Will January be quiet for your business? A few ideas that may help.

Hoping this December will be better than last year as if you remember most of the UK came to a stand still because of the snow.

Many businesses have great trade during December but in January and February are very quiet.

Here are a few ideas that may help to bring customers back in January and February.

If you run a restaurant, bar etc try doing a small leaflet with offers on them which run during the months of January and February with offers like buy 1 main dish and get a free dessert, or 4 people dining and get a free bottle of wine for example. 

When you give your receipt out, give the vouchers out at the same time when you are busy in December and this may help bring customers back when you are quiet in January and February.

If you are a retailer, a hairdresser, etc then do a "bag stuffer, bounce back voucher" again with offers for January and February. With offers for example like get an extra 10% off with this voucher or bring the voucher in and claim a free gift if you spend over say £20.00

Granted you will be giving away a bit of profit, but is it not better for example to get 25% of something, rather than getting 100% of nothing.

With the vouchers make sure that you have an area where the customer can fill in their contact details including email address as you can then market direct to them via email with offers etc.

Hope you have a great Christmas and a good New Year.

Regards

Mike

Ps Call us on 01773 599159 if you would like us to design and print your vouchers so you have a busier January and February.

Recent design projects.

A small selection of recent design work that we have done. Lets meet up and do a review of your marketing material.

Call us on 01773 599159 and lets see what we can do for you.

Submit your logo and you could win a rebrand.

Submit you logo and you could win a re brand for your business up to the value of £500.00*

All you have to do is to email us your logo to click here to send and one business will be picked and we will re brand your logo.  

Closing date is 25/11/11.

*Terms and conditions apply, No cash alternative, the winning business must be happy to be used in our publicity.

Are you a Belper Business and not using Twitter for Business

To help Belper businesses I am doing a "get on to Twitter" workshop. Twitter does work for business. Read some of my experiences  here" Still not using twitter, well you may be missing out on marketing? One of our tweets hits up to 100,000 people thanks to Dragon Den Theo Paphitis"  or Well Twitter is working well for us It will be on Wednesday November 30th from 5pm until 7pm, at our office. Limited spaces and small charge of just £10.00 plus vat ( normal charge £89.00 ) To book a space call me on 01773 599159

"Twitter and Comic Relief. Twitter can work for charity and business" information here http://graphicresults.blogspot.com/2011/03/twitter-and-comic-relief-twitter-can.html

 

New offers on business cards, leaflets,etc

New signage for Next Generation Health Care on Pride Park Derby.

Signage we have produced for Next Generation Health Care on Pride Park Derby with off set cut out logo and lettering to the main sign.

Website sales opportunity, sell fixed price websites, commision only

We are looking for a people to sell our fixed price web packages.
ie a 5 page website that customers can update themselves for only £299.00.  
The website's can have twitter feeds, contact forms, maps etc 
The websites are great for small and medium business's from plumbers, 
training company's, etc Earn £50 per sale. This is commision only.

Please email me if you are interested.

Many thanks

Mike

New sporting website for Active Ashfield with games.

To visit the website and play the games go to www.activeashfield.co.uk/

Thorntons shutting shops, what can we learn.

Confectionery firm Thorntons are going to shut about 180 shops across the UK. Some may be saved by becoming franchise shops.

In my opinion this has been on the cards for a very long time. The reason for this is that over the last few years they have devalued the traditional brand by creating products that are sold in supermarkets. At Christmas I even came across Thorntons boxed chocolates being sold at half price in a petrol station.

I can understand why they have extended the brand for volume sales, however in my opinion they have got it wrong. If they had no Thorntons branded shops then it would not have been an issue as it couldn't have devalued the brand.

What Thorntons need to do in my opinion is to split the brand, sell exclusive Thornton chocolates in their own shops only and to create a new brand for the supermarkets and volume sales.

The brand name which I think would work would be  "The Chocolate Cabin" but in very small print on the back of the packaging made by Thorntons. The Chocolate Cabin is a historic name used by the company in the past. Think about the split brand of Toyota and Lexus and how it works well for them ie. Toyota is seen as a volume brand and Lexus being the luxury brand.

When the brand has been split and the number of shops reduced then make the shops a great experience and create a wow factor.  May be learn for the French and in larger units add a Patisserie selling pastries and sweets.

This year Thornton's are 100 years old and from what I have seen of the point of sale, window display's and promotions in their shops I think it has looked very down market and has cheapened the brand.

Hope they sort it out so we have another 100 years from a historic UK business.

