One of the benefits of having customers who are satisfied with the service your small business provides is that it’s cheaper and easier to sell them than it is to sell to a brand-new customer. In fact, sometimes you don’t even have to go looking for them, they’ll come to you.

Late last year we built a website for Hervey Bay Jetski. Due to various circumstances the the site had to be fairly compact but it was always the intention of the owners to expand the site at some time in the future.

Last week that “some time in the future” came around and when Toni and I stopped by to say hello Daniel and Rosie raised the question of expanding the site – they already knew what they wanted and all we had to do was assure them that we could fit their job into a timeframe that suited them.

They had been so happy with the way the site was developed and the leads and sales the site had generated that they had decided that the time to expand it had arrived. Now the site is to be upgraded over the coming months with new models and new pages and we’ll be doing it because Daniel and Rosie trust us to produce exactly what they want at a price that is fair to all concerned.

That has got to be the easiest ‘sell’ we’ve ever done

Your response to genuine complaints … and even some frivolous ones … can have a very serious impact on your small business as one Brisbane restaurant found out when their response to a legitimate complaint went worldwide.

You can read the full story here

Don’t let your small business get locked in by service providers 
by Stuart Livesey

Oh boy, last time it was over two weeks since I last posted. This time it’s nearly three weeks since I posted. The deafening silence hasn’t been because we haven’t had anything to say, it’s just been because we haven’t had time to say it. Work has simply been non-stop for weeks now and, in these current economic conditions, that’s very pleasing.

And it doesn’t look like stopping anytime soon. In the last few days we’ve been asked to provide so many quotes and proposals that March looks like being just as busy as February has been so far.

Two of those requests for proposals have come from small businesses here in town who are facing a real problem. Both businesses want us to redevelop existing websites for them . One couple recently bought a business and thought that the website the previous owners had a local company build for the business came with the sale.

Unfortunately they now find that the previous owners of the business did not own the domain name … instead the local media company that designed the site bought the domain name and never transferred it to their clients and the media company is also claiming ownership of the website.

The second couple had the foresight to demand that they be the copyright holders of all the material that they paid for when they had a different design business here in town build their website. Unfortunately they didn’t realise that the web designer at that business was going to use a content management script to build their site that no other web designer has access to.

Now that should not be all that much of a problem except for the fact that the script this designer used does not produce good code. Sure the browsers that have to read that code and display the site on your monitor can handle it but it’s so poor that many designers … including me … would have problems deciphering it so making additions and alterations to the site is going to be costly.

So, even though I’ve said it several times here on this site, it’s worth saying again. When your small business does business with service providers such as web designers, marketers etc. make sure that you own the copyright for all the material that you pay for and make sure that there is nothing that ties you to that service provider.

We all like to keep our clients but the ethical way to do that is by providing an unbeatable service. Any service provider who wants to keep their customers by making it too expensive to move to another provider isn’t worth doing business with.

By Stuart Livesey 

For over 20 years I worked as a field officer in the New South Wales Sheriff’s Office. Part of my job was to serve and execute court process in various country towns around the State. In those 20 years I had contact with a thousand or more small businesses and usually that contact was at times of crisis.

When a small business had reached a point where it couldn’t pay its bills I was usually the first one there with court process to start recovery action. When the small business owner had gone beyond the point of no return I was usually the one there to sell up their stock and evict them from the business premises.

Sounds a wonderful job doesn’t it … but it had its good points and not every small business that fell into debt sank to the point where there was no way out but to be sold up and evicted.

Sadly though there were plenty of small businesses that did reach the point of no return and after just a few years it seemed that I could tell from the moment I walked into the business those that would survive and those that would not. It was almost as if they had the scent of death about them right from the start.

Perfect examples were a young mechanic who ran his own business repairing cars in a workshop attached to his house and a much older car salesman who had a business selling one of the leading brand-name cars in Australia. He was the only dealer for that brand in a small but prosperous country town.

The young guy was working in conjunction with his wife who handled all the banking until one day she left him with the kids and took all the money that was in their bank accounts. I thought he was guaranteed to end up out of business because his his wife hadn’t been paying the accounts for months but, even though things got very tough for him, he recovered and there was always something very positive about him.

The older guy ran into some problems when his wife became very ill but his business looked very sound and I couldn’t understand why there were so many negative vibes about him. It didn’t surprise me when, a few months after I first had contact with him, I put the locks on his door. He had a great business but when the going got tough he folded.

Toni and I were talking about that yesterday after we were reviewing some of the contacts that we’d had this week. One couple we talked with just had that air of negativity about them. They’d done a lot of market research before they set up their small business but they’d still managed to make some serious mistakes and they’re on the slide. They did have an opportunity this week to turn their business around but they didn’t take it.

So why do some small business people survive while others have the scent of death about them?

John Wooden – the well-known American basketball coach – seems to have summed it up quite well in his Pyramid of Success. One of the fundamentals in that pyramid is Intentness and what he says about it is so very applicable to small business.

“Stay the course. When thwarted try again; harder; smarter. Persevere relentlessly.”

Your small business does not have to have that scent of death about it if you are prepared to persevere relentlessly.

by Stuart Livesey 

Wow, it’s hard to believe that it’s been 11 days since I was in here last … but it’s been a very interesting 11 days. Some of that time I’d love to repeat while others parts of it I hope will never happen again.

My daughter Adrienne … who’s part of our team at Total Website Management has been up here for a week and in our spare time we’ve been talking servers and team management and that’s something Toni, Adrienne and I could do all night

Toni’s mum became very ill on the weekend and we discovered how depressing the intensive care unit’s waiting room at our local hospital can be and of course there has also been the ongoing work with our regulars plus with a number of new clients who have come across to us from our competitors too.

Picking up work from the competition is something that we’re always a little cautious about doing. This is a small town and we all have to live here so we usually let our reputation for outstanding service attract clients from other web design businesses.

And that’s something that you can do no matter what area of small business that your involved in. Basically all you have to do is let your satisfied customers do the work for you while you set a standard of service that is so far beyond what your competitors are providing that they just can’t catch you.

Of course you’ll need the skills and experience to provide that level of service but if you have them then beating the competition is easy and no matter what they try you’ll still stay well out in front.

And knowing what level of service you will need to provide is simply a matter of benchmarking your business against those of your competitors. For some small businesses the comparison is encouraging but for others making that comparison can be rather difficult when they find that they don’t compare well with the opposition.

Well the move is over – our part of the business is totally unpacked and in operation and we’ve got a huge week of meetings and proposals in front of us. Our biggest undertaking – worth many thousands of dollars – will start this week as will several smaller ones.

So we’re feeling pretty excited about our small business right now.

While we’re getting excited about the week ahead here’s something for you to consider.

“Writers using short words and short sentences tend to sell more.

It is easy to think that if you just do more and add more value that you will make more money, but sometimes doing more just means simplifying and clarifying your words, or publishing in a more friendly format. If you want people to take action, to believe they can afford it, making them feel confident and comfortable works.”

It comes from Aaron Wall’s SEO Book blog and you’ll find the rest of the post here.

by Stuart Livesey 

Just a little while ago Toni and I were round at one of our client’s when we had a chance to speak to another small business owner who is involved in the fitting out of our new office. He was there doing some work and we needed to arrange times so that someone could be there when he needed to get into our new office.

As we talked a third small business owner came in and he is someone we’ve done work for in the past. Without a moment’s hesitation he said to the person we were talking to “Toni and Stuart are good people – they do good work.”

It’s a great feeling when someone says that about your business.

We now have an appointment with the person we were talking to do some work on their website.