Pricing and forecasting for profit

Posted on October 17, 2023 by Angus Jones

How much should you sell it for, and how many will you sell? Did you know that even the largest businesses struggle with this? Unfortunately, we can not give you all the answers, but this guide will explain the principles and help you with the basics to improve your abilities around pricing and forecasting.

Product forecasting is the science of predicting the degree of success a new product will enjoy in the marketplace. The forecasting model must consider product awareness, distribution, price, fulfilling unmet needs and competitive alternatives to do this.
Price is the money that customers must pay for a product or service.

WHY is getting pricing and stock forecasting right important?

Charge too much, and you will sell too few; charge too little, and you may not make any money. The more stock you hold, the more money you have tied up, the more chance the stock will spoil or become obsolete.

Pricing and forecasting work hand in hand but are not always directly linked.

The basics of pricing and forecasting are to sell enough to make enough money to sustain your business and make a profit. Your product or service has a cost to manufacture or provide; included in this needs to be the cost of running your business and any future customer service you must provide. Some of your costs will be variable, and some will be fixed.

Assume you are a greengrocer; you have a variable cost of buying apples. That is the cost for each apple, times the number you buy. If you buy 100 apples, you hope to sell 100 apples, so you must price them at a point where you would sell 100 apples. If you price them too cheaply, you will run out of stock and lose out on the many more apples you could have sold. Price them too expensive, and you will not sell your 100 apples and then have spoilt stock that you cannot sell.

Thus, you are seeing this as a fine balance. If your apple cost was 10 cents and you sold all 100, you would have made $90. Will this $90 cover your fixed costs? Your fixed costs are the cost of your vehicle, your store rent, your wages, etc. If your fixed costs during this time were $100, your net position would be a loss of $10.

WHAT do I need to know about pricing?

To start with the basics, you must set a price if you wish to sell something. That price must cover your costs and enable a profit. If you can get lower costs, you can lower the price. Pricing your offering is an ongoing process and cannot be done once or forgotten.

Suppose you have projected your business’s running costs, including property and equipment leases, loan repayments, inventory, utilities, financing, and wages.

The four most common ways of establishing prices are:

Cost-Plus Pricing – We add all our costs and our desired profit to reach a required sell price. For example,
material cost $50 + labour cost $30 + overhead $40 = total cost $120
total cost $120 + desired profit at 20% of sale price $30 = required selling price of $150

Demand price – This model sets a price based on volume. A wholesaler can buy a large quantity because they can move that quantity. A retailer can only sell a smaller number, so it will pay more from the wholesaler and again, a customer who may only buy one will pay a higher price. Thus, pricing is set on demand.

Competitive pricing – When a product is a commodity or similar to something else being sold, competition determines the price. If you sell petrol, you need to ensure petrol bought from you is competitive to the store down the road. Unless you can differentiate your offering, customers will shop around and pay the best price if they know many others also sell this petrol.

Markup pricing – This is when a fixed markup is applied to the cost of a product. For example, with a $70 cost and selling price of $100, the fixed markup would be $30. If this were expressed as a percentage, the markup would be 30%, which is the markup divided by the selling price.

Some other pricing tactics that you might consider include:

Promotional pricing – discounts or sales to generate extra sales or move discontinued stock.
Geographic pricing – different pricing based on the location of operation. You might have two shops, one in the city and one in the country. You may find you can charge different prices for the same item in each location. Your costs may also be higher due to transport.
Premium pricing – sometimes people are prepared to pay more for a premium brand or product, and indeed, if you sold that item for less, it would not be as sought after, and you would sell less, such as branded clothing.

HOW do I forecast?

Your accounting package or POS solution may have some integrated functionality or an integrated app that you can add to help with forecasting. When we forecast a product for sale, we care about purchases, sales and inventory. Pretend we buy (purchase) 10 units and sell (sales) 6 we are left with four units (inventory). If we believe our sales next period will be seven units, we need to purchase three or more units depending on how much stock we want at the end of that period. If you do not have stock available for people to buy, they may go to a competitor who does.

There are three basic models for forecasting—qualitative techniques, time series analysis and projection, and causal models.

Qualitative uses, for example, expert opinion and information about special events and may or may not consider the past. Such as, “I have been doing this a long time, and my gut feeling is we will sell 10”.

Time series analysis & projection focus entirely on patterns and pattern changes and thus rely entirely on historical data. For example, if you sold ten this week last year, you may forecast to sell ten again.

