January 27th, 2012
We are members of multiple Chambers of Commerce and regularly attend chamber events. There is a lot of good that comes out of chamber activities, but I am regularly disappointed by the chamber’s inability and/or unwillingness to address political issues that impact small businesses.
Local Chambers of Commerce have an opportunity (and in my opinion an obligation to membership) to do everything they can to increase commerce in the communities and markets they serve – but from my perspective seem to spend a vast majority of time and resources focusing on membership business card exchanges. Nice, but this relegates local chambers to only a fraction of their potential for making a real impact on local economies.
What companies of all sizes, from Walmart and Microsoft to Jane’s Antique Store on Main Street need is political stability. And right now in the United States we do not have it. We do not have stability and clear focus at the national level, state level, or city/local level. The idea that Chambers of Commerce, representing all businesses that participate in local commerce (even multi-national corporations) feel that they cannot or should not try to influence politicians into making decisions that make business conditions and markets more stable is a real missed opportunity for all of us.
Regardless of whether you are a liberal or a conservative, vote Republican, Democrat, Independent, Green, Libertarian, or have another affiliation, we can all agree that political and economic instability is bad for business. Right now, our governments (national, state, and local) are making it more difficult for business to make commitments into the future. We (all companies of all sizes) do not know what our future liabilities will be for taxes (income and investment), staffing (healthcare, third party participation…), or energy (emissions) – among the many other items that impact our businesses. And from what I can tell the local Chambers of Commerce are doing nothing to influence this. Again – I am not saying local chambers need to take specific political positions, but certainly working with politicians to get to a stable playing field should be in the scope of any organization presenting itself as a champion of commerce.
By standing on the sidelines, our local chambers render themselves impotent. They prove that they are not capable of leading an organization of small and large business owners and stakeholders, and that they are not fully committed to the growth of commerce in our communities, states, and nation.
Tags: longmont business, longmont business news, Longmont Colorado Business Marketing Politics, Longmont political news, Longmont politics
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December 2nd, 2011
True Security of Denver, a security guard services business located in downtown Denver recently opened their doors for business. Thomas D, spokes person for True Security, is very optimistic about their future. “We found a niche in the Denver security guard services market where we can deliver the highest quality security services at a competitive rate.”
“Our main focus is on delivering superior quality services to our customers”, said Thomas. “We accomplish this through an extensive evaluation and training program of our security officers. Our Officer quality is the heart and foundation of our Corporation; therefore, we strive to continuously maintain and upgrade this important topic. First, our employee selection process is completely unique and specialized to hire the people best suited for the various post(s) assignments. Although our interview, screening, and testing process is long and involved, we enjoy a higher employee retention rate and greater client satisfaction, from our detailed and rigorous hiring efforts; which over time lowers our operating costs, that allows a more affordable rate and premium Officer quality service for our clients. Our goal is to have our officers recognize potential security incidents and diffuse them before they occur.”
True Security of Denver plans to expand operations to service Colorado Springs, Fort Collins, Boulder, Longmont, and most cities along the Colorado Front Range.
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True Security of Denver
999 18th St. Ste 3000
Denver, CO 80202
303-927-6926
http://devnersecurityguardservices.com
Tags: denver business, denver business news, denver security, denver security guards, longmont business, longmont business news
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November 23rd, 2011
The Gold Market Jewelers at 16th & Pace Street in Longmont are now offering a high-tech jewelry design service that is interactive and fun for the customer.
“We now have an innovative 3-D custom design studio that is cost-effective and user friendly so you can be part of the design process” said Joe Faissal, owner and operator of the Gold Market Jewelers. “Jewelery is very personal, and an expression of one’s self, so it makes sense that some customers would like to put their special touch on a jewelry piece”, said Faissal. “With the 3-D custom design software, the process is amazingly simple and fun. We’ve been getting great feedback from our customers so far, so we’re really excited about the future of custom design jewelry, right here in Longmont”!
