Future Of Small Business Report

Intuit has been hard at it, predicting the future trends and likely changes that will occur in small business over the next 10 years.

Whether it comes to fruition, or not, there is sure to be some essential food for thought in this report that could have repercussions for us all in the direction that we take our own businesses.

The report deals with the US but should track part of the way for any country. Forcasting growth in the entrepreneurial and personal business sectors, with a move away from the White Male Entrepreneur being the typical face of small business in the future, and the increase in business ventures from the fringe demographics - young starters and older people looking to fund a retirement they just can't afford, as well as the growth in female operated business, there are sure to be some interesting times ahead.

Customers Ask: "Why Don't You Know Me?"

You know when someone loves you don't you. They hang off every word and want to anticipate your every wish, and they take the time to know what you like and to offer attention in ways that they know you appreciate.

You know when someone doesn't love you too, don't you. They don't bother with the attention and don't have any interest in hearing what you want or have to say and couldn't care less what you appreciate. This is also how many businesses treat their customers.

In a recent survey:
[quote]

Financial services customers regularly receive communications for products or services that are not relevant to their needs, or even worse, communications that promote products and services they already have through that company. Consequently, 59 percent of financial services consumers who responded to the survey claim they don’t feel valued when it comes to the communication of products and services from their existing providers.

Among the key findings:

--88 percent of financial consumers claim to receive regular communications for products and services that are NOT directly relevant to them and their circumstances.

--64 percent of financial consumers claim they are more likely to stop using companies that regularly send them inaccurate or irrelevant communications material.

--65 percent of financial consumers don’t feel like they are being treated as an individual with regard to the communications they receive.

--Well over half (56 percent) of all financial consumers say they are less likely to buy from companies that send them information on products and services that are irrelevant to them.

--More than half of financial consumers (58 percent) claim to regularly receive communications selling them products and services they already have with that company.

--71 percent of financial consumers claim to regularly receive documents from the same company at the same time in different envelopes.

“People are bombarded with information, so companies must find a way to cut through the clutter by demonstrating immediate relevance to their customers,” said Chris Stone, president and CEO of StreamServe. “This requires personalized information. Companies have invested a significant amount of time and money collecting information about their customers, and with StreamServe, they finally have the ability to benefit from these efforts by putting content in context—making each piece of communication personalized to each customer’s specific needs.”

[StreamServe.]

[/quote]

But is isn't just financial service businesses that are guilty of this. Every kind of business needs to look at how they communicate with their customers to pay attention to whether they are being treated in the way that the customer wants, or not.

But wait... if you aren't communicating at all with your customers, you won't be committing this mistake! Guess what? Not communicating with them at all is probably an even BIGGER mistake! That proves just as clearly that you are not interested in them as does sending them information that clearly does not apply to them.

So how do you get to know what they want?

Well, it is a very arcane and secret procedure that must be followed.
Known only to the chosen Few!

Shall I reveal it to you, dear Reader?
Okay, just for you, and you must promise to only mention this secret to those most close to you and your business.

Ready for the secret to be revealed?

The secret is...

You Ask Them.

How, you ask? Well, that may be a topic for another blog.

Presentation Magic - Put Your Best Foot Forward

As I used to say to my son during his teenage years ... "Appearance is nothing. And you will be judged by it." That goes for us all, and not just in the way that we look, but in the way that we speak, the words we use, the 'vibe' that we give out and everything else in our communication - both verbal and non-verbal.

I had the good fortune to connect with Lisa Braithwaite today and learn some more about her business. Lisa is a regular contributer on Ryze the business online network and her specialty is assisting people in business, or any walk of life, on how to make the most of the presentations, and public speaking engagements they are called to perform.

What a boon for anyone who is working with the public, be they in sales, or just wishing to communicate generally, and deliver their message in the best and most effective way possible. Like any other skill, it is usually only when we learn to master it that we realize how poor our original efforts may have been. In some things that doesn't matter. "Having a go" is something to take pride in anyway. But when you are establishing your business and building your credibility it really is commonsense that getting help from someone who knows, is the way to go.

You can check out Lisa at her website or visit her blog and sign up for her email tips. Located in Santa Barbara California, I look forward to meeting up with her when I am back in the US.

Reduce Fuel Use

A recent article reminded us the do's and don'ts of getting the best fuel economy from a tank of petrol (gasoline). Here's the short version. You can find the full article at the link above.

Keep to the golden fuel rules

1. Keep the car in as high a gear as possible and get to the higher gears as quickly as possible.

2. Have a light touch on the throttle. For most applications 25 per cent throttle is quite adequate. Hard acceleration is the enemy of fuel economy.

3. Look ahead and read traffic conditions. Plan to maintain momentum, reducing the need for excessive braking and subsequent acceleration.

