What Do You Know Better, Sports or Your Future?

January 26, 2012 in Business articles, Complacency, Leadership | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Have you ever watched or listened to people in a bar or at work talking sports? I find it amazing how many people are up to date with the latest stats, know the information on all the players, and who has been traded where and by whom. The same people can spit stats out at the tip of a hat yet most haven’t spent two minutes thinking about their lifestyle or where their heading. Now I am not down on sports, I don’t follow anyone in particular, but enjoy the odd game, I am just too busy to to keep up with sports and all particulars that go along with that.

Here is why I even bring this up, how many people that are deeply involved with watching sports know where there lives or careers are going in the future. I believe there is a time when we have to wake up and smell the coffee, start thinking about the future, and look at what we have accomplished in life to date. Any financial planner will tell you the same thing, think about the future but how many of us do it. In Ontario Canada here we have lost many positions in the manufacturing sector and it has put a real strain on the economy and people in general. I know that situation is echoed across North America and the world for that matter. I don’t see that situation changing fast or soon to be honest with you so it is important for people to take charge of their own businesses, careers, and personal lives. I believe many are caught up on how to do that however and it does take some effort. So here is how you start and for those of you in your forties you may already be thinking of this as it comes to mind as you may be going through a mid-life crisis.

The best way to start is to evaluate where you are now and what type of lifestyle you would like for the future. Now realize I am not talking monetary necessarily but that will play a big part of that, I am talking career, and personal needs. Do you want to travel, do you want a large business, are you happy in your current position, is the company one that may be around for a while? All those questions should be answered and thought about very seriously. Many folks stay at their current jobs, not paying attention to the economy and the company situation and then are mesmerized when the company goes out of business. Many times that can be seen very early, but people weren’t paying attention. This is the time to make that back up plan and get started protecting your dreams and goals. The best place to start is by turning off the television set with the sports on and sitting down with your significant other and talk about a plan.It may be the best use of time you could have, of course don’t plan it on a night with the Superbowl!

About the Author

Bruce Outridge is a business and leadership consultant for entrepreneurs specializing in transportation and creative markets. More information can be found on his website at www.outridge.ca

5 Steps to Successful Marketing Plan

January 19, 2012 in Business articles, Entrepreneurs, Marketing, social media | Tags: , , , , , , , | 1 comment

You do have a marketing plan don’t you? Every business owner should have a business plan that includes a decent marketing plan, yet many don’t. Unfortunately that causes people to waste time on things that don’t work or people that can’t help them. I have five steps that should be part of everyones marketing program and these steps can even be broken down more if needed. They are not in any particular order as the branding step should be the first step.

First is cold calling or outreach, now I know what your doing no one likes cold calling so use outreach. Outreach means calling a new new business to see if they need your services, mailing out a piece that will grab their attention on your services etc. You may do this more when starting out than you would when established but it is important to do it. Just do it tactfully so you don’t come across like a telemarketing company, unless you are a telemarketing company.

Networking is probably the best part of the marketing plan but make sure the places you spend your time are worth your time. I see people at networking groups that that shouldn’t even be in the group, their target market isn’t even present. You’re not doing yourself any good in that area.

Your online presence is critical both for social media and for your website. Make sure your website is working to do what you want it to do and that you have a presence on the main social media platforms. Online is how people are searching for businesses to day and if you don’t have a website you are missing lots of business.

Existing clients and referrals are crucial to the longevity of any business, make sure you  treat your existing clients like gold. Asking for referrals or giving discounts for referrals are a great way to get additional business from satisfied clients.

The last but not least is branding your business. You need to have quality materials for your business cards, a decent logo that establishes your business. Make sure everything matches so that people start to recognize your business online and offline.

Marketing is an ongoing program that constantly needs to be tweaked and tuned to be effective. The place to start however is to get the plan down, know who your target market is and the best way to reach them.

About the Author

Bruce Outridge is a business and leadership consultant. He specializes in business plans and marketing solutions for businesses specializing in transportation and the arts. For more information visit his website at www.outridge.ca

What Do You Do When Your Professional Board Disagrees?

January 12, 2012 in Business articles, Entrepreneurs, Team Building | Tags: , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

As a business owner there are many tasks that you are responsible for and probably handle yourself. Everything from signing the big deal to cleaning the washroom may be in your list of jobs to be done at any given time. That is the joy and life of most entrepreneurs. Although many of us are good at multitasking we generally know quite a bit about several parts of our business but not everything. That is where the board of advisors come in for your company. The board may differ from company to company but usually consists of your acountant, your financial planner, your banker, and a business consultant. You may have more or less depending on the size of your business. Having all theses people on your board may make you feel that you’ve got a decent team behind you, that you will get financial and business advice that helps you grow. What happens however when the team doesn’t agree? When you are a small business keeping cash flow running smoothly can be a creative task especially if you have debt and obligations to pay. So as you are trying to do your best you are being told different things from each advisor, and the problem is that they are all right.

