January.

For retailers, it’s cold not just outside, but indoors when it comes to moving the stock off the shelves. After the Christmas-buying sprees, most shoppers are back at home cooling their heels while retailers try to entice them back out to buy. The one stand-by many local store owners turn to is holding big sales, and they’re finding that in a tough economy it’s necessary to offer deeper and deeper discounts to get folks back and willing to buy. It’s great to have warm bodies in your store again, but it’s not great if your sale ends up making you no profit due to all that deep discounting.

So what’s the method of success that allows you to get the customers back and still make a profit? Is there a way to get both?

There are several methods you can employ to attract business and still maintain a profit margin. See which one of these (or more than one) will work best in your restaurant, retail store, or service-based business and give it a go.

Know Your Bottom Line, and Sell Just Above

This is the method to use with that inventory that needs to move out the door, not with that great new batch of products that just came in for Spring. Calculate your bottom dollar on these items: how low can you go and still make something, even if it’s a small something? Then make your strategy to sell many of these items, each bringing in that small amount of profit, and you’ll end up with a good amount of profit when all is said and done. Plus you’ll have cleared your store of excess, aging inventory.

Create a Loss-Leader

Grocery stores use the loss-leader method just about every week; their circulars advertise a deal that’s “too good to pass up” for their shoppers. In many cases, the grocery stores are taking a loss on this item, but they know that just getting the customers in the store is worth that small loss. How many times have you gone to the grocery store and bought just one item? Most of us don’t shop for groceries that way, and why not? Because in the process of locating and purchasing the loss-leader item, we’re unable to ignore the displays of other great merchandise – some also discounted, some not – that we have to walk past and around to find our goal. Use the same strategy in your store; advertise a huge discount on a popular item, set up a great display for it, and put it smack in the middle of many other great displays with enticing offers of their own.

Offer Package Deals

Another angle on the loss-leader strategy is to offer package deals and discounts; this method allows you to package your items of choice together, being sure that one of them is a cheaper item for you to purchase, which gives you greater wiggle room for a discount. You can offer a greater discount on a combined package, knowing that your combined investment in all the package items is still well below the discounted package price. You might even use a “buy one of these, get one of these other things” free method to sell a costlier item without a discount while taking the “loss” on your cheaper, freebie item. It’s the same method beauty product companies’ use when they offer a “special gift” with a purchase.

Add Value that Doesn’t Cost You Cash

What can you offer your customers that doesn’t come with any cash cost to you? Look beyond the basic inventory, and think about subscriptions, memberships, special discount or dining clubs, consultations, or other perks that offer a huge incentive for customers thinking about a purchase. The value is still there for the customer, who would otherwise have to pay to get the subscription or membership or consultation; but the value-added item isn’t costing you cash that you can’t afford to lose. Use these value-added items to upsell; offer them as freebies or part of a package, which allows you to give your customers an increased value for the same cost without decreasing your profit margin.

What method sounds best for your business?

Image by Alan Cleaver2000.

One easy way locally owned business can get themselves on the map (literally) is by soliciting customer reviews for your business on geographically based review sites. Review sites are usually very large conglomerates with individual mini-sites for each geographic location. Often they’re divided by state or region, and then subdivided by city or township within that region. The bottom line in this uber-web-based world in which we live is simply this: If your business can’t be found through a quick web search – you’re business is going to die.

Use Geo-Based Review Sites to Grow Your Business

What’s great about these websites is that they allow brand-new customers to find you – and want to try your business out – when they may have known nothing about you before. These new customers are online searching for your type of business in your area; if you’ve set up your profile and garnered some reviews on any of these sites, they’re likely to run across your business. Suddenly they not only know you exist, what you do, and where you’re located, they also get to find out what your customers think about you by reading the reviews.

So how do you get into this action? It’s pretty simple.

Step 1: Focus on the major review sites.

The most important local review site is the home of the “red pin” – Google Places, formerly known as Google Local. Other review sites include the following:

• Yelp.com
• Local.Yahoo.com
• CitySearch.com
• InsiderPages.com
• CitysBest.com

There are more, but if you get set up on at least a few of these major websites, your information will get picked up by the other sites as well.

Step 2: “Claim” your business and/or set up your profile.

Once you’re at the website, search for your business. You may find it already listed; if so, you’ll see an option to claim the business or add updated information. Fill in all the information you can: physical address, phone number, email address, Internet information (email, website, blog, Facebook, Twitter), store hours, specialties, owner’s name, history. Some sites will give you more room than others. Some will also allow you to post pictures; I highly recommend that you post a few photos of the outside of the store, inside of the store and a sampling of available products.