4. Monitor tyre pressures. Low pressures increase rolling resistance of tyres and use more fuel. You should keep to the manufacturer's specifications.

5. Stick to the speed limit. High speeds use more fuel.

6. Reduce mass and drag. You would be surprised how much unnecessary equipment accumulates in the boot of a car. Roof pods, racks and extended wing mirrors all minimise the efficiency of a car through the air. More weight and drag equals less economy. Remove the bits when they are not being used.

7. Avoid idling as you are wasting fuel going nowhere.

8. Keep your vehicle in shape; clean air filters keep impurities in the air from damaging the engine and can improve fuel economy.

9. Don't turn on the airconditioner as a first response to heat; even the most efficient airconditioners expend a fair bit of fuel.

10. When buying a car, consider its fuel economy.

Marketing - By Any Name

Over on Ryze.com there was a thread posted on marketing and what it was that caused business owners (the thread was directed at a woman only list, but applies to all genders), where they express interest in growing and developing their business - ie Making More Money - and yet fail to even bother to read or learn about marketing - much less do any.

Frankly I come to wonder if the nomenclature is the problem. Just like nobody thinks they need to "do a business plan" - as though there was an option for that! Well of course that is optional too. You can know what you are going to do, how you are going to do it, what you need to do it and how to get where you want to go from where you are already ("Where Am I?")...or you can do the other thing. hehehe. How funny. Like anyone would be that stoopid ;-)

Where marketing begins and where it intersects and impacts on every other area of a business is something that mystifies me some, so I just don't look at it as a separate thing. A business is a system - at least a working business - and a system is more than a collection of parts. It is a collection of parts that work together to create something that functions. Take out any vital part of a system, and it is not a functioning system any more. It is nothing. Like taking out a vital organ from a human being will cause the system to fail and the patient to suffer and eventually perish.

Word of mouth marketing? Yeah, you don't need marketing when you have that. How do you get that? Oh, well you need *this* and *this* and *this* to happen... It is the culmination of all the parts of the system working well. And behind all that is the marketing strategy, working with the financial and operational systems, the customer service systems, the internal relationships and external relationship systems and on it goes.

At the heart of it, the frustration is that what people need to learn is not marketing. It is far broader and far narrower than that. What they first need to learn is how to open their mind and their eyes and some strategies for discovering how to learn to know what they don't know.

My advice? Don't wait until 'the wheels fall off'.

Magic Pill - Marketing Myths And More

The myth that there is a Magic Pill and once taken, the need for marketing is "over" is a common one.


It is not however, the only Magic Pill myth, that seems to flourish in the minds of many small business owners. As with the Word of Mouth Myth, which goes that this is what you need and it happens somehow without all the other parts that make up a business working in concert with all the other parts.

The tragedy of these myths is that they allow people in business to hide and pretend that they are doing all that they need to do to ensure the health of their business. They do so, presumably, because there is a higher value for them in avoiding:

a What is hard
b What makes them uncomfortable
c They don't know how to do

...than the value to their business to run it like a business, and put What The Business Needs, ahead of what makes them personally feel good.

Never mind that the wellbeing of the business, will ultimately have a very big impact on what feels good in the long run, to the business owner and their family.

What intrigues me, is how often the people who work with small business owners, are complicit in allowing these myths to continue, and how reluctant to do something active to educate their clients, and help them to get a more fundamental understanding of the principles of a healthy business, in action.

For all those who work with small business owners, let me ask you this. How many other business specialist advisors have you recommended and personally taken steps to introduce to your clients who need help (whether they know it or not yet) in areas of their business that is not your core work? How many have you arranged to meet clients this week? This month? This past year?

The change we want to see, starts with us.

Your Business Through Your Customer's Eyes

It's a funny thing, that in so much discussion that goes on in businesses, how much of it is focused from the business point-of-view -- and how little attention is given to "what it looks like to a customer". As though that is of no consequence to a business!

We can market and develop our business just as we see fit. But if it doesn't resonate with our customers, and connect with those we would like to bring in to our business, in a way that satisfies what *they* want... then we are missing the point - and the opportunity.

I've seen accountants and life insurance agents and mortgage brokers and lawyers and real estate agents and more...all discussing "my client" as though they understood them - when they have no clue. That these different business people are all referring to the *same person* in identifying "their client" - and potentially NOT ONE of them has a clue as to what the customer really needs overall and in a complete context, is a sad state of affairs. When the customer relies on their advisors in the decisions they make to purchase whatever it is they need, then we let them down by not providing the understanding of the role that we could (opportunity to us) and probably should (responsibility to them and to our larger business interest) be playing.

Here's a link to a great blog The Social Customer Manifesto