Here is what happened to us, we were trying to pay down debt and improve our financial picture. My partner and I had made a sound decision not use credit cards if at possible and live on cash. Our financial planner was elated and said that was the way to go. As our accountant was doing our taxes we were going over expenses and he said that it would be better to be paying certain items with the credit card as it helps in tracking items better in the long run, also the right advice. Our business consultant said try to increase your cash flow by reducing debt meaning that we should pay by cheque whenever possible, also the right advice. By now you are probably starting to see the disconnect that was starting between the advisors.

In the end the final decision comes down to you as as business owner. The team are advisors only and you have to do what is best for your situation. Just like the President you have to weigh each decision against the actual situation. When advisors give you advise they are advising from their outlook on the situation, which will be different for everyone. You have to make the best possible decision for your business based upon the facts and the best case scenario. Welcome to the world of business.

About the Author

Bruce Outridge is a business and leadership consultant for entrepreneurs. More information can be found on his website at  www.outridge.ca

Working with Referrals

December 29, 2011 in Business articles, Entrepreneurs, Leadership, Marketing | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Have you ever gotten a referral from someone that turned out to be a very profitable project? It is a great feeling isn’t it? Have you ever given someone a referral that didn’t do what they were supposed to do? That probably left you feeling lower than an ant on the ant hill. Referrals are very important to business, to self esteem, and to our integrity as a person. Whether you are giving someone a referral or accepting a referral how you act upon it or deal with it says much about you but also the person that the referral came from.

Back when I was starting at a moving company I was 17 years old, the boss liked the way I worked and asked if I knew anyone else that would like a job. He assumed that my friends would be as hard working as I was. The friend that I recommended turned out to be the laziest guy on the block, very loud, with no customer service skills at all. I felt terrible and he eventually got fired, but his work ethic was a direct reflection on me. I was too young to know that at the time and vowed it would never happen again. This has happened in business as fellow entrepreneurs that seem to be very driven and dedicated are looking for business. I give them a lead and tell them to take good care of the person and sometimes I am let down again by people not following up, or not getting them the information required promptly. I have been given leads that I follow up with, they accept the project, waste my time, and then seem to disappear. All of this looks worse on the person who gave the referral than the person that I am working with. I don’t understand why people go to business meetings, network, and spend most of their waking moments looking for business, then when it is handed to them through a referral they blow it by doing nothing or not following up properly, it blows my mind. So what is the best way to handle referrals and be successful.

First, when you have been given a referral follow up immediately with the client. Treat that client as gold and make sure you inform the client that your friend is an amazing person and thought the contact would be a good fit for the project. Once you’ve contacted the client respond back to your friend, thank them for the referral and give them a status on where the conversation ended and the next steps to be taken. Once the project is completed you may want to thank your friend with a lunch or small gift, of course the best thing is to refer business in return to them if applicable. If the client was referred for one project only and is a client of your friend then any future sales or contact should go through your friend unless otherwise arranged. Don’t steal a client from your friends it won’t take you very far down the road. Blow a referral and you may be blowing future business right down the toilet.

About the Author

Bruce Outridge is a business and leadership consultant. He specializes in two areas namely transportation and the visual arts and helps entrepreneurs start and run successful businesses. For more information visit his website at www.outridge.ca

Evaluating Your Target Market

December 22, 2011 in Business articles, Entrepreneurs, Marketing | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

As a marketing coach for many clients I am generally setting them up with a marketing plan to help improve their business. Before creating that special marketing plan that will take your company to the next level you need to know who you will be marketing to and why. Many of the answers I get from clients are to everyone, or the Southern Ontario area. That my friends is too broad an area to market to and will bring you little results.

You must know your market inside and out and the best way to do that is to look into your records to find out who hired you for your services before? If you are spending time marketing to large corporations and all the people hiring you are Ma and Pop businesses your marketing efforts are being wasted. Now before you think that you have hit the nail on the head, I want you to think even deeper into your brain and think about who you talked to originally to get the job, and how you came into contact with them? These are all pieces of the marketing plan that need to be part of how you contact your clients. Personalize it as much as possible and you will have a marketing plan that works for you. If you are dealing with older people in the wilderness having a terrific online marketing strategy will not help you.

Your target market profile should look like this as an example; My target market is Judy, she is 27, enjoys spending money on herself, has a good job, and is comfortable buying on the internet. She looks for deals online to help her shopping experience and likes to keep abreast of the latest fashions.

