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We hope you find this arcthve useful. A subscription to The Small Business Advisor Newsletter is free. Subscribe now - it's easy! The Small Business Advisor Newsletter for August, 2000 CONTENTS Notes, tips, etc NOTES/TIPS/etc Nearly every state agency in the nation operates on a fiscal year that ends June 30, and state buyers historically scramble to finish off projects and spend unused funds during spring and early summer. As a result, state government purchasing can hit its peak from April through June. Some businesses have noted that state government sales can as much as three times what it is over the traditional buying season, especially in the credit card type of sales. For instance, the state of California had nearly 21,000 credit cards issued to its employees as of March 1999. Credit cards are used by almost every major California agency, generating monthly transactions worth $17.5 million. Other states that lead in credit card purchases are Texas, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Ohio. Your business can capture a share of these government opportunities; for instance, you can offer special deals during the second quarter of the calendar year. However, you will need to focus your marketing and sales efforts throughout the year so your potential government clients will think of you and your company during the year-end "big buy" period. Use this heads up for next year. In the meantime get a merchant card account in place. How to Effectively
Use Television to Grow Your Business by Leaps and Bounds! There is a myth that I'd like to dispel immediately because it keeps many businesses from taking advantage of a really powerful form of advertising. That myth is that television is only for big corporations with huge budgets. While that may have been true in the past, today, television is affordable by even the smallest business. The fact is, that video today is not only highly affordable it's also a highly effective sales tool. There is no more powerful medium than television because you have the synergistic combination of both sound and image. It is the most powerful form of promotion apart from actually being there in person to present your products or services! So, let's specific here. I'm talking about video in the form of both television commercials and infomercials. These two powerful advertising vehicles are responsible for billions of dollars in sales from companies in all industries. The reason that this is the advertising medium of choice is because it not only has audio, but it has a visual component to it that really separates it from any other form of advertising. I love to see the reactions on people's faces when I ask them how much they think the cost of the average 30 second television commercial is on a local cable station. Many will guess in the thousands of dollars, still others may say hundreds, but the truth is that today with so many cable stations and so much airtime to fill with advertising, the cost per 30 second spot is as low as $5. each! I am not kidding you! Check it out for yourself and you will see, depending on the number of households your particular cable system reaches, that ads can cost as little as five dollars each. Now, the average ad may run you a few dollars more, depending upon the time and program during which your ad is going to be run. Harnessing the power of television is not a costly project. In fact, I know of a video company that will come to your business, shoot a commercial, edit it to fit a 30 second spot, and deliver it to the cable system for about $1,000 complete! At these prices, you can already begin to see just how affordable television can be. But what's most impressive to me is how powerful a medium television actually is. To this day, having your ad on television means that you are a healthy business to most viewers. That fact alone makes this the most powerful advertising medium. You see, the key is that your market has no idea of how affordable cable television advertising can be. That works to your advantage because when your ad appears on television time and time again, your prospects think that you are doing so very well that you can afford to drop millions on television ads... and everybody wants to do business with a winning company! So you win in all areas. You get the most powerful advertising medium to showcase your products and services, and you also get a great cost per thousand households that you reach! But the ultimate is what it will do for your business when your prospects begin to see you on television! If you have been following my work for a while, you may remember that I mentioned that the most powerful part of any ad or sales letter is the headline. There's no difference here either. What you lead off your commercial with must be a powerful headline, usually in the form of a sentence that will capture attention immediately! Just as you want to capture your reader in print, you want to capture your viewer on television so that they don't get up and head for the refrigerator! Use the right headline in your ad and you won't have any trouble getting people to stay put while your ad runs! Follow your headline with some powerful, supporting information and then give your viewer a reason to act immediately! The principles are the same no matter what medium you are using. Just because you are using television, radio, the Internet, or print, the rules of advertising still apply! So, work on your headlines, and call your local cable company and ask them for their media kit and a demo tape. Then find a video production company that will be able to produce your commercial form start to finish. Ideally, your video company will provide the cable television company with a "master" tape that they will use to air your commercial. That's it. Sign a contract to have the ad run for a minimum of 2 weeks and call me to tell me what happens next! I want to hear your success stories about how you have used television to grow your business! Developing Rejection
Calluses I was listening to an audiotape recently by Rabbi Laibel Lamm of Munsey, N.Y, a teacher who travels all over the country teaching Jewish adults of all denominations. He told a story that has great applications for business. Jewish scholars teach that even if you are a doctor and you spend your days healing people, in your non-working time, you should look for opportunities to help people. Why? That's probably the last thing a doctor wants to do with his or her time off, given the stress of a long day of patient care. Why not play tennis or golf, or take a nice hot bath at the end of the day? Isn't that professional entitled to turn away from doing good, and put the focus back on themselves? Self-care is not discouraged, but here's why the doctor should engage in voluntary helpful behavior each week, even if he or she already devotes most of the week to healing others. In the process of healing, that doctor must inflict discomfort and pain on many of his or her patients. Day in and day out, poking and prodding, doing procedures, breaking in bad news, listening to the complaints of so many patients in pain, all leads the doctor to develop "calluses on his personality." Most doctors can't remain as open and sensitive as they would like and still survive the stress of patient care, so they protect themselves by putting up an emotional wall and becoming detached. The longer a doctor heals people, the more callused he or she can become in the process of such service. Thus, they need to do healing work outside of their office walls-- to protect against the calluses getting too thick, to remind them of what it feels like to enjoy being helpful. As Rabbi Lamm points out, even something as simple as helping an elderly woman across the street may do the trick. A certain level of callousness is essential to survive in business. How have you become toughened and detached enough to serve you well? For example, it's helpful not to have a melt down every time a customer complains or you don't make a sale. Success requires having the stamina to stay in the game long enough to succeed. I asked successful business owners and sales persons for my book, "Starting from No: Ten Strategies to Overcome Your Fear of Rejection and Succeed in Business," how they developed a "thicker skin" - a rejection callus when handling rejection and criticism. There are some sales secrets to know, but most often I learned that it was a matter of "mileage on the odometer." How does a callus develop? Repeated use of that area of the body toughens the skin. You won't develop rejection calluses if you give up when you hear your first "NO!" or you keep procrastinating sales calls, waiting for when you are "in the mood." It wasn't easy for lots of sales professionals in the beginning of their careers. But steady rejection, if it doesn't kill you, will make you stronger. You'll realize that rejection isn't as big a deal as you've been making it out to be. It will start losing its "monster quality" and take its rightful place as one of many uncomfortable, but manageable difficulties in the course of business. A certain form of rejection callousness is healthy and good for business. There is a significant difference between healthy detachment and burn-out. Know the difference for yourself. If you can agree with any or all of the following eight statements, you have moved beyond callousness, into the signs of burn-out. If you agree with more than four, it might be time to get out of your business, or to take a much needed break from it. 1) I don't really
listen to customer complaints anymore because I already know what they
are going to say, or I don't care anymore. Can you develop a rejection callus without becoming a callous person? Yes, you can, but it's tricky. You still need to put yourself in the line of fire, but perhaps with a bullet-proof shield over your most vulnerable self. You must stop caring too much if someone rejects you, but never stop caring completely. You must learn that rejection won't kill you, but the absence of sales and not listening to your customers will kill your business. You must develop a witness inside of yourself who can warn you when you're crossing the line between healthy self-protection and dangerous burn-out. You need to kick yourself in the pants when you are procrastinating essential business activity; rejection callus won't develop from frequent exposure if you are only thinking about what you should be doing, and never quite getting around to doing it. Return to top of page - Back to Home Page - Back to Archive Index |