Reduce your working week

Do you want to reduce your working week?

Or do you want to simply want free up more time 'to work on the business.'

If you are time pressured at the moment, I want to give you one way of lifting some of the pressure that you might be under.

The only condition is, you have to be prepared to change something yourself to free up some time. 

The trick is leverage; how do I leverage myself how can I automate, how can I get other people to do my work? People that might work for you that you employ or independent contractors that work for you.

Concentrate your efforts on where you add the most value, outsource or train other people to complete the tasks that are low value which are stopping you doing the work where you make the most profit or value added to your business or organisation.


Take Care

Regards Mark

Integrated Marketing  Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved

Get More Comments On Your Blog

I've been scratching my head on this one for a few weeks.

At the time of writing this post, I've had very few comments on my blog. I am not complaining, but sometimes its worth airing your problems, to explain what not to do, as well as what you might do. 

So on the basis that someone is going to comment on this, here is one stupid observation and some ideas.

My stupid mistake was not having a visible comment box (idiot). Now I've fixed that I might stand half a chance!! 

Here are some other ideas.

1. When someone makes a comment answer when you can

2. Ask for readers opinions and ideas

3. Offer something in return reciprocity

4. Every comment is a good comment, don't put people down

5. Thank people for their comments

6. Ask people for their examples of similar experiences

7. A bit of self-deprecation - like me pointing out, I made a basic error with the lack of a comment box

8. Have a rating system for your content (I am working on that one)

9. Regular interesting posts (Yes you can comment on that)

10.Moderate comments quickly

11. Ask for help

Tell you what................... why don't you add some of your own ideas to this list? Can you help me build a bigger list??

All comments welcome!!!  

Take Care,

Regards

Mark

Integrated Marketing  Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved

Do you have a referral system?

Apart from networking organisations that you may belong to like BNI? Do you have any other referral systems? Or do all your referrals come from word of mouth?


If you had four solid referral systems working in your business, what might happen to your sales? 10% -15% increases are easily possible.


Systems that allowed you to ask for referrals without feeling awkward that encouraged the giver of referrals to easily come up with them.


Sounds  great doesn't it. There is however  a problem why many companies and practices don't get any referral systems operating. 

Its not that they are not bought into the subject, there are a few reasons why referral systems don't get developed or they simply fail.


Many of the reasons are found in my implementation posts that I wrote some time ago.


The word is 'system' many companies simply don't create them properly, they don't test it, they don't train their people and they give up too soon.


Let me give you something from some training I provide on networking strategically.


Almost every small to medium sized businesses that I come into contact with, attend lots of different networking events in search of referrals. Have you ever sat back and asked yourself questions like these?


What do I really want to achieve from attending these networking events?


How does it fit into my marketing strategy and business plan?


What am I going to do before during and after the event to achieve my goals?

Who should I try to talk with?

How can I get to speak to these people?

How much time have I got for this?

What pitfalls should I avoid?

How am I going to get people to deal with me?

How can they help me?

How can I help them? (To motivate them to help me).

What kind of follow up system do I need to build the relationship? 


The purpose of asking these questions is to have a purpose to your networking, to develop a strategy that will tie into your overall business goals.


There are over 65 different referral strategies in our results driven marketing system.


Here are some things you can do; promotions cards, coupons certificates gifts or discounts, make referrals a condition of business.

Here's one I got from MTV and Virgin in Time Square. A simple coupon was presented to me in MTV offering a discount redeemable in the Virgin shop, how simple is that.


For my readers in the UK, in the East Midlands there is a training grant available which could be used to develop and implement two referral systems in your business. It maybe available in other areas as well, I would have to look into that.


For any of my overseas readers, happy to discuss creating referral systems for your business or practice as well. It can all be done via the telephone and the internet.  


Take Care


Regards


Mark

Integrated Marketing  Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved

Add more value to your offer, don't get beaten up on price

If you are up against it on price, try to think of ways of making your product or service different.

Differentiation is relatively easy with services, but with products its more expensive. You can of course improve the services that surround a product to differentiate it. Examples could be; a longer warranty, faster service back up, a replacement product and so on.

This week one of my clients added two processes to their service offering that were not anymore expensive to deliver and they closed an order, 30% higher than their competitors, who were not offering the same level of service, provided by my client. 

People will pay more if they can see the value. 


When your offering is difficult to compare to your competition, your product/service will be less of a commodity, making price pressure easier to deal with.


Let me give you a practical example; years ago I owned a concrete company, now that's a commodity business! We were one of the the first companies to offer  2 metre capacity trucks. We did not charge surcharges for small loads like the bigger operators and our trucks could access areas where the big trucks could not go.


It was a nice little business that we sold to Tarmac in the late 1990's.


Within our Results Driven Marketing coaching system we have 31 different strategies to defend price.


The question to consider is; where can you be different?


Take Care


Regards


Mark 

Integrated Marketing  Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved

Your Business Model

I was at a meeting today discussing a new business opportunity and discussed different aspects of the business model that was being proposed for a start up.

A key point was that two elements must exist for me to get involved. 


In fact these two points are important to any would be business owner or existing one for that matter. Regular repeat sales and the ability to scale the business up easily.


A final point was that the business would need to be attractive to purchasers in the future. The objective being build it and sell it.


Do these points exist  in your business model? If not what can you do about it?


A short post today check out tomorrows.


All comments welcome, what do you think are the important aspects of a business model?


Take Care


Regards


Mark 


Integrated Marketing  Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved