Carlo Platia: Improve your business in 30 minutes
Send an SMS message to your customers offering a special deal or advertising an event. Clean your pub front until it sparkles. Locals will notice....
- Send an SMS message to your customers offering a special deal or advertising an event.
- Clean your pub front until it sparkles. Locals will notice.
- Come up with an interesting story about your business for your local newspaper or magazine to print.
- Think of a good reason for an industry-specific magazine, such as The Publican, to write about you. Call them with your story.
- Add some new content to your website. Perhaps a new event, a new service, a new menu. Customers should have an incentive to visit your site regularly.
- Find one local or industry-specific online directory that you are not already listed on. There are many of these. Register on it.
- Search the web for any comments that have been made about you. For example, if you are a restaurant, look at your current rating on Top Table. Reply if you can…thank people for good comments and address negative comments.
- Call 5 customers that you have done business with recently. Thank them and/or offer them a chance to comment.
- Come up with a new incentive for your staff to provide good service.
- Speak individually to a member of your staff. Ask for their opinion about a job or service that you didn't directly oversee.
- Come up with a plan to promote a specific drink or menu item to your customers. Call the supplier of that product and ask them to sponsor your promotion.
- Spend a few minutes on the pavement, offering samples to passers-by.
- Call a competitor to one of your current suppliers. Compare terms and prices.
- Organise your customers into a coherent contacts list. Separate your best customers. What do they have in common? What do your worst customers have in common? Ok, this might take longer than 30 minutes, but you have to start some time, right?
- Come up with a promotion that you can run in conjunction with other local businesses. Especially other businesses that target the same sort of people.
- Create a relevant club or interest group on a social networking site, such as Facebook. Invite good customers to join and give them a reason to invite their friends to join.
- Create a group for you and your staff on a professional networking site, such as LinkedIn. Getting yourself talked about in the industry is good for business.
- Nominate yourself (or get someone to nominate you) for an industry award. Most industries have magazines and many of these host annual awards.
- Call a friend and ask them to act as a mystery shopper.
- Find a high profile local event, such as an annual ball or dinner, and offer to use your specialist skills to help organise it. You may be able to promote your business to the event audience in return. At the least, you'll get to network with organisers and audience to raise your local profile.
- Identify your most influential customers - those who know lots of local people and are well liked or respected. Come up with a good reason for them to talk about you.
- Add a few items to this list by commenting with your thoughts below...
