Organizing your business in 2010
Do you want to start 2010 off on the right foot? Now is a great time to do so. Join me for my first Concierge Online class of 2010 this Saturday, January 9, at 8 am Pacific/11 am Eastern.
During this session we will discuss:
Cleaning up your client list
Preparing for April 15th
Creating an office space that is more productive
Creating systems and procedures for better efficiency
…and more
Click here for more information
Quick Tip #1
We eat out a lot, for personal and business reasons. To remember which restaurants we took which clients to, I request a business card from the restaurant and on the back of it, I note the clients names and the approximate cost of the meal.
This allows us to vary the places we eat with different clients and is also a good reminder when we need a place that will cater to special diets and allergies.
These cards are filed in a business card folder with the information being able to be seen from both sides. Because we have the restaurant’s phone number there, it’s easy to phone ahead for reservations.
Rosemarie Menassas Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada
If you have a quick tip you would like to share, email it to angel@angelatyourservice.com with “Quick Tip” in the subject line.
Promoting a little bit of holiday spirit
It is hard to believe that we only have four more months and then a new year will start. It seems like 2009 just began only weeks ago. With the end of the year upon us, I see the same thing year in and year out. Business owners wait until the month of or just a few weeks before to promote their holiday services. By that time, either a corporation or individual may have found some other company to do it for them or they just find a way to do it on their own. Now is the time to get your end of the year to end on a high note.
Here are three steps you need to make this year a success:
1. Marketing calendar
Whether you set up a spreadsheet or a real calendar, go through the next four months and look at all of the holidays that you can market, such as Labor Day, Halloween, and Thanksgiving, to name a few. I include a calendar in each newsletter that lists all kinds of occasions, not just holidays, that you can use to put together a campaign.
For example, April is Stress Awareness Month. You can put together a campaign that involves visiting all of your local gyms, doctor’s offices, and fitness trainers and offering special packages for their members, patients, and clients that gives you the chance to run errands for them, which in turn can help create less stress in their lives.
Look at how much time you have in between holidays or occasions, as you may find that some of your campaigns will overlap by a few days or few weeks. With Thanksgiving and Christmas, you are going to want a bigger head start than you might with a football season campaign. Create a specific timeline with start and stop dates and dates for goals or specific tasks that you want to complete.
2. Marketing campaign
Now you need to decide what types of things you are going to include as part of your campaign. This might include social networking, a promotion, a contest, advertising, or a radio spot. Once you have decided what you are including, you need to take each aspect of your campaign and break it down into manageable steps.
For example, if you will be including social networking as one method, what social networking sites will you use? How often do you plan on visiting these sites to promote your campaign? What will your message be? How often will you rotate it with another message? Are you offering a special?
You also need to decide what your budget is for each method. Social networking doesn’t cost anything except your time, but a radio spot may cost you a few hundred dollars. If you are doing teasers, you will have to pay for the products you are using as well as the paper to print out your teasers on.
3. Follow up
Once you have potential clients calling or emailing you to schedule or inquire about your services, ask them how they found you. If you have current clients contacting you, they may call you and say that they received your coupon in the mail and want to use it. Make sure that you have a marketing log to keep track of everything in regards to your campaign, from how many flyers you have handed out to how many phone calls you have received.
If they have scheduled services at the beginning of your campaign, make sure that you contact them halfway and almost at the end of your campaign to see if there is any other way that you can help them. Don’t think that the end of the campaign means the end of your communication with them. Continue throughout the year and you may find you have gained some new regular clients.
Take some stress out of your life by planning your holiday campaigns early. You have enough stress as a business owner, let alone all of the other hats you wear. Don’t let your end of the year campaigning become a last minute habit. As they say, “The early bird gets the worm.”
Creating a business model that works
When I was in junior high, I had a book that was used in one of my classes for health or some similar class. Anyways, it had pictures of a house with a white picket fence and the mom cooking meals and the family looking happy. In my mind, that was exactly how my life was going to turn out when I grew up.
My life today? Not exactly what I had envisioned all of those years ago. I don’t have a white picket fence and I do not cook every single meal from scratch. I am lucky if I get a few loads of laundry done, the dishes make it into the dishwasher (even though they may sit there for a day), and we eat out only a couple of days a week.
When people start their own business, they may have a vision of what they want their business to look like. When they start running it for a while, reality sets in and their business model does not always match up to the vision. So how do you create a business model that works for you? You need to sit down and look at what you really want out of this business.
Here is a quick checklist of questions to ask yourself:
- Do I want to stay a mom and pop business forever or do I want to be on the same level as say a Circles or VIP Desk?
- Do circumstances in my life, such as being a parent to small children, limit the amount of time that I can put into this business?
- Am I looking to make enough to just pay the bills or enough to buy all of the luxury items that I have been wanting for a while?
- Am I just a paper and pen type of person or am I open to trying new technology to enhance my business?
- Would the IRS consider my business a hobby or a real business?
- Do I want to only work with individual clients or do I want to eventually expand to corporate clients as well?
- Am I willing to do any and everything that my clients request or do I want to limit the type of services that I offer?
- Am I willing to work with different types of people or do I want to limit the types of people I work with?
- Am I looking at only running errands or only providing virtual services the entire time I am in business or do I want to expand my vision to something else, such as becoming a wedding and event planner or full time pet sitter?
Obviously your business will evolve over the years, because circumstances will change in your life, such as children growing up and leaving the nest or grandchildren coming into the picture or a family member becoming ill. But it is up to you to decide which direction you want your business to take.
I have heard from plenty of people over the years who thought that when they got into this business that they would just run errands and ended up getting out of the business and starting a different type of service, such as a house cleaning business. A woman in Canada went from operating a concierge business to being a speaker and author. I know someone else who completely ditched the errand and concierge business to get into the organization business, while another strictly offers wedding and event planning.
I use the beginning of the new year to reflect on how my business did the year before and where I want it to head in the future. My vision for my business model now is nothing like I had envisioned for my business when I first started. I have gotten to experience so many wonderful things, meet many new people, and watch my business take a completely different path. So, what does your business model look like?
