How to grab market share in a negative market

A downturn is coming! Oh my gosh...the sky is falling!!! Get real; this is the best time for those astute business owners to plan to take a greater market share while their competitors are asleep at the wheel.

Whether you have a significant percentage of your market or a minor one a time of negative business confidence and significant reporting in the media of a slowing in the market place is a prime time to be planning to take more market share. So how do you do that?
Do the opposite to what everyone else will be doing this year. In most times of negativity businesses become cautious with their money & resources. The tightening of belts usually focuses on the variable expenses that exist that you do actually have the power to adjust rapidly. Examples of these are advertising, marketing, training, recruiting and many other areas all aligned with improving a business and maintaining a satisfied client base. So in effect what they do is stop getting better...which means they'll get worse.

Amazingly the other area that becomes forgotten is the systemisation of business processes to ensure that the customer receives a consistently excellent experience. To prepare for this happening you
should actually be (prudently) increasing your focus on these areas of your business. Spend where the others scrimp.

Advertising

Make your ads bigger

Make you message more powerful

Change your message or USP

Use a medium you have not yet tried but always wanted to

Marketing

Change your pricing strategy

Change the personality of the images you use

Add products that are peripheral that you may be missing

Training

Increase training for staff especially those face to face with clients

Borrow/buy sales training videos, CDs, DVDs, books etc & give them to sales people to use

Enrol your staff in training seminars, not only will they be trained but it will also bond people together

Complete a training needs analysis for all your employees

Recruiting

Always be advertising for people, have a page for it on your web site

Your competitors' employees will be watching their company commencing this slowing of expenditure and actually become disconcerted by this and start to look for a more secure employer...that's you!

Have an employee induction manual available at interviews to show the prospect how organised you are. Click here to download a free sample induction manual

Most importantly - review your procedures

Look for areas to improve internally that will ensure the new customers you attract find a well oiled machine when they do business with you for the first time. No point attracting them if you're going to let them down!
Test and measure everything you can that impacts on the number of enquiries and sales you make - everything works...just how much is the question!
Call all of your existing clients to ensure you are fulfilling their needs.
Conduct an online survey of client expectations and feedback. Give them rewards for completing...make sure it's something of value that they need!

A combination of these activities will put you in a position of strength and the perception to the outside world will be that you are growing and innovating...now that's someone I'd like to do business with!

Join our next TKO online group demonstration on using TKO to manage your business sytems

On Wednesday 27th February at 11am Eastern Daylight Saving Time you are invited to join a live webinar demonstration of TKO Business Modeller. If you have considered TKO in the past and would like to refresh your knowledge on this revolutionary business program, this webinar will show you how TKO will assist you to systemise your business and ultimately save you time and money and increase the productivity of your employees. We look forward to you attending and spending an hour working on your business...not in it!

To register for this event please click the link below...don't forget to diarise the time.

https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/317856105
Once you have registered you will receive an auto responder with the link to join the webinar at the scheduled time. At the same time you will also dial into the conference call using the relevant phone number that you will find at this link. If you have any question please call 1300 735 681 or email support[@]transformmybusiness.com.

We look forward to speaking with you at the webinar.

A toughening business climate

Recent Business Review Weekly articles indicate to us that we are in a somewhat precarious situation economically in Australia. This is not to say that we are ready to head into recession so much as that we need to prepare for the possibility.

Chris Richardson, Director of Access Economics, writing in the BRW (Feb 7-13, pp 20) writes that demand is increasing. Demand, he asserts, grew by $31b in 2006 in Australian families. Demand in 2007 almost doubled, he goes on to say, to an estimated $61b and is forecast to reach $70b in 2008. Mr Richardson says that prolonged demand like this spells trouble. Supply has grown at an average of $30b a year. Read more...

Where do I rank in Google

Where do you rank in Google?

Do you know? We are not talking about ranking for your company name; it’s good if someone knows who you are and searches for you by name, but think of the hundreds or thousands of potential customers searching for your product or service that do not know who you are.

The first step is to think like a potential customer. Try to think of the keyword phrases you would type in to Google if you were a potential customer. Sometimes it helps to ask a friend or family member who is not involved in your business what they would search for if they were looking for you. This will give you the perspective of someone who does not think like an industry insider.

Google click map showing the areas of
the page that are most clicked on by
Google searchers

Now go to Google and search for those phrases. For example, if I search for 'operations manual software' it yields 81,700 results. With 10 results per page that’s 8,170 pages of results. If you are not in those first few pages it’s going to be quite a task to work out your ranking.

FREE WEB SITE RANKING REPORT

We are offering free website ranking reports that will tell you where you rank even if you are hundreds of results deep. Click here and complete the form to send us your website URL and the number one phrase you want to rank well for and we will send you your free report within 3 business days.

If you know that you are ready to start the optimisation process on your web site contact the team at Business Systems Online on 1300 88 48 65 or visit their web site at http://www.bso.net.au.

A Useful Blog - The Age My Small Business Blog

With the thousands of blogs available on the internet it is overwhelming. Most of you don't have the time to sift through the rubbish so when one appears that is relevant and of value it is a relief. Recently I was sent a link to the Age Small Business Blog by Gene Stark of the marketing company Stark Reality (http://www.starkrealitymarketing.com.au/) which contained articles that really suited the needs of a small to medium business person.

To visit the blog go to http://blogs.theage.com.au/enterprise/archives/2008/02/let_your_busine_1.html

Happy Reading!

Telstra Business Awards 2008