If you don’t find your business, you’ll simply have to start the profile or information from scratch. Follow the same principle as above by including as much information as possible on each site. Remember, the more information you have, the more you will show up in search results and the easier it will be for people to find you.

Step 3: Ask for reviews.

The most important part of a business profile on one of these review sites is, of course, the customer reviews. So start asking for reviews. When your best customers come in to your business, make it a point to personally ask them to go online and submit a brief review to ONE of the review sites. Don’t ask them to submit reviews to more than one; that’s simply too much and too complicated, and most customers (even the ones who love you) won’t respond. All you have to do is say something like, “We’ve just set up our profile at CitySearch.com, and we’re trying to get some reviews up. If you have a moment when you get home, would you mind sharing about your experiences here? You’re one of our best customers, and we’d really appreciate new customers getting a chance to hear from you.”

Then hand each customer a card with the information printed on it, so they won’t forget when they get back home.

That’s it! The whole process is simple and can really make a huge difference in helping new customers find you, so get it started now and see what results you’re getting in a few months.

Image: dbking.

Editor’s Note: This is a post in the “How to Create a 2011 Local Business Marketing Plan”* series. Some of it will be shared here on [resultsrevolution.com]. The rest will be shared via my free newsletter. Get the newsletter to get the full planning series.

Do you have your business goals for 2011 etched in stone yet?

If not, it’s time to take all of those notes out of your notebook and do something with them. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, sign-up for our e-mail newsletter and forward me your confirmation – I’ll send you the back issues of our planning series so you can catch up).

How to define your goals for 2011.

1. Of all of the notes in your notebook over the past few weeks, go through and circle the things that stand out as MOST IMPORTANT. It’s time to pick priorities and create focus. It’s time to hone in on some themes that will describe your 2011.

2. Group the CIRCLED ITEMS into categories. Usually the things that we deem priorities usually could be grouped together in themes or categories. Maybe several of your items have to do with financial issues – sales growth, financial responsibility, decreasing debt, cash flow management, payroll issues, your own earnings, etc. If so, put all of those items together under a category called FINANCIAL. And so on for the rest of the circled items.

3. Usually folks end up with only 3-4 categories at the end of this exercise. If you have more, go back and circle the 2-3 categories that if they fall short will cause the failure of your business. Which are make or break – and which are just desires. At this point you should have no more than 3-4 CATEGORIES from which you will now define your 2011 business goals. Just let go of everything else. The fact of the matter is that if you will focus on the few items most critical to your business health that other things will fall into place more easily later. But you have to do things in order – and you can’t do it all. Success takes time – believe it or not – and a year doesn’t last as long as it did when we were five years old.

4. Create a list of THREE – FOUR goals you want to accomplish in 2011. If we stick to the financial analogy, you’ll look at your list of items in the framework of a single category. For example, look at all of the notes you now have lumped into the financial category. What single metric would accomplish them all – or at least most of them? Would a 15% increase in retail sales allow you to in turn accomplish your debt retirement, personal earnings, and cash flow management issues? Maybe – maybe not. But the idea here is to boil those themes into a single S.M.A.R.T. goal. S.M.A.R.T. standing for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Time-sensitive.

An example in this financial theme would be “Increase retail sales for 2011 10% over 2010.” Only you will know if this is attainable and realistic – but I will help you figure that out by introducing a simple method for accomplishing goals in the next edition of our e-mail newsletter. So sign up now, if you haven’t already.

Supplement Your Goals

Goals are good, and in my mind, necessary. They shouldn’t be like resolutions for a business – because resolutions don’t make it very far. Goals are meant to give you a target to aim at – a way to know you won. You can look back on your year, measure your success and celebrate your wins.

However, goals are usually so specific that without a supporting player they can even be distracting. That’s why I like what Chris Brogan does with his “three words” concept. These are, as I understand, guiding principles for a year that work with goals but provide more than that – a higher level purpose for each year. Read Chris’ excellent post because it explains this concept just fine, so there’s no reason for me to repeat it – and his 2011 post is FULL to the brim of other business people who said their three words out loud and got included in that post. It’ll give you some ideas, hopefully.

Stay tuned for my three words. I’m pretty excited about them.

Photo credit: TheFasterDanish

Over the next few weeks, I’m going to do a series on local business marketing planning for local or small enterprises. This is the sort of planning that you should be thinking about right now as the year winds down and another gets ready to launch:

1. What will you do differently in 2011?
2. What are your goals for 2011?
3. What is your unique strategy to connect with customers in 2011?
4. What media will you use to communicate with customers, vendors, prospects, employees, etc. in 2011?
5. What products/services, etc. will you offer in 2011? What will be different or the same from 2010?

