Why you should stick to one business idea

Something that’s really common amongst small business owners is running two or more businesses. I see people who own a massage therapy business also run a greeting card company or someone who owns a networking company who also own a florist and so on. Two or more businesses happen usually for one of two reasons:

1. Either the first business isn’t making as much money as the person would have liked and they believe another opportunity will be the one that will make it big, or
2. The first business is hard to get going and the business owner gets bored and frustrated with it. When the second idea comes along, it’s more exciting and interesting and the person’s motivation levels are rejuvenated again.

Or it could happen for a combination of these reasons. The problem occurs when the second business idea doesn’t meet expectations and then the business owner creates a third or even a fourth idea. I’ve met business owners who are running seven or eight business ideas and suddenly reach crisis point because they don’t know what they do anymore.

So, why then should you stick to one business idea? Perhaps, these people are right – maybe it does take two or three ideas before you make it big and isn’t it possible to be able to run several different businesses simultaneously?

Well, here’s the thing – and you may disagree here (all opinions welcome), but I’ve worked with hundreds if not thousands of business owners and I really, honestly can’t recall a time when I’ve seen two or more business ideas work simultaneously. The best and most successful businesses work when the business owner concentrates on one thing and one thing only.

But, I hear you cry – what about those people who are doing PR and training or coaching and management consultancy and are really successful? Well, I would argue that if you look closer at their businesses, you’ll find they are running one business in different ways. For instance, a PR professional that I know teaches PR, works on PR on a one to one basis with her clients and has e-books on her site about PR which she sells successfully. She’s even just branched out into offering workshops to teach PR professionals how to be successful. But, everything revolves around PR – if I was recommending this business owner, I’m very clear on what she does.

Also take the example of a successful coach who also does training. It’s not just any training though – it’s training involving coaching. She’s also involved in a coaching network and speaks on behalf of the Chartered Institute of Professional Development (CIPD) on coaching. Anyone who meets her knows she is a coach and knows how she can help them.

So, bearing that in mind – here’s my top 3 reasons why you should stick to one business:

1. Taking on a new business is the same as starting a new business.
Your new business will take time, effort, focus, motivation and possibly money to start up and get off the ground. You’ll need to give it at least 18 months of undivided attention and treat it like it’s your baby. OK, I’m absolutely sure you can do this…but, what happens to your first business while you’re doing this and what happens when you get bored of this new business idea or it doesn’t get off the ground as quickly as you want it to? Will you then start another business?

2. No-one will know what you do.
When people ask you the question of what do you do – what will you tell them? Will it be I do x and I also do y and sometimes I do z? Or will it be, I do x and here’s how it can help you? If you have two or more business ideas, believe me no-one will be quite sure what you do and how you can help them. If you don’t believe, try asking a few of your trusted contacts who will give you honest feedback…

3. Jack of all trades, master of none
One of the reasons that’s often given to me as a reason for not choosing just one business is the fear that they won’t be able to use all the skills they have. This is absolutely not true – just look at the PR and coaching examples above – they will use all their skills and much more. If you focus on one thing and take this one idea to the market in different ways, you’ll be amazed at the results and the difference.

OK then, if you already have two or more businesses what do you do? My first suggestion is to stop and decide which one of these businesses you’d really like to focus on – and then (brave step this), let go of all the other businesses and really throw your heart and soul into this one business. If you’re not sure which business you should focus on, get the help of a coach or a business mentor to help you.

And if you’re considering taking on another business – stop and really think about it. Are you sure that’s the best decision? Are you prepared to drop the other businesses you have and focus on this one 100%?

Think very carefully about taking on a new business – I know it’s exciting and improves your motivation, but it may only be a short time until you get bored with this one too and then are you going to be looking for that next big idea?

Exceptional Thinking (http://www.exceptionalthinking.co.uk) provides help and advice on marketing and business planning for small businesses and people starting up a business.

Free recordings on starting your own business

We've busy recording a series of three recordings which will be "Planning your own business", "Writing a plan and getting funding" and "Kicking off your business". Better still, they're all completely free, and I'll tell you how to download them below. Feel free to pass them onto any of your contacts that might be interested too.

This month, we've released the first of our free recordings "Planning your own Business". To download it, simply go to http://www.exceptionalthinking.co.uk/Own-business.php

Feel free to pass this onto any of your contacts who are also starting their own business too - but make sure you tell them to fill in their contact details using the form if they haven't already done so - otherwise I won't know that they also want to receive the other two free recordings as well.

Are Sales People Born or Made?

When I started this business, five and a half years ago, I think I would have given up very quickly if I thought sales people were born. I was terrible at sales – it was very definitely a skill I had to learn. I’m sure like anything else, there are some people who don’t need to be taught anything about sales – they just naturally know what to do and how to do it. But, not me. It was something I had to learn how to do.

