Small Office, Home Office Information

The good, the bad and the downright ugly

by Stuart Livesey

Back in March I talked briefly about advertising in the local newspaper and you can find those two posts here and an update here.

Since then I’ve been looking around at some of the small business advertising that’s been appearing in the local newspapers and I thought that it might be helpful to show you some examples over the next few days of good, bad and perhaps downright terrible advertising that’s been appearing over the last few weeks.

I think it’s important to bring you something like this because so many small businesses rely on the local newspaper for the major part of the advertising … and sadly those small businesses may not be getting the service they need and deserve.

So perhaps, after looking at some of the advertising I have to show you, you may feel confident enough to take control of your own advertising instead of relying on untrained or inexperienced sales staff at the local newspapers where you operate your small business.

So let’s start some really bad advertising - in fact you really can’t get more ugly than this:

And why is it so ugly? It certainly catches the eye and, in a way, it does tell a story that a lot of people might see as being applicable to them … if only they knew what shop was offering the deal.

It’s not even in the fine print and even the address is not enough to identify the business because there are around 15 shops at that address. Sure there is a phone number there but who’s going to call a phone number when you don’t really know if the business on the other end is really relevant to them.

Whoever wrote that ad … and whoever passed the ad for publication have allowed a business to spend a lot of money on an ad that will do absolutely nothing.

by Stuart Livesey

Have you ever had to do a presentation to a bunch of clients or your peers?

Public speaking comes easily to some of us and for others it can be a struggle. But even those of us who are reasonable public speakers can sometimes fall flat on our faces if we’re using visual aids or even Powerpoint presentations.

Here is the worst Powerpoint presentation that Seth Godin has ever seen (it’s certainly not pretty) and follow the link on that page to see what he thinks is an effective use of Powerpoint. Even if you’re not using Powerpoint what he talks about will apply to you.

by Stuart Livesey

I was talking to a chef yesterday while I was taking photos of his Aussie muscle car for Aussie Motoring. He was back here in Australia for a short period or R&R before heading back to Hong Kong where he lives and works.

He’s paid in US dollars and, in the current economic climate as the dollar devalues against other currencies, that means he’s basically taking a pay cut almost every day.

That’s something that we understand perfectly. With the majority of our clients paying us in $US we’ve been taking a pay cut too and it’s really beginning to hurt.

Fortunately we’re in the position where we can adjust our focus and pick up more work here in Australia and be paid in $A. We can even use this as an opportunity to step into a new area that has been of interest to us for quite some time.

But what would you do if the income level of your small business begin to drop?

By the way, the photos of that muscle car won’t be going up on Aussie Motoring for a few days so here’s a preview … and before you think that this is a case of nothing more than a big toy let me tell you that he paid $A30k for this car three years ago. He’s done very little to the car except lock it in a garage while he works overseas. It’s now insured for $A90k and it appreciates at about $A10k a year.

It’s a home grown Ford - I can remember being in one doing 120 mph on a country road late one night and it still had plenty in reserve. Sadly they don’t make cars like this anymore

by Stuart Livesey

According to Dell small business certainly is affecting the sales of Vista and not in the way that Microsoft would hope for.

It seems that the small office/home office market isn’t much interested in buying new computers with Vistal already installed. We radical little business people would prefer to stick with XP and why not? All our software works with XP but doesn’t always work with Vista.

Of course Microsoft has a solution - they’re going to withdraw XP from sale to computer makers so that we’ll be forced to buy the new product.

You can read the full story here

by Stuart Livesey

There’s an interesting lesson for all small business people over on Seth Godin’s blog today. It’s all about how one small business established a rapport with a potential customer and the affect it had on that customer. Follow this link to Rapport

Do you think your small business is providing a wonderful service but your customers think you suck?

by Toni Livesey

Some new research came out this week that looks at big business and their perception of the service the provide compared to what their customers think about the service.

It seems that 80% of the businesses surveyed thought they were doing a wonderful job or providing great customer service. Sadly though only 8% of customers agreed.

What are the figures like for your small business? Are you brave enough to find out?

You can read more about the survey here

by Stuart Livesey

I won’t bore you with the details (you will see a couple of posts by Toni that basically tell the story) but this quote from the SEO Black Hat blog certainly has a lot of resonance for us at the moment and it certainly has taught us something that even applies to how your price your time for friends.

It may even have something to teach you in your small business.

If you do consulting, how you price your services is essentially what you value your time at. When you price, you are answering the question “What is my time worth?” Price it too low and people will see it as less valuable. Price it too high and you may not get any business.

by Stuart Livesey

We all know - or we should all know - that word-of-mouth advertising is the best your small business can get. When a satisfied customer tells their friends about the great experience they had when they did business with your small business their friends are encouraged to do business with you too.

But there’s another form of word-of-mouth advertising that you may not have thought of. It’s the word-of-mouth advertising that you can do about your business.

Yesterday the rechargeable battery in our camera died in the middle of shooting a whole bunch of images for an online gift store that Toni is setting up so we headed down the the local battery shop to buy a replacement. While we were there we got into conversation with the guy behind the counter and mentioned that we used the camera extensively in our business and after six years of use we felt we had been well-served by the old battery.

He asked us what line of business we were in - we mentioned web design - we mentioned two local businesses that we had done work for and now we’re quoting on a website for a golf buggy business that he and his partner run in conjunction with the battery shop.

Word-of-mouth marketing - it’s that easy.

… in your small business when a friend, who is also a client, doesn’t pay his account?

by Toni Livesey

One of our smaller enterprises involves web hosting. We host a number of small business websites on a server in the United States and most of those small business sites belong to friends.

The accounts that go out each month are 7 day accounts but one guy seems to think that doesn’t apply to him. He seems to think that we should be running a 30 day account like all his other suppliers (I should point out here that he doesn’t run any accounts - his is a cash business where people pay before they get the product).

We’ve discussed it with him with no result. Now I want to drop his site but Stuart is suggesting we wait a few more days.

What would you do if you were facing this situation?

by Stuart Livesey

The experts will tell you that good advertising is all about telling a story. Obviously it’s a story that you have to tell in as few a words as possible.

The really short advertising stories are the ones you see on billboards. Some are a waste of space because they’re simply not focused enough or use way too many words and images to tell the story.

Others absolutely nail the message in just a couple of words.

Toni and I were in Brisbane yesterday and we say this billboard in several different spots around the city. It catches your eye, it tells a story and it offers hope to a market place that’s far bigger than you might think.

What more could you ask for?