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For those looking for insights tips and easy to implement information on how to make your business more profitable, take a look at B2B group buying SME Discounts’ new and improved small business blog.

They are featuring excellent articles on how to improve you business, reduce costs and even feature some great discount deals on business products and services.

Click on the link for more information on what group buying is and it works.

For any business to succeed, you’ll need to do a certain amount of promotional work. Whilst you can sit back and wait for word of mouth and natural footfall to increase your business activity, actively using promotion to attract customers is vital if you want to grow your company to the best that it can be. Though you may expect this is entail large and very expensive marketing and advertising campaigns, this is far from the truth, and you can actually do a lot of promotion very cheaply.

A great way of doing promotion which is affordable, and sometimes even free, is to utilise the internet. In the modern digital age it is vital that any business has a website at the very minimum, allowing customers to easily find you. You can use online classified ads, with certain places offering free services for you to take advantage of. Meanwhile, taking the time and effort to participate in forums relevant to your business can be very beneficial. However, do not simply drop into forums, write an advertising post and then leave. Take some time to actively engage with people in the community, and you’ll find that you start to see web traffic in particular rise.

In addition to your website, try starting up a blog, writing content, creating social network profiles and using search engine optimisation (SEO) to create more of a web presence. Even if your company in no way offers products which can be sold over the internet, a web presence is vital to ensure that the millions of people working online every day have the ability to find your company.

Promotional merchandise is also a very good way of creating a buzz about your firm, but you need to ensure that you do it correctly. If you’re giving freebies away, make sure that they’re branded with your company logo and that they are specific to your company. Branded USB devices make fantastic gifts and free items for customers as, not only can you have them manufactured or branded so that they are unique to your firm, but you can also include some marketing files and images on the data stick. This allows you to provide a neat package of company information rather than multiple pieces of paper and marketing. In addition, with many people finding USB’s extremely useful, you are able to offer a product which can be used in daily life and will keep your brand in constant sight.

Presentations and press releases are also a great and fairly cheap way of promoting your business. You can combine the two so that you inform local newspapers, magazines and interest groups of new products and presentations within the very press releases themselves. Many people fear public speaking but it is the perfect way to meet members of the community and show your business in a positive light. And by combining a presentation with a range of free gifts and an online presence, you can promote your business without running up high costs.

The old saying: “It’s not what you know, but who you know” – this still rings true even in today’s high-tech society. Through the years I’ve come to realise that it’s still the face to face connections made with people that really accelerate a business to success.

Thinking that you can sit in your office and build a business is completely wrong. You have to get out and speak to people: network, call them, meet them, and build relationships with them.

The problem with this is that most people use technology as an excuse to hide their fear of speaking to people. They hide behind “I’ll email them”, instead of picking up the phone and arranging a meeting.

Stop procrastinating! Move into the circles you want to be in by speaking to people already in those circles! Go to their events, call them and meet up!

There is no quicker and better way to build a business than speaking to people: mentors, clients, competitors, everyone!

Over the last 10 years, I’ve personally started 16 businesses of which 4 were massively successful and the rest just quitely died a slow and silent death (fortunately…). Over the last 2 weeks I asked myself the following question:

• What made the 4 successful businesses successful and the other 12 not successful?

After long hours of analysis I came to the conclusion that the single most important differentiating aspect was CLARITY!

In the 4 successful businesses I KNEW EXACTLY:

• Who the Target Market was
• What the Market Need was
• That people were already Buying alternative services and products to try and meet their need, AND
• How I can serve that Market Need BETTER.

Simple and straightforward.

The problem with starting and building a business is that you fall in love with it!

It’s like having a child for the first time: to every mom and dad their child is the most beautiful, clever, cute, addorable little thing – NO MATTER WHAT he or she does!

The same tends to happen in business – you pursue an idea because YOU like it, not necessarily because the MARKET LIKES it… and therein lays the biggest risk of them all!

The only effective way to mitigate this risk is to TEST your idea or business in the REAL MARKET before you invest significant amount of time and money!

Print Marketing (flyers, brochures, postcards and inserts) remain some of the most effective ways of successful direct marketing. But we’ve noticed that most of our clients make classic mistakes when it comes to their Print materials resulting in low conversion rates and return on investment.

Leopard Print from PrintExperts.org has put together a brilliant tipsbooklet to help you navigate the field of Print Marketing.

Go to www.printexperts.org and register on the right-handside for your FREE copy of “21 Print Marketing Secrets to Get more Customers“!

The reason why most businesses struggle to get off the ground is a lack of clarity.

Entrepreneurs and Business Owners usually have a “gut feeling” about what they want to do and how their product or service will work and succeed, but the problem lies in the communication thereof!

If your target audience and customer do not understand what it is that you can do for them, they will not use your services!

Most business owners can’t really formulate their USP (unique selling point).

As an exercise: explain how your business benefits the customer in one single sentence! It has to be so easy to understand, that your 80 year-old grandma can explain it to one of her friends!

Your most important Partners in Starting a Business are your Accountant, Lawyer, and Mentor.

Rule of thumb:
Make sure they act as partners to your success rather than advisors, and they should be accountable for the advice they give (either in their fees or liability).
 
Ask for referrals from your business contacts that actually USE the specific advisors that they are recommending! 

A printing machine won’t make good coffee. And a coffee machine won’t print. And you won’t expect them to!

So why do you expect your employees to Perform at their Peak on tasks that they are not good at?
Do you know what your staff are good at?

Take 2 mins and ask yourself the following questions:

• Is your sales force spending hours doing admin?
• Is your accountant answering customer calls?
• Is your director booking events?

Do a quick employee survey. Dissatisfaction will highlight issues where you need to help employees FOCUS on their key strengths.

Starting a business is ALL about PEOPLE! Just not necessarily the people you are thinking of…

Ever heard the old saying:

It’s not what you know, but who you know!

Well this still rings true today. If you want to Start or Grow your business you need to get, create and build a big NETWORK! A network of CLIENTS, PARTNERS, SUPPLIERS and ADVISORS.

Here’s how:

• Google, pick and join:
  • Your industry associations, and
  • Customer networks
• Phone these networks and ask for help on.
  • Market size
  • Industry trends, and
  • How the association / club / network can help you.
• Go to as many events as possible, and ask to be introduced.