The Gold Market Jewelers
1610 Pace Street, Unit 1000
Longmont, CO 80504
(303) 834-8981
http://longmontjewelers.com
Tags: Custom design jewelry, longmont business, longmont business news, longmont custom design jewelry, longmont jewelers, longmont jewelry, longmont jewelry stores
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November 23rd, 2011
Jay Stype, owner of Tutor Doctor Longmont believes they have the right solution for in-home tutoring. “Not only are we convinced that one-one-one tutoring is the most effective approach, but carefully matching our tutors with the personality of our students goes a long way as well,” said Stype. “When we successfully match personality types between the tutor and the student, and the tutoring is done one-on-one in the home setting, we realize tremendous results”. “While placing students in small learning centers can be effective, we’ve found in-home one-on-one to have better results and equally cost effective”.
According to Tutor Doctor Longmont, studies show that the way students learn is a highly individual process, and without individual attention and one-on-one explanations of the material, a natural result is that some students will fall behind. For many, additional help in the form of private sessions is all it takes to get back on the path toward a successful academic career.
Tutor Doctor Longmont offers Math Tutoring, Science Tutoring. Language Arts Tutoring, SAT & ACT Tutoring, as well as College and higher education tutoring.
Tutor Doctor Longmont
1716 Main St., Longmont, CO 80501
303-774-9081
http://tutordoctorlongmont.com
Tags: longmont business, Longmont In-home Tutors, Longmont Tutoring Service, Longmont Tutors
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October 15th, 2011
Recently LBM had a brief discussion with Steve Smith, owner of Carworks of Longmont Auto Repair who is quite excited about their future. “It’s great to see our company grow in such a difficult economy”. Carworks of Longmont has seen solid growth for the last couple years. We attribute our growth to making sure our customers receive quality auto repair services at a reasonable rate. It’s our top priority. This way they will come back to see us when they need auto repair services in the future. Keeping customers happy in a small town like Longmont is not only good for return business, but we anticipate our customer base telling friends and family about having a good experience at Carworks. That’s where we see ROI on our customer satisfaction efforts.
Carworks of Longmont Auto Repair
1406 Coffman Street
Longmont, CO 80501
(303) 776-1888
http://carworks-longmont-auto-repair.com
Tags: customer satisfaction, longmont auto repair, longmont business, longmont business news, longmont marketing, longmont mechanic
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October 2nd, 2011
Scarlett Neal, owner of Radius Real Estate of Longmont is realizing the value in video marketing her Longmont real estate listings on youtube. “When you’re selling real estate in this economy, you want to leverage every opportunity for potential customers to find your listings”, said Neal. Youtube is a great way to advertise for free. I’ve had several views of my listings on Youtube, and with the help of Longmont Business Marketing performing search engine optimization of those videos, we’re starting to get more traction”. “With all the smart phones out there, and the younger demographics that use internet multimedia, it’s just one more way for me to reach more customers.”
You can visit Radius Real Estate’s website at http://radiusrealestate.ag or see some of their videos at: http://www.youtube.com/user/RadiusRealEstate
Radius Real Estate
929 Main Street
Longmont, CO 80501-4512
(303) 862-3232
Tags: longmont business, Longmont Business Marketing, longmont business news, longmont real estate, longmont real estate agents, longmont real estate video, longmont realtors, Radius Real Estate
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September 9th, 2011
Linking your Marketing Mix data to your Sales Funnel:
1. Using a spreadsheet, list your marketing activities and costs for a specific period (can be a month/quarter or a campaign period). Calculate the percent of the total cost for each marketing activity (see my earlier post ‘Understanding Your Marketing Mix’).
2. In the same spreadsheet, list the number of new customers that purchased your products/services that came to your company or were drawn to your company through each of these marketing activities. Calculate the percent of total new customers for each marketing activity (see my earlier post ‘Understanding Your Sales Funnel’).
3. Now divide the number of new customers for each activity type into the total cost for that activity. This is your ‘cost per new customer’ for each activity type.
You have just taken a big step in analyzing your marketing plan:
· If the percent of total new customers for a specific marketing investment is higher than the percent of total marketing spend for that marketing activity, you can generally say that the marketing activity drove a high proportion of new customers – it was effective at this level.
· If the percent of total new customers is lower than the percent that investment represents of your marketing plan (or is 0), the investments did not perform.
· You can also compare the cost per new customer across the different activities (or to an average) to determine which activities bring in new customers more cost-effectively than others.
