5 Small Business Marketing Tips

Small business marketing tips are everywhere these days and if you pay attention, even in the most unexpected places.

My partner, Greg and I attended a search engine optimization symposium presented by Search Engine Workshops in Raleigh, North Carolina. Greg lives in Montreal and I live in Toronto, so it was a great opportunity to meet and catch up on a few small projects while learning the latest SEO techniques we will employ in marketing our business.

Robin Nobles inspired us to develop creativity in our content development; Andy Beale gave us an in-depth overview of blog marketing for businesses, Dave Barry discussed dynamically delivered web pages and Michael Marshall…..well, if you want to know what Michael is up to, you will have to attend the next symposium.

John Alexander renewed our enthusiasm about keyword research with Wordtracker and gave added a few small surprises, as John always does.

However, one of the most important business lessons during the two day session wasn’t taught in the classroom and it wasn’t delivered by the usual suspects.

The first night in town, we went to a nearby restaurant for dinner. A waiter approached our table and introduced himself; “Good evening everyone, my name is Omar and I am your waiter this evening.”

Omar was taking our dinner order when we noticed that he wasn’t taking notes which caused some concern in our group. Omar told us not to worry and that after he had taken our 5 orders that he would repeat the order….of the table of 6 behind him and then he would repeat our orders, which he did, flawlessly.

The food was terrific and the service was great so the next night we decided to go back to the same restaurant. Of course, we asked to be seated in Omar’s section. Once again, Omar delivered. When the kitchen took too long to cook a meal for one of our associates, Omar provided a free cocktail, brought over some finger food and boxed the dinner for later…..no charge.

Now we were hooked. Our last night in town, we walked over to the restaurant and asked for Omar. We were disappointed to hear that there was a 60 minute wait to get into Omar’s section but if we would sit elsewhere it would only take 30 minutes.

It had been a long day so we decided to forgo Omar’s section and went to the bar to drown our sorrows in a cold beer. We asked the bartender for a food menu and ordered our drinks. I was paying for the first round, as I usually do when I am with Greg, so I asked the bartender for the bill.

“Your bill has been taken care of”, the bartender told me and pointed to a young man, carrying a tray of food, heading towards a table at the back of the restaurant. Greg and I stared at each other in disbelief and immediately went back to the headwaiter and demanded to be seated in Omar’s section.

It gets better. Our table was ready but my partner was finishing off a beer so I walked over alone to secure our booth. Before I had time to sit down, Omar arrived with a beverage in hand. “Diet coke, Mr. Byers” Omar knowingly stated. I was floored but the best was still to come.

Omar took our dinner order in his customary respectful fashion. He returned with our meals and placed a glass of red wine in front of me.
“I thought you might enjoy a glass of Pinot Noir with your steak, Mr. Byers”, Omar stated matter of factly.

OK, all of the business marketing services offered by Omar can be explained:

- The memory thing; a learned technique.

- Remembering the diet coke, well, I had a diet coke all 3 nights.

- Addressing me by name, I paid with my credit card, as I usually do when I am with Greg.

- The Pinot Noir, I had a glass of Pinot Noir on the very first visit to the restaurant two days earlier.

- Buying a round for the boys; priceless!

5 Small Business Marketing Tips We Can Learn from Omar

1. Differentiate Yourself – We’ve all seen waiters take orders by memory but how many engage the table a challenge?

2. Get Personal Fast – In 5 minutes, Omar addressed every person in our booth individually by name.

3. Know Your Client - take the time and effort it had to take Omar to understand and deliver uch personalized service to your customers. Learning the small details about your client’s business can make all the difference.

4. React Quickly To Control Damage – Instead of complaining about how our colleague’s meal was late, we found ourselves once again marveling over Omar’s handling of the situation.

5. It Ain’t Over Till it’s Over – Omar saw us with food menus in hand, ready to order dinner at the bar when he paid for our drinks.
Never stop selling.

Business Ethics Is All About Your Character

Imagine walking up to a restaurant for an early morning breakfast and before going in, you make a decision to buy a newspaper from one of the various vending machines. However, before you can deposit your coinage, you observed the following:

Two small business owners or possibly businessmen walked up to another newspaper vending machine. One deposited the proper coins and opens the door to take his paid for newspaper. Then he asks his companion if he would like one as well? A second newspaper is removed without payment. The companion then jokes about receiving 2 newspapers for the price of one.

I personally witnessed this scenario. What I did was to take the necessary coins from my own pocketbook and deposit them into the machine. I opened the door and then closed the door without taking a newspaper. The two small business owners or executives now stared at me in disbelief.

