Thank you to all the people who believed in me I am expanding this blog

When I started this blog a few years ago the only thing I wanted it for was a place to store my business ideas so I could use them later. I did absolutely no promotion hell I didn’t even tell my own family it existed until I got to 10,000 hits. I found out that people are really looking for the business ideas that I had in always kept to myself. It’s been a humbling experience to say the least but now going to go out and live my dream of taking these ideas which I have gotten make emails and comments about in the global world instead of just my local one. The number one request that I have gotten in an email message from the readers of this site has been this “how do I apply your ideas to my business? ” I have given limited answers but I want to give more so I have started Impact Business Consultants (website announcement soon) which will allow me to take all my time and energy and focus it on your business. So before I could send you resources I thought would be best but because I didn’t have time to research your industry, business model, or sales and marketing efforts, etc I didn’t get to involved like I do with my local clients because they are paying the bills. I really never offered you my paid services because I was used to meeting my clients in person. However with the attention this blog has gotten very overwhelming. Now over 43,000 views have hit this blog something I never even dreamed of or really focused on. I offering you the same service and some even better than I do now but their will be a cost involved and I will be taking on just a few clients and no competitors in your industry– first come only one served. If you are interested in getting more of a hands on approach where I can guarantee my results please call me immediately at 302-757-0210 or email me at tom4change@gmail.com. I am going to offer my service at a reduced rate because I am looking for the tele or web-based business referrals.

Again I Humbly thank you .You believed in me and have pushed me to believe in myself . I am eternally grateful. 

 

P.S. I’ll be posting now more often so please keep being open and honest with these ideas the success of this blog depends on it

Believing in your Dream– the Story of the new Willy’s Philly’s in Maynard Ma

 

 

Imagine working as and electrical engineer  and being successful but giving it all up to go live you passion– creating food people want. When the new owner of Willy’ Philly’s in Maynard Ma shared his story with me I was amazed. The amount of courage that he has to follow his dream when everybody around him was telling him that he was nuts is amazing in itself. As Chris tells it though After September 11 2001 the work became harder to find in his field and he looked inside and asked the question we all need to which is “What do I really love to do?”. He remembered way back to his childhood when one day after school he decide completely unsupervised to create his own food. Now at the ripe old age or 7 or 8 he could have burnt down the house or created an edible food. Lucky for myself and the people that come out to visit Willy’s Philly’s in Maynard Ma he didn’t burn the house down. He along side his girlfriend Jo decided to invest in a trailer and build a menu with clientele of what Chris figured people would like because he liked it. He was right the trailer took off to the point when the opportunity presented itself for Willy’s Philly’s in Maynard Ma a closed cheesesteak place he had a really tough decision. He was struggling with with the decision because he knew he did not want to let down his existing customers but this was a great chance to take a unique idea– Cheesesteaks and put his mark on it.

I decide to try Willy’s Philly’s months beforehand to go and try and prove them wrong. As my reader now I’m from Philadelphia I know Philly Cheesesteaks (Pat, Gino’s Jim’s, Tony Luke’s, or Delasandros). And being from Philly you have this attitude that says Philly only does cheesesteaks right nobody else will get it. The original owner went to Philly and taste all the steaks and created the blend of all and I got to say I he created a damn good Philly steak. I noticed they had closed a few months back right after being featured on the Phantom Gourmet and then I really stated craving one. So when they opened back up I was so glad. A few friends of mine went over from work and it was great. Chris and Jo the new owners were so happy to see us like they known us forever (like Cheers’) and it was a great family feeling. Over the last few weeks and testing on new things on the menu we have developed a friendship and when I heard the story I knew my readers would appreciate it because I’m sure many of you have had to make similar choices to follow your heart and open your businesses. So get out there and tell you story its something to be proud of!!!