I read books, went on courses and spoke to my dad (who was a top sales person in his company for a long time), but none of these really helped. And then, one day I went on a course where the tutor said “All sales is, is listening.”

That was the light bulb moment. From that day forward, I stopped talking and started to listen. And then, when the person had finished talking, I just asked a few questions and listened again. Very soon I realised that if I just listened chances are that the person would just tell me exactly what they wanted and how I could help them. Listening helped hugely and started to make selling an easy process for me. That is, until I encountered my next problem…

People started asking me questions and ones that I didn’t have an answer too off the top of my head. Questions like “Exactly how would the service work” and “How much does it cost?” My standard answer tended to be “I’ll come back to you with that”.

The problem with not having the answer there and then was that I would leave the person assuming what the answer would be – so if the price was actually £500, the person would assume that it was much lower, say £200 and therefore get a shock when I told them the real price.

After the penny dropped that this was happening, I drew up some frequently asked questions for myself; putting down all the questions I was often asked and then writing down and memorising the answers. This way I could give people the answers they wanted there and then and it saved a lot of hassle in the long run as people could immediately tell me whether they were interested in what I could do for them and whether the price was ok.

The third main problem I faced was timewasters. I have lost count of the times I’ve spent 2 hours in a meeting for it to have ended with “I’m sure I can refer people to you” and no sales. For a long time, I prided myself on getting two meetings a week, but realised after a while that there’s no point in having a meeting if I hadn’t made sure beforehand that they were actually serious about buying my services.

How do I do this now? Well, first I have a chat with the person on the phone to check whether there is anything there. 15 minutes on the phone is very different from 3 or 4 hours in a meeting! If I’m still not sure, I’ll send them a short questionnaire to complete and send back to me. If they do this before the meeting, chances are high that they’re pretty serious.

My final tip and something that’s really helped me is to review my sales after each meeting. I always ask myself four questions so I can learn what I’m doing right and what’s gone wrong. They are:

1. What exactly happened and why did it happen that way?
2. What did you learn from the process?
3. Did the person buy? If so, why did they buy? If not, why didn’t they buy?
4. How would you do it differently next time?

I’m not a natural reviewer. My style is generally “Ok, it didn’t work. What can we do now?” instead of “Ok, it didn’t work. Why not and how could we do it better?” But, I have to say that reviewing what’s happened and being honest really helped me see what the problems were in my sales process and get some idea of how to fix them. And as usual, it’s the little things that make the difference.

So, if you’re sat in your business, thinking that you need to get more business into the pipeline, I’d encourage you to ask this question – if you sat down with 10 people, how many of them would you turn into business? If the answer is don’t know, find out! If it’s less than 7, you need to look at your sales process as I have and work on increasing the number who turn into customers. There is no point increasing the number of people in the pipeline, if you’re going to let 8 of them get away when you sit down to meet them.

Good luck with your sales. Let me know how you get on.

Exceptional Thinking (http://www.exceptionalthinking.co.uk) provides marketing and business planning advice and support to small businesses and people starting their own business.

Keep in touch with your customers

It's all too easy when you're busy and there's lots going on to not have time to keep in touch with your customers. I can almost hear you saying to yourself "Oh, they'll be alright. I'll contact them next week". But it's very easy to keep saying this to yourself and forgetting to let them know what's going on.

Even if you're doing work for these customers behind the scenes, don't forget that it really helps how customers think about you if you just send them a quick update - email will do just fine, if you really don't have time to contact them by phone...but make sure you do!

The danger is that customers forget about you too - occasionally they might think "I haven't heard from x in a while", but they'll also be thinking "Well, it's not my place to contact them" and they'd be right.

And if someone else comes along that can do the same job as you, but promises to keep in touch a bit more - your customers might be tempted to swap. Even if they don't desert you for another supplier, it's quite possible that you'll have issues with payment or something else later down the line.

It doesn't hurt to keep in contact with your customers and at worst takes 5 minutes of your time. So, if you're reading this thinking that there is someone who you should contact - do it now, before it's too late.

How to make sure you get paid on time every time

In my business we have a rule. The rule goes something along the lines of: We do the work we get paid for doing the work. That’s it – no exceptions, no arguments. If on the rare occasion, someone isn’t happy with the work we do, we’ll look at this and go out of our way to sort it out, but this isn’t (in my book) an excuse not to pay.

This policy has worked really well for me – we’ve only had one problem payer in the last 5 ½ years. All of our clients are up to date on payments and it’s very rare now that we have a late payer.

So, I thought in this article I’d share with you some of the things that we do and hopefully it will help you as well. Here are my top ten tips:

1. Send your invoices out on time.
I was having a chat with a client the other day who said he’d ordered some business cards about 18 months ago and he’d only just received the invoice for them. Good grief! Rule number one in my book is to send your invoices out on time. My invoices always go out on the 1st week of every month no matter how busy we are and then clients have 14 days to pay them. Come on guys, make sure you have it in your diary to send these invoices out as soon as you’ve completed the work.