Our new branding flyer with recent work.

Start them young.

My boy Jack who is 10 years old wants to www.pgl.co.uk (AKA parents get lost) next year with school and it's going to cost £230. 

So what Liz and I have said to Jack is that he needs to make the money to pay for it so he has decided to set himself up in a little business buying in stuff and selling it on to make a profit. 

We will lend him some money to start him off to do this but I think this will be very interesting for him. 

He loves programs like The Apprentice so over the next few months he will be learning so much so I will be posting up dates about what he is up to and his progress. 

I think this is very important for him to learn about the life skills of how to make a profit and most of all the value of money, as many children just think money grows on trees.

The thing is even if he does not make enough money the bank of mum and dad will kick in and pay for him to go but don't tell him I have said that!

Jack has now got an online shop on his website that I have helped him to set up thanks to Amazon. He is also looking at buying products to sell to his friends and family.

Jacks website is http://www.jackrh.co.uk/

Denby Pottery Centre Leaflet 2011 we have designed.

An A4 3 fold leaflet for Denby Pottery Centre Leaflet. The little boy on the inside is Jack taken a few years ago.

Twitter and Comic Relief. Twitter can work for charity and business.

The use of Twitter has helped me to raise money for my Red Nose Day sillyness, I worked in a bath full of mushy peas in the window at work. 

Prior to doing the event Twitter helped to raise interest and PR for the event. 

For example the website belperpeople.co.uk  did a story about what we were doing. Before Red Nose Day came we had already raised £250.00 via the use of facebook and twitter.

On Red Nose day I tweeted pictures of me in the bath and these were then retweeted by a lot of people.

From the PR I did several radio interviews from the bath, this again was good for Red Nose Day and us at Graphic Results. So thank you BBC Radio Derby's Aleena Naylor for sorting this.

To help bring home to people that Comic Relief supports local projects I tweeted about local charity http://www.safeandsoundderby.co.uk who help  support vulnerable children and young people who are the victims of sexual exploitation and abuse in Derby. 

The great thing that Twitter did was to generate great support in what I was doing.

So what I am saying is that if you are a small charity  use social media like Twitter to promote what you doing, use it to get supporters and to raise your profile and most important raise money.

From a business view point get involved in helping a charity as this will generate great PR, show that you are a caring business, help with teamwork, a true "win win" situation.

If you would like to donate to Comic Relief please visit http://www.rednoseday.com/ZUj

A big thank you to all who sponsored me as at today I have raised £532.00 so far.

Thank You.

Regards

Mike

Ps So what do I do next for Children in Need in November???

My thoughts about the high street.

We all went shopping yesterday into Derby City Centre and it's looking in my opinion that there is a another downturn in retailing, looks like lots more of empty units.

So these are my rambling of why I think high street is changing.

First of all many people are saying it's the recession that has called the down turn but I think that this is just one point and there are other major issues.

One thing the recession has done is to highlight the weaknesses in business in some well known high street names for example the retailer Woolworths who closed after 99 years, WHSmith and HMV who have been having to close stores and make big changes due to the change in shopping habbits and not embracing change (Blog here What SME's can learn from WHSmith and Woolworths)

Many pubs have closed as they have not move forward and changed to what people want. (Blog Why so many pubs are closing)

Landlords of retail units have not helped by setting rents too high and 3 month in advance rents. Retailers who have to pay 3 months in advance is very poor for cash flow. 

What some landlords need to do is to look at fair rents paid in 1 month in advance.Is it not better to be getting some money in at say 4% rental return and the retail unit rented out, instead of aiming for say 10% return but no tenant therefore no rent!!

So if you are looking at retailing a retail unit play the agents off to get the right deal, get a 3 month or 6 month rent free period. 

If the unit has been empty for say 12 months make them an offer, don't pay over the odds and get a contract that is right for you. 

Make sure that you get a break clause so that you are not tied into a lease that may not be right in say 18 months and take professional legal advice!

One thing that has happen to Derby like many other city's is the development of large shopping centre like Westfield. 

There are great plus points about these developments as they can bring great new brands to the city, undercover shopping so you don't get wet etc.

One thing that the likes of Westfield can do is to take the heart of the city. The shopping centres become a clone of any other city.

One great thing that Derby has done is to develop the Cathedral Quarter, which is a mix of retail, dining, history and accommodation etc based around the historic Derby Cathedral. The retailers are independents selling the products that in general you cannot buy in Westfield Shopping centre.

I know that we as a family have changed our