Summer time brings lots of fun at the beach, pool parties, barbeques, and fun gatherings.  It also can be a time for sales slowdowns for many businesses.  Depending on your business model, industry, product and or service, your sales can lower drastically during the summer months.  This drastic reduction in sales can lower profitability, cause you to lay off staff, and be enough of a downturn to instill worry about your business potentially affecting your quality of life.

This thought our idea does not have to be the reality for your business.  While these trends are cyclical in many business models, there are tactics and processes you can employ to mitigate or lessen the effects of the summer sale slow down.

Because most millennials are enjoying summer break, parents are taking vacations while their children are off from school, and many people in general tend to enjoy more time off during the summer months.  This is a great opportunity for your company to redesign and execute a well-developed Social Media Marketing strategy for your company.

With more users (your customers) reviewing social media during the summer months at a more frequent pace, a well-developed Social Media Marketing program will ensure your brand, your products, and your services are or remain at the forefront of your intended audience.  You will have more opportunities to present your business to your customers in the summer months.

Consumers still purchase in the summer months, however, consumers will purchase from those brands that resonate with them and appeal to their needs and desires.  If you are nowhere to be found, if you are not interacting with your potential customers, and if you are not at the forefront of their attention when they are using the public and digital mediums, your sales will drop alongside of the rest of the businesses who realize a drastic sales slowdown during the summer months.

E: info@theadleaf.com | P: 321.255.0900 | Skype: Chris.Delarue

I Don’t Have the Money to Market my Business

If we had a nickel for every time we have heard the statement “I Don’t have money to market my business”, “It’s not in the budget”, or “We’ve spent so much money in marketing we are not going to do it anymore”, we would be billionaires!

Here’s the skinny. In the 1980’s my grandparents spent $2500.00 per month for a full page phone book advertisement for their business that may or may not have procured customers with their local audience of 25,000 citizens. Why? Because we had to market? Said Grandma. It wasn’t something we could afford to gamble with if we wanted to stay in business. Sure, we had referral customers, but people move away, retire, and their life situations changed.”

In business, like in life, we make time and money for what we ultimately feel is important. If you truly started a business without capital funding to run your business and execute your business plan, then you do not really have a business. What you do have is a whim and a prayer. That is not only dangerous for you, that is dangerous for your customers, employees, vendors, and will open you up to potential legal action should you default with one of many of the folks I just listed. In most situations, when we hear those statements around the availability of money written in the first paragraph, the sad reality is, is that the business owner or decision maker really doesn’t understand executing a business plan and budgeting critical expenses like compliance education, legal counseling, training, and marketing. Understanding the fundamental problem that we really do make time and money for what we “think” is important in business, the expense categories I just listed are treated as a luxury expense. The 2016 business playing field screams to us that these expenses are anything but luxury items.

In September 2013, Forbes Magazine and Bloomberg Weekly reported that 8 out of 10 business fail within the first 18 months. In addition, another sad reality is, is that many of the small business clients that approach our marketing firm to engage in marketing services have waited to the absolute last conceivable minute to do anything about marketing, they(you) are in jeopardy of losing the business and closing the doors. Many believe that $500.00 and one month of marketing is going to somehow function as the magic bullet that saves your business from failure. That is not the case. If you have waited to execute your business plan until you are in trouble, I’m afraid to tell you it may be too late.

Now that we have called out what the typical small business owner trajectory is, here is how you can prevent you and your business from becoming just another statistic and failed concept. First, educate yourself in writing a business plan. Put together funding to run your startup company. You are not the first person that has thought up a great idea, or invented a game-changing widget, or developed the best possible concept. You cannot start a business without funding and a business plan, it will not work. Interview and be sure you have vetted the right vendors to support what your needs are. Understand that you are not the subject matter expert in all areas and don’t treat critical expenses such as legal compliance, Human Resources training, corporate compliance, and Marketing as luxury expenses because they are not. Think about this conceptually like a baseball or football team. There is a reason why the pitcher is not playing all positions on the team. It’s simply because he or she is not great at right field or shortstop. He’s the pitcher! Finally, just like you would expect for the services(or goods) you sell, hire and pay your business contacts an appropriate and fair market value fee for their services. If you think you can get away with going the cheap route for any needed expense, you are going to make a devastating and costly mistake in 2016. Your competitors are educated, they possess business the professional business acumen that you don’t have, and they have been seated at the table long before you came around. If you think that you can take short cuts and create a pathway to business success you are going to become another Forbes and Bloomberg statistic in 2016.