2. Make your payment terms very clear
Our rule that I told you about at the beginning of this article is made very clear to all of our clients before we start working with them. They all know that we hate bad payers and that we will refuse to work with them if they are. Making sure everyone knows when they will be sent an invoice, when they are expected to pay it and what happens if they don’t is the key to making sure you get paid on time, everytime. If people are not clear on what’s expected of them, are you surprised that they don’t do what you want them to do?

3. Ask for deposits
A good policy to get into the habit of doing is to ask for a deposit upfront before any work has even started. It’s quite usual these days to request this and can prevent a lot of problems later down the line. At least then, if they don’t pay any further money, you’ve been paid for the work you’ve already done. Deposits of anything up to 50% are fine – try it and see if it works for your business.

4. Set up Standing Orders
Another great way to make sure that you get paid when you’re supposed to is to set up a Standing Order. Psychologically in the customer’s mind, they’ll have already committed to paying you every month then and it’s highly likely then that you will actually get paid. To create a standing order, simply ask for a form from your bank and then type it up on your PC so that you can email it or send it out to your customers.

5. Lead by example
There’s no point hassling other people to pay your invoices unless you lead by example and pay yours. This means that you give out a strong message that you pay your bills on time and that you expect people to do the same for you.

6. Have a policy in place if people don’t pay
It is well worth having a process in place that you can follow if people don’t pay you i.e. that you’ll call them, then send them a letter, then send them a sterner letter and then finally threaten and take them to the small claims court. Having this set down in your terms and conditions make your clients aware of the penalties of not paying.

7. Chase, chase and chase again
If someone owes you money, all the rules about hassling people go out of the window. Chase, chase and keep chasing – every single day if necessary until you get the result you want. I once worked with a client who owed lots of money to different people. He told me that he paid those people who shouted the loudest and ignored those who were quiet. So hassle away.

8. Use text messaging
This is by far one of the most effective techniques we have to get money out of people. Phone calls can be left to go onto answering machines; emails and letters can be ignored, but for some reason everyone looks at their texts. If you’re finding it hard to get in contact with some, try texting them and see what happens.

9. Use someone else
If you don’t feel comfortable chasing people for money, get someone else (like a book-keeper or credit controller) to do it for you. And if you’re really stuck, get a friend or a partner to do it for you. With difficult payers, often just hearing someone else’s voice can do the trick. Also, if they’re not answering your phone call because they know the number, try calling from someone else’s mobile.

10. Come down on them hard
If you’re dealing with problem payers, make sure you follow through on your policy for non-payers and come down on them like a ton of bricks. Not paying you is never acceptable, so don’t put up with it.

While it’s hard dealing with someone who owes you money, being very clear about what your expectations are is the first step and then making sure you follow through on your actions if they don’t pay. Try it today and don’t put up with bad payers.

Exceptional Thinking (http://www.exceptionalthinking.co.uk/) provides help and advice to small business owners and start-ups on marketing, market research and business planning.

Should you raise your prices?

There are a lot of small business owners out there who really put off raising their prices. They will argue that they need to remain competitive or that their customers wouldn't use their services if they raised their prices and a whole host of other excuses.

But I want to put a point across to you about what's been happening out there recently. Don't know whether you've noticed, but fuel, food and energy prices have gone through the roof recently and show no signs of abating. These 'bigger' companies have no issues about raising their prices even if it means their customers suffer or their public image is badly affected. They're simply increasing their prices because they don't want their profits to fall. Nice attitude eh?

Now I'm not suggesting for one second that you should act like these companies in the way you behave towards your customers and certainly not that you should raise your prices just for the sake of it, but I do want to make a point.

If the cost of living has gone through the roof, are you being fair on yourself if you're charging the same prices as a year ago (or in some cases much much longer than that)? You should be reviewing your prices on a yearly basis and nothing is more true than at the moment.

Bite the bullet and look to raise all your prices by 10% - at least. For existing customers just notify them that as of x date, your prices will increase and stick to this. And don't worry too much if they say they don't want to work with you any more. If they leave you simply because you're reasonably raising your prices, chances are that they won't be the customers you want to work with anyway.

Track your marketing

Whenever you do some marketing, you should always find a way to track it if you can so that you know whether or not it's working for you. There are a couple of ways you can do this - try using a code that people have to tell you to order their products or services; use a voucher that they have to hand in to you; use different colours for things (i.e. if you're sending out leaflets try putting one set of words on orange paper and then different wording on blue paper); or try the old fashioned tried and tested method of asking people.

Whatever you decide to do, tracking your marketing is crucial so you can see whether it's working for you or not - that way you'll know a) where to market your products and services in the future and b) if you are going to spend money, you'll know what's likely to give you the highest return on investment.

Why not try tracking your marketing and see if it works for you?