (she’s my hairdresser), and it was great to hear that she’s already got her ‘business head’ on, and is busy working out how she’s going to start differentiating and improving her salon.
She’s taken over an existing business, and this of course can have its upsides and downsides — the upsides being that she is making money from day one (quite useful!), but the downside being that there isn’t a blank page to start from to do everything your way from the outset.
But here’s some things that we talked about that made me confident that the salon is only going to get better and more profitable…
What’s inside my head and how it can help your business
Yesterday, I got back from the first 2-day ‘Small Business Marketing Workshop’ run by the very smart Jonathan Jay in his new business venture Success Track.
The purpose of the 2-day workshop was for Jonathan to share his own experience in what does and doesn’t work in terms of marketing a business. Jonathan also offered a ‘marketing clinic’, where attendees could (perhaps crushingly honestly in some cases!) receive a critique of their current marketing materials and approach (note to anyone who attended here — you will of course get the irony of Jonathan describing this in his own words as “a clinic”!).