August 2005 Peninsula Living
From small beginnings!
I dislike the term small business. It connotes tiny,
not very big. All the things that small means. Ironically
government believes a small business in Australia is
a company with less than 50 employees and an annual
turnover less than $20million. Bring it on. Nothing
small about those numbers.
McDonald’s family restaurants had one store in
Australia in the 1970’s. It now has over 750 outlets.
Harvey Norman was only one store when Gerry Harvey kicked
off. It is now one of Australia’s great franchise
success stories with its ubiquitous slogan, “go
Harvey, go Harvey Norman’. Go where? Straight
to the top of national retail awareness.
The key to growing your business is to decide how big
you want your brand to be locally and to program your
business for growth.
It can be as simple a start as a website that tells
the story about what makes your business special. Afteral
with the www web being global, your business has a potential
office on every computer screen around the world. Information
is sold but also given away every day using the web
as a deliver mechanism. Ask CNN what it is without a
web presence.
Media is the message. It allows you to decide locally
what you can become globally. The global village is
now everyone’s back yard as long as you are online.
Even if the information on your website is simply your
business growth story and what you offer your customers
that is special is a compelling enough reason for your
customers to be educated about your business.
Don’t ever think you are not ‘big’
enough to be part of the big business picture. Think
small and you will be. The smaller your advertising
budget, the stronger your brand must be. If the branding
is wrong, everything is wrong. Just because people have
heard about your product doesn’t mean it’s
well branded. Branding and awareness is not the same
thing. Ironically, the stronger your brand is, the less
susceptible you are to pricing issues and competition.
Advertising is not branding. Branding is branding.
Advertising raises awareness of the brand you create.
The real test for brand is when other companies in your
space ask “Are we doing it the (your companies
way)? Are we doing it the McDonalds way? If people are
asking this question then you have built a brand. You
must maintain its strength in the market to become the
big business you can and aspire to be.
Good Selling
Tim Shaw appears on My Business - Channel 7 on Sunday
mornings. He can diagnose sales and marketing opportunities
available for your business today. Tim is available
as a keynote speaker for your next sales meeting or
conference. Visit www.timshaw.com.au or contact Tim
directly at timshaw@bigpond.com
September 2005 Peninsula Living
Smart business
with no advertising budget?
I have often referred to advertising & marketing
as an investment in your brand for the future rather
than an expense. As long as you get the messages clear
and right (many business owners don’t –
but that’s another story).
Who you are. Where you are. What you do and why customers
should buy from you. These are the simple messages you
need to articulate constantly to build brand, brand
awareness and sales, sales & more sales.
But what if you have no marketing budget to do it?
Recently on an episode on www.mybusinesstv.com.au I
advised a pest control company run by a husband and
wife to keep their messages simple. They had a website
(mandatory if you are serious about your business) which
told some of the story. I suggested that during the
quiet winter months, that the owner draws up a concentric
circle of businesses that fell within a 5km radius of
home (where they run the business from). It makes sense
to fish in local waters for new sales opportunities.
He door knocked 5 local businesses and got 5 knock backs.
He was happy about that because it will steel his resolve
to door knock them again in a month. Don’t take
no for an answer is his catch cry. Mine is ‘but
wait there’s more’.
Contact old clients, get a testimonial from them about
your service, publish a basic A-5 leaflet and letterbox
drop them yourself street by street within the 5 km
radius. Then door knock those streets the next day –
did you get our information sheet? Telemarketing can
lead to many refusals. People are less likely to hear
you out without a flat refusal before you have even
got your name out on the phone. Face to face visits
to customers work a treat. Low budget marketing is a
great start for building sales and then referral business
opportunities.
One cracker that really worked for me locally was being
invited (or getting myself invited) to address the local
Lions or Rotary monthly meeting. They are crying out
for speakers in your local area. Don’t make the
subject an obvious sell story; make it a compelling
and interesting presentation. You will be surprised
how many nice people you meet and how much referral
business can flow as a result. Next month we are going
to talk about websites for your business. Email any
questions you might have on websites to timshaw@bigpond.com
Good Selling
Tim Shaw appears on My Business - Channel 7 on Sunday
mornings. He can diagnose sales and marketing opportunities
available for your business today. Tim is available
as a keynote speaker for your next sales meeting or
conference. Visit www.timshaw.com.au or contact Tim
directly at timshaw@bigpond.com
July 2005 Peninsula Living
Your Brand
is your Business!
Happy New financial Year and thank you to those readers
for your feedback about www.mybusinesstv.com.au the
TV show in which I appear as a sales and marketing expert.
