Comprehensive Marketing Strategy

If you were to look up in Wikipedia or Websters the meaning of marketing, you would find that the word is so broadly interpreted that it almost has no meaning.  Therefore, I have taken it upon myself over the past few years to try and come up with a definition that really gets it said.  Here is the current version:

"Every aspect of the movement of goods and services from creation to arrival in the hands of the target customer."

Now, it would take me a small book to fill in what that means. But for you, as an independent small business, the task of paying any attention at all to the aspects of that definition that effect your bottom line is hugely daunting.  However, since all I do is marketing, and I don't have to worry about paying employees, or the latest paperwork to be filled out for Uncle Sam or the governor, and since I don't actually have to take care of the details on a day-to-day business, I can take a big broad view of your marketing issues.   Then I can give you a checklist of strategic ways to sell more stuff and make more money.

So, my services are unique in that I don't come to you with an advertising proposal that will change your life.  I don't show up with a cable TV, all-in-one, marketing scheme.  I don't pretend that the internet is the only way you will drive traffic to your business today.  In fact, I don't even theorize that customer service and word-of-mouth will make your mother proud of your amazing wealth.

Your business is unique.  It isn't like anyone else, even if many parts of it will be like somebody else. You will be doing some things very well, marketing-wise, and not doing other things well, if at all.  It is my job to look at the total picture ... holistically, if you will ... and provide you with a custom package that makes sense for your specific business under current specific circumstances.  OH!  And do it as inexpensively as humanly possible.

Here are some of the things included in a comprehensive marketing strategy, and how I will approach them.

Immediate Increase in Profits

You are undoubtedly in your business for the long haul.  Or, if you are hoping to sell it within 2-5 years, you know that it will sell better if there is a long term approach to planning.  While the analysis that I will bring you takes that long road approach, and creates building blocks for future growth in sales and profits, I know that you need to make more money NOW!

Therefore, the first 90 days of any assignment is aimed primarily at gathering in the low hanging fruit.  Sometimes its about outdoor signage.  Some retailers and service providers believe the old saw about location...location...location, and are paying a pretty penny in rent for their location, but then don't do anything to maximize the value of that store front.

Other times management is penny wise and pound foolish when it comes to the personnel who are meeting clients or talking to customers on the phone.  Minimum wage may be ok for employees doing assembly or janitorial services.  But it is very expensive to get a client to call or come by, and the potential loss of a customer due to poor customer service is inexcusable, but common.

I could make a long list, but you get the point.  What quick changes can be made to your business to immediately improve traffic, increase sales per customer visit, and cause customers to bring their friends.

Sales Training and Increased Closing Ratio

Within the first 45 days it is my goal to hold at least one sales training seminar with the sales staff.  I can almost guarantee an increase in the closing ratio of 20% after any such sales meeting.  Most sales people have long since stopped asking for the order.  Most owners have long since stopped teaching their sales people selling methods including how to close.  Refresher courses continue throughout any assignment.

In addition to the hands on training for sales staff, managers and owners will receive substantial training in how to perpetuate the increases through books, seminars, tapes, motivational methods, and just plain good oversight.

Building Traffic

It used to be so much easier. Take out a major ad in the yellow pages and wait for the folks to start calling and visiting. Take out an ad in the local newspaper for the weekend special and here comes the crowd. Well, the Yellow Pages are dead, and there aren't any local newspapers anymore. It is my belief that most small companies who have failed in the last 10 years have failed not because there are fewer folks interested in their products or services. They have failed because they have not changed with the times regarding getting folks in the door.

Website, e-mail blasts, MySpace, YouTube, blogs, cause participation, community involvement are the methods that are getting more consumers in the door today. We at Randy Kirk and Associates, are on the cutting edge of these low or no cost methods of attracting more bodies. If you used to spend $1000 per month on a Yellow Page ad, or if you still are, your total cost for using all of those methods above will never equal $1000 per month.

There are huge communities of people out there who need to be reached so that they can take advantage of the fine products and/or services you offer.  We need to tell them about these opportunities. But we need to tell them in the new ways that they are getting information.

Then, there are the more traditional ways as well.  Storefront, signs, billboards, bus benches, fliers, door knob hangers, promotional products, contests...... I could list 1000's ... but I won't.  However, they are all in my kit bag when I assess the smartest and best ways to increase traffic for your specific trade and your budget.