Casual uses highly refined and specific information about relationships between things and is powerful enough to take special events formally into account. For example, it uses a model that takes last month’s and last year’s data and might take into effect other information like trends and competitor information to forecast sales of 10 units.

HINTS

Selling ten units at a $2 profit gives you a $20 profit, as does selling five units at a $4 profit. Thus, you can get the same result with two different pricing and forecasting tactics.

Here is a simple model you can use to forecast stock purchases :

	Jan	Feb	March	April	May
Inventory		4	5	3	4
Purchases	10	8	6	6
Sales	6	7	8	5

How much inventory you should hold depends on how quickly you can get more stock. It would be best always to have more inventory than you would sell.

Sales are actual or what you have forecasted to sell.

Purchases are how much you need to buy, which is the desired next month’s inventory plus the current month’s sales minus the current month’s inventory.

SUMMARY – pricing and forecasting is an ongoing job

Pricing and forecasting will make or break a business. Products and services need to be priced so you can make a profit and that a customer will be prepared to pay it.

Forecasting is about having the right amount of stock at the right time without having too much that you cannot move.

CRM – keeping track of customers

Posted on September 14, 2023 by Angus Jones

You may have clicked on this topic because you wanted to know what CRM stands for, or perhaps you know that a better relationship with your customer will help your business. Customers are key to any business; an existing customer is likelier to be loyal and doesn’t need to be convinced to buy as they are already customers. If they are having a good experience, they will tell their friends. Talking to and finding your customers can be expensive, which is exactly what this guide will discuss.

Customer relationship management (CRM) manages a business’s interaction with current and potential customers. It uses data analysis about customers’ history with your business to improve business relationships with customers, specifically focusing on customer retention (keeping them) and ultimately driving sales growth.

WHY do I need CRM?

As a business starts to grow, it is hard to keep track of sales opportunities and ensure anyone in the business can see exactly what is going on with each customer. It is good to know which customers have the greatest opportunity to close a sale and the value of that sale. A CRM solution is a cloud-based software package that helps you sell. Because it is cloud-based, it means that traditionally, only big businesses could afford to buy it; now, small businesses can access the same tools for less. Be sure to read our essential guide on Cloud Solutions.

The benefits of customer relationship management software:

Easy access to customer data: A customer relationship management system includes a searchable database that allows users to access client and prospect information, offering them the most up-to-date information on customers from anywhere.
Streamlined processes: You can coordinate sales, marketing, and customer support processes. E.g. did this marketing effort result in a sale?
Actionable insights on business performance and customer behaviour: Through customisable dashboards, you can see reports that segment customers, track revenue, and manage marketing campaigns.
Finding new customers costs far more than keeping the ones you already have.

WHAT are the typical features of customer relationship management software?

Contact management: Searchable database of customer and prospect information.
Track interactions: Document conversations with customers and prospects on different channels such as phone, email, live chat, or in-person. You might also be able to track the results of marketing campaigns and identify potential cross-selling opportunities.
Lead management: Track and manage business opportunities throughout the customer lifecycle.
Calendar/reminder system: Create reminders about calls or meetings and synchronise these with the user’s calendar. It can prompt you that it is time for a catch-up and remind you of useful information.
Offers: Create special offers for clients who seem to be drifting away or set up and manage events that might increase customer retention.
Document storage: Store, share, and manage documentation and paperwork.
Segmentation: Divide the customer base into groups based on attributes like age, gender, location, and preferences to create targeted sales and marketing campaigns.

HOW do I choose a customer relationship management software solution?

Types of customer relationship management tools: CRM falls into three areas. Sales automation solutions help users manage inventory, order processing, and sales reporting. Marketing automation solutions help users create and manage marketing campaigns. Customer service software helps track and manage customer queries. Users should assess their customer relationship management system needs and shortlist products that meet their specific needs.
You should evaluate various solutions based on the following:

Competitive pricing: Any advantage offered by the CRM software will be wiped out if it’s costing you more than it brings in. Use good quality accounting software to make a few forecasts about how much revenue you might gain. Then shop around.
Scalability: Can the software grow and your business grows? Some packages are better for smaller businesses, others for medium businesses.
Ease of use: CRM software must be intuitive, or you will never want to use it. Note how many clicks it takes to conduct a basic task and how easy or difficult it is to find the needed features.
Support: What support, if any, is included? What hours do they operate? Do they have blogs or best practice examples?
Security: With all your customer data in the cloud, you want excellent security. Be careful; you can be fined for customer data breaches in Australia.
Integration: How well will this solution integrate with other systems you may have, like accounting, email, calendar, etc.. Be sure to read our essential guides on accounting packages and office productivity.

