Discounting Your Business Down the Drain

While getting customers through your front door is essential to staying in business, discounting prices can do more harm than good over the long run. Yes, it’s possible to get the word out about your business to thousands, perhaps millions of people using a service like Groupon or Living Social. And you may find customers that might otherwise be difficult to reach, but the discounts to your product or service will normally be 50% or greater.

The assumption is that buyers will be incentivized by the discount, try out your offer and keep coming back for more. On the surface, it may sound like a great way to snag customer and keep them coming back. However, digging a little deeper and analyzing the situation, you may find that discounted offerings work only for a small subset of businesses.

If It Sounds Too Good to Be True, It Probably Is

Coupon discounting campaigns often lure business owners in by giving the impression the campaign is free. It seems simple enough! Your product is bought and money is collected online from your customers by the hosting company. Coupons are mailed to your customers and you receive a check. What’s never explicitly spelled out up front is that 50% of your revenue is the fee for using their service. At best, you will only earn 25% off the original cost of your product or service. Is it worth it?

So the orders start coming in and for a short period you feel euphoria. It’s not until later that you begin realizing how much potential money is being lost by discounting prices. If your customers are one-off and simply one time buyers, there’s a risk of taking a loss on thousands of dollars worth of orders.

Make Your Business Memorable

In today’s world, keeping customers is about building memorable relationships. Sure, business owners must compete for the attention of the consumer. However, if what stands out in the mind of the consumer is how great a deal they got, as opposed to the product or service itself, there is no true business experience that gives the customer a reason or incentive to return. In fact, people will promote your business by word of mouth or through social channels about the killer deal they received. For these customers, it’s not about the quality of your product or service. It’s about the bargain itself.

Discounting your prices can take the spotlight away from your business and even slight loyal customers. Unfortunately, all the attention will go to companies like Groupon or Living Social. After all, they were the ones who made the purchasing experience exciting for your customers. Customers are more than likely to brag about Groupon and not your business.

Make Alternative Offers

There are other ways to build business. It may be old-school rhetoric, but service will always be king. Taking the time to build relationships increases the trust customers will have in your product or service. Present your product or service as a bundle offer where customers get a better price because services are combined. Or offer a two-for-one deal that gives customers more bang for the buck when you run special campaigns. Building relationships is the key to building business.

Hesitate to make sales calls? Rushing to lose money?

Procrastination: the great wealth thief. We’re not talking about reading important journals or writing thank you notes. How many games of solitaire do you play before getting on the phone? How many idiotic emails do you receive? And forward? Time wasters, that great sucking sound you hear coming from your wallet. When you hesitate to make a call, you hurry to lose extra income.

Want to know how expensive a computer game is? Forget the price. Multiply the number of times played by the number of minutes each time and the number of business days. For example, 10 minutes x 2 times x 250 work days = 5000 minutes/year. That’s more than one working day per year.

Are you an average sales person? Above average? That’s 1000 prospect calls per year. If you meet three prospects for a sales interview out of ten calls, that’s 300 sales calls – more than one per day. If you sell one out of three of these prospects, that’s 100 extra sales per year.

What’s your average commission? Let’s use $100 for this example – $10,000 per year to play solitaire. Are you hesitating to make calls, getting “mentally ready”, or just rushing to lose money? And yes, you can make four more prospect calls per day.

When your inner doubts bully your dialing finger, the delay costs you money, commission, prestige, even vacations and prizes. Why do we let this happen?

Rituals mollify our subconscious mind. Do you have a morning routine to ready for work? Professional athletes are notoriously superstitious on game day. Completing the routine assures our brains we’re ready to go.

But has the ritual always been the same? How do we learn these habits? How do we create better habits? Rituals change over time. If you grow a beard, your shaving and grooming habits change. If you shave your head, you alter your showering technique. So, changing goals or styles lead to a change of habit. Intrigued?

Change your morning ritual and make four sales calls to prospects to replace whatever your particular time waster is… crossword puzzle? Origami? Listening to the radio waiting for your favorite song? Delete these routines and replace them with starting your marketing correspondence as early as possible. At the end of the day, you can decide to work later if needed, but you can’t decide to work earlier.

Habits are replaced, not broken. The following rules help you replace time wasting habits with productive ones. Follow these rules and sell time-effectively.

Good Habit #1

Set a time to write and answer personal emails, texts, social networking, and similar activities for the end of the day only, and strictly abide by this schedule. Your social life is important, but not urgent.

When you behave as though social networking is more important than marketing calls, in your mind, it will become more urgent. Prioritize marketing first.

Some psychologists refer to “tomorrow thinking”, as in its best to start this task later. If you consider prospecting calls onerous, you are more likely to hesitate to make that first call. Prospecting gets you closer to a sale. This task is most important.

Decide when to work and how many hours. Stick to this schedule and do not let time wasters creep in.

Good Habit #2

Write notes confirming meetings, e-mail clients, check your calendar and call list, then start calling. Call the entire list. Replace that time wasting behavior with morning organizational tasks. They are easy, non-confrontational, and very useful. This activity can be part of the mental commute to work, personal business to business.