the Next big thing in business — Advertising revolution

Marketing and advertising is going thru the biggest changes right now you just don’t see it yet.  Within every failure there is a greater opportunity that rises from the ashes. Right now there many failures that are happening as our world transitions from a physical world into a purely virtual one. we have literally destroyed the value of many of the products that we used to own are now a completely invisible medium. your going from a world where you used to touch and feel things in order to understand their value to a world that is going to completely become dependent on how companies communicate to us why and how things will be valuable. Think about that because it is by far the most mind blowing thing I have  ever written in this blog. You used to judge the value of things by their physical medium and look at this list of the things where  you used to literally “judge a book by its cover” but can’t anymore, CD’s books, newspapers, balancing your checkbook, faxes, hand written letters, waiting AT HOME for a phone call or walking through a shopping mall. Now how are you going to judge the value of things because you are not personally invested? The less involved and invested you are the more dependent you become on the world around you to show you what the value of things are. You want proof –the housing crisis. This is crazy but the whole entire thing was predicated upon changing your belief of what your house was actually worth. Up until that point the value of your home was based on what you could afford with your paycheck but at some point we stopped believing in living in our housing and value of  a lifetime of memories it become a tool of which we could just make incredible money fast. All of the sudden we went around and started looking at looking at how much money we could be making and here is the key we somehow bought into the belief that housing prices were going to continue to accelerate like an Ebay auction. The whole time our income never double but our cost of our houses did and we believed that somehow we were going to be able to afford it. We trusted  what everybody around us was doing and saying we stopped trusting ourselves and what we could afford. So we learned our lesson hopefully but it still brought to the surface a much bigger truth that our lives are going to become more and more or new ways of perceiving value. True value is built on trust and since we learned a huge lesson in who we can’t trust the opportunity  NOW is in learning who we can. The new business model will be based on TRUST since being able to touch is no longer the medium we can judge products on. FOCUS on building TRUST in your communication. Thats why Apple has Microsoft scared. APPLE is based on one thing TRUST of the customer by delivering products that do one thing they ALWAYS work better then you expect.

Getting customers to act on what you say… NOW!!!!

What is the one thing that all people have in common in communication?   Often times we NEVER think of HOW we want to say something we only think of WHAT we want to say. However as business owners we are all in competition for what we want to say to our customers. We all want to say that we have the best service, lowest prices, best quality, or fastest delivery. However everybody says those things but very few deliver and when others don’t deliver it loses it’s magic. Sure you have never tried to use power words just to get a potential clients attention however others have and it cheapen the value of what you are trying to deliver on. One of the things that I like to say is that “you don’t need a degree to start a business”. When I say that to my own clients they know that there are thousands of people that are are trying to make a buck no matter what the cost or implications to your market share. These people are no where near the high caliber of  business owners that you are. You have to realize that in the end you may end up getting the customer after they have ruined their chances( you know those horror stories customers tell about the last guy I went to). HOWEVER they have done major damage in your customers willingness or desire to believe the words that you say because of their actions.

So you have to find more ingeneous ways to communicate your potential and true value to them in ways that those bottom feeders would never be able to understand. don’t try and use the same devalued words find ways to put yourself at a higher level

Let me give you so monumental examples of business that have used this

Fastest Delivery— 30 minutes or your pizza is free {domino’s}

Storage on a MP3— 1000 songs in your pocket–{Apple}

Convenience-We do it just a little bit better WAWA–{Wawa}

The best way to get a cash flow going during the unstable economy

Change your focus now from income to flow. It is extremely rare for anybody to make money in this economy but to stay afloat you need cash flow. So offer a one shot deal where you sell a popular item at only 10% above cost. Do it for 48 hours this weekend. Call all your long term customers and tell them about it. Stress that it is a one shot deal because of the economy and the you would and will never offer it again. Select Comfort did this the past weekend with a 50% off sale. Now I used to work at a “Sleep Number Store” as they never gave anything close to 50% off but they did this weekend and knowing them they marketed this to all customers . All of them know how great a deal it is even though December is a weak month for them. Why?Nobody would buy a bed is December it not a gift purchase but this year with price under a grand instead of 2k I bet people did. I also know what the cost is and that is chopping out a huge amount of profit. However once you own this bed you can’t go back they have the lowest in the industry by a long shot. So long as people keep loving that bed they bed riding out of this impossible economy safely