Using this information, you can make some important decisions about how you allocate marketing investments in the future.
Residual Customer Value and ROMI (return on marketing investment):
At LBM we offer tools that take this analysis further. By consolidating the model built using these instructions with the product level margin data, we can provide a residual customer value model as well as a financial return on investment for your marketing plan.
Why is this important?
· Investments made where there is little or no impact (not driving customers into your sales funnel and/or driving customers to products/services that are not high-margin), are wasted investments.
· Not making investments where there is opportunity to drive higher margins or bring in more customers are missed opportunities.
Tags: longmont business, Longmont Business Consulting, Longmont Business Marketing, longmont business news, longmont marketing
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September 5th, 2011
IT IS ALWAYS ABOUT PROFIT. The ultimate goal of marketing (or anything your company does) is profit. Tracking awareness, number of customers, and revenue are meaningful exercises, but your ultimate goal and business driver is profit for your company.
You must understand your margins. You should be measuring profit for each of your products/services:
1. Determine variable costs for delivering each product/service you provide (materials, labor, etc.) – Note that it may not be necessary to track costs for each product. In some cases products can be grouped.
2. Determine fixed/overhead costs for running your business
3. Allocate fixed costs across products or product groups (estimates are OK)
4. Add variable costs for each product/product group to your fixed cost allocation to determine total cost for delivering each product/service
5. Subtract the total cost for each product or product group from the price you charge. This is your product-level margin. This is an extremely valuable piece of information.
Using your product level margin data, you can better focus marketing activities:
* You will know how far you can discount products through campaigns/coupons/etc.
* You will better understand how to focus marketing activities to drive your customers to higher margin products/services
In my next post we will take this margin ‘knowlege’ and link to the marketing mix and sales funnel information.
Tags: longmont business, Longmont Business Marketing, longmont business news
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September 2nd, 2011
There are a number of variations of the ‘sales funnel’. To keep it simple, the sales funnel is a visual representation of the sales cycle – how customers find you (or are drawn to you) and then how they work their way from the initial contact to becoming a paying customer.
Many large companies spend vast resources measuring each step of the funnel and determining why prospects/leads/etc. stay in or drop out. As a small business owner, the important thing is to understand where your paying customers are coming from – and link that to your marketing investments (see my earlier post: ‘Understanding Your Marketing Mix’).
You should be collecting customer information:
At some time during the transaction (sale), ask your new customer how he/she heard of your business.There is no right or wrong way to do this – the key is to collect the information and get it into a standard format (spreadsheets work nicely). Note that for many small businesses a lot of customers come from ‘word-of-mouth’ – ask these clients who referred them to you. You may be able to work backwards to tie this new business to one of your marketing efforts.
Organize the information in a spreadsheet. It could be as simple as listing the customer name in a column and then in the next column noting how the customer heard about your business (what brought them into your sales funnel).
In my next post, I will talk more about linking this customer information with your marketing investments.
Tags: longmont business, Longmont Business Marketing, Longmont Business New, longmont business news
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August 27th, 2011
It is critical that you understand how the different components of your marketing plan fit together, and this cannot be done without an effective mechanism for measuring the effectiveness of your marketing investments.
Step 1: Identify Marketing Investments: As a small business owner, you should take an inventory of all your expenses to ensure that marketing investments are categorized correctly. Some examples:
* Advertisements: mailers, e-mail blasts, magazines
* Printed signs/banners: sidewalk signs, vehicle signs
* Website costs: development, SEO
* Infrastructure: any system costs associated with delivering marketing initiatives
* Human Resources: your time and your staff’s time spent planning, developing, and delivering marketing initiatives
* Dues and subscriptions to trade or networking organizations: BNI, Chamber of Commerce
* Rebates: if you advertise a discount as part of a campaign, the discounted amount is a marketing investment
Step 2: Quantify your marketing investments:
Once you have your marketing investments identified, quantify them.
How much does each of these items cost you? Monthly/weekly/annually/one-time expenses?
Organize these in a spreadsheet. Once this is complete, you are ready to start linking for marketing mix to your sales processes. I will have more on this in my next post.
Tags: longmont business, Longmont Business Marketing, longmont marketing
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