And many more questions just like these? How do you answer those questions strategically – and literally – for your business, so that you get your new year off to a blazing start? It all boils down to your local business marketing plan for 2011. That’s what we’ll be unpacking in the next few weeks.

Why is this important?

A local business marketing plan is important because many of you would otherwise march into 2011 without a single strategic weapon in place. Things happen just like you plan them – and if you don’t plan or you plan to fail – you’ll get just that. Local business must PLAN for success – create a road map that will win – not unlike a military going into battle. Yes, sometimes things don’t work out precisely as planned – but at least you have the order of the plan that you can change and aren’t just marching blindly into battle. Your chances of success are increased exponentially with the careful attention to planning that you give – and the success will be sweet at the end when you win – and win big for your local business!

Here’s how this will work:

Some of the content will be available here on the blog. A LOT of it will be in written “lesson” format via our e-mail newsletter. Let’s just say that 2/3 of the content will arrive in your inbox. Once I’ve finished the series, I’ll compile it all into an e-book and teach a webinar on the topic of local business marketing plans around the first week of the year.

The first e-mail lesson will go out next Tuesday, so go ahead and sign-up for the e-mail newsletter now, so you don’t miss a thing. (Motivating hint: the first lesson is something you can accomplish in ten minutes even in the midst of the holiday bustle to position yourself for a successful planning session later when things slow down a bit.)

Sign up in the box on the top right side of the page… just click here… and happy 2011 planning!

Photo Credit: West Point Public Affairs

The more you venture into social media and online marketing for your local business, there more you’ll hear about two particular parts of this online/social world: 1) content and 2) relationships. But what do these two terms mean for you and your business online and locally, for your brick-and-mortar store experience? Well, as it turns out, they mean quite a bit.

What Content Means for Your Business
“Content is King” was the cry of the Internet for the first decade or so, and though other forms of interaction rise in the online world, content still holds top position. Content simply refers to any sort of valuable resource, usually information-based, which is produced and shared online. It’s information in a digital format; the posts on a blog are content. The sound files of a popular podcast are its content. A downloadable eBook is content. Frequent updates and notes on a business Facebook page are content.
For your local business, content is the way you get to prospects and turn them into fans, friends, and lifelong customers. When you provide – online – valuable, relevant content that your target market is interested in receiving, you provide the gateway for interaction, connection, and. wait for it… relationships.

What Relationships Mean for Your Business
Let’s step back and look at what relationships mean for your business in the offline world. You don’t need a marketing primer to know that building relationships – real, solid relationships – gives you a solid foundation for ongoing business. The more people like you, know you, and like your products and services, the more they want to do business with you. Relationships also have the positive effect of extending your business into a whole new circle of prospects with every relationship you make. If people really love what you do, they share it with their friends. You form more relationships, you build more business, and on it goes.

Relationships in online marketing and social media are no different. In fact, they have the added quality of spreading faster and further than “offline” relationships can. Because sharing information, reviews, and opinions is so easy online, people are more apt to do it; and more people can read about their information, reviews, and opinions through social media sites like Facebook. Friends can share with friends and the information keeps going.

What Education-Based Marketing Means for Your Business
Education-based marketing is simply a strategy for sharing content that leads to building relationships? You start by sharing information (content) that is educational; it should tie in to your business somehow. For example, if you run a winery, you could start a blog all about growing grapes, choosing wines, pairing wine and food, finding good wines on a budget, storing wine, etc. Anything that provides educational information about a topic closely related to your business becomes valuable content that can lead people back to your business.

Perhaps you have a great local boutique selling home goods, decor, and gift items; your customer’s love your taste and you often get into long conversations about color schemes and decor. The natural step is to take your expertise online. Start up a Facebook page and start writing notes, sharing little tips and ideas. With very little initial set-up, you can easily start producing videos online, leading anyone who views through simple decorating tutorials or sharing tip, hints, and ideas.

The main idea is that before you try to sell, you simply share valuable, educational information. Your target market will naturally be drawn toward that information and will see you as an expert and a resource. It’s not marketing as much as it is simply being useful and thus, building relationships, but the end result is that all that usefulness creates valuable relationships, which end up building your business.

Photo credit: velkr0

In short, restaurants and hotels should encourage and train employees in STRATEGIC social media use because proper use of these tools will motivate personal responsibility, provide greater job fulfillment, and lead to improved employee productivity.

