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Small Businesses Can Sell the Black Friday Way

Written on November 27, 2009 by George Krueger & Mary-Lynn Foster in Business

black_friday Here we are … it’s Black Friday – the day when, historically, retailers get into the black. So they’re hoping that people shop, shop, shop.

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Hear George & Mary-Lynn share tips over the store's intercom on The Bigg Success Show! Click the player to listen while you read: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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marylynn Black Friday has almost become a sporting event. I just don’t enjoy shopping that much so it’s not for me. But plenty of people sure do enjoy trying to find that irresistible bargain.

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george I don’t like standing in line for anything but I especially don’t like doing it to spend money! Crowds are great – at a concert or a ball game!

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In honor of Black Friday, we want to talk about merchandising in your business. We’ll discuss four lessons you can learn from retailers about selling your wares.

Price check in Lane 123
If you’re a true retailer – you buy goods at wholesale and resell them – it’s easy to determine your cost.

If you’re a service business, it’s more difficult. But you have to know how much anything you sell costs or you risk charging too little. A lot of small business owners fail for this very reason.

Attention K-Mart Shoppers. There’s a blue light special on …
K-Mart had scrapped this program. They brought it back earlier this year.

Surprise your good customers with a special deal now and then. We heard about a car dealer who would occasionally pick a customer whose car was getting serviced and give them their service that day for free. It created tremendous goodwill.

It would be a customer who had bought the car from him and did all their service with him. In other words, a customer on whom he made a lot of money. Occasionally giving them free service was just a small rebate.

But it paid dividends to the car dealer as well – he got a lot of word of mouth advertising.

Manager on duty to the front of the store please
The front of the store makes us think about the psychology of buyers. Have you ever noticed how most grocery stores have a fairly similar layout?

Research shows that most people walk into a store and turn to the right. So what do you want to put in the front of the store on the right side?

High margin items, of course!

In a grocery store, you notice the milk and eggs are usually in the back – nowhere near the bread. They want you to walk through the whole store so you see more things you might buy on impulse.

Every business has customers who behave in similar ways. Get to understand how you can naturally show your customers more of your products and services.

Clean up in aisle 5
Just about every business that handles inventory ends up with some slow moving items. You need to clean them out so you can get new inventory in that will turn faster so you make more money.

The mistake some small business owners make is being afraid to discount an item – especially for lower than cost. But the sooner you get an item that isn’t selling off your shelf, the better.

Another version of this is displaying a discounted item with a full-priced item. Think about it …

How many times do you see a skirt that’s on sale displayed with a full-priced top?

You like the combination so you buy it. You may be able to do the same type of thing in your business.

Retailers have become pretty sophisticated at discounting items to draw people to their store. They know the law of averages means these people will buy a lot more than just the sale items. Find the lures to bring in your customers and you’ll be a bigg success!

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Thanks so much for reading our post today. Please join us next time when we’ll look at the only three ways to get more done. Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

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Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
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The Trick to Keeping Customers

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5 Lessons from Baseball to Be a Hero in Business

Written on November 5, 2009 by George Krueger & Mary-Lynn Foster in Business

With Game 6 of the World Series upon us, we found a fascinating article from Time entitled Sport: A Game of Inches. It’s from July 1957.

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Hear George & Mary-Lynn share baseball lessons for business on The Bigg Success Show! Click the player to listen while you read [6:23m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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It’s about George Robert Tebbetts who gave 53 years of his life to Major League Baseball – first as a player, then a scout and, finally, the manager of the Cincinnati Redlegs (as the Reds were known at that time).

He is better known by his nickname: Birdie. How did he get his nickname?

No, it doesn’t have anything to do with the use of his middle finger!

The article says that his aunt observed that he had lips like a bird. Wikipedia says his aunt said he chirped like a bird.

We don’t know which source to believe, but they do both agree that his voice was irritating. According to the article, he got thrown out of a game because, as the umpire said, “I have a splitting headache and that voice of yours just kills me.”

Time awarded him the Manager of the Year honor in 1956 because of the way he had turned around his team. There are all kinds of lessons in this article about baseball, of course, but also about leadership, life and entrepreneuring.

There are also a number of great quotes by Birdie in this article. Quotes that make you think and quotes that make you realize how colorful he was.

Like his scouting report on a young pitcher, where Birdie said, “Major league stuff and a great arm. Screwy in the head. Eliminate head and I recommend. Get good surgeon.”

But our favorite quote is where the title of the article comes from:

“Baseball is a game of inches … a fellow gets up in the ninth and comes through with a liner between third and short — he's a hero. Two inches the other way and he's a bum because he hit into a double play.”

True in baseball. True in life. True in small business and entrepreneuring.

So here are 5 lessons from baseball about being a hero in business:

Prepare to be a hero
You select your bat. You practice … and practice … and practice some more. You have to know your competition almost as well as you know yourself.

Step up to the plate
You’ll never be a hero if you don’t put on your uniform. You’ll never be a hero if you don’t get out of the dugout. You have to step up to the plate. You have to risk striking out.

A lot of people never take their turn at bat. They have ideas but they never act upon them. They spend so much time preparing that they never get in the game.

Pick your pitch
You won’t be a hero if you swing at every pitch. You’ll strike out before the right one comes along.

Opportunities are all around you. Most of them aren’t worth your time.

There are prospects you could pursue. Pick the right ones for you, your products or services and your company.

There are projects you could initiate. Select the ones that will advance you the furthest toward your goals. Let the rest pass right by.

Don’t worry about the result
When you’re up to bat, you don’t know where the ball will go when you hit it. You can’t worry about that. You just have to focus on hitting it hard.

You can’t make a prospect say “yes.”
You can give your prospect your best pitch.

You can’t force an employer to hire you.
You can give them every reason to put you on their roster.

Heroes know you can’t control results. You can only control your activity. So they focus on the activity and let the results take care of themselves.

You may not be a hero today but you can rest assured you will be a hero soon.

Inch your way forward.
Focus on getting a little faster, a little better, a little smarter every time you’re at bat.

Take away the lessons – from failure and success – to hit a grand slam the next time out! That’s bigg success!

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Get the tips and tools you need to be a BIGG success. Subscribe to the Bigg Success Weekly – it’s FREE!

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Thanks so much for reading our post today. Please join us next time when we discuss why you should beware of killing your customers with kindness. Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes.

Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed.

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00516-110509.mp3

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(Image in today's post from Time.com)