E: info@theadleaf.com | P: 321.255.0900 | Skype: Chris.Delarue

In 2015 social media marketing and social commerce drove 30% of all website traffic to websites-did you know that? With Millennials (Customers born around 2000), social media is their number one used search method to find goods and services. Gen X(1960-1980) and Gen Y(1980-2000) use social media as their 2nd preferred search option for goods and services behind Google, which is number one. Everyone says social media is the next big thing but I haven’t had a single sale from Social Media!

There are many reasons that you might not have success with Social Media Marketing. I, would not allow a Dr’s receptionist to operate on a broken bone should that emergency arise. I cannot figure out for the life of me why so many of you think you are the best person to manage marketing and social media for your business? As the florist, plumber, electrician, counselor, dentist or doctor wouldn’t your time be better spent utilizing your skills as the subject matter expert in your field?

In order to realize success with social media marketing, you must first understand social media(based on your age demographics really define that knowledge level), the concepts surrounding success with each social media channel and the how best those principles will support your company. You must ensure that you have picked the right social media channels for your business, and you must communicate with your customers or potential customers in a way that supports them, not necessarily yourself if you’re not even your own target customer. Additionally, understand what realistic expectations should be surrounding social media success. If you’re constantly plugging your product or service three times per day, seven days per week, you’re drowning your audience, turning people off, and irritating people. Did you know that social media serves as a branding tool for your business first? Did you know that social media also serves as a customer facing or customer service segment of your business? Be meaningful and purposeful with your social media strategy and posting. Are you consistently branding your social media messages? We have seen many small business owners using the same social media accounts for business and their personal lives. That decision is disastrous for the business for many reasons.

Give us a call and we would be delighted to audit your social media marketing performance as well as develop a comprehensive pathway to success in your branding and long term marketing performance.

E: info@theadleaf.com | P: 321.255.0900 | Skype: Chris.Delarue

The typical progression with marketing and the life of a small business owner takes a few twists and turns. Typically, a North American based small business owner will start their business without the appropriate level of business acumen to effectively start and run a business. Forbes Magazine and Bloomberg reported that 8 out of 10 small business owners will fail in business within 18 months. (Published September 2013)

Due to this lack of knowledge, many small business owners in order to save costs (in their minds) will attempt to conduct and manage the marketing themselves. In most instances, this action quite honestly has lasting negative sales impact, profitability impact, customer service impact, and overall business branding impact. In some cases, that negative impact is difficult to realize (at least in the beginning) short term. Once you have realized that the marketing side of the business is taking significant amount of time away from you actually doing what you love(the very thing you decided to do when you opened your business), you realize that you need to hire some type of marketing support.

The next step in business owner life progression brings many of you to a crossroads. Should I hire an in house marketing person( I have read the Craigslist Ads that you have written looking for a marketing coordinator, customer service representative, sales person, personal assistant, and support person *all in one* for the bargain price of $10.00 per hour  ), or should I entertain those “spam” emails and phone calls I receive about marketing?

Once you have realized at this point in your business life progression either: Hire the $1600.00 minimum, per month cost to employ a $10.00 per hour Jack or Jane of all trades to manage Marketing, or hire one of the agencies that have been emailing you (multiple times per day) and calling you regularly. No matter which direction you have chosen, what you should establish are reasonable expectations with respects to how you manage those relationships and how much you should be involved.

Keep in mind that a marketing staffer “might be” but the marketing agency “will be” the subject matter experts in marketing and advertising. You as the business owner are the subject matter expert around your business model or widget(s) that you create and sell. If you truly wish to realize sales and profitability success with the marketing you are paying for, you must be involved in the process. It is critical that you help your employee or agency create content, images, videos, sound bites, and specials or promotions. You must provide feedback and approvals. If you are paying an employee or paying for a service why would you not show direct involvement in something you are paying for? How much time do you need to be involved? That is a great question. The answer is really contingent upon how “bad” your marketing, sales, and profitability performance historically has been. If your sales are down or flat, if your profitability is down or flat, or if your marketing program is dismal-you should plan to invest the time necessary to ensure that your employee or agency is steered in the right direction in support of success for your business. If you hire an employee or an agency and then drop off your mess in their laps, your ultimate success could be improved but most likely would only show limited improvement.

