Little Success and Great New Happenings

Marketing was one of the first things on my agenda when I came aboard. Marketing was only second to straightening out the bank register.

We needed new customers. I began reading everything I could get my hands on about marketing, advertising and sales. Direct mail continually came up as a good beginning to our marketing plan.

All I had to do was design some post cards, figure out how to say what I wanted to say, my list of companies I wanted to mail to, and slap some stamps on them.

The post card designs were fairly easy, not to mention a little fun. I decided to do two styles for two different industries we deal with. The first industry I targeted was a big money earning industry. The second is what I consider our bread and butter customers. I played with words and phrases for about a week until I was satisfied with what I was saying and sent each of the designs to the printer.

In order to understand how well direct mail would do for us, I selected 100 companies in each of our target areas. The return on the big earning industry was 2% and we've retained 1. The return on the bread and butter industry was a whopping 15% and we've retained them all. We popped a bottle of champagne over that!

I had ordered 1000 of each design, so I was able to send these cards out on other occasions as well. We put 250 of the bread and butter post cards aside to pass out and mail to our existing customers. So we've increased a bit of business by reminding our current customers the extent of our capabilities.

We will be doing this again with 1000 of each style soon. I'll let you know how well it works next time around.

Taking Risks With the Future

I've mentioned that I get to see what it's like to own a business without the risks. This is only partially true. I never had to make an investment, and I'm not responsible to buy things for the shop out of my checking account. However, be careful what you ask for.

I have been interested in owning my own business for a few years. Since a friend of mine owned a business, I thought it would be a grand idea to learn how to go through the motions. This business isn't a startup, but after being crushed by the post 9/11 economy we're in a rebuilding phase (or going out of business phase).

When we perform a job and then have to wait more than 30 days to be paid for it our cash flow isn't healthy enough to get us through. The guys on the shop floor are, in my opinion, more important than I am. We wouldn't be in business if our manufacturing floor had no employees. Whereas the business would only suffer without an office person to smooth things out.

My ego is large enough to cause me to think it would suffer incredibly! However, I am the one who doesn't get paid on time if the business cannot collect on past due invoices. I eventually get the money that's due me, however I have gone 3 weeks without a paycheck before. It's usually not more than a week though.

So, in a way, I am taking a risk that is usually associated with being an owner. And making the decision to pay others first would be an emotional risk.

My employer hasn't been able to pay himself in over 6 years. So, I'm not complaining I'm simply learning.

A View from Two Sides

As a customer walking into a business with depressed, stressed, irritated, unyielding employees, I pause. If it happens to be a restaurant or any food service with irritated, angry employees, I walk out. If it happens to be a retail store with depressed, non-functioning salespeople, I walk out. I prefer to support a business who likes their customers enough to leave their personal problems at home.

When you are faced with this situation do you choose to open your wallet and support a business who obviously has some personal issues to deal with? I am told, and it is half believable, that consumers have all the power over the economy.

It is only half believable because I see how much power a business has over the economy as well. Yet, are consumers giving business that much power by opening their wallets when they shouldn't?

I'm sure you have heard how much power you have as an individual over money matters in America. Next time you need or want to buy something, consider who you're buying from and whether you really should be supporting them. In other words, appreciate the power those people in the ivory towers claim that you have. They may be right.

Bread and Butter - Part 2

The company I spoke of in my last post is still in business. They have lost many of their employees along with the bread and butter customers. I was one of those employees.

Last I heard, that formerly $14,000,000/yr company is now worth only about $6,000,000/yr, and still sinking. All of my old co-workers who I'd built friendships with are no longer there, so I will not know for sure how that company is doing from now on. I only have one small clue... I visit their website about twice a year to see if there have been any changes. So far, there are 3 pages that come up with a 404 error, the starting flash page has some glitches, and there has been nothing added or updated in about 3 years. It's only a small clue, but it's a revealing one.

My current company will stop working on large jobs to take care of the little guys. The little guys are the easiest to take care of and negotiate with (not to mention they're fun, the big dogs seem to have lost their sense of humor somewhere along the way). They are usually honest about when they need their work done and whether we really need to stop working on our current job. They are aware of our scheduling issues and aren't terribly demanding of our time unless it's a true emergency.

Our big customers came to us because of the referrals from the little guys. We have never gotten a new customer from a big dog.

Who do you concentrate on in your business? Who are you more willing to bend over backwards for?

Be very careful who you choose to romance in business. Those $50/month customers may be giving you enough referrals to amount to $50,000/mo. That $50,000/mo single customer will go to the cheaper guy in a heartbeat, leaving you hanging and twisting in the wind.

