If you own a swimming pool service business or a swimming pool construction business you are, in effect, running a retail business, right? I recently read an article about the steps that independent bookstores are taking to keep themselves and their businesses viable and thriving. There are lessons I gleaned from that piece that will help any small business owner who operates a retail location.
Here are the things that independent bookstore owners have found to be their “secrets to success”:
They have built a community. Those who frequent independent bookstores are typically raving fans. They enjoy the experience they have at the bookstore because the bookstore owner goes out of his or her way to make it an experience for the shopper. What can you do to build a community of raving fans for your pool or other retail business?
Just as Amazon offers its, “If you like this, you may like that” or the “People who bought this also bought that” pop up on the screen, independent booksellers also offer that type of information to their customers. What can you use as an add-on or an up sell in a non-pushy way? Consider, if you’re a pool retailer and your customer buys pool noodles, he or she may be interested in a raft or a life jacket or another type of swimming pool toy.
Is your retail outlet appealing? Make it an experience when your customer walks through the door. Clean, artfully arranged and beautifully displayed items will be more appealing than will cluttered aisles and dimly lit merchandise.
When you’re competing in a small market, or a shrinking market, you need to go above and beyond when it comes to customer service. This means answering the phone when customers call. Being diligent in your duties to the client and making every visit an experience. What can you do to emulate the independent bookseller?
Chances are you have heard that people want to do business with entrepreneurs that they “know, like and trust.” This is even more true today in the crowded entrepreneurial marketplace. What can you do to not only make sales but to build long-lasting relationships with clients? Here are some tips you may want to take to heart because it’s more cost effective to keep a client than it is to market for a new one.
Remember, it’s not all about “sales” you have to keep in mind that it’s about building a relationship. If you start with the hard sell when you meet a client, he will eventually clam up and will likely walk out the door. What happened? Perhaps they came in for information gathering and you went right into “here’s what I can do for you” without listening to his or her concerns.
Focusing on making the sale is a great way to chase potential clients out the door!
You do need to know the features and benefits of your products, but more importantly you need to understand what pain point brought the potential client into your business in the first place. You need to listen more than you talk. When you meet a potential client, greet them, get to know them. Ask easy, probing questions to determine what their needs are.
When you kick off a conversation with a hardsell, you are pressuring a potential client into making a snap decision and he or she is likely just in the information-gathering stage of their exploration.
Talk to them. Ask what brought them to your door. Ask how you can help serve them — not what you can sell them. Building a relationship will make it more likely that you will make the sale.
What do you do to build relationships with potential clients?
There are many steps that entrepreneurs can take to help enhance their business success. There are also things you should stop doing in your business to help amp up your success and here are some that I recommend to my coaching clients:
Stop mixing business and personal funds. You need to keep your personal finances and your business finances separate. This goes for your expenses as well as your income. Set up separate bank accounts and deposit client payments into your business account.
Pay bills online when possible. Writing checks takes time and also costs you money. Also, if you’re waiting for the bills to come in the mail you may miss a payment date and incur fees.
Don’t get “lost” on social media. We recommend that your business have a social media and blogging presence, but you need to either hire a social media manager or if you’re doing it yourself, you need to budget for the time you’re spending online because it’s easy to go down a social media rabbithole and find that you’ve wasted hours online and neglected your business.
Turn off email alerts. Contrary to popular belief, multitasking is not a productive use of your time. If you’re involved in a client-centered task, devote your energies to that. Turn off email alerts and get on a schedule of checking your email at the top or bottom of the hour — chances are your email replies can wait an hour, right?
Don’t micro-manage your staff. If you hired well, let them do what you hired them to do. Trust their skills and expertise and let them do their jobs.
Take time off. Working 24/7/365 leads to burnout and if you’re a solopreneur, your business will suffer. Schedule downtime and time off. Schedule time away from the computer for lunch as well.
Owning your own business is a dream come true for many of the individuals with whom I work. I caution them to look at these top six mistakes and make certain they aren’t making any of them!
Is your company undergoing changes? Is there a change in the packaging of your products? Are you adding new product lines to your offerings and discontinuing others? Do you have a change in the upper level management or ownership of the company? In addition to addressing how these changes will impact your staff, you need to understand how a company change will impact your clients.
Remember, in the overall scheme of things your clients may not be impacted at all because you are planning for a seamless transition, but the perception will be there that, “things are changing and this may not be good for us.” You need to allay those fears. How can you do that? Here are some steps to consider:
Ensure that the team, especially those who interact with clients daily, are equipped to fully communicate with clients on the changes that are occurring. They need to have all of the information at hand that will alleviate fear and stress from their clients.
Set aside a time to meet with clients — either individually — or in a group cocktail (or other) kind of gathering to share your excitement with them about the upcoming changes.
Celebrate the successes of the transition in the company and its team. Keep everyone in the loop as this will make it easier for them to share in the excitement of the changes and that will resonate with clients when your staff meets with them.
How did you handle a time of change in your business?
Attending a networking event is not a race to the finish line of “who has collected the most business cards.” Instead, networking and attending events should be about meeting potential clients, getting to know them, building a relationship that takes you beyond the initial meeting.
Networking is not a one-way street. It is something that should be mutually beneficial. A better way to look at networking is to approach it from a “what can I give back that will matter to the individuals I am meeting.” Here are some tips you can implement to be more of a giver at your next networking event:
Be inclusive. If you see someone standing off on the sidelines, invite him or her into your conversation or strike up a conversation between the two of you.
Be authentic. Business people are savvy and they will know if you’re showboating.
Introduce individuals you’ve met with others in the room with whom you believe they will have a connection.
Reach out after the event. If you have a solution to a problem that one of the attendees mentioned, reach out and offer your solution — no questions asked.
Volunteer your time. If the group you’re attending has an opportunity to be a volunteer, take it. Become invaluable.
Be social after the event. Connect with people on social media. Share their posts, comment on their blogs.
Do you find that networking events help you grow your business? What is your best-networking tip?
Entrepreneurs are sales people. There are many business owners that I speak with who will tell me what they do, what they sell and the services they provide. What they fail to say that they do is “sales.” Think about it, though, every entrepreneur is a sales person — he or she has to be or how would the money come in? When you think about making sales in your business, remember sales is about relationship-building. Who would you rather buy from… someone you “know, like and trust” or someone who comes knocking on your door and says, “hey, buy my stuff?” I’ll bet it’s the entrepreneur with whom you’ve built a relationship, right.
If you look at the law of averages, you have likely figured out if you make enough cold calls, someone will buy. If you connect with enough people on social media, someone will make a purchase from you. However, if you look at the time it takes you to reach out “blindly” as compared to how much time it would take to nurture a warm lead you will easily see that relationship building will lead to deeper, longer lasting business connections.
Going to a networking event shouldn’t be looked at as a contest to see who can collect and who can hand out, the most business cards. If you attend a networking event and you connect with a handful of people enough so that you can set up a meeting outside of the event, you are much further ahead than the person who isn’t taking the time to build a relationship.
Once you have sold yourself and your services to a client, keep in touch and keep building that relationship.
What are your best sales relationship building tips?