HINT

A review of what different tools are available can be found here or by doing a Google search. Do your evaluation carefully. Some solutions may offer you too many features. Others have lots of add-on modules with extra functionality, which start adding to the price quickly. Most solutions will offer free trials for you to get a better feel; some even offer the basics for free.

SUMMARY – CRM data quality

Our last call out here is the CRM system is only as good as the data it has, so if it is not used or information is out of date, then it stops being a useful tool.

Gift cards – why you should offer them!

Posted on June 22, 2023 by Angus Jones

A gift card is a convenient way for a customer to provide a gift to a friend, family member or business associate. They are most commonly used for gifts when you don’t know what to buy someone. Interestingly a survey done in 2017 by finder.com.au found that one in seven gift cards purchased in Australia went unused. This guide will look at why you should offer them, what are the rules you must abide by and how you go about offering them.

A gift card, gift certificate or gift voucher is a prepaid stored-value money card or certificate, usually issued by a retail store or bank, to be used as an alternative to cash for purchases within a store or related businesses.

WHY should I offer gift cards?

Gift cards offer several advantages for small businesses; the cost to provide them is minimal compared to their potential return. Consumers generally feel a gift card is an opportunity to spoil themselves.

Small Business Advantages include:

Give customers an incentive to spend money at your business and create repeat purchases.
Revenue is generated in advance sales as no goods or services are redeemed yet.
Having customers carry a gift card around with your logo builds your brand.
In most cases, customers will spend more than the gift card amount.
Gift cards provide you with a promotional opportunity. Spend $100 and get a $10 gift card.
Customers may never actually spend the value of the card, whether it be the last few dollars on a card or the whole amount.

WHAT are the Rules around gift cards or vouchers?

As of November 2019, the rules changed around gift cards. The rules now state that a gift card must have a minimum expiry date of 3 years from the date the card is sold. That expiry date must be listed on the card and no post-purchase fees can be added. A post-purchase fee would include activation, account keeping or balance enquiry fees. Penalties for non-compliance are $6,000 for an individual and $30,000 for a business.

When you sell a gift card/voucher, the customer has an asset of your business until the voucher is used. Thus, from an accounting perspective, when you record the sale of a gift voucher, it needs to be recorded as a liability posted to an Unclaimed Gift Certificate account. When the customer redeems the voucher, all you need to do is create an invoice and pay for it using the funds from the Unclaimed Gift Voucher account. This way, you can easily track the value of outstanding gift vouchers or write off any that remain unredeemed after the expiry date.

From a GST perspective, a gift card has a monetary value but does not need to be included in your GST activity statement until it is redeemed for products or services. The exception to this is when a gift card is not for money but rather a tangible product or service, then GST must be paid and reported on the voucher sale. For example, 10 hours of technical services.

If the voucher expires before it’s redeemed, you’ll need to report the unredeemed amount as income and 1/11th (being the GST component) is reported and paid to the ATO.

HOW do I offer gift cards?

The three most common forms of gift vouchers/cards are:

A credit card-sized plastic card electronically loaded with a specific money amount. Note that some cards can have additional funds added or topped up later.
A gift certificate is some form of a paper promise from a business allowing you to redeem the specified amount back from the store.
eGift cards or vouchers. This is normally a set of codes and sometimes a barcode that you can receive via email. These codes/barcodes can then be applied at the checkout for credit.

As a small business, you should consider the following:

Which type of cards you will offer as above?
How do you tell customers they are available? Signs, internet, etc
Will you restrict to set values or variables? Such as $50, $100 and $200?
Will the expiry be 3 years or more?
Can it be redeemed in your online store if you have one?
If you have multiple stores using the same brand, is the gift voucher transferable?
Integrating your POS and Accounting systems allows you to process and track these vouchers simply. (most have this functionality)
Are there any special terms? Such as not allowing gift cards to be used to buy gift cards or transferable for cash.

Some plastic card solutions make it simple to activate and redeem cards by simply swiping the card through your EFTPOS reader. Other solutions will require some other type of solution, like keying in a number. Be wary of a manual system that can be lost or stolen.

You can brand your gift cards by having a custom gift card printed by various companies for less than $1 each. However, note some POS software solutions require you to use their gift cards which may cost more.