The more you know your client the better off you will be at reaching your target market. The example above is comfortable with buying online so she would be a good fit for online promotions. If your clients are not online shoppers it is okay even these days to still send them information by mail. Many of us get too hung up on being online and not focused enough on just contacting our clients. Getting it wrong can cost you big time in both money and time so work at perfecting that piece of the puzzle.

About the Author

Bruce Outridge is a business and leadership consultant. He helps small businesses strengthen their marketing plans to achieve financial success. Information on Bruce can be found on his website at www.outridge.ca

Creating a Marketing Plan for Your Business

December 15, 2011 in Business articles, Entrepreneurs, Marketing, social media | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Marketing, promoting, exposure, whatever word you use to describe how you get your message to the world is an important piece to any puzzle. Most companies scrap their marketing budgets and plans when things get tough. In speaking with a friend of mine the other day that produces a local trade magazine he is seeing big changes in the way companies are advertising and spending their marketing dollars. With the economy on the edge at times since 2009 everyone is watching their dollars in a desperate way of trying to not only keep a float, but keep the message continuing forward. The ones who do this successfully will win while the others with no plan will simply fall by the wayside. So how do you keep your message moving to the masses without blowing the wall out of the bank? Planning is the first thing, knowing who your customer is key, and knowing your budget is the other piece of the puzzle. I also believe in one more piece that most people don’t think of, your strengths, what are you good at, what comes of ease to you that can help send your message to the world?

Many times as I coach small businesses on their marketing efforts I encourage the person to write blogs or articles about themselves that can be used to get their message out. You can see the change in their faces as I finish my sentence. “I am not a writer” is the response often replied. I had an owner that went through the exercise and did manage to get out an article for my magazine Collar to Collar. He sweated over it for months, and when it was produced asked me never to ask him to do that again. Okay so I don’t want you getting a heart attack writing an article, but it can be a great way of letting people learn about you and your company.

When setting up your marketing plan you have to take all of your clients, products, and services into account. How are people seeing you is it the web, network meetings, print ads, how do they see your message? Decide how many dollars you have in your budget for marketing and which avenues are most important to you? Take into account online promotion, offline promotion, local promotion, and national promotion. Now look at the best methods under those areas and figure out the lowest cost, but best method for reaching the people in those areas. You may have to break it down into product or service segments depending on the nature of your business. Don’t just jump on the online bandwagon and forget about the offline marketing or you may find your business actually goes down. The plan works as a whole so make sure the whole plan is included.

About the Author

Bruce Outridge is a business and leadership consultant. He helps many business small and large with their marketing and social media programming. For more information visit his website at www.outridge.ca

Is Your Business Keeping up with the Competition?

December 2, 2011 in Business articles, Entrepreneurs, Marketing, social media | Tags: , , , , , , | 1 comment

Many small business owners often start their businesses as a way of helping out someone else. They do a good job and get referred to another person needing assistance. This goes on and on and some businesses have been lucky enough to never have to market themselves or advertise. In past years this was certainly the way to go and your customer base would be very strong, localized, and loyal. However the evolution of technology has changed all that and the businesses that have not kept up with new marketing efforts are finding their client pools starting to dry up. I am seeing this much more and the businesses that are having trouble in this area have not had to market for a very long time. You always need to be marketing even when things are busy and you always have to be keeping up with the way people are looking for products and services.

Lets look at a bookkeeping business, for years your client down the street has been delivering their receipts for you on a regular basis, no questions asked, they have been a good loyal client. One day there is an internal change in management, they decide to assess their vendors and start looking on the internet for providers. They find three providers on the internet, one of which is not you because you don’t have a website, and ask for proposals. They receive the proposals and before you know it have switched providers and you have lost a client. As younger people come into the workforce they don’t understand or care that a company has been dealing with one business for a long time, many times it is about the numbers and not loyalty because they don’t have that original connection. It is extremely important to keep up with changing marketing possibilities.

I tell new business owners that the first thing they should have is a plan for their business, both operating and marketing, business cards, and a website. Once you have that you can start to expand your marketing efforts to target your ideal audience. If you are looking into a service provider for your marketing it is important to work with someone that understands your business. Don’t get left behind because you were too busy to market your company on an ongoing basis.

About the Author

Bruce Outridge is a business and leadership consultant from Canada. More information can be found on his services on his website at www.outridge.ca

Do You Understand Your Company Income Statement?

November 24, 2011 in Business articles, truck driving articles | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

It totally amazes me how many Owner Operators get their income statements from the company and either believe it is true without challenging it or even worse don’t review it to make sure it is correct. This happens too often and the reason is because many Owner Operators don’t understand the deductions that are taken off or didn’t realize they were paying for such items. I have talked in past articles about creating your own invoicing system, every company has one and the Owner operator should be no different. The important thing is that you understand the statement you receive from the company and you match it to loads you have already pulled and track any expenses that need to be deducted as expenses.