Imagine customer loyalty like this

Did you know that every 4 out of 5 Apple customers that own one Apple computer will ONLY buy an apple as their next? As I wrote in about yesterdays post–It what you do after the customer owns your product that makes the most difference. Apple does EVERYTHING I mean EVERYTHING right after the sale. They love your problems so much  that the center focus in EVERY store is the genius bar. They have monitor devoted to the next appoint that everybody that is shopping sees. There is no other store that I have EVER been in that doesn’t do whatever it can to separate out its complaints FROM the people wanting to buy stuff. The reasoning is simple they don’t want to run the risk of ones persons negative emotions creating doubt in the mind of a shopper that wants to give them money. So talk about doing things from the customer point of view. Answer one question please!!! WHY IN THE WORLD WOULD YOU EVER PUT ALL THE CHALLENGES AT THE CENTER OF EVERYBODYS ATTENTION — SO THAT IF YOU SCREWED UP OR DIDN’T GIVE A CUSTOMER WHAT THEY EXPECTED ABSOLUTELY EVERYBODY IN THE WHOLE STORE WOULD KNOW ABOUT IT? This move in any other business would be suicide.

 

So here is the real question– “How in the world do they  do it?” Those people that are at that genius bar are being treated better then everybody else in that store.

THIS IS EXACTLY HOW YOU BUILD MASSIVE CUSTOMER LOYALTY–FOCUS ON WHAT HAPPENS after THE CUSTOMER OWNS YOUR PRODUCTS. You can do these same exact methods to build your business. Just write me and I will show you how. 

Its like apple went to a Lamborghini dealership and modeled how to treat your customers after that. If you have ever been to the genius bar you know what I mean. It the place where people tend to hang out. If you ask me its not a genius bar because of the people behind it. NOPE (even though they are amazing) Rather it is the people in front of it. WHAT ARE YOU NUTS Tom? NOPE. By far the best and greatest tool they have to build loyalty they never use– customers issues. True Customer Loyalty is built on how you treat your FAILURES not your successes.

5 steps to the BEST customer service EVER!!!

Do these SIMPLE things and customers will rave about your business to their friends.1. DON’T make them wait AT ALL — people that already own your product take precedence over everything because they have the most to gain from your expertise in solving their problem and you have the most to lose if they aren’t happy(that sale, customer and risk anybody they talk to about it). When you are agitated already WAITING just makes it worse.2. Understand how they are feeling because of this complaint. Identify then empathize with how they are feeling now. NEVER EVER act , say or think that it is their fault(unless you really want to lose a customer without any chance EVER of getting them back and a badly bruised reputation too). Remember the more they feel YOU APPRECIATE what they are going through the more willing they will be toward letting you solve their problem3. Your goal is to build the trust that has been destroy as quickly and STRONGLY as possible. You want them to feel GLAD for having this complaint because it make them a better more informed customer of yours. You want the customer to see you as a friend that is trying to help you instead of connected to the product they are having an issue with. Here’s a simple way to build trust — be humble enough to take the blame (whether your wrong or not) while giving the customer all the credit for all the right decisions. People trust those who allow themselves to be willing to take on fault and don’t to those who always act like it’s never their fault but yours. The next part is your can never genuinely build peoples worth in themselves without them inherently trusting you. In both cases your putting the customers first and yourself second which is rule#1 for earning trust in any area of business.4.Separate out their emotions and the actual challenge that you are both facing. Should be mostly done if you did the last two steps correctly. Ask them specifically what the problem is. Ask if its okay if so your both clear if you can repeat your understanding of it back to them. It’s unbelievable how many complaints remain unresolved just because of mis-communication. Remember if the customer feels like you don’t understand they can’t and won’t let you resolve their issue(s). 5. Solve the problem to the customers expectation not yours. Give them something above and beyond they don’t expect for their inconvenience. Call them to make sure that they have made the right decision. A week afterwards send them a gift certificate or exclusive coupon for them to use the next time they make a purchase. The most important thing is to give them a great reason for them to comeback into your store so that they can remember again why it is that they love doing business with you. If you have the ability to go out of your way to make them feel special when they make that next trip in.  

Promotional Tip#1 — How use your top seller to get a new product the attention it DESERVES

I just was trying to help a small business owner market a brand new product so people would try it. Now this a product that once they try it once they can decide from there but we thought they would like it. So what I suggested was simple– launch the new product but to take away some of the risk tell the customer that you’ll discount the top seller if they try it. I am going to add here that over 50% of all the customers purchased the top product so the people would be purchasing the top product regardless. This way if they were willing to try something new they could have it at a lower price.