Connecting directly with customers makes your employees’ work more fulfilling leading to more loyal, passionate employees. If you’re the boss, you know that keeping employees happy, motivated and highly productive is your key to success. There is a myth circulating out there that says that social media will lead to lower productivity – I’m here to tell you that nothing could be farther from the truth. Employees with an inclination to be lazy will find a way to be unproductive whether they are allowed to use social media at work or not.

However, good employees will do the opposite and improve your bottom line. Our restaurant and hotel clients tell us they attribute larger and larger percentages of sales to social media each month, with the same team of human resources. Sales are made more quickly and in a shorter sales cycle. Sales are made when they’re needed. And employees are able to become more and more passionate about their positions – and create more and more value for YOU in their positions. Andrew, a General Manager at one of our client restaurants put it best when he wrote us the following about his social media experience after a training session with Andy:

“We have been doing the Twitter thing here, and I have to say I am quite impressed. As of now we have over 700 people following us on Twitter alone.

We want to create actual interaction with people instead of them just reading a post we pushed out there.

One of the things that we have done is put interesting facts out about us and our restaurant. ‘Did you know that Americans consume more ice cream per person than any other nationality?’ These are great because they spark interest in a way towards us and our brand.

Another thing that we have done is doing trivia about our restaurant. One question sparked 20+ people interacting and commenting. People were even cross commenting to people that got the answer wrong. That is amazing because we created buzz about us by asking just one question. We tried this again with a free scoop of ice cream ($2) to the first person who could tweet back with an answer. Again the same thing happened.

The coolest part is the fact that people are ACTUALLY interacting with us! We have even gone through and posted pictures as well. GUESTS love that! Whenever we post a picture of something that is NOT pizza or ice cream, we usually get back comments like, ‘Ohh… I never knew you all could do Sea Bass’ and ‘Wow… that Shrimp looks amazing.’

I think the key to this is to have fun with it. It really is not that hard and is not that time consuming. Just think about it on a slower Saturday night if you post ‘We’re officially OFF THE WAIT.’ Could this bring in any extra revenue on an already slow night? Maybe…”

With your target objective (mission) and goals in clearly defined, it's time to start planning, researching and taking action. With our planning for the National Main Street Conference, we really only had about two weeks of firm planning time.

Here is how I broke down the planning: logistics, action items tied to goals, contacts and packing.

For me, the list proved to be a bit daunting. I am a perfectionist, and on occasion bite off more than I can chew. This conference wasn't the only thing on my plate after all. I have small business owners that I consult each week and projects and other speaking engagements to manage. Knowing all of this, I must say I did a fine job of making my lists, then editing myself.

I cannot state this any more strongly for those planners among you: there are plans that will save the world – but require the moon's sacrifice in order to happen. And there are the plans that work, that achieve real, measurable results – because, quite simply, the plan was edited into reality.

I am a journalism student by training, so with list in hand, I took out my trusty red pen. I found it helpful to actually categorize my action items by those tactics that would produce the most bang for my buck with no regard to my personal comfort level. Some of the items would require me to get outside of my actual personality in order to produce the greatest results for the least effort. (Now that is what I call LEAN THINKING.) The categories led me to basically edit into oblivion every tactic that wasn't an all-star. What we ended up with, I believe (and I may be wrong), we've ended up with a more flexible schedule that will allow us to take advantage of opportunities as they present themselves while securing PRE-conference certain appointments and plans that have us well on our way to achieving our target objective.

Let me explain:

Tactic that got the red ink:
- Drinks and appetizers for a large group of folks, many of whom we don't know. Would have required a fair amount of planning, organization and time spent inviting, etc.

Instead…
- Made lunch appointment with a state coordinator to discuss upcoming opportunity to speak for the first time in this state.

We did set some meet-ups and lunch dates in advance of the conference, all scheduled for the first two days. This leaves us time to build new relationships over a meal, coffee or drinks later in the conference schedule, if needed. We used the list that the conference provided of registered attendees as well as our existing contacts in order to schedule valuable encounters.

We also took the time pre-conference to promote our attendance at the conference on social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Plaxo, and Twitter. We also offered some valuable information and information of our attendance via the Main Street members only listserv to which we are members. Even now, you can follow the conference at the Twitter hashtag we created at #MainStreet09.

We have an on-site goodie in store, too… stay tuned, so you don't miss valuable small business owner survey results that will be available to conference goes FIRST, before we post it on our web site.

Small business tip: Making plans BEFORE you get to the event in order to maximize your time AT the event.

P.S. For real live blogging of the actual conference sessions, etc.
check out the official conference blog which is very well done so far
at Main Street Live 09. You can get an insider's perspective as the staff of Michigan Main Street live blogs the conference on their blog (What can we say? They are our star student!). And you can follow the conference on Twitter at #MainStreet09.