Even in a downturn, if you don’t get in front of people and explain your unique value proposition then your chances of selling will be restricted to current customers or accidental passersby.  Marketing is what sets you up for selling.  However, there are three important things you should appreciate before you start.

1.    Your target customers need to hear your marketing messages at least 7 times to influence a buying decision.  Sounds like a lot - it is. People just don’t always take in all the information at any given time. Especially the first time they hear it, so you need to choose strategies that allow you to repeat them often enough to work for you.

2.    Expensive ads don’t guarantee sales – even when they are popular with the public. Companies have gone broke over big ticket ads. Every marketing dollar has to translate into sales.

3.    A sure way to improve sales is to use multiple marketing channels. Your underlying message should be consistent, but you need to get it out in a variety of mediums.

So, if you’re a small to mid-sized business on a limited budget your tactics should be to optimize your spending so that you get in front of the right customers regularly and in a variety of ways.  Here are four techniques you can use to achieve that.

Identify and target niche customers
Unless you are a major player with an unlimited amount of money to devote to scatter gun marketing - go narrow. Do your market research and focus on niches - those groups of customers you can clearly identify who would be interested in your offering.  Customers who are affordable for you to reach! Then get your message out into local clubs, trade shows, industry publications, niche newsletters, anywhere you can reach those specific prospects.  continue

QuickBooks has added a number of new offerings this year that you might want to consider when choosing whether to upgrade to 2010 or wait until next year:

• In QuickBooks you are able to sort the “Pay Bills” window four ways: Due Date, Discount Date, Vendor, and Amount Due. Now you can also Filter that screen for one vendor or multiple vendors. You no longer have to see every vendor you owe money to, in that window.
• Want to go paperless? You can, using QuickBooks Document Management system from within QuickBooks. Every QuickBooks form now has a paperclip icon on the top that says “attach”. This allows you to scan and attach documents to a form that are directly related to that form. For example, you can scan and attach the vendor bill, you received, as back up to the bill you are paying in QuickBooks. *This service is free up to approximately 1,000 2-page PDF’s. Additional space can be purchased for an additional cost.
• In the bank reconciliation window, items are highlighted in bold until checked off allowing a more visual means of seeing unreconciled items. They definitely stand out! continue

Target every new contact for follow up communications and watch customer loyalty – and your profits – grow.

A good quality customer and prospect database for email or direct mail can mean the difference between business survival and failure, especially during times of slow growth. The same list, combined with smart communications, will make the good times even better. It costs more money to find new customers than it does to nurture repeat customers through regular contact, so you need to make accurate list-building a daily habit.

Here’s a checklist of ways you can effortlessly add more potential customers:

Direct web traffic
Put a prominent message on your website inviting browsers and customers alike to sign up for regular contact. Your pitch needs to be more than an exercise in collecting names and addresses. Make it clear you’ll be rewarding customers with discounts, sending regular free tips or professional advice too, by mail or email. You must also clearly stress up front, the ease of ‘opting out’. People are more likely to give you their details if they are sure they can leave your list as easily as they joined it.

Customer lists
If you already have clients’ addresses for purchasing, invoicing or other purposes, invite this already ‘warm’ list to receive marketing news too. It may also be appropriate to ask them during regular contact, to recommend or refer like-minded colleagues, particularly if you can offer an incentive for them to add to your list. continue

Poor relationships within the team will always reflect on morale and have been proven to impact on the bottom line.  You can make or break a career or a job depending on the way you behave with fellow workers.  Workplaces need to be profitable for businesses and for the people in them – and that means personally and financially.

Whether you are a leader or a team member there are actions you can take to create a positive, empowering, motivational work environment for people.

A CEO complained that his managers only brought him problems. When you come to the meeting with a problem, have some suggested solutions ready at the same time.  The negative effect simply complaining disappears, and is replaced with an atmosphere of constructively sharing in resolving issues.

Constantly laying the blame on someone or something else is negative and often destructive of team spirit. Don’t put your effort into finding ways to point the finger at others. People are more likely to recognize their contribution to the problem if they are not publicly humiliated in the process.  You will alienate others and end up with enemies, not conducive to your future job prospects or your business’ success. continue

Want to stay in business and be profitable in this economic climate?  The answer is to plan, but it is difficult to think in terms of three to five year plans these days.  So focus instead on the next 12 to 18 months and use “what if” scenario planning and stress testing along the way.

Build scenarios
Create a forecast for the next 12 months to 2 years. Take your business plan and then impose a series of scenarios. A business-as-usual scenario, for example, might have flat growth. Another scenario might project a 10% drop in revenue and a 20% increase in input costs.  These scenarios show you the effect on the business of outside forces, and allow you to develop contingency plans to mitigate their effect if you start to detect their impact through your monthly reports.
You might decide that if revenues decline for two or three consecutive months, then you will implement a stronger marketing and sales program. If that fails, then you might move to significant cost reduction activities. Look at what happens if the company loses customers and suppliers.
You might need to draw up plans to create other ways of drawing revenue, like discounting, or going to other markets or changing production. Identifying a critical threshold means you can start thinking about how to mitigate it.

Develop your business plan
Critical to forecasting is your  business plan;  it should cover market analysis, organization and management, strategic analysis, marketing and sales, products and services, the amount of funding needed to start or expand the business, and financials. The best business plans are updated every six months, though you should be reviewing it quarterly.

Do you find when it comes to a choice between serving a paying customer and writing a business plan, like most small businesses, you go for the money? Lack of time is a major reason many small companies don’t have plans. The answer for some businesses is to prepare the plan on the weekend. It might take an entire day, but it’s a worthwhile exercise.  continue

They both record the same information:  SALES.  Invoices record sales on an accrual basis, sales receipts record sales on a cash basis.

An invoice records the sale as income and increases accounts receivable, as of the date of the invoice, even though you haven’t received the PAYMENT for the sale.  To complete the sale process started by using an invoice, you must “Receive the Payment” against the invoice, which will reduce your accounts receivable.
This is a two step process:  Increase to Accounts Receivable = Sale and Payment = Reduction to Accounts Receivable.

A sales receipt is used when you receive the PAYMENT at the time of the sale. In other words, this is a cash sale.  In completing a sales receipt in QuickBooksTM, you record the sale as income and deposit the PAYMENT in to Undeposited Funds or a bank account, at the same time, using the “sales receipt” form.
This is a one step process:  Sale = Payment.

In addition, in QuickBooks, a sales receipt is also often used when a client gives you a deposit towards future work.

To learn how to use QuickBooks more efficiently in your business, contact Teri at 619-463-6851 or by e-mail at teri@terimilligan.com.

Recent economic trends have caused many contractors and other businesses to deal with accounts receivable issues.  Five years ago, when the economy was better as a whole, there was less concern with enforcing a contractual right to payment because bills were being timely paid.

For those contractors dealing with collection issues, not much can be done to “squeeze blood from a turnip”—if your customer has no money, collection efforts are often futile.

But to best assure your ability to collect debts, a few steps can be taken at the contract stage and during your work to best assure your ability to collect.

As a litigation attorney, I can advise you that these are the circumstances that best allow me to collect debts owed to my clients:

• Clear and certain scope of work terms set forth within a signed contract, including signed change orders confirming any revisions to the scope of work or the contract price (don’t forget to make sure your home improvement contract meets the legal requirements of Business & Professions Code section 7159, otherwise collection will be even more difficult);

• Attorneys’ fees provisions in a contract that help you leverage payment short of incurring attorneys’ fees;

• Service charge provisions in a contract that further help you leverage payment of at least the principal balance owed; continue