HINTS

If you sell gift cards, make sure to showcase them in a highly visible place that customers must walk by. For example, placing gift cards next to the sales desk will lead to more impulse buys from customers.

SUMMARY – gift card solutions

Offering gift cards allow customers a convenient way to provide gifts to others. A small business benefits from having the money upfront and encouraging repeat visits to the store. Tracking and accounting is key to managing them with POS and accounting package companies offering solutions.

Graphic design – get graphics done

Posted on December 13, 2021 by Valens Quinn

What does the logo say about your business? Does your website design and images make your business look attractive to the readers? Are you sweating on a big presentation, but the text-based version just does not cut it? Chances are unless you are artistic yourself, you are going to need some help. This guide will look at some graphic design options to help you improve your image and get graphics done.

Graphic design is the process of visual communication and problem-solving using typography, photography, iconography and illustration. The field is considered a subset of visual communication and communication design, but sometimes the term “graphic design” is used synonymously. Graphic designers create and combine symbols, images and text to form visual representations of ideas and messages.
They use typography, visual arts, and page layout techniques to create visual compositions. Common graphic design applications include corporate design (logos and branding), editorial design (magazines, newspapers and books), wayfinding or environmental design, advertising, web design, communication design, product packaging, and signage.
(Source Wikipedia)

WHY is graphic design important?

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. If you were going to the most important face to face meeting of your life, would you wear a dirty shirt, ¾ pants, and sandals? No, because you would not be creating the best impression. Similarly, you want your business to make the best impression and no matter if it is your logo, website, business card, brochure, Facebook post, presentation, or the sign on the side of your workplace.

We want your business image to be impressive, and we also want it to be memorable.

The use of graphic design can help with this. If we use the example of a logo, it allows customers to identify your company. A good design will be simple and memorable.

WHAT do I need to understand about graphic design?

Graphic design has gone through an evolution over the last few decades, starting from being done by hand with paper, pencils, crayons, and paint. Then came the introduction of computers and specialist software for those same artists to work within this new technological medium. Today cloud-based tools are made available at a low cost that allows anyone to be a designer, supported by many helpful templates.

A template is a predesigned image that you have the right to use and manipulate to suit your needs. Templates are available for many needs today but for reference, think of a template for a social media post or advertising flyer.

A really important concept to understand is the usage rights of templates and photos. You can use many free templates and photos, but some are licensed. This means you cannot simply copy them. Rather you must either seek permission or, in most cases, pay to use them, possibly for a set period in a fixed geographic location. The more famous/better the photo, the more expensive.

If you wanted to design a logo, for example, these are possible steps you might follow:

Think about why you need a logo
Define your brand identity
Find inspiration for your design
Look at and compare what the competition is doing
Choose your design style
Find the right type of logo
Pay attention to colour
Pick the right typography (arrangement of the image)

HOW can I get graphic design help?

What help you need will depend on your capabilities and what you need to do. For example, if you want a company logo designed, you will probably need help, but if you’re going to improve your presentation slides, there are simple tools that can make a world of difference for the novice. Your options for graphic design include:

Outsource – On the internet, there are many services to get quotes for and find graphic designers.
Add on services – If you need to get business cards printed you will often find the printer or retailer will have a design service available as an additional service. This can be a cost-effective method.
Graphic design business – Seek out a graphic design agency or freelancer directly
DIY graphic design – Will the help of templates and simple to use tools the average person can now produce amazing results. A great Australian cloud-based company offering this solution globally is “Canva”.
Stock photos – If you require photos for your marketing needs many internet-based repositories are offering a free, subscription, or peruse option. For example, Shutterstock offers a free trial.
Templates in your apps – Applications like those discussed in the Office Applications guide such as PowerPoint or Slides offer various free templates to use in your presentations.

HINTS

Before choosing a designer, make sure you see a portfolio of their work.

It is better to get a fixed cost for design work rather than pay by the hour as the hours can easily blow out.

Remember, everyone’s tastes are different, so get a few people’s opinions before deciding on a design.

Understand a graphic designer might know more about graphic design than you do.

SUMMARY – improve your image

Good graphics representing your business will make a good impression and help you build your brand identity. Graphic design will help your image and can be done yourself using templates and tools right through to having the assistance of an expert.

Digital marketing – online targeting

Posted on June 4, 2021 by Angus Jones

As a small business, if you want to attract customers you have the option to run advertising. If you sell cosmetics and you advertise in a local paper you advertise to 50% of the population who has no interest in your cosmetics. Namely men. In this guide, we will look at how we can use digital marketing to target only those customers who are potential buyers of your product or service.