In this case it worked with great success because once people tried the new product they loved it almost as much as the old one. The idea was to generate interest to see if the customer would like it as much as we thought they would or not. The key here is that we were able to speed up the feedback by discounting the favorite product. Now they have two top sellers that don’t compete with each other directly but actually complement each other so now customers come in an ask for BOTH products.

It’s like getting 2 sales for the price of 1.

Five guys Burgers–Audacity to increase desire

One of the greatest things about 5 Guys burgers is how in your face upfront they are. First the burgers are made literally right in front of you (imagine if your auto mechanic did that–let you watch what he was doing). Then as your waiting for your order they have at perfect eye level every review of their burgers for all over the US. What that says to me is our burgers are great PERIOD.  Remember I haven’t taken a bite yet but I saying how confident is that–how do they know if I’LL like it? I was ALMOST waiting to prove them wrong because of how OVER the top they are saying they are. I just love the concept –we are so sure you’ll like it that we are willing to show you what others are saying. By the way it’s not one magazine this display covers the whole eating area. The nice part is after you bite into one and you look along those walls  and then you realize how ABSOLUTELY right they all were.

So where are your ideal customers AT NOW?

I was one the phone with a client of mine who just started a part time computer company called All Access. I’m helping him set up the structure of the business (registration, accounting you now all the stuff the customer never sees you do). He asked me if the next time we meet that if I wouldn’t mind taking a few cards. So if there was somebody having trouble with their home computer if I wouldn’t mind give them one. I said absolutely I would because I have other clients that could use his service.

Then I asked a very important question.

How do the majority of your customers find out about you now?

“I ask my satisfied customers to do what I just ask you to Tom” was his reply. Now that is an excellent, simple and free idea many business owners don’t think of. I then asked his this

Where are you customers going now or thinking about going to solve the problem you solve for your customers?“A computer store where they bought it” Then go to a computer store that doesn’t do service(conflict of interest if they did) and start talking to sales people that who be helping out their customers if they offered your service and work out a dollars for referrals deal. They are making more money (additional sales from add on product AND your referral money) You a gain a prime customer that is looking to solve a problem and got your name from a trusted source.

SO what related market that your customers already use that you and them could benefit from a relationship to you ? Go there

How to get your best customers to shop more during the holiday season!!!

Hold a sale for a specific item at your store at a rock bottom(maybe below cost) price for one hour. Then two hours later do the same thing with a completely different item.  Call and send a postcard to all your customers two weeks in advance. Make it a party day —create positive energy(free food, balloons, pens with your name on it). You get the idea just go all out. Hold a raffle for something one another hour. The idea is to create a specific reason for customers to come in. You know that once they are in they will buy more don’t you? The hour creates URGENCY– if they want it at that price they have to come then. By the way a store full of customers creates interest among others who just want to know whats going on in there. People that never planned on coming in will stop by just to see why the heck everybody is there (it’s like the gaper delay in traffic but with much more positive results). The specific item (hopefully a Bestseller already) creates desire.

That my friends in what you need to make ANY sale EVER — DESIRE as well as URGENCY .

Do it during a slow time to pick up momentum or during a busy time to create utter chaos(just be prepared). You want to to paint the picture in the customers head when doing the phone call and postcard that if they don’t show up they will be missing out on a once in this Holiday shopping season buy of a lifetime. Tell me how it goes or write me for further implementation ideas.

Leaving the lights–ON when you are closed

Okay so may not all the lights but the one that make you money. Does your business sit in a road? Do you have a sign for your business? I know two REALLY stupid questions right. Have you ever thought about all the people that drive by when your closed? Yet a lot of businesses turn off there sign when they close at night. It maybe saving energy but at what cost is it doing so. I say get a really bright sign that grabs peoples attention at night so they are forced to say “whats that?” Best buy is so much easier to find at night than during the day did you ever notice that? It’s that bright Yellow that grabs your eye.  One of the best things I think for a business is to get a removable letter sign that has your company on top and put a random quote on the bottom(people love short GOOD quotes that are funny–they remember you). Look at your traffic patterns at night on different days to decide which times will have the most bang for your buck.