Activity decreases worry and discomfort. Worry depends upon a negative prediction of future events. How well do you predict the future?

Excuses like it may be a bad time to call or suppose I have the wrong name, or number, delay calling. This bad habit is contingency tomorrow thinking. It may be inconvenient to call later too; nobody can predict the optimal time.

Here’s a prediction: if you waste 5000 minutes per year in non-productive, time wasting pursuits, you’ll be $10,000 poorer.

Self deception is a powerful mental tool. Hesitators tend to use the deception to not act; but it is just as powerful in focusing on tasks. Once you have a useful “begin work” ritual, such as opening your email and answering only business related correspondence, or better yet, isolating the two functions using two email servers, your mind will be all business.

Ironically, when you use the end of the day personal correspondence strategy, this will mentally trigger your work to social mental commute. True recreation begins.

Good Habit #3

Do not joke about your slow starts or hesitation in calling prospects.

Joking distances the joker from the severity of the procrastination, unless you find a joke to fit the loss of income punch line,

Admit this hesitation is problematic, and then return to Good Habit #1.

Successful marketing and sales require routinely prospecting for new opportunities. Unfortunately, calling is often the most neglected, delayed, or avoided activity although potentially the most important.

Train your mind to understand and focus on this activity. Think about the cost of playing computer games or doing crossword puzzles when hesitating to begin or complete your call list. And by the way, your prospects and clients deserve your undivided attention.

Don’t rush to lose money.

Finding the Store Front that Fits Your Business

People love to shop stores that are unique and fashionable. So the unspoken challenge is for small business owners to have a store that appeals to and attracts people to their shop. The best place to start with any remodeling project is the store’s front. The store front is the very first thing that people see. Their impression of the place is set within the first 30 seconds of them coming up to the store. It is imperative to have a store front that is inviting and appealing.

Stores that are Visible on the Street

The store front of a business is often set by the real estate that they own or lease. In some case the owner of the property of leasing agent may already have a set standard for all the store fronts. However, they still allow certain freedoms for business owners to choose the right display for them. It is important to design the front display very well so it does not become an embarrassment to the store.

Storefronts give people their first impression of a business. Ideally, they lure people in by providing an image of quality and making them curious about what the store holds. A well designed front display will provide benefits to the store for years to come.

When first starting out with the design process, it is important to know your own limitations. If you are a person who has trouble designing displays, then it might be beneficial to hire a professional to assist in the design process. The designing agent will be able to guide and direct in what colors and styles fit your business the best. Be sure to always check with local codes and laws so you meet all the set standards of building codes and zoning laws. There is nothing worse than to put up a display and have to tear it down because the zoning laws were not followed. So be sure to educate yourself accordingly.

When you have educated yourself on all the regulations, then it is time to start with the design process. There will be many choices for you to choose from as you head down to the road towards completion. It is important to pick a design and stick with that same one. Changing your mind in the middle of project only causes longer delays and higher costs to the store. So it is important to listen to the design agent and stick with your choices.

Store fronts have to fit in with all the surroundings. The colors should attract people and not repel them. For instance, if you own a furniture store, you might want to consider choosing colors that are warm and inviting so people will feel more at home. If your business is within the food industry, it might be a good idea to have colors that fit the mood of your establishment. Colors play an important part of how any display looks to the public.

Another thing to consider is what kind of material the display should be made from. How the store front is positioned will dictate the types of material that are to be used. Stores that face the sun should consider using a material that does not reflect the light so much. Nobody likes to go into a store and get blinded by the sun’s rays. If you are in a position to choose material freely, and then choose a material that will last a long time. Stone and brick are materials that have proven themselves over time. Signs should be made of light weight material that can withstand bad weather and extreme temperature changes.

Store fronts should also appear to be very open. Having large display windows allows people to see what is inside the store and allows light to fill the space. A well lit and open store is always fun to shop in. Large windows allow for people to shop with ease and comfort. They also give the store a demanding presence within the community.

Stores that are Visible on the Internet

The internet has opened up a whole new realm for business owners to sell their merchandise. In the past store owners were limited to customers that lived in the same region that they were located in. In today’s competitive environment they now have the opportunity to show themselves to people all around the world.

In order to take advantage of the ever growing market it is important for a business to have a well designed website. A website allows customers to shop and learn about a particular business without having to live in the same region. So it is important to have a website with an inviting store front that is attraction.

A well designed website will be inviting to everyone that comes across the page. Any business that is serious about marketing their merchandise will create a site that limits the number of third party ads to the buyer can shop with ease. The home page of the site should be inviting and contain content that catches the reader’s attention. The goal of the home page is to give an overview of the site and display the best merchandise available for purchase.

The colors should be well chosen and not be a distraction. Consult with a design host specialist as to what colors work best for online content. Once the colors are chosen make sure to have a format for all the pages. Customers like to see simple but well organized pages to shop from.

The goal of the store front should be to allow the reader to transact business as easy as possible. If a person has to struggle to make a payment they are more likely to cancel the transaction rather than struggle through a tough system. By keeping the design simple and professional you will attract more customers who want to do business with your store.