Bread and Butter - Part 1

I used to work for a small/mid-sized manufacturing company that made an incredible mistake.

The owner bought it when it was only worth $250,000/yr. He built it to a $14,000,000/yr company in only 9 years. It was exciting to work for a company in growth. The atmosphere was one of friendship and fun. All the employees knew each other, we liked each other, we worked as a team, we spent time with each other after work, we were proud to work for this company. And all of us liked and respected the owner, my direct boss (note: past tense). He was the first boss I'd ever had who I truly liked.

This atmosphere of friendship and respect extended to our customers as well. We knew our customers by first name. Many of us built friendships with our customers. We invited our customers to barbeques, pot lucks, and weekend sports bar hopping.

We suddenly started seeing big pretty carrots placed in front of our faces. We had three very large companies make wild claims about how much product they were going to buy from us.

The first of these big dog companies started to buy products. They bought no more than $10,000 a month and only averaged about $7,000. This only lasted 8 months before they disappeared completely. Their promise of $8,000,000/yr never materialized.

The second and third of these big dogs never bought even one unit. They spent months on prototypes (nonchargeable), retooling, branding and tweaking everything in sight. But not even one finished product went out the door to be delivered to them.

While these diamond encrusted carrots were being dangled in the face of the owner, he decided to put a minimum limit on all orders. Our friendly customers who only bought a few units a months were essentially told they weren't good enough for us. Even the customers who bought a fairly substantial amount of units were told it wasn't good enough.

After all, we were tooling up for mass quantities. How are we supposed to schedule a run of little guys when we're going to make all our profit from 3 big dogs?

We not only lost our bread and butter, we never truly got the big dogs. So after a 9 year run of growth and excitement, we fell from $14,000,000/yr to $8,000,000/yr in only 1 crushing year.

Do the math! How much were those little friendly guys worth to that company?

We lost our bread and butter....

Irritate the Gatekeeper for Sales

Who thought it would be a grand idea to have recorded telemarketing calls? When these calls come to my home phone, I am irritated. How much more irritating do you think it is when I'm at work attempting to help a customer and the phone rings... and I hear a recorded telemarketing call.

The first thing that pops into my head is our current economy, and I begin to ponder how many people are out of work because of a recording. The second thing that pops into my head is how cowardly these companies are that they can't even have a live person listen to me hang up on them.

However, I will stop and listen when I have the time. I make careful notes on the business described in the recording (if they ever get around to announcing it). And I make sure the shop I work for doesn't become a customer of theirs.

Here is a tip to keep in mind if you are considering this avenue of sales. The first person to answer the phone in any business is the one you really need to impress. We are the gate keepers. We are also the keepers of the golden keys. Most of us are very cold and calculating if you aggravate us. We are not usually the person you need to speak with, and you will not be directed to the correct person if we are not impressed with you. We certainly will not sit through a recorded call to figure out which person your company actually needs to speak with. The golden keys will be used to lock the gate after we thoroughly enjoy kicking you in the arse as we slam the gate shut.

In Quite a State

State taxes are a completely different animal! The employees who work with state taxation cannot, under any circumstances, speak in human language. If you read the pamphlets they send out, or read the websites they provide, you will hear it parroted. Go ahead, I dare you to ask these people a question! I challenge you to try to get them to speak in their own words.

You will hear "In paragraph number... section number... revised date... amendment to..." It really is the most amazing thing. It's nice to know that robotics has achieved this level of advancement. But, when I ask a question, I need help. I need help beyond what the booklets and websites are telling me.

The problem I needed to sort out was that a tax was paid that we don't owe (not the right kind of business for that tax), the tax we owe was not paid, one tax went to the wrong department and they kept it... It was a confusing mess. And again there was 4 years of this confusing mess to sort out.

It would have been far less painful for me to bash my head against a brick wall than to try to sort out the mixed up taxes with the state. The saddest part of the entire experience is that I know someone who works at the state revenue department. Even when he had me talk to the people he recommended, I still couldn't get anywhere.

Hindsight is 20/20. The more I analyze this situation, the more I realize that my friend has only the bare minimum requirement of human personality (only enough for survival). He's been assimilated! Either that or one of the prerequisites for the job with the state revenue dept is to have no personality.

I'm still holding to the belief that state tax employees are just very advanced robots.

After arguing and battling with these robots for over a year, my boss told me to just give up and pay it. So I followed his orders, like a nice little girl (and, I have to admit, I was very relieved). I have made sure that anyone who may come in and take my job in the future will understand which tax to pay to the state and how to do it. I've also left notes warning them about the Borg.