Ten Commandments of Pricing

April 4, 2012


Pricing a product or service is one of the most complicated yet important decisions that can determine the fate of your business. Most small business owners tend to price their products and services lower than the customers are willing to pay for out of the fear that increasing the price will make customers flee. However, it is possible to increase your price, and have customers love you for it. It is not only desirable, but imperative that small business owners understand how to properly price their products. After all, it is much more fun to compete on value rather than price Look at how Apple is able to charge premium for all its products
Based on our own experience and feedback from our readers we have compiled a set of rules that will help you in pricing your products. Here they are:
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Filed Under: Customers, Sales, Strategy Tagged With: , , , ,

Creative Perks that Keep Employees Motivated

March 4, 2012


For many employees, the lines between work and their personal lives are blurring. They’re seeking balance between the two, and are finding value in the ability to choose the specific benefits that best meet their needs at this point in their lives. And employers are learning that, when chosen and implemented effectively, benefits can demonstrate leadership’s concern for the well-being of employees, reinforce cultural values, and foster deeper employee engagement.
According to James Berkeley, Director of Berkeley Burke International, however, there’s still a disconnect. “The decisions made regarding what benefits to offer are often based on subjective viewpoints, viewpoints that are far removed from the actual needs of employees.” Rather than assuming you know what your employees want, Berkeley suggests you ask them. Though answers will vary, many people are interested in more benefits in these areas:
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Filed Under: Employees, Management Tagged With: ,

Social Media Best Practices for Small Business Owners

February 28, 2012


For many small business owners getting on the bandwagon of social media is a novel and scary experience. They recognize that they cannot avoid it because that’s where their current and potential customers are. But at the same time they are scared due to lack of knowledge and experience. We showed 3-step approach to overcome social media fears in the earlier post. In this post we will show how you can get the most out of social media by following the best practices.
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Filed Under: Customers, Marketing, Technology Tagged With: , , , ,

How to Make Daily Deals Work for your Business

February 14, 2012


Daily deals facilitated by companies like Groupon and Living Social are double-edged swords for businesses. On one hand, they help you get new customers and improve sales. On the other hand, you end up with high operating expenses and dissatisfied customers, if not done right. Reading the horror stories that some businesses experienced you might think that it is never a good idea to work with daily deal companies. While this reaction is understandable, it may be extreme and may result in you losing out on the benefits offered by daily deals. We think with the right approach and proper planning you can make daily deals work for your business. Below we provide tips on how to do it.
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Filed Under: Customers, Finance, Marketing, Sales Tagged With: , , ,

How can you Succeed in Business by Failing

February 7, 2012

In the previous post we discussed why failing is so important for all businesses. If you haven’t failed, you haven’t tried hard enough. And if you haven’t tried hard enough, you have lost the battle even before it has begun! In this sense, failure is closely tied to risk-taking. Only those who are willing to take risks are going to possibly fail. But then only those stand any chance of becoming successful.
Not all failures are created equal. There are some who will never recover from their first ever failure. And there are others, like Thomas Edison, who can fail 10,000 times but come up with life-changing innovation at the end. So, is it possible to approach risk-taking to improve your odds of success at the end? We think the answer is YES as shown in the following bullets.
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Filed Under: Buyers, Management Tagged With: ,

How can you Send Consistent Message to your Customers

December 14, 2011


In earlier post we showed how sending inconsistent messages to customers through your actions can harm small business owners greatly. Many small business owners don’t pay attention to how customers perceive their business as a result of actions they take and end up confusing the customer who keeps wondering what your business stands really stands for. Is it low price vendor like Wal-Mart or high quality, easy-to-user products like Apple?
To provide consistent message to your customers all departments within your business have to work in harmony like well-oiled machine. The departments you have to pay particular attention to are customer service and marketing. The list below gives specific actions you can take to achieve this:
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Filed Under: Customers, Employees, Marketing Tagged With: ,

Are you sending consistent messages to your customers?

December 7, 2011


Sending inconsistent signals to customers through your actions can harm your business greatly. After your customers do business with you for some time they expect to receive certain “treatment” from your business. They will probably forgive you for a slip-up once or twice, but they will not accept it beyond that. Three strikes and you will be out!!! So what do we mean by sending inconsistent messages to the customers? Let me give you an example:
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Filed Under: Customers, Management, Operations Tagged With:

Not All Customers are Equal – Which ones are Right for your Business?

December 3, 2011


As mentioned in the earlier post it is crucial to pay attention to the types of customers your business wants to attract. Most small business owners do not pay sufficient attention to this subject and end up leaving money on the table or not making money at all, as a result. That is why it is important to not try to sell everything to everyone and instead think about what types of customers are the right fit for your business.
But how do you go about finding the “right” customers? We think this should be a two-step process. First you should think introspectively about your business and then identify what types of customers will be attracted by the value offered by your business. We explained these steps in detail below.
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Filed Under: Customers, Management, Marketing Tagged With:

Tips for Setting Up Merchant Account to Accept Credit Cards

November 27, 2011


This blog post is written by Shannon Martin.
Most small businesses are overpaying for credit card processing. In our conversations with number of small business owners we have not come across a single owner who does not hate credit card processing companies for the exorbitant amount of money they charge. That is why it is important to do your homework before you sign up with the merchant processing company. In this post we provide useful tips you should keep in mind when talking to credit card service providers.
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Filed Under: Finance Tagged With: , ,

How can you Beat the Larger Rivals at their Own Game

November 16, 2011


In the previous post we mentioned that it is possible to beat your larger competitors and own a successful small business. Many small business owners are scared of their large competitors because of their wrongful perception that large companies can use their size and vast resources to drive smaller rivals out of business.
We described why this is not true in the last post. Here we will take it one step further and show how you can beat those larger rivals.
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Filed Under: Customers, Management, Sales Tagged With: ,