Increase Total Sales Ticket

The primary responsibility of every individual who has anything to do with marketing is to provide the customer with a completely satisfying solution to the need they brought in the door.  If customers leave your premises or get off the phone or website with a purchase that leaves them needing more or end up failing to be able to properly use what they have, the merchant has failed.  The failure effects everyone.  It leaves the customer dissatisfied and less likely to come back or tell their friends.  It reduces the average sales ticket, thus hurting store profits.  To the extent that the individual no longer uses the product or service you sell, they do not become a client.

It is a major part of what I do to find ways to help you and your sales team maximize the experience of everyone who is in your client base.  This means that they are offered and sold with appropriate tenacity a full compliment of what they need to get the experience desired.  This means that there are easy ways for the client to follow up and get resources to take the experience to the next level.  This means that you are proactively reaching out after the sale to insure their satisfaction, their continued potential to use the goods and services you provided or may provide in the future, and that they appreciate you enough to send their friends.

Employee Selection and Motivation

Most employers I have had the pleasure of working with over the years feel that hiring is the worst part of the job, and one that they are not very good at. The good news is that there are other companies who have created some best practices that are both easy to implement, and extremely effective.

I can provide you with proven methods for hiring the best, then being in a position to pay them enough to keep them. Look around you. You know stores in this industry that have employees who have been great producers for 10 years or more. So you know it can be done. But let's face it. None of us is an expert at everything. We need to draw on the capabilities and expertise of others for things we don't have the time or desire to become expert in.

I personally feel that I am only mediocre at hiring, but I have had great success with motivating. As a result, when I sold my manufacturing business last year, dozens of our employees had been with us for 15 year or longer. And our top positions were almost all held by long time managers.

Since I am not that good at hiring, I have turned to the methods of a great LA based company who seems to be getting it right with exactly the kind of employee you need. Let me share these methods with you. We are just an e-mail or phone call away.

New Profit Centers

For years as I have been getting my hair cut, I have wondered why barbers (hair stylists?) don't offer to keep track of my wife's birthday, anniversary, and mother's day for me, so that when I visit, he can remind me.  I'd gladly pay $49.95 a year for that.  Since I currently pay $240 a year for haircuts, that would be a 20% increase in his profit on my visit with virtually no added cost.  Then he might add a rack of cards to his wall.  How about a few small gift ideas?  Maybe cut a deal with the florist for a finder's fee when his clients use her.

Sometimes the new profit center is a decision to sell existing products and services to new markets.  I worked for a padlock importer who was selling hardware stores, locksmiths, and vending machine companies when I started there.  Within 12 months they were selling in 23 different markets with sales increases to match.

Every business has the potential to add new profit centers.  Commonly it is simple, inexpensive, and uncomplicated.  Sure, some of the best potential new profit centers might be very complicated and expensive, but my job will be to suggest such ideas.

Advertising Planning

Most small businesses have never planned an advertising campaign.  I don't mean to sound judgmental about this.  Putting together a serious advertising program is extremely time consuming, require immense amounts of skill and training, and even then, will always result in the need for re-evaluation and changes midstream.  You can hire an advertising agency to do this for you, but be prepared to feel like you do when dealing with a lawyer.  My approach will be understandable, low key, low cost, and trackable... or I won't propose it.

Customer Service Score

We live in a very affluent society. Even those in the bottom 20% have flat screens and Nikes. No one in America goes hungry unless they really work at it or they are too proud to go to a shelter or get food stamps.

As a result, even the poorest among us have stuff. Lots of stuff. When you have a ton of stuff, and you go looking for more, you are less interested in the details of the stuff than you are in how you get treated. (Not always and not everybody, but a huge percentage of those who can spend serious money with you.)

How do you and your staff treat people? With enthusiasm?! Is everyone greeted within 2 minutes of entering your business? Do you have a greeting policy that includes the way the conversation is started? Is there a policy regarding how the phone is answered?

I can show you a study that will prove that your customer service rating is directly related to store profits. We can help you find out what that customer service rating is - for little or no money. We can provide mystery shoppers and phone callers to keep your staff in line. Most importantly we can help you set store policies regarding customer service and then make sure they are carried out.

Build Community

The easiest part of my job is bringing in traffic.  Have a contest, give something away, hire a sign flipper or a clown, bring in a star.  Off the top of my head I could probably list another 200 methods that will almost certainly get folks to come see you or call you.  It will cost money.  For some, maybe only a few dollars or even pennies to get an internet customer to visit the web site.  For others it can cost $100's of dollars to set an appointment on a sales trip or at a trade show.  With few exceptions however, the key to making substantial profits in business today is having clients.   Clients are people who believe in you, trust you, need you, even depend on you for something important in their life.

To return to the barber example - I only change barbers, once I find one I like, if he moves or dies.  So if a barber convinces me to become his client, that decision may be worth $240 a year for ... in the last case ... 20 years, or $4800.  What are you doing to hang on to the next person who comes into your store.    I can provide easy, almost free, methods for creating clients out of customers.

Website Help

A rough survey of businesses with less than 20 employees in the Los Angeles County area finds that almost 50% of the existing shops have no website at all. Another 20% have a single page or maybe three put up by a friend or cousin. Around 30% have a professionally prepared site, most commonly as a part of an industry effort. It may come as no surprise that those who have websites are the better stores. Those that have killer websites are the very best stores.

Hopefully, you like my website.  Hopefully, the look, the information, the style, will result in us doing some business together.  If we do business together, I hope that this website will become a continuing resource for you to keep me on track, and to help you better evaluate choices we will make together.

Those are the two functions of a website:  Inform and sell.  If you don't have a website, you cannot inform your client about your special proposition.  No one will know why you are better at what you do, or cheaper, or faster, or just more fun to be around than your competition.  My goal in helping clients to develop a website or improve the one they have is to make the site an extension of the business personality.  If what you are doing in the store is working, then it needs to be reflected in the website.  Warm and fuzzy store with a cold, mechanical website doesn't work.

And in the course of building your site, you need to build in the SEO (see below.)  Getting seen in the top 10 starts with the information in the site being useful to the Google spiders.  (That's jargon for the way Google checks out your website.)  I really know how to do that, and I can prove it.

Search Engine Optimization

If you search the web for folks who are in the business of search engine optimization or SEO, you will find that they are more numerous today than gas stations were 10 years ago.  There are no degrees required, no certifications, no proof of past success, no training, no anything.  You just say you are in the SEO business, and you can start handing out business cards.

Part of the reason that there are so many SEO companies is because doing search engine optimization is almost like doing marketing in general.  No standards on the one hand, customers who don't have a clue, and it is so complicated and changing so rapidly that its like pushing a rope.

Some of you reading this don't even know what SEO is.  But it is effecting you right now.  If you google YourBusinessType and then YourCity (eg. Bathing Suits Long Beach CA) do you find your business in the top 10 listings?  Go ahead, try it right now.  If not, you are virtually invisible to your potential clients.  You can become visible with a website, a blog, etc., but having a tool on the web doesn't mean it will be seen.  Scroll down the screen through hundreds of folks who have websites, but are on page 20 or 30 of the search.  SEO is the "Science" of getting you in the top 10.

How can I prove to you that I can do what others can't.  Look under SEO Consultant Los Angeles CA.  You'll see my proof.  I will be happy to provide you with lists of key words and key phrases for my current clients, so that you can see them in first place or within the top ten listings.

MySpace, Blogs, YouTube, Flickr

There are many, many ways available today to connect with your potential customers and your existing clients.  Most of my customers have a blog, a Myspace, have videos up on YouTube, and pictures up on Flickr.  Each one of these FREE methods of getting seen and communicating your message has unique reasons for their use, and will deliver different crowds.

My slogan above about "invented the box, still thinking outside it," is nowhere more evident than here.  You can go on small business forums and see my posts where I am teaching the SEO experts how to use these tools to get position on the web.  You may actually be visiting this website because of a Blog or a YouTube Video or a Flickr picture that you stumbled across in the search engines.  And every day, I am finding new methods to help my clients stay on top of page one.  Thus the URL for this website searchpage1.com.

Cross Pollenization

The really cool thing about independent small business owners is their independence. The thing most likely to kill off the small busines owner in any industry for good is that very independence. Major department stores, discounters, big box retailers, chains, and virtual stores are making it really tough on the traditional, local brick and mortar business. What they have that the independent doesn't is cross pollenization. They are getting great ideas from hundreds of folks in their system. They are bringing in people from other industries that bring ideas with them. And they use consultants and advertising agencies who add another layer of knowledge, expertise, and ideas on top of the rest.

It is lonely at the top if you are trying to do all those things yourself.

Randy Kirk and Associates will bring you those ideas with the local business slant.  We can help you get back some of that advantage from the chains and the big box stores. And you can remain independent. Cool, huh?

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