How do you get your new business known?

One of the major challenges for any start-up is getting your name out there before the people.  This is especially difficult if you do not have a brick-and-mortar store.  If one opens a retail store, puts up a big sign on the front, then it is likely that people will see the name of your business as they drive by.  But, you better hope that they do more than drive by.  They better be stopping because you've got a lot of money tied up in rent, utilities, insurance, product, labor, and the other expenses of operating a business.  In our community I see a lot of small businesses open up and close in less than a year because they lacked the capital to remain open while they built their business and their business did not generate enough income to cash flow the business during that start-up.

I don't have a building with a big sign and a lot of monthly expenses.  I am starting an auction business.  I can conduct auctions on-site or I can rent a facility for a couple of days to conduct my auctions.  Like many service businesses my start-up costs are minimal.  I like that because that means there is less risk, but it also makes it more difficult to get my name out to the public.  There are dozens of auctioneers in the area in which I live, but 4-5 of them gets the majority of the auction business.  That handful have been in the business many years and enjoy top-of-the-mind awareness with people considering selling at auctions.  So what can someone like me do?

Naturally, I pass out business cards whenever possible.  I run the occasional ad in some of the surrounding papers.  And, I try to be in front of the public whenever possible.  That means I often work for some of the 4-5 auctioneers I mentioned earlier.  Sometimes I'm on the payroll, and sometimes I just jump in and help work the ring for free.  Although these are competitors of mine, they are also colleagues and are willing to recognize me and my auction business.  Any time I'm working an auction for another auctioneer they always announce who I am and that I recently received my auctioneer's license. They allow me to showcase my abilities both in the ring and with the microphone.  This past Saturday I assisted one auctioneer, and when that auction ended I went to another event where I had agreed to do a charity auction.  They only had three items to sell, but they made some money for the organization, and everybody had a good time with the music group that played before and after the auction.  Between the two events I was able to showcase my auction talents to about 300 people.

Giving away samples of your product or service may not seem like the most profitable thing to do, but it is a way to help people become aware of what you offer.  If you touch enough people with your product or service you will eventually begin to turn some of them into clients who will purchase those items or services.  This does require patience and time.  Trying to be an overnight success in any business endeavor is more likely to result in failure.  Take your time. Connect with people. Let them experience how your products or services can benefit them even if you have to give them away at the start, and eventually you'll find that your business will become known to the public.

What can small businesses learn from yard sales?

If I have some spare time on Friday or Saturday mornings I'll hit a few yard sales to find items to sell in my booths or at auction.  Sometimes one can find some amazing buys at a yard sale.  Occasionally, we'll hear a story of someone who bought a picture at a yard sale for a few dollars only to find our later it was worth thousands of dollars.  That's never happened to me, but one can always hope!

My actual experience with yard sales has been rather disappointing because of the way too many people approach them.  I was recently at a sale that was advertised to start at 8:00.  I arrived at 8:05 and they were still carrying things out.  In fact, they hadn't even set up all the tables yet.  Nothing was priced.  Most items at a yard sale are negotiable, but it's nice to have some idea of what the people want for them.  I've made it a policy that I don't buy items at a yard sale that are not marked, and I certainly didn't have time to wait for them to drag everything out of their house they were going to sell.  I left.  The sale lasted three days, and on the last day I drove past their house on my way to a meeting.  It looked like they sold very little.  Like more and more of the yard sales I attend, they did not prepare for their sale.

I usually have one yard sale each summer, and I begin preparing for it a week in advance.  I purchase my newspaper ads, clean out the garage, and begin setting up tables.  By Tuesday I am already unpacking boxes and setting items out on the tables.  By Wednesday everything is priced and clearly marked.  On Thursday I go to the bank and get the money I will use for change and make sure everything is ready.  Large items are sitting next to the garage door ready to pull out the next morning.  At 7:45 I open the garage doors and move all the big items outside, and we are open for business.  There are usually some early birds sitting in their cars ready for the doors to open, and I am ready to serve them.

I find some small businesses operating like each of the yard sales I've described.  Some are clearly not prepared for business.  They make it difficult for their customers to do business with them due to their operating hours, their credit policies, or their personnel.  They make people who want to buy from them feel like they are interrupting something the employees feel is more important.  I recently stopped in a restaurant and asked for the lunch special.  It was only 11:30, and they were already out of the special.  Not ready for business.  Such businesses often struggle to be successful and wonder why.

