GROW IT 10 Steps You Can Take to THRIVE in the Current Business Climate

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GROW IT!10 Steps You Can Take to THRIVE in the
Current Business Climate
The SBDC at Harper College is funded in part
through a cooperative agreement with the U.S.
Small Business Administration, Department of
Commerce and Economic Opportunity, and Harper
College to help our local businesses start, grow,
and expand.
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Presentation Summary

• About the ILSBDC
• 10 Steps to Thrive in Current Business Climate

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About the ILSBDC Can the ILSBDC help me? Do you

• want to increase your sales or income?
• want to expand your business, but have questions
  about feasibility, or how to make it happen?
• ever feel you could use the help of a business
  coach or advisor?
• want to increase your business management skills
  and knowledge?

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Illinois Small Business Development
CenterBusiness Coaching and Consulting
forEstablished and Start-Up Businesses

• The SBDC at Harper College is funded in part
  through a cooperative agreement with the U.S.
  Small Business Administration, Department of
  Commerce and Economic Opportunity, and Harper
  College to help our local businesses start, grow,
  and expand.

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The ILSBDC

• Our mission is to contribute to the growth and
  prosperity of existing business, and improve the
  success rate of new business formation.
• Provide No-Cost, Confidential, One-on-One
  guidance
• Achieve marketing, financial and operational
  success

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The ILSBDC Helps Businesses?

• Start, Survive, Expand, Prosper

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10 Steps to Thrive in Current Business Climate

• Darwinian Cleanse
• Change and chaos
• Progressive thinkers will adapt

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10 Steps to Thrive in Current Business Climate

• Re-think your product mix and pricing strategies
• Take a fresh look to uncover customers needs
• Target and enter new markets
• Launch new products and services
• Offer generous financial terms

• Renegotiate
• Assess resources
• Your USP
• Dont cut back on marketing!
• Stay positive

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1. Rethink your product mix and pricing
strategies

• Re-evaluate your
• product funnel
• - Whats in it?
• - Only high-priced?
• - Consider value and
• lower-priced options

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1. Rethink your product mix and pricing
strategies

• Offer lower-priced versions existing products
• Examples
• Made-to-order food vs. prepackaged choices
• Massage---a shorter session lower price
• Identify willing to pay full-price
• Analyze product mix evaluate demand
• Results-based pricing
• PR consultant pay for placement only

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2. Take a fresh look to uncover needs

• Become solution to problems
• Identify problems and opportunities through easy
  market research
• 1 piece of advice----talk with
  customers/firsthand experience
• Why buying certain products
• How they are using them
• What may interest them in future
• Keep customers
• Retention part of strategy
• Costs more to replace than keep

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3. Target and enter new markets

• Competition diminishing
• Needs still exist
• Step in and fill gap
• Reach out to new markets that may have been
  previously closed because of a competitor that is
  weakened or gone away!

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3. Target and enter new markets

• Do market research
• Wealth of free information
• U.S. Census Bureau (www.census.gov)
• People, households, businesses and industries
• U.S. Department of Commerce (www.commerce.gov)
• Economic and demographic data
• Policy Map (www.policymap.com)
• Map of neighborhoods, per-capita income,
  educational levels and u/e
• Reference USA (www.referenceusa.com)
• Target companies based on employee size, sales
  volume, type of business and location

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3. Target and enter new markets

• Online survey software
• SurveyMonkey (www.surveymonkey.com)
• Zoomerang (www.zoomerang.com)
• Before pushing SEND button
• Determine survey objective
• Gauge interest in new products?
• Evaluate new markets?
• Needs and problems?
• How much willing top pay to fix?