Digital marketing, Online advertising, internet advertising is the use of the internet, mobile devices, social media, search engines, and other channels to reach consumers.
Digital advertising is a targeted, data-driven advertising strategy for reaching consumers in every stage of the buying journey from early consideration through to comparison and purchase.

WHY should I use digital advertising?

Australian’s use of the internet grows every year. Every night most Australians have a smartphone in their hand as they watch TV.

We advertise to let people know you exist, to show a benefit or to promote a compelling offer. Digital advertising has specific advantages:

Customers can be targeted based on location, age, sex, income, interests and past search behaviors
- Targeting can be done to only the audience you are interested in and not the ones you are not.
Instant real-time result allows you to measure success
Messages can be targeted rather than one message suits all
Start or stop advertising instantly

Using our cosmetics example we can decide to advertise today to women aged 19 to 35 who have an interest in fashion. We can immediately see how many in our target audience have been reached and how many clicked through to your website. It is also possible to track how many of those people ended up buying a product on your e-commerce store.

WHAT are the different types of digital marketing?

Before you endeavor on a Digital media purchase we strongly suggest you build a marketing plan as discussed in our Marketing Guide. The types of digital marketing options include:

online advertising
- banner ads – an advertisement that appears on a web page
- keywords – spending money so your business will appear on the first page of a browser (Google) search
- retargeting – serving a digital advertisement to someone who has already searched for your product or similar. For example, you search Toyota and keep getting ads for Toyota
- native – an ad that is a sponsored post rather than a hard sell ad
- video – use of a video advertisement in a digital arena like YouTube
online streaming
- Podcasts – placing advertising in a pre-recorded radio type program
- Video on Demand – this could be catch-up TV or Foxtel where video advertising is allowed.
social media advertising – use social media as the platform to advertise
mobile app advertising – free apps survive by including advertising
email marketing – a direct mail piece like you would have traditionally received in your letterbox but via email

HOW do I go about doing digital marketing?

Unlike traditional forms of advertising like TV, radio, and newspapers, digital advertising is much easier for the everyday person to do versus having to use a specialised media buying business.

It can be as simple as entering your credit card details.

Assuming you have a plan including having marketing objectives, a definable target market, and a decision on marketing levers (see our Marketing Guide) you are almost ready to advertise.

It is important to have some creative content that will actually convey your message and resonate with a customer. You need to ensure there are a customer benefit and call to action. That is, why should the customer be interested and how can they get in contact with you. The final part is to make it visually appealing. See our guide on Graphical design to see how to do this simply.

Not that these are the right solution for your circumstances, but the most popular means to deliver a digital advertisement is through Google or Facebook. Both these organisations have tutorials, guides, tools, etc. to lead you through the process and pay with a credit card to start the advertising.

Google https://ads.google.com/intl/en_au/getstarted

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/business/ads

HINTS

Whilst using digital marketing makes bold claims around specific targeting and measurement the reality is not always quite as accurate. Errors do occur and you should always use actual sales improvement as a true measure of success.

While the internet is a powerful medium, you can benefit from using a mix of traditional advertising like direct mail, radio or outdoor and digital marketing to reach your target audience.

Digital advertising is bought in an auction environment. The more buyers for the same digital assets drives prices up.

SUMMARY – better targeting of customers

Digital marketing or advertising uses the internet to target only those customers you specify. It is possible to track those customers through to a sale which helps you determine if you should invest any further money in the same approach. Digital advertising can be specific to your local area or enable you to reach a global audience. It is very data-driven and if used correctly is a very powerful marketing tool.

PR to grow your business

Posted on October 19, 2020 by Angus Jones

If you want to grow your business, several marketing options can help with that! One of the most cost-effective ways of promoting your business can be by doing public relations activities. In this guide, we will look at PR to grow your business, give you some of the secrets from a PR expert and the steps to get some free promotion potentially.

Public relations or PR is the strategic action of intentionally managing the release and spread of information between an individual or business and the public.

WHY should you use PR to grow your business?

PR to grow your business is one of the best ways to promote your business. Because it goes one step further than advertising by showing your audience the best parts of your business instead of just telling them about it.

It says to your target market: a journalist, publication or influencer chose to support or seek out the advice of this business. Therefore, they must be top of their field.

In short, it drives trust.