On the other hand there are those small businesses that are ready every day to do business with their customers.  They are prepared when their customers arrive.  Everything is set up to make their customer's buying experience a great one so they will not only come back but will tell others about their great experience.  What's the difference between the small business that is ready for business and the one that isn't?  Preparation.  The successful small business will take the time to make sure everything is ready when the doors open every day.

Lessons I'm learning from the auction business

Since getting my auctioneer's license earlier this year I have yet to list my first auction.  This is a tough area in which to break into the auction business as we have dozens of auctioneers in a small geographic area.  Despite the large numbers of auctioneers four of them dominate most of the auction business.  Everyone else is left to fight over the remaining auctions that those four do not get.  I've been fortunate to have had the opportunity to work for several of the area auctioneers, including two of the main four, and I've learned a lot about the business that has applications for any small business.

A couple of weeks ago I worked a six hour auction for one of the primary auctioneers in the area.  I could not believe how much came out of a relatively small house that was to be sold that day.  It took six hours of hard selling, at times running two rings, to get everything sold, but at the end of the day both the seller and the buyers were pleased.  We were focused on what we were doing, and we worked hard to make the sale a pleasant experience for everyone, and we succeeded.

Contrast that with another sale I attended a few months ago.  This sale had a number of consignors with one person providing the bulk of the sale items.  The items he brought were also much more highly desirable than most of the other items we sold that night.  At the end he was not pleased with how the sale ran.  He felt too much time was spent selling less desirable items while some of his merchandise was left unsold at the end of the sale.  I would agree with his assessment.  People were allowed to spend too much time describing items with little value which not only meant that there was not time to sell everything, but people became bored and began to leave.  Fewer buyers mean less bids which means less money for everyone.

I attended an auction a few weeks ago that had a lot of desirable items for sale.  I purchased a number of them to resell in my antique and flea market booths.  The sale was conducted by an auctioneer that was engaging and who had a crew that knew what they were doing.  They moved a lot of merchandise that night, and I would think that most people left there feeling good about the sale.

The week before that auction I was asked to auctioneer at an auction house when their regular auctioneer could not make it.  When I arrived I was amazed at the poor quality of the merchandise they were going to sell that night.  Much of it was junk.  A decent crowd showed up for the sale, but few of them were bidding.  It was very hard to get more than a dollar or two for anything we sold.  We could not get a bid on several of the items.  After about an hour the owner of the auction house asked me what I thought we should do.  I responded, "I would shut it down.  Neither you nor anyone else is making any money here tonight."  That's what he did.  I've been told since that they have closed the auction house at least for the remainder of the summer.

What lessons can be learned from these various auctions?  One, regardless of what business you are in, you have to sell quality goods and services.  There are some people attending auctions looking for cheap items they can buy and resell to make a little money on, but even these folks have a threshold they won't cross.  Even junk buyers won't buy some junk!  If you cannot sell quality items or provide a quality service, you will not be successful in any business venture.

A second lesson is that you need quality people in your company.  I know many auctioneers who would have taken two or three sales to sell what we sold in that one six-hour auction.  The reason we could sell that much merchandise is because of the quality of the people that auctioneer has working for him.  I was the least experienced person there that day.  Everyone knew their role and knew what needed to be done.  The difference between satisfied clients and dissatisfied ones is often the quality of the people who work for you.

A third lesson is the importance of having a good reputation.  The best auctioneers attract the best merchandise because they have the reputation of getting top dollar on what they sell.  If someone needs to sell an estate or has good quality items to consign, they will automatically go to the person they believe will get them the most money.  Some auction houses are known as $2.00 auction houses because that seems to be what they sell a lot of merchandise for.  These companies are unlikely to get a lot of quality sales with that type of reputation.  I have decided to not do any more auctions for that last auction house I mentioned even if they do re-open because I don't want to be associated with that type of company.  These are nice, Christian people, but they do not know how to run an auction business, and I don't want to get the reputation of being a $2.00 auctioneer.

The final lesson I'll cover in this post is the importance of being a people person.  Auctioneering, like most business endeavors, is about being good with working with people.  The best auctioneers I've met have been outgoing, friendly, and honest in how they deal with people.  On the other hand, I've seen some who are petty, unfriendly, and less than honest.  Some seem to be very insensitive towards their buyers which I do not understand.  Why would any business person want to alienate the people who want to give you money?

Fortunately, I have a good job that gives me the freedom to break into this business slowly.  I hope I'm learning a lot about the business that will do me well when I do get my first auction.  If you have an estate in southern Indiana or some good quality items you want to consign at auction, get in touch with me.  I do believe you'll be pleased with my service, and you'll be hard pressed to find anyone who will work harder to make your sale a success.