As I approached the restaurant door, one of the businessmen opened the door, but he could not look me in the eyes. He knew he did wrong, but he thought that no one else would see. And he probably else thought that everyone else does it so why not?

Business ethics is all about character. And character is all about doing the right thing when no one else is looking.

I call this self leadership because if you cannot lead yourself well by demonstrating character when no one else is looking how can you lead others?

One of the most consistent complaints that I hear from small business owners is about the lack of work ethics such as employees who do not give an hour of work for an hour of pay. Yet, how many of their executives, supervisors and managers are doing the same thing?

Possibly, these two small business owners thought that rank had its privileges or that they had already paid their fair share? Earning a certain position does merit some additional benefits, but rank does not give permission to steal, to be disrespectful, to be unethical.

Given that our actions are open to everyone to see and hear, we in the business world must be consistently executing the right actions through our work ethics demonstrated by our self leadership skills. For failure to do so, will only cause us harm sometime down the road or the path to the restaurant door when we fail to notice who is observing our business ethics.

How to Grow Your Small Business

When you are just starting out, staff training should be one of your top priorities. Having a skilled, well-versed staff will ensure a) they are intimate with your company products, services, and mission, b) they can contribute to the growth and expansion of the business, and c) know how to properly handle problems and conflicts that may affect the business.

Customer retention should always be a top priority. Getting new customers will be irrelevant if you can’t keep your current ones. Not to mention, it is cheaper to keep current customers than try to recruit new ones. Follow through on your commitments and keep the lines of communication with your customers open.

Focus your marketing dollars where you will get the most bang for your buck. From direct mail marketing to podcasts to Google AdWords, there is an advertising solution for every business budget. Finding the right one may be a bit tricky, but research your options, find out pricing, and calculate your ROI.

Protect your small business assets and implement an online backup solution. Online backup is the most simple, convenient, and affordable way to protect valuable business records and intellectual property. And many services provide unlimited backup for a low monthly fee. Not having important documents backed up could mean the end of your business should something (or someone) damage your network.

Have a professional website designed made for your business. These days, the internet has become an integral part of business and virtually everyone uses the internet to research and check references. Your website will be a direct reflection of your business, so you want to make sure you have something that is professional, user-friendly, and eye-catching.

Ethics In Business

Ethics in business is a behavior in which a business is attached to its daily connections with the world. Business ethics at workplace not only applies to the interaction of the business to the world but also to one-on-one dealing with every single customer.

Different businesses have different code of ethics, although for every business it is imperative and necessary to have good ethics in business. Business ethics will examine the ethical principles and moral or ethical problems which will arise from time to time in a business environment.

Business ethics are of both discipline, normative and a descriptive discipline. Normative discipline is for corporate practice and for career specialization and descriptive approaches are taken for academia. One of the aims of business ethics in workplace is to determine the fundamental purposes of a company.

The code of business ethics is necessary to define acceptable behaviors, to promote high standard of practice, to provide a scale for members to use self evaluation, to establish a structure for professional behavior and responsibilities, as a medium for occupational identity and occupational maturity. A wide range of business practices and procedures are covered by the code of business ethics. Those who violate the business code ethics are subjected to disciplinary action which also includes termination of the employment.

Business code ethics are in compliance with laws, rules and regulations and the employees should respect the code of business ethics. Most of the companies have formulated internal policies with respect to the ethical conduct of the employees and these policies can be simple catchphrases in a wide and highly generalized language. Sometimes these policies can be more detailed to contain specific requirements and these are also meant to identify the company’s or business expectations of the employees and to provide guidance to handle more common ethical problems that may arise in the course of doing a business.

5 Steps To Success

Ever wanted to know how companies in the big leagues stay successful, then read below.

If you ever thought about becoming part of a home based business or had a service to offer then the 5 steps to success below will help guide you along the way.

Step #1 Start off with a plan, figure out what type of business or service you want to offer your market. Then once you have figured that out sit down and create a business plan.

Step #2 Set yourself up with short and long term goals, with this is place you will always have goals you have to reach.

Step #3 Stay consistent and focused at all times with the service or business you want to offer your market. By following this step it will lead to big profits in the end.

Step #4 Always look for new ways to improve your business, this will lead you to more clientèle and service for your customers.

Step #5 Last but not least have a positive mind set, never give up and in time the steps to success will pay off.

By following the steps listed above this will explode your business or service in no time. Many companies in todays market had a plan. Thats why they stay so successful. You always want to stay one step ahead of the game, this will lead you to always being on top of your game. Never give up things for you will happen you just have patience.

With that said thanks for reading the article.