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4. Launch new products and services

• Survey will uncover needs
• Ahead of competition
• How many small businesses do research?
• Focus on innovation NOW
• Well-positioned when economy recovers
• Listen, innovate, create

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5. Offer generous financial terms

• Struggle to pay bills yet have needs
• Consider charging higher prices in return for
  extended payment terms
• Carry receivable yourself
• Sell it to accounts receivable factoring co.
• Increase your margins and profitability
• Flipside is offer a discount
• 210/net30 to increase cash flow

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6. Renegotiate

• Suppliers losing customers
• Existing orders declining
• Rather have some money than none
• Negotiating position strengthened
• Renegotiate current contracts
• Get other bids first
• Scrutinize financial health potential new vendors
• See Negotiations Planning Sheet

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6. Renegotiate

• Suppliers losing customers
• Existing orders declining
• Rather have some money than none
• Negotiating position strengthened
• Renegotiate current contracts
• Get other bids first
• Scrutinize financial health potential new vendors
• See Negotiations Planning Sheet

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7. Assess resources

• Assess resource allocation
• Human
• Financial
• Operational
• Right people doing right things?
• Find talent
• Skim the crème de la crème
• Need to cut do all at once

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7. Assess resources

• Cash requirements
• 12-month cash flow budget
• Recovery programs, check with SBDC
• Equipment, fixtures, etc.
• Evaluate
• Sell older unused assets
• Replace and buy newer assets _at_
• discounted prices

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8. Your USP

• Your USPUnique Selling Proposition
• Unique thing that you can offer your customers
  and prospects that your competitors can't.
• Your USP is your "Competitive Edge

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8. Your USP

• Understand the Characteristics that Customers
  Value
• Brainstorm what customers value about your
  product or services.
• 2. Rank Yourself and Your Competitors By These
  Criteria
• Identify your top three to five competitors.
  Being as objective as you can, score yourself and
  competitors on a scale of 1 to 10 for each
  characteristic, with 1 being the weakest and 10
  being the strongest scores.
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• 3. Identify Where You Rank Well
• Plot the point scores on a graph. This tool will
  amaze you at how well it helps you spot different
  competitors strengths and weaknesses.
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• From this data, youve discovered your unique
  USP. You can also formulate your brand promise
  from this information youve mined!

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8. Your USP

• Debbie Jackson, a business coach, was owner of
  ABC Coaching. Even though she had clients, she
  struggled to get as many new clients as she
  wanted. She felt a big part of the reason was
  because she did not have a distinctive market
  position to communicate how she was unique. She
  decided to do an USP Analysis to find out how she
  was unique from her competitors.

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8. Your USP
As the above graph shows, Debbies USPs becomes
clear. She offers the highest range of products
with greatest ease of use, has the highest
quality testimonials, and is the most experienced
from the other coaching firms.
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9. Dont cut back on marketing

• Reallocate marketing s toward immediate revenue
  generation
• Look at sales cycles of products
• Allocate money to promoting prod/svcs with
  shorter sales cycles
• Pareto
• 20 customers generate 80 revenue
• Allocate majority of marketing budget to the 20
• Increase share of market and wallet

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9. Dont cut back on marketing

• More customers doing research
• on Web before buying

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9. Dont cut back on marketing

• Allocate resources to e-marketing
• E-newsletter (ezine)
• Facebook site
• Twitter
• Seek public relations opportunities
• Press release and speaking
• Pay-Per-Click ads (keywords cheaper right now)

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10. Stay positive

• Self-fulfilling prophecy
• People ask Hows business?
• Business is great!
• People attracted to success and prosperity Send
  positive marketing messages
• People beat up
• Pain and fear usually works
• How make someones life better

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Take Action to Thrive!

• Apply at least 1 of the 10 Thrive strategies.
• See a counselor at the ILSBDC office

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10 Steps to Thrive in Current Business Climate

• Re-think your product mix and pricing strategies
• Take a fresh look to uncover customers needs
• Target and enter new markets
• Launch new products and services
• Offer generous financial terms

• Renegotiate
• Assess resources
• Your USP
• Dont cut back on marketing!
• Stay positive

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Questions?
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