How do you motivate your team members?

I just finished reading The Carrot Principle: How the Best Managers Use Recognition to Engage Their People, Retain Talent, and Accelerate Performance [Updated & Revised] written by Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton.  The book is based on a ten-year study of 200,000 employees and managers in the area of how to best motivate their team members.  The results of their studies found that "the central characteristic of truly effective management - the element that shows up time and again in every great workplace - is a manager's ability to recognize employees' talents and contributions in a purposeful manner."

I think there are three kinds of leaders in the workplace today.  One group does nothing in the area of motivation and recognition.  They believe that the paycheck the employees receive each week is all the motivation they need.  A second group would like to do something in the areas of motivation and recognition but do not know how to go about it.  When they do attempt to do something it is often awkward for everyone involved and usually fails to be very motivational.  The third group is committed to providing a workplace where people's efforts are recognized and rewarded in a way that is motivational to everyone.  What is exciting about this book is that it has something to say to persons in all three groups.

Their study found that effective leaders were seen by their employees are strong in four areas: Goal setting, Communication, Trust, and Accountability.  When recognition is added to these four areas "it serves as an accelerator of employee performance and engagement."  I wished I had understood this better when I owned a small business a few years ago.

I would probably have put me in the second group.  We had good employees, but I did not intentionally recognize their extra efforts as much as I should have, and when I did it was usually somewhat awkward for them and for me.  I was never certain of what kind of recognition was appropriate.  Probably my efforts were more demotivating than they were motivating.  I have no doubt that my leadership would have been much improved if I had read this book when I had the business, and I have no doubt that our company would have been much more productive and profitable if I had properly recognized our employees in ways that would have encouraged them.

If this is an area in which you struggle you really need to read this book.  Near the end of the book you'll find 125 different ways to recognize your team members.  That information alone is worth the price of the book.  You can find out more about it or order it by clicking on the above title.

First you have to start

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

 

"No one aims for average.  No one sets out for status quo.  No one longs for ordinary.  But one day you wake up and ask yourself, How did I get here?"  These are the words on the inside flyleaf of Jon Acuff's book Start: Punch Fear in the Face, Escape Average and Do Work that Matters.  They are words that many of us have said and might even be saying now.  We say them when we hit those transitions times in our lives.  We say them again when we wake up one day and realize that it is going to be like every other recent day, and we're just not sure we can take it anymore.  We repeat them when something triggers thoughts of unrealized dreams, and we wonder if it's now too late to make them a reality.

Most people intend to do something significant with their lives.  I doubt that there is anyone who hasn't had big dreams and had every intention of fulfilling them sometime.  Of course, that is the key word here isn't it: sometime.  Too many of us are content to live on Someday Isle.  Someday I'll start that business I always wanted to own.  Someday I'll complete that degree.  Someday I'll spend more time with our children.  Someday I'll get serious about getting our finances right.  Someday I'll focus more on exercise and healthy eating.  Someday I'll....

The problem is someday never comes, and one day we realize that the opportunities to do those things we dreamed about are behind us.  In his book, Acuff writes that fear is one of the primary reasons we don't seek to live out our dreams.  We are afraid of the unknown.  We are afraid of failure.  We are afraid of what others might think or say.  Some may even be afraid of success.  Until we address the fears that hold us back we will never live up to our capabilities or achieve the things we've dreamed of achieving.  We have to stop listening to those voices within and without that creates fear.  Acuff provides several specific things we can do to overcome that fear and move on with our lives.

Fear is what keeps people from starting that small business they've wanted to own.  For owners of small businesses, fear is what keeps them from taking it to higher levels.  We settle for normal because normal pays the bills and provides us with a regular income.  We don't want to risk that by trying to grow our business so we settle.  But, while we're settling we're also stewing inside because we know we could be doing so much more. 

I spend a lot of time working with church leaders, and many of them have settled for the ordinary as well.  In fact, it's safe to say that some have just given up.  They have been beaten down so often by having their ideas rejected by small minded people with big pocketbooks they've stopped dreaming.  They make no effort to lead their churches any more; they're content to just manage what they've got.  They have forfeited their role as prophet and leader and settle for becoming a chaplain.  In some cases, they are hospice chaplains providing care for a dying institution.

Life is too short to do work that doesn't matter.  Life is meant to be lived with purpose, and part of that purpose is to follow your dreams and to achieve everything you were created to achieve.  To do so will require some determination on your part and a plan.  Acuff's book can help you identify a plan.  After all, if you want to accomplish something the first thing you have to do is  Start: Punch Fear in the Face, Escape Average and Do Work that Matters.