WHAT do small businesses need to get started?

An understanding of your value

Businesses should think about what value they can add, especially if that value is unique to them. Ask yourself: how my particular skills, produce or service, and experience help people?

A clear plan

Assign a chunk of focused time to create a PR plan. Start every PR campaign with a period of preparation that includes creating ideas, developing strategies, lists of media angles, and target publications.

A newsworthy pitch

Once you know your value, you’ll need a newsworthy pitch. Make sure your pitch is relevant to the publication, tugs on the right heartstrings, and is backed by credibility and authority. Most importantly, the pitch should have some kind of newsworthy hook that ties into an existing news story, zeitgeist, or cultural shift.

Supporting material

Anticipate what the journalist might need to tell your story, and make sure you give it to them upfront, to make their life easier and save time. Think high-resolution images, b-roll footage, case studies, company backgrounders, and the names and bios of the people available for interview.

The confidence to get started

Just start – you’ll get the hang of it. Don’t wait for big ideas, instead look for consistency in small things done well. The quest for perfection will kill any hopes of PR success dead in their tracks.

HOW do businesses achieve killer media coverage?

Give journalists a great story

If a journalist can tell a story without your help, they will. So if you’re pitch is so generic that any old journalist could write it, they’ll either simply do it themselves without including you in the piece, or write it off completely.

Present them with something that they haven’t thought of before, or that adds more colour to a story. If you happened to come across this story in real life, would you stop what you’re doing and pay attention? If not, then you might want to rethink your idea.

Find out what area each journalist covers (known in the trade as their ‘beat’), and make sure your pitch is tailored very specifically to their requirements.

Make sure you’ve got the right pitch for the right person

Are you offering an advice article when they only do interviews? Are you offering an interview when the bulk of their publication is made up of advice articles? Are you writing something targeted at schools, when this publication is targeted at parents? Are you approaching an editor that only considers stories that come with financial information, video footage, or case studies? Are you pitching a breakfast radio producer an interview with someone who is not available until 11am?

There are so many media-specific standards to consider that it always pays to do your research thoroughly. Suppose you pitch something that’s not relevant. In that case, your idea will likely be ignored, and you risk permanently damaging your relationship with a journalist.

Even within the same publication, different journalists will have different needs. Find out what area each journalist writes about (known in the trade as their ‘beat’). Make sure your pitch is tailored very specifically to their requirements.

Become a credible, reliable source

News outlets need reliable, credible experts that they can call upon at the drop of a hat. Suppose you’re not known to the journalist when you first approach them. In that case, it might take some convincing to persuade them that you’re a credible source of information. It’s your job to show them that you’re trustworthy and that you don’t have an ulterior motive.

The best way to make this happen is to ensure you have something original and unique to say. Suppose you can be more interesting and more engaging than your competitors. In that case, a journalist is far more likely to take the risk.

Maximise your coverage

Once the coverage is achieved, it’s essential to maximise the coverage as much as possible. The first few days after a piece has gone live is the most critical window of opportunity for sharing on social media, but don’t stop there. Even if your coverage is months or even years old, there are still lots of chances to post it. Keep an eye out for new news stories that relate to your own, and use it as an opportunity to add to the conversation. Jump on the ‘flashback’ bandwagon, especially if you’ve got a piece of coverage which is about to celebrate its first birthday.

HINTS

Always avoid clickbait or going in for a hard sell. Be generous and give value, because that is who people want to do business with.

Journalists are incredibly time-poor, so it’s critical to time your pitch perfectly. If you send an email on a Friday afternoon at 4 pm, there’s little hope that your story will ever see the light of day.

Make your pitch as interesting as possible. Present the journalist with something that they haven’t thought of before, or that adds more colour to an existing story.

Make sure your pitch is tailored to their magazine, program, site, newspaper or section – and to the individual journalist’s particular focus or interest.

SUMMARY – PR to grow your business

Just because you know how great your business is, that doesn’t mean anyone else will go out of their way to find it out too. Instead, you need to make it as easy as possible for a potential customer to figure out why you’re the best in the business.

PR is a great way to get your business’s story out there without resorting to overt sales tactics or showy advertisements.

This guide was contributed by Phoebe Netto of Pure Public Relations.

Marketing to grow your business

Posted on July 14, 2020 by Angus Jones

There is a very good chance you are already doing marketing because a lot of it is common sense. For a small business, it lets people know you are in business and gives customers reasons why they should do business with you. In this guide, we will look at the basics of marketing and give you an action plan to develop some further plans.