It is great being able to look at a business from the
outside in and ‘diagnose’ areas of improvement,
especially in the area of branding. This financial year
more than ever, branding is a key way to make your business
top of mind for consumers considering a purchase.
To achieve effective and consistent brand awareness
is to define exactly who you are as a business, where
you are located and why customers would buy from you.
Repetition in your message is key to this top of mind
awareness we need customers to remember.
Who you are: - Trading names are key to brand building
and business worth. Pty Ltd means nothing, so look at
your brand and consider updating it to be more relevant
to who your are as a business. Ace Pool Renovations
tells me what you do AND hopefully you are the best
at it. Think of a name that describes what you do and
how well you will do it.
Where you are located – across from the post
office, cinema or another geographic landmark or even
more importantly your website location – key
to informing your clients more about your business that
you can’t fit into a standard advertising message.
Why you are the first choice – 25 year old long
standing business, be proud of survival and growth for
so long. Your customers appreciate stable long lasting
business operators. They identify that their money is
‘safe’ with you and that you will honour
your warranty and sales obligations.
Media can be a well spent investment or a waste of
money. Try look to a year long media plan that delivers
effective promotion and sales activities like this magazine.
Also look at long term repetitive brand building for
your local business precinct. A very clever and effective
way to achieve that is cinema advertising. Audience
members in a cinema are happy to be there – they
are about to be entertained after all. They see the
movie AND they arrive early enough (around 18 minutes
before a main feature starts) to see your commercial.
So consider alerting them to your business with an effective
cinema branding campaign. Check out www.starmediagroup.com.au
They are experts at this medium and you would do well
to hear what they can do for your business.
Good Selling & Planning in 05/06
Tim Shaw appears on My Business - Channel 7 on Sunday
mornings. He can diagnose sales and marketing opportunities
available for your business today. Tim is available
as a keynote speaker for your next sales meeting or
conference. Visit www.timshaw.com.au or contact Tim
directly at timshaw@bigpond.com
My Business Tips by Tim Shaw www.timshaw.com.au
July 2007
Happy New Financial Year
Well thank goodness the new financial year has finally
rolled around. For all of you self funded retirees enjoying
the new benefits that now apply, well done, you have sure
earned the right to relax and go on a S.K.I holiday (Spend
Kid’s Inheritance).
For everyone still grinding away running your businesses
planning for your future, start thinking about making
each day, week and month count this financial year. With
all your compliance requirements, consider outsourcing
those to professionals who can in many cases ensure you
don’t incur penalties for incorrect or late lodgments.
Focus on your sales and marketing because afteral, that’s
where the cash flow will grow in your business. Everything
else including your terrific team of employees are a long
term investment in your businesses future.
If you looked back now on July 2006 sales, where did they
come from and have we revisited sales opportunities with
those customers for referral or reward. Whatever business
you are in, a quick post card thank you marketing tool
puts your brand back in the front of mind of your customers.
I tell businesses everywhere, keep it simple, a simple
‘thank you’ says more than many other initiatives
and is relatively inexpensive to do. Just sit down and
handwrite the card and pop it in the mail. You will be
surprised how many customers will react to this small
token of appreciation, maybe include a small offer for
them or their family and friends. If there is value attached
it is unlikely it will be discarded. Even get a quote
on attaching a small magnet to the card, it will end up
on the fridge and be a constant reminder of you and your
business.
How up to date is your website? Consider updating testimonials
from happy customers, changes in your product or services,
even consider a low entry point cost for a particular
product or service and if your business lets you do it,
have a special every month. This helps you to get your
customers visiting your site more often. Are there synergistic
businesses you can feature on your site and vice versa?
Increased web traffic is a great indicator of how your
marketing messages are being received by consumers. Speak
to a web specialist. Don’t know one? Ring your suppliers
and get a referral from them on who they use and have
had a great service experience with.
How up to date is your database? Consider a quick courtesy
call to your customers and get your staff to update some
information especially if you are sending out the thank
you card. Try and pick 10-20 current customers and discuss
with your team how your business can help their business
grow this year. Happy Selling 2007
.
Tim Shaw appears as the sales and marketing expert on
My Business - Channel 7 from 10am with David Koch,
Sunday mornings commencing late 2007.
He can diagnose sales and marketing opportunities available
for your business today. Tim is available as a keynote
speaker for your next sales meeting or conference. Visit
www.timshaw.com.au
or contact Tim directly at timshaw@bigpond.com
My Business Tips by Tim Shaw www.timshaw.com.au August 2007
The Climate Change in Business
There is an old story in marketing. Market according to the mood of the community and its broader (global) ability to grow your business. There is no question that over millions of years the globe has been effected by climate change (I prefer this term and don’t subscribe to the semi hysterical dialogues underway in the global warming debate) The 7 July global rock concert shone a light on awareness and the debate continues on what governments, business and people can do to protect and preserve the environments that we dearly love and have not cared for as well as we could have over the last 200 years or so.