Raising the bar

I recently was called to be the auctioneer for a near-by auction house when their regular auctioneer had to be away for the week.  When I drove to the auction I found they had a very nice facility.  The owners were very warm and friendly.  As we talked about how they operated one of them told me that their primary problem was that people didn't want to give anything for what they bought.  I was told, "We have a lot of one-dollar bidders here."  When I began looking at what was being offered I understood why.  I personally wouldn't have given a dollar for much of what was being sold that night.  As the auction began I noticed something that I've seen at other auctions.  Better quality items were bringing some decent prices, but the people were not going to pay much for the inferior items.  I thought to myself that this is not rocket science: if you want higher prices you have to sell better quality items.

Unfortunately, the problem is that the regulars who come to this auction have been conditioned to buy things cheap.  The risk to the sellers is that even if they began to bring in higher quality items, for which they've probably paid more to get, the buyers have been taught they can buy things cheap and may not bid much to get it.  This has happened to me several times when I've sold items at an auction and they brought much less than I paid for them.  I've learned that there are some auction houses I can take only lower quality items to sell because these are what I call "$2.00 auction houses."

What needs to happen in these facilities is that they need to quit accepting low quality items and begin to raise the bar for what they are willing to sell.  With better merchandise they can afford to do more advertising to attract the buyers who are more likely to pay what the better items are worth.  In time, these auction houses will be known as the place to sell top quality goods for a fair price.  The sellers make more on what they sell, the buyers are buying top quality items at a fair price, and the auction house sees its commissions increase.  It's a win for everyone, but it's not going to happen until the auction house raises the bar and insists on only selling quality items.

This is true for any small business.  In another business I owned I had a sign where our walk-in customers could see it.  The sign read, "We sell the highest quality merchandise, offer the best service in town, and have the cheapest rates.  You may now pick two out of three."  I knew we had competitors who offered less expensive equipment than we did, but we weren't competing for that business.  We had competitors that charged less for their service work than we did.  That was OK too because we felt we offered better service than they did.  We wanted to set the bar high enough to attract what we felt would be quality customers who knew the difference between cost and value.  I still believe that is a business philosophy that works for small business owners.

The challenge of change

Regardless of the organization, change is often one of the toughest challenges that most leaders face.  Most people don't like change, and that includes many of the leaders as well.  Change means that something becomes new, and we prefer the old and familiar.  Under the old ways of doing things everyone knows their role.  Whether you are the CEO or the janitor it's easier to function as long as things don't change because you know how to fulfill your role in that structure.  But, when things change it often means our roles change as well.  Now we face our work with caution because new things are expected of us.  However, whether we like change or not it is necessary in a rapidly changing world.  As Marshall Goldsmith entitled his book What Got You Here Won't Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful.  No matter how successful your small business may be today, it will have to change if you want it to be successful tomorrow.  As I often tell people in some of my workshops, forget the old adage "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."  A better saying in the 21st century is "If it ain't broke, break it" because it will soon be obsolete anyway.  You may as well embrace change because it is here to stay for the leader who wants to be successful.  And, if you are a leader, you need to learn as much as you can about how to successfully introduce change to your organization.

One of the places I recommend you to start learning how to be a change agent is by reading John Kotter's book Leading Change, With a New Preface by the Author.  It remains in my top three leadership books and is essential reading for anyone called to be a leader.  One of the key learnings I got from reading the book is that the failure to create urgency is one of the primary reasons most change efforts fail.  When I first read that several years ago I immediately thought back to some of greatest failures I had related to changes I tried to implement and realized that I had not taken the time to create any sense of urgency in any of those efforts.  I just announced to people what changes I wanted us to make without ever explaining the why behind those changes.  I also never took the time to allow others to think about the changes and how they might benefit from them.  In my mind I understood the importance of the change and how it would positively benefit us, but I forgot that I may have spent weeks (maybe months) thinking through the change.  I seldom gave others that same time frame.  How much better might it have been if I had explained the why something needed to be changed, explained the change I wanted to see us make, and then gave people time to reflect on the change and ask whatever questions they might have had?  If I had done that many of those change efforts might have been much more successful.

Creating a sense of urgency is only one of Kotter's recommendations for the leader who wants to introduce change into his or her organization.  The book is a goldmine for anyone who needs to bring change to the organization he or she leads, and that would include anyone in a leadership capacity.  If you haven't read it I cannot emphasize too much how valuable it will be to do so if you want to successfully lead your organization.  Goldsmith's book is also helpful to anyone who isn't convinced that change is inevitable in every organization.