Grow Your Business in 90 Days or Less by Kimberly Brewer - HTML preview

SECTION 3: IT’S IN YOUR HANDS…MAKE THE LEAP

Chapter 6: Fast Start to Growing Your Business in 90 Days or Less

Barbara Corcoran celebrity Shark Tank entrepreneur has been quoted as saying, “I hate business owners with beautiful business plans.” It’s not because Barbara loathes business planning, but she believes in the value of inventing as you go. While I lean more towards strategic direction, I am a proponent of eliminating over-analysis. When I started my business, I had a concept and then sprang into action. After several months, hundreds of clients acquired and several thousand dollars later, I put a marketing plan into place.

Start with a good marketing plan.

A marketing plan takes a look at the marketplace and provides a road map to acquiring customers and growing your business. There are seven essential components to a marketing plan.

Market Research – Market research serves as the foundation to any marketing plan. Luckily, access to research is everywhere. Clearly, the Internet serves as a valuable resource to find necessary information about your industry. When conducting market research, you should look for information that identifies your customer’s buying habits: how they buy, when they buy, how they select a vendor, and whether they purchase online, through a catalog or primarily a brick-and-mortar establishment. The aforementioned are all valuable questions to answer through market research.

Next, identify the size of your market. This helps to identify the potential for competitive entry and the space in the market. Finally, the market research section should identify market growth or decline as well as specific trends.

Target Market – A well-defined target market is critical to the success of any business. The target market describes your likely buyers. In addition to this well-crafted description, you should aim to discuss 2–3 levels of segmentation.

Positioning – Positioning represents the perception of your brand within the marketplace and what you have intended your brand to be. If you own a chicken restaurant intended to be a healthier option, but the marketplace believes your restaurant only sells fried chicken, this is your positioning.

Competitive Analysis – It is critical to understand your competitors and how your products and services are different. What is the price point at which your competitors are selling, and what segment of the market are they aiming to reach? Knowing the ins and outs of your competitors will help you better position your business and stand out from the competition.

Market Strategy – The most tactical part of the marketing plan! This refers to the day-to-day tasks that will drive growth. As the road map to achieving your sales goals, the market strategy answers the question, “How will I find and attract buyers most likely to purchase my products and services?” It should look at the entire marketplace and then break down specific tactics including events, direct mail, email, social media, content strategy, street teams, couponing, webinars, seminars, partnerships, and other activities that will help you gain access to customers.

Budget – Create a monthly schedule of what you plan to spend on marketing. Also include a determination factor that will help you decide when to abort a particular tactic. For each activity, establish a metric that tells you to stop if it’s not generating sufficient return on investment (ROI).

Metrics – Track your marketing success with Google Analytics for website conversions and a simple Excel sheet to compare your budget against the actual ROI. Test programs over the course of a 30-to 60-day period, and evaluate the results. Repeat any programs that are delivering sales or signups to your email list, and get rid of anything that’s not.

Complete a SWOT Analysis

Before planning any marketing strategy, project or venture, a small-business owner needs to focus on planning methods as well as the best assessments in order to help their company go forward. SWOT analysis has been proven to be extremely effective, identifying the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the business. By studying this, you will be able to set goals and achieve results.

Here is a look at what goes into the process, which will help with small business growth. It will begin with the internal factors, which consist of strengths and weakness, followed by external issues, which are the opportunities and threats that come into play and that one has to be aware of.

Strengths – You will know what does well in terms of sales and how certain employees help with the growth. Keep on focusing on what you are good at and how you can improve on these areas. Clients and customers enjoy good service with some variety in products.

Weaknesses – A business needs to look at various areas where they are suffering. They may not be optimized for the Internet, and this can bring them down. Even if they do have a website, they need to focus on Internet marketing, social media and mobile marketing. Keeping statistics and records over the last couple of months will tell a business where they have not been performing as well. It is also important to look at the way your staff is working because this can bring a business down. Someone with a bad attitude is not going to help with a small business’s development. Employees should enjoy what they do.

Opportunities – There are always opportunities available in the business sector. However, it is nothing that you can rush into because too big of a risk is going to damage your reputation. This is where planning is important. However, one should always be thinking of where the business can expand.

Threats – These could come from other businesses that are similar in nature. Competition is always something to bear in mind and one has to look at strategies that will help the company progress. Once you have found what the problem is, you need to find solutions and this may mean bringing in extra staff with the experience and qualifications. For example, a small business may have developed with creative and talented programmers and designers. However, one also needs marketers onboard so that word is spread.

There are certain coaching techniques and consulting firms that help with this SWOT analysis. It is not something that you can just suck out of your thumb. It is especially useful to have a professional help you with this should you have something specific to look at, such as new technology or a trend that you want to introduce.

Create and Implement an Effective Sales Strategy

If your business involves selling a product, you are probably looking for ways to improve sales. A sales strategy will focus your efforts on your most important customer audiences, existing or potential.

Here are the most important things to keep in mind when designing a sales strategy.

• Create a sales plan. Having a document that outlines your sales goals and strategies will help you to stay on track and assess your progress. As you begin to define your sales plan, keep these things in mind:
• Sales goals: These goals should be specific and measurable, not something like selling a million units. Base them on the nature of your product and try to break them down into manageable parts. For example, sell 50 units to end-users in 30 days and sell 100 units to local independent retailers in six months.
• Sales activities: These are your tactics—how you plan to make the sale. You may say you'll sell direct-to-consumer through a website or via craft shows, for instance. Or this part of the plan may include activities like developing a sell sheet to send to independent retail stores.
• Target accounts: Your sales plan should also include the accounts you want to sell to. If it's end-users, for example, plan how you're going to reach them through eBay, classified ads or your website.
• Timelines: Put dates to all of the above elements so you can define your steps within a realistic timeline. Don't forget that your timelines should be fluid; if you're underachieving, your sales plan can help you figure out why and define the corrective steps you need to take.
• Expand to new markets. Once you have established success in your current market, consider expanding to include other markets. This will open doors to bigger buyers.
• Get the correct buyer: One of your biggest challenges is finding the right buyer within a large organization, so do your homework. If you're experiencing roadblocks, consider hiring a distributor or manufacturer's rep who already has established relationships in your industry.
• Be prepared: Develop a presentation and have professional-looking sell sheets ready. Your product should also have packaging that's ready to go.
• Know your target: Understand what products they already carry and how yours will fit in. Don't waste your time pitching to a retailer who's unlikely to carry your product.
• Take advantage of special programs: Some mass retailers, such as Walmart, have local purchase programs that give managers authority to try local items. And other retailers may have different initiatives, such as minority business programs.
• Be patient: It can take up to a year or longer before you see your product on store shelves, so don't get frustrated. And if the final answer is no, try to turn it into a learning experience.