Qantas recently announced it is buying amazing new Boeing Dream liner aircraft made of lighter materials and burning less jet fuel. Very efficient and good for the green bottom line on the companies profit and loss balance sheet when they become airborne. Rupert Murdoch, global publisher of newsprint has accepted that we should give the globe the ‘benefit of the doubt’ when it comes to climate change and has invested in some businesses with a real focus on energy saving devices and initiatives.
Even at a local level we can use energy & natural resource saving initiatives as a marketing device to attract customers to our businesses. We have seen an explosion in the water tank sales and installation businesses all over Australia. We see new solar products being developed which the customer hopes will save money in the long term on energy costs.
Imagine if you looked at your current business and made a specific plan to reduce the use of natural resources in the business. It will save you money and improve your bottom line. Or develop strategies in your product lines of how consumers can benefit at home using your products from an environmental perspective. Do you introduce a recycling program on your product packaging (similar to returning the empty chlorine container to the pool shop for a refill), or convert your pool to salt using newer low energy salt converters?
The energy, climate changing technologies are evolving yet business is sometimes slow in the take up in industry specific areas. Why not talk with your industry representatives and get on board and in touch with national or international initiatives in play.
You will be surprised how customers can be become even more supportive of your business if they know that not only do they benefit, but so does our environment. Remember it’s the only one we have got!
Happy Selling 2007
Tim Shaw appears as the sales and marketing expert on My Business - Channel 7 from 10am with David Koch, Sunday mornings commencing late 2007. He can diagnose sales and marketing opportunities available for your business today. Tim is available as a keynote speaker for your next sales meeting or conference. Visit www.timshaw.com.au or contact Tim directly at timshaw@bigpond.com.
My Business Tips by Tim Shaw www.timshaw.com.au
February 2008
Building your personal brand
Building your personal brand is a keynote speech I have just written for sales team's right around Australia . How important is a brand in business? Very. Most large companies use public relations and marketing to build awareness of their brand so that consumers can immediately identify a company and its services, merely by saying the name of the business. For example; Qantas, the spirit of Australia
The word yes became a synonymous component of the Optus brand wince 1992 and is still in use today in their marketing message. So what about you and your personal brand? In sales the first thing our customer buys is the salesperson. The individual. Each of us have our own dna and we are identifiable scientifically. Why not apply some brand dna to building sales relationships with customers and the brand you currently represent?
Personal websites have become an important means to build
a personal brand. In the fields of health and fitness,
,many professionals use a personal website
as a brand building tool to add weight to their professional
standing and a real reason why a customer would pick one
professional fitness instructor over another, especially
if that fitness instructor was an Olympian or internationally
successful triathlete.
When I built my mobile phone business on the northern beaches, well before fame on television, I used to offer myself as a guest speaker at lions and rotary breakfasts and dinner, telling (and selling) the Optus story. They identified with the company I was representing as Optus was spending heaps on advertising, but I build my brand locally as the ‘guy on the ground' who could deliver the Optus service. Crazy John Ilhan did too.
See how personal brand building gives you the edge over the other competitive sales forces out there? You will often see in the case of John Symonds, the spokesperson for Aussie Home Loans, that his personal marketing became the company marketing, that John himself said “At Aussie, we'll save you”. Same to for Gerry Harvey of Harvey Norman and Mr Ken Lee with the Bing Lee electronics business.
Local real estate agents build their brand strongly with a proposition of success from recent sales by adding their own picture and testimonials from happy customers to their company marketing and advertisements. Or in my case, 100 commercials a day on Australian TV for Demtel meant my brand of value for money TV selling and the catchcry “But Wait There's More” became part of the Australian vernacular and a sales tool for millions of salespeople around Australia. Keep it simple. Personal fridge magnets, targeted letterbox drops promoting the people behind the business brand. It will work and you will reap the rewards, maybe even becoming as famous and as well known as someone I know who writes for this magazine….. Guess who if the first three readers who get it right want to win a copy of my book, autographed as well. Email me, details below. Happy personal brand building and Selling!
Tim Shaw appears as the sales and marketing expert on Kochies Business Builders - Channel 7 from with David Koch 10am on Sunday mornings after Weekend Sunrise He can diagnose sales and marketing opportunities available for your business today. Tim is available as a keynote speaker for your next sales meeting or conference. Visit www.timshaw.com.au or contact Tim directly at timshaw@bigpond.com.
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