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glort Offline [X]
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*** WARNING! Glort rant ahead. Use caution. ****
Looking at these questions again reminds me of one of the great benefits of doing a Business plan.
For those that don't know or perhaps have a misconstrued idea of a business plan, it's simply putting on paper ( or computer) everything about your business and how you are going to do it. Another way of describing it could be an instruction manual for someone that has no idea about what you do and could pick this up and read it and then be able to do it.
In this case it would NOT be how to take pics, that's the skill set not the business.
its what you do, how you do it, suppliers you use, equipment you need, and a breakdown of costs, profits and cash flows.
In my experience a LOT of people rubbish business plans thinking they are unnecessary for a small business or they know what they are doing and how to do it etc. I have thought going into new ventures that I thought I knew what I was doing too but a quick basic filling in of a "form" type plan I downloaded off the net that covered the basics soon showed up a bunch of problems I hadn't considered.
I also find many reluctant to do them Rubbish the idea because in reality they either don't know what the hell they are or how to go about them OR, the don't really want to confront the truth right now that their business is a lame duck and just want to keep the dream alive for a bit longer..... or dream on until they come up with an excuse to shift blame for it's failure on something or someone else.
For those that are serious and not wanting to delude themselves that's the real benefit of a business plan, it makes you think about everything you do and how you do it. I spose I better put the disclaimer in that I am not talking about anyone here ( this time) but am reflecting on repeated past personal experience.
One of those is my closest, dearest and oldest friend.
He's a fantastic guy, as usual right by my side, again, in recent times when I was eyeball deep in shit and going out of his way to help my family not just me BUT, when it comes to business, he makes me want to cry. OR strangle him. Usually both!
I ( and another very business savvy friend) have tried SO hard to help him, to point things out, stop him making mistakes and loosing money but the reality is he is just on some closed minded tangent that I will never understand of sending himself broke with ridiculous non viable business schemes. And I'm not talking Hundreds or thousands, the last one was Hundreds OF thousands. The only think he seems to learn is how to lose more money than last time. Short of beating the shit out of him, there is nothing we can do to change whatever it is that drives him this way.
The frustrating part is he has a mind boggling excuse and answer for everything you point out is wrong or won't work and he just won't listen to anything that he doesn't want to hear or is not blowing sunshine up his arse. I have heard him convince highly qualified accountants that he knows more and something about finance that they don't!
And he has done things like this repeatedly. The ONE single idea he had that I'm sure would have been a winner ( and I was keen to back and finance it for him as a partner) got dropped so he could go after some other hair brained scheme that blind Freddy could see didn't have a hope in hell of ever flying.
I have spent more time worrying about him over the years than I have myself.
Sadly, I know he's not the only one that does this and some people actually don't care about whether their business is actually profitable, they just want to be able to say they have a business.
So, with that explained, what I am talking about is the people that are fair Dinkum and want to make their businesses profitable and are prepared to put in the effort to do what it takes and be realistic about their approach.
What I see on this thread is people ( commendably) putting down things they think are weaknesses in their business. I look at some and think these while being minor on the surface could have large impacts on peoples bottom line.
I think the value, and a great value of this thread is that one single last question.
If you think your Business has a weakness, address it!
This is the beauty of sales and client feedback. It's like having a test that the clients have already given you the questions to. Now you can at your leisure sit down and think of a killer answer or work around which has every potential to turn your weakness into an asset.
I can honestly say that has been a big thing with me for a long time. If I see a problem or a drawback, maybe a competitor does something I think is an advantage that I can't do or doesn't fit with the rest of my business model, I try to look at how I can actually promote that as a benefit. I know ( or expect) someone is going to ask, " What about ABC?" and rather than be scared of them asking the question, I'm hoping for it because I worked out something to turn that drawback into something I want to tell the prospect about.
Yeah, sometimes those answers are thin, real thin, because the other guy is doing something good and I can see a lot of upsides and would be doing it myself If I could. That said, there is almost always a drawback to it as well and that's what you have to look at and exploit to work out a benefit of NOT doing it. Often though, just having a solid comeback rather than stammering and loosing that confidence in your speil IS enough to get you over the line or at least not blow the deal where you might have otherwise.
My suggestion to those that think their approaches have less than outstanding points is to address them and have a think about how they can either be removed so your whole structure is rock solid and you have 110% confidence in it or think of some advantage or way to spin it so it at least sounds good to the clients.
For those that think they are working too hard and doing too many jobs or spending too much time on what they are doing, You should in effect have the most desirable problem of all.
The cure is simply put your prices up.
Doing this Fixes the problem in one of 2 ways:
Your business drops off and you have more time and less work therefore making you a happier camper. Chances are more than likely that although you are doing less work, your income will be the same and your profits higher. All advantage, no drawback. And for those that worry about that, I can say that I have NEVER seen people who made sensible increases NOT still maintain their incomes because 99% of the time the person is far more concerned about price than the customer and Undervalues themselves in the first place.
The 2nd thing that can happen is that increasing your prices makes no damn difference to the amount of jobs you get in. You put them up again and still the work comes and so on till all the sudden, you are making so much damn money it's not hard work any more and you are happy to do the work because you know how much you are getting for it.
If you are really good, this can happen. A friend of mine kept putting his prices up in his restaurant to try and get the number of sittings down and maintain the profits. He didn't want to fill the joint most nights, 75% would have been great. We kept putting prices up and there would be a lull for about a month then back to turning people away again. The customers would come in and say " Your prices are pretty over the top but we went other places and didn't enjoy it so at least here we know it's going to be worth it."
At one stage we seriously considered advertising " The mid North coast's most expensive cup of Coffee" in order to REPEL some business but we had a bad feeling it would back fire and would just make the place more busy!
When your profits increase you can hire someone to help. Maybe a 2nd to do the reception while you go home and relax, maybe someone to do your layouts or even.... god forbid.... do your EDITING...... ( Yes I know, we are all artistic gods and only we know how to make our pics fit out idea of perfection and without our touch they pics would be offensive crap and... ) Just a wild out there theoretical suggestion of course but maybe.....
The thing is we have time and ability to look at what we do and think through those negatives and eliminate them. I ask EVERY client at the end of the transaction, firstly " What didn't you like about your experience with me, what would you change or do different?" I'll push them on this not to be nice or polite or anything else because that's actually doing me a dis service by not allowing me to address any problems I might not be aware of. Hit me between the eyes with it so I know what to fix. The reality is I rarely get anything tangible, mainly just the difference in personal opinion. I suppose that is a good thing.
I ask what they do like but unless it's something I haven't heard before, frankly i'm not all that interested because there probably isn't any benefit to me in it if I'm already doing it. Sometimes though you get one thrown from left field and if you hear it a couple of times, Then you take notice and start throwing it back to the prospects as a highlight of what you do. Sometimes you can be surprised at what the clients think is great because as far as you knew, everyone did it and it wasn't a big deal at all. When you hear this though, you know what to push in your promotions and speil.
And this is a part of business that is so damn easy, ask the questions, get the answers and if they are a problem, find the solution so next time it comes up, Your not cringing and terrified of the question, Your hoping to hell they ask it so you can slam dunk them with your Killer comeback. :0)
**Why is it every time I think I'll make a quick comment, it turns to a novel??**
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Oct 11, 2015 at 10:30 PM |
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