EVEN better put your website or an 800-number on your sign then track the hits. Ask EVERYBODY how they found out about you –I mean EVERYBODY –the results about how nighttime signage drawing attention may surprise you.

Are you sending the right messages with how you dress?

This is a topic that isn’t discussed enough when talking about presentation of how you come across to your customers. The first clues people notice usually in any situation is usually the physical ones.  What people notice about you pretty much tells them all they need to know before you open your mouth. Now the easy ones are proper dress, hygiene, and stance-confident or not. Then there are the less obvious ones which I want to discuss just one of today.

Color!!!!! Colors dominate our sight driven world and we make decisions so fast with colors we don’t even realize it. We all know that in today world we have thousands of more stimuli coming at as then we have the ability to focus on. So how do we deduct out what not to focus on? COLORS are first because our sight is our top sense we use.  Every company on the planet at some level uses color or lack there of to get attention from people. Now most people focus on what the most appealing colors are in any given situation–basic manipulation in customers stimuli response. We make thousands of judgements on what each color represent to make the right decisions in all parts of our lives.

However have you looked at colors close enough to see the message you are sending because they are not all created equal? Ask yourself “How do I want customers to feel in my presence ?” The reason I bring this up is I saw a major retailer make A HUGE color mistake. What is the worst color you can display if you want people to feel comfortable around you? If you guessed ALL BLACK (from head to toe) you are RIGHT. black is a great color to contrast off of with another more vibrant color but never solely by itself. When I saw this I said to myself “what are they having their own funeral ?” When you find out who they just may be. I then found out that solid BLACK is the required dress code for all employees which is not only stupid it is crazy. Here’s why the two hardest colors to notice by themselves in the color spectrum is the ones at the ended BLACK and WHITE. The are the first you use to block things out because they are what I call the NON colors. This is why USA today is a major paper you notice it first in a newspaper rack it is the only one the USES color to its advantage. But anyway their reasoning behind this was good in theory but DUMB in the real world. The company colors are RED , WHITE and BLACK and they are trying to give you a unified message. Their commercials are primarily white –Good. The store displays are RED and White–again Good. I’m being so harsh because NOBODY would ever do this–Name me one place you have shopped where the dress code is universally is all black? Nowhere right?  Nowhere except MACYS department stores. So it’ll probably be pretty hard to find an employee to help you out this holiday season because you going to have to start looking for something you normally block out

whats the most important day in your customers lives?

The day that they were born every single year!!!! More business is done on peoples birthdays because people feel special on that day(even though they may not admit it) I know several companies that send out gift certificates to be used on peoples birthdays that make a killin. The question is –are you giving your customers the oppportunity to do business with you on their special day. They almost always come back for a repeat purchase or refer somebody etc.

Does your neighbor 4 houses down know what business you own?

Small business owners are always looking for that great idea that will make their marketing and advertising bring more customers to them. Start with yourself and work your way out instead of advertising in some magazine or newspaper and guessing if it will work.

<>When I started in retail sales and management years ago I started with the easiest and least inexpensive way to grow your sales. I went around to all the stores and I introduced myself and told the employees where I worked. Then afterwards if I walked by their store on the way to lunch I always waved saying hi.Now I was doing this at first for many different reasons and creation of sales WASN’T even a goal. It was primarily for safety reasons “I keep an eye on your store if you do the same”–etc.

<>However I noticed that over 20% of the people I talked to never even realized that my type of store was even in the mall they had been working in. Many others came down to buy from me specifically just because I was thoughtful enough to reach out to them. I created SEVERAL employee and family appreciation events that grew my businesses over 10-15 % in profits just by this one activity. How these people gave me great refferals without having to ever ask for one is a whole other topic.

So if you can find time to take a walk through your neighborhood and knock on doors and introduce yourself and your business. If your can’t get another family member to. Don’t try and sell them just introduce yourself and get to know them. Just how they will help you out by returning the favor of you being a good neighbor will make the walk(s) worthwhile. Just watch sooner or later they will come though your businesses front door when they are ready for what you have to offer. They will choose you just because people naturally want to do business with people they know and like.Your neighbor would LOVE to support the local businesses and once you tell them that you own it they will start coming in.

The line” if you build it they will come” from Field of Dreams is absolutely true here. The “it” is the relationship with your neighbors