Flickr Image from Zen

Well, we’ve finally launched our redesigned site. We hope you like it. Please feel free to let us know what we can do to make it even better by adding comments below.

Oh, and if something doesn’t look right on your side, please let us know!  We love the feedback, and it tells us what we need to do to improve.

Best,

Andy and team.

Peer Advisory groups are a great way to discuss business issues confidentially with other owners, CEO’s and like minded business people. They offer the opportunity to get new ideas outside your regular circle of people, and can be useful to test ideas and receive some ‘constructive’ criticism.  There’s likely a group for every type, and several across the country.  We are looking to create a list of these groups across Canada.

I’ll add to this list as we find more sources, but here are some of the larger Canadian Peer Advisory Groups:

Innovators Alliance
www.innovators.org
Coverage: Southern and Eastern Ontario

Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO)
www.eonetwork.org
Coverage: .B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec

Presidents of Entrepreneurial Organizations (PEO)
www.peo.net
Coverage: Southwestern Ontario

Women Presidents’ Organization (WPO)
www.womenpresidentsorg.com
Coverage: B.C., Ontario, Quebec

TEC The Executive Committee
www.tec-canada.com
Coverage: B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick

Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO)
www.ypo.org
Coverage: B.C., Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, Newfoundland, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia

Virtus Inc.
www.virtusinc.com
Coverage: Greater Vancouver

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Final Sale! Inventory Blowout! End of Season!
There’s a reason why Retailers use these Signs.

image provided by Flickr

A colleague of mine was telling me today about how his staff mistakenly placed an order for twice the number of “Mumsettias” (a holiday potted flower mix with mums and a poinsettia in it) than what they really wanted. A mistake on their part, they had to find a way to deal with the extra inventory. Mumsettias are a holiday, potted flower that usually sells for $9.99 each. However because of the mix up, last Friday he changed his roads sign to read the following:

Oops…
Too many Mumsettias.
Reg. $9.99
Now $6.97

…and sold out completely by 3pm the next day.

Customers are looking for deals. They don’t care how or why there might be a deal, they just want to feel that they are getting bargain of some sort.

In this case, he basically admitted to making a mistake, which resulted a somewhat urgent need for him to give away more than he normally would have in order to sell through his inventory. In the message, he was able to convey that message, making it more believable and giving a reason for customers to come in and take advantage of this particular deal.

Why do you think that Going Out Of Business Sales are so successful? You could advertise 30% Off Everything all you want, and see some results. However if you advertised, Going Out Of Business Sale. 30% Off Everything. Your response will be ten times larger.

Why? It’s because people need to really feel that they are getting a deal. A simple 30% off might be a store promotional campaign, however a going out of business sale is a real deal to customers.

So what kind of reason do you have or can come up with to hold a sale? Some ideas could include:
- Inventory Overrun
- Inventory Clearance Sale
- End of Season Clearance
- Bought Too Much, Need to Move Product

The possibilities are huge. Find a reason why you are in a panic to sell merchandise, or why you have this rare opportunity for customers to save money. This will help build excitement and drive traffic into your store.

Cash is King. Make sure it rules!

Image Courtesy of Flickr - Indiewench

We all know, cash flow is the most essential part of running a business, whether it’s a start-up or maintaining an existing one.. This is particularly evident during tougher economic times. As a small business owner, there are several ways in which you can enhance your cash position, without the need to spend more on marketing, advertising, or getting more customers through the door.

Here are 5 ways I’ve managed to increase my cash flow and intake:

1. Control accounts receivable by limiting credit. Do you sell to commercial accounts? How quickly do you collect on these accounts? Two strategies that I find work well include;
   • Offer the special commercial pricing, but with no credit terms. Instead, ask for payments by credit card. We generate a lot of commercial business to small contractors who can’t get credit elsewhere (and therefore don’t feel welcome at those other places).
   • Offering early payment discounts (2%, 10 days, net 30). If payment is not received by day 30, get on the phone to collect. (more…)

My Story – Part 2

I already talked about what we decided to do as a result of our strategy session regarding our new organizational chart and the shifts in responsibilities. Now here is how we implemented the change.

Over a period of three weeks we did the following four steps:

1. We finalized the new plan. It came after much debate and discussion, but we did come up with a plan that all our key managers were in favor of.
2. We rewrote the job descriptions to reflect the new org chart. We wanted to be fully prepared and able to head off any objection and concern.
3. We executed on our plan. One by one, we talked to all our staff about the changes, presented the new job descriptions and the fact that they were going to be effective by the end of that week.
4. We then instilled confidence in the new team. Once the band-aid was ripped off quickly (we did it all in one day), we assembled the teams the fist of the following week to instill confidence and move on.
5. Finally we finished executing on our plan. We filled the new empty positions from existing staff mostly, we moved to lean scheduling and project based scheduling and we fulfilled all our objectives that we set out to do.

There were some hiccups and twists, and we did lose one person unexpectedly, but in the end, the results were pretty much as we had planned.

The proof is really in the pudding. By pinpointing our inventories of time, changing our org chart, becoming more efficient and having a structure that gave us more flexibility, we were able to save enough to create a new position inside the store while saving approximately 6-8% off our total wage costs (depending on the store), so far year to date.