If you accept the statement as gospel then that is the same as accepting a payment from a client and never reviewing it against the invoice. It could be short paid, not paid the tax, etc. As a business owner it is up to you to make sure you receive the money that you have earned to keep your company solvent. If not, the road to bankruptcy is just around the corner. Remember that income is king! Make sure you have all that is coming to you in your business or you will be out of business.

About the Author

Bruce Outridge is a business and leadership consultant in the transportation industry. He helps Owner Operators run successful businesses. More information can be found on his website at www.outridge.ca

Have you Let Your Business Become Complacent?

November 17, 2011 in Business articles, Complacency, Entrepreneurs, Leadership, truck driving articles | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

I love being in business for myself. Everyone that knows me knows that I like being in some control of my destiny, not saying it is easy but at least is built on effort. I like enjoy the process of dreaming of new possible heights that could be reached with future success. There is also the element of failure that comes with any venture and if not taken seriously will bring a business to a grounding halt. I am a firm believer in the “What if” theory that if you put in the effort the success will follow. For the most part that theory remains true as long as the idea was sound to begin with and the advice received along the way was accurate. So my advice to new entrepreneurs is to usually go for it!

So what makes a business move forward and become successful? Hard work is one but when you start a business you will be in growth mode for a long time. If you are like me or some of my colleagues then you may be in growth mode your whole career and that is a good thing. Complacency can kill any job, business, or corporation. It can affect levels from top to bottom and turn a corporate culture on its head, so how do you change the focus from complacency to growth.

First try to think of the excitement level that got you into business to begin with. Remember when you started and couldn’t sleep because you were too excited. You need to get back to that by taking a good hard look at your business. That includes your goals for the next year as well as your operation. What can be improved in your operation to make it operate more efficiently? What has become the operational standard that should not happen at all? I recently spoke with a client of mine about his business as an Owner Operator, he was having trouble getting the income he required due to downtime and scheduling by the company. He has two choices to solve that problem, he can accept the time management issue as a way of life and not do anything about it, or he can make an appointment with management of the company to try and rectify the situation. With equipment, money, and time invested the latter option would be preferred in my book. Many business owners just accept it as the way of life however and don’t do anything as it eats away at their bottom line.

The point is that the success of your business is your responsibility as a business owner. If something isn’t working it is up to you to find a solution. Always keep in growth mode and look to improve your business situation. Your success depends on it!

About the Author

Bruce Outridge is a business and leadership consultant from Southern Ontario Canada. He helps Owner Operators and entrepreneurs run successful businesses. To learn more information please visit his website at www.outridge.ca

At What Time Do You Ask for Help?

November 2, 2011 in Business articles, Entrepreneurs, truck driving articles | Tags: , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

We are men, raw raw!!!! Sometimes we are too proud to ask for help, for those of you that are married you probably hear this all too often. “Why didn’t you stop and ask for directions, why didn’t you ask the sales clerk?”You know what I’m talking about! Unfortunately there is an air of truth to the fact that we do have a high pride level and don’t ask for help as much as we should. Women are much better at knowing when they have to start asking for help on certain things and when they have it covered. The truth is that in business if you take too long to ask for help you may be out of business. Business has an unforgiving way of making you swallow your pride in a hurry if you plan on being successful. Too long in a bad area and your business will be unable to catch up and have to default to bankruptcy. So how do you know when things are too tough to carry on by yourself and when you should start looking for help with your operation?

First the best way to start is to start correctly. We all could use a helping hand when starting out, especially in the accounting department. It is very important to make sure the accounting part of your business is set up properly and for growth. There are certain tax codes used in the accounting world that are universal and important for you to have located in the right place. This will help your accountant down the road to make sure you’re getting the best tax advice for your business. Realize what you can do yourself and what you should have other people do. Now this area is very gray and I have seen much money spent on stuff that wasn’t required. Let’s take a look at your bookkeeping for example, you could do it yourself but that would take time away from your family, you would require a bookkeeping background, training, and so on. If you don’t have that then you are best to hire a bookkeeper and focus on other ways of running your business. That being said I am a firm believer that you have KNOWLEDGE of the different aspects of your business. So in the bookkeeping example understanding what is required for receipts, how to organize them, is essential for you to know and will immensely help your bookkeeper therefore saving you cash flow. If you are having trouble with your bills, can’t seem to make a profit, or are having trouble getting your business organized then you may be at a point where you should bring in some outside help.

Don’t wait for your business to go down the tubes to realize you should have asked for help.

About the Author

Bruce Outridge is a business and leadership consultant. His OS Program helps owner operators and entrepreneurs run successful businesses. To learn more about the program please visit his website at www.outridge.ca

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