You must be collaborative: If you approach your employee or agency with a jaded eye and an “ah ha I gotcha” mentality, your employee and agency are not going to be able to function in a creative, forward looking, and proactive manner in support of your marketing success. If you spend all of your interaction time looking for items that the employee didn’t complete or the agency didn’t complete instead of looking for creative ways to execute each segment of your campaigns, you are wasting valuable time and resources. It is human nature for “people” to work hard in support of doing a great job. Work to solve the root cause of problems and then focus on moving forward. If your employee or agency missed the mark with marketing did you fail to send in content? Did you fail to create content? Did you fail to direct them with specials, promotions, giveaways? Did you take weeks to provide feedback or an approval on a priority they were waiting for? Did you NOT take the work they sent you over for approval seriously? Did you not even review it? At the end of the day, as a business owner, the only person you are accountable to is the person you see in the mirror. Be sure to be purposeful, honest, and involved with what you are paying for in business. The CEO’s of major U.S. Fortune 50 organizations do not run their day to day operations on vacation 365 days per year, why do you think that you do not have to be: Supportive, hands on, helpful, proactive, and respectful with vendor and employee relationships, while still expecting great success?

Statement:  We have never really budgeted, invested or taken a look at marketing and advertising.  But now things have changed.  The population has moved and our customers are moving towards internet based research, e-commerce, and we need to change with the times.   How much should I budget for marketing?  I mean really!

-OR-

The baby boomers have retired, which is the age demographic group that relied heavily on referrals and word of mouth referrals.  We now need to do something different with our business to stay in business in 2015.

First let’s look holistically at our business model, our geographical location and our customer demographics.  Many small business owners view MARKETING, Human Resources, Legal assistance, Compliance, and training as luxury expenses.   Often times these expenses are only added to the business operations when a major problem has occurred within one of these categories or the business is running the risk of failing.  Marketing, HR, Compliance, Training, and Legal Assistance for a small business are ANYTHING BUT luxury expense items.  They are the most critical components to effectuating a successful business plan.  So, let’s discuss How much should I budget for marketing!

Successful, established, North American based businesses budget and spend 4-6% of their annual revenue in advertising. Company’s like McDonald’s, Starbucks, Walgreen’s, Walmart, mine and your successful peers.  What did I emphasize and bold type face established?  Established businesses are defined as businesses that have created an executed their business plan correctly, which in large part includes a well strategized and executed marketing plan.  If your business has not completed those components even if you may have been in business for many years, I would still categorize your business as a startup.  You are a startup because you most likely have never realized your full potential in business with sales and profitability. Startup businesses will budget and spend upwards of 10% or more of your revenue| start up capital | or borrowed capital to brand yourselves as well as generate new client leads.  Where you all will fall within your 4-6% or your 10% or more depends on the type of industry your business trades in, your location demographics, and complexity around your business model.  If your business model trades within a competitive business space such as a:  Lawyer, Dentist, Electrician, Construction, Plumber, your marketing spend will need to be budgeted at the high end of the ranges given.  If your business sells obscure, niche, or hard to find items, you would be able to budget a marketing spend at the lower end of the ranges given above.  Now that we have discussed How much should I budget for marketing, let’s discuss how to make this topic a big more palatable.

Budgeting ANY expense in business is formulated as a percentage of gross sales and included in your budget as a line item on your P & L and your budget.  I have always told my leaders in business to “solve the right problem”.  If your Labor, Cost of Goods Sold, Marketing, Office Expenses are too high, then you should control the expenses that are the outliers.  Many of us want an A office building, at the top floor, with an ocean view, however, if that rental payment causes your rental expense on your P&L to report over 16%; that is typically not an affordable rent expense.  If our budget requires us to have a home office, or rent in a B or C office building to ensure we stay between 12-16% of sales- that is the answer.

If you make it a habit to “solve the wrong problem” in business and cut expenses within the wrong line items of your businesses P & L you could very well negatively affect your top line revenue, customer experience, profitability and you could start the downward spiral of death for your business.   Lastly you might be saying to me “We’ll I don’t have the money that McDonald’s, Starbucks, Walmart, and Walgreen’s does” you’re probably right.  The key differences though between them and YOU is, is that when they were a small business like you are today, they executed their business plan correctly.  They budgeted marketing at 4-6% when times were good and when times were lean.  In large part, those decisions when they were small, allowed those companies to be who they are today.  Please send us a message if you’d like to discuss this topic: E: info@theadleaf.com | P: 321.255.0900