Marketing refers to activities a business undertakes to sell more of a product or service. Marketing includes researching, advertising, selling, and delivering products to consumers or other businesses.

The simplest form of marketing is how you answer the phone or what you wear through to a complex integrated plan across newer mediums like the internet or older like radio advertising.

WHY do I need to do marketing?

For any small business to succeed you need customers who know or can find that your product exists and who trust your business enough to buy your product.

Marketing helps by looking at your business and adjusting how customers perceive your business.

Assume you are starting a new small business to paint people’s houses. You are a very good painter and plan to charge competitive rates. Imagine if you did not return phone calls, turned up to do a quote in dirty clothes and quoted by writing a price on a scrap of paper. The customer does not know if you are a good painter and interprets you as unreliable with poor attention to detail and therefore they don’t trust you to paint their house. Thus marketing is key to present your business the right way.

WHAT are the 4 Ps?

The 4 P’s describe how important it is to present a complete package to entice a customer. You cannot do just one of these and consider it is marketing instead you must do all 4 in some form, all working in harmony to drive the optimum result.

Product

To be successful in business you need a product or service that is needed or wanted by the end-user. You ideally find an opportunity or problem that needs a solution and has a market large enough to sustain providing a product or service. You cannot always design or build your product or service from scratch but you can pick the best product or solution to sell that best meets that need. The better your product or service is compared to competitors as seen by the consumer will give you an advantage.

Price

Many people work on the principle that the cheapest price wins the sale. Whilst this is often the case, it is not always and indeed you can easily under-price a product making people think it is not high enough quality or an uncool purchase. Make sure you do your homework to ensure you price correctly.

Place

Place refers to how you get your product to market. Where is it sold? A retail shop, a direct visit to the customer, or perhaps an eCommerce store. It is important to consider the best place or places to sell to be most successful. It is important to actually have what you sell available and understand the effect of selling in different places can have on one another. Having a product that you want to sell in a supermarket is no good if you can’t supply it or the supermarket will not put it on the shelves. Also, imagine what the supermarket would say if they found you selling the same item cheaper on your eCommerce store.

Promotion

Many confuse promotion or advertising as the only function of marketing. Without the other 3 P’s your likelihood of success is very slim. This starts with how you present your business from your website to business branding, your work vehicle, how you dress, and the way the staff answer the phone. Next is how you create awareness of your business which could be advertising, public relations, social media, and the content (words) you create to reinforce this. Last is understanding if the promotion you are doing is working and looking for ways to improve it.

HOW do I create a marketing plan?

A marketing plan is a systematic approach to work through developing products and services to fulfil customers’ needs.

A marketing plan should include the following elements:

Business Summary – Apart from an overview of your business the most important aspect of this section is to do a SWOT. See our full guide on developing a SWOT. In summary, SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. It is an excellent method to analyse your competitive position and get a clear roadmap of how to help you get to your marketing destination.
Marketing Objectives – This is a clear list of marketing objectives (not business objectives) that outline the strategic steps you will need to follow to reach the goal you hope to achieve.
Target Audience or market – Ideally, you will have the aid of some sort of research that will help you define the industry you are selling to. An analysis of your competitors, and a description of your ideal customer. Age, location, income, or interests can segment the customer.
Market Strategy – It is now time to take what we have collected in the first 3 points including the SWOT, objectives, and target market and using the 4 P’s we discussed above to build out the practical plan.
Budget – This is not only your plan about how much money you will spend but also how many resources you will allocate to making it happen. Your most important resource may actually be people’s time. Could marketing effort help you sell more than having that same person just concentrate on sales?
Marketing Levers – Last but not least, you know what you want to do and how much money you have, but with all the possible marketing levels you can pull which one will get you the best result. Marketing levers here refers to what marketing channels you select. Some of the more common include:

Traditional Advertising
- Newspaper
- Radio
- TV
Public relations
Social media
Digital Advertising
- Keywords
- Display ads
Organic assets. Includes your website or word of mouth
Philanthropic – giving back to the community
Direct mail
Catalogues

A comprehensive template from the Australian government can be downloaded here https://www.business.gov.au/Planning/Business-plans/How-to-write-your-marketing-plan

HINTS

Use as much customer feedback as you can to improve your offer to them.

Set clear objectives around what you want to achieve and how you can achieve them.

Be realistic around how much you can afford to spend on marketing and how many people are in your potential audience.

A mentor or coach may be of value here especially if you have no marketing experience.

A marketing consultant or agency for a fee can provide marketing services to you.

SUMMARY – Marketing to sell more

Marketing is about looking at how a business presents itself and working out how it can improve on that to gain additional sales. The process involves understanding an opportunity, finding a solution, understanding competitors, identifying your market and finally realising your marketing plan.

SWOT to develop your business strategy

Posted on July 14, 2020 by Angus Jones

If you want your business to grow you should ask yourself how does your business compare to the competition? What are your advantages and disadvantages? What are the threats to your success? Are there opportunities that your business has not taken advantage of? This guide will look at a SWOT analysis and show you how you can use this strategic planning technique to help your business identify Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats and then develop business strategies to grow your business.

A SWOT analysis or Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats analysis is a study undertaken by a business to help understand business competition or help to build a project plan.

WHY should I do a SWOT?

The SWOT tool is a very simple way to develop your business strategy. It provides a framework to collect your thoughts no matter if you have been in business for years or just starting. (Also see our Marketing guide)

A SWOT analysis is designed to facilitate a realistic, fact-based, data-driven look at your business.

The tool allows you to get an accurate picture of your market position and then helps you to formulate what actions you should take to improve on the current situation.

WHAT do I need to know about a SWOT?

Strengths and weaknesses are internal to your business. These are things that you have control over and can change.

Opportunities and threats are external to your business. These are things going on outside of your business, in the market place. You can take advantage of opportunities and protect against threats, but you can’t change external influences on your business.

	Helpful (for your objective)	Harmful (for your objective)
Internal (within organisation)	Strengths x x x	Weaknesses x x x
External (outside organisation)	Opportunities x x x	Threats x x x

Strengths and Opportunities are helpful to your business and can allow you to grow.

Weaknesses and threats are harmful and if left unchecked could cause your business to shrink.

HOW do I do a SWOT

Using the table above you need to fill in the bullet points for each of the four quadrants. You may add as many points as you believe are relevant. Be wary of adding a preconceived view versus the real-world reality.

When filling out a SWOT the types of information might include:
(Note points can move between left or right depending if in your circumstance they are a Positive/Helpful on left or Negative/Harmful on right)

Strengths

Business strong points
Unique selling point
Value proposition
Internal resource such as your people
Tangible assets like IP or capital
Marketing or Advertising
Business process
customers

Weaknesses

Factors increasing cost
Things your company lacks
Factors reducing profits
Where competitors are better
Resource limitations
Unclear selling proposition
Is your location ideal

Opportunities

Adapting to technology creating new demand
Being ready for the future
Untapped market
Few competitors
Press coverage of your business
Market is growing
Upcoming events

Threats

Competition activity
Changing customer attitude to your company
Government policies
Fluctuating markets
Supply constraints
New market trends

Once you have completed your SWOT it will give you a clear picture of your market position. As a result, you can create several strategies to take advantage of strengths and opportunities. Also, develop strategies to address weaknesses and threats. You can then prioritise those strategies based on what you need to do to grow your business. Lastly, you build an action list with dates to address those strategies.

HINTS

If you are starting a new business, a SWOT analysis is part of the business planning process. It will help you formulate a strategy so that you start off in the right direction.

If you are an established business can use a SWOT to assess the current situation and determine a strategy to move forward. Note that things are constantly changing and you will most likely want to reassess your strategy, with a new SWOT every 12 months.

Having an external person like a customer contribute to the SWOT process can ensure a dose of reality.

Sample Business selling pears

	Helpful (for your objective)	Harmful (for your objective)
Internal (within organisation)	Strengths Good profits Excellent staff with spare capacity	Weaknesses Prices to expensive Brand not known
External (outside organisation)	Opportunities Produce pear pies Sell to restaurants Advertise pears	Threats Oranges become more popular Supply issues

Strategy 1. Sell more pears cheaper
Strategy 2. Build pear pie business

Action 1. Reprice pears by end of the month
Action 2. assign a staff member to research pear pie’s by end of week
Action 3. Get staff to phone restaurants offering them pears by the end of next week

SUMMARY – actions to match your business strategy

A SWOT analysis is a framework allowing you to evaluate your business or business idea from a competitive position and to develop strategic planning. By reviewing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats you can gain a fresh perspective and new ideas. A SWOT can be done in as little as an hour which then can be used to develop strategies to grow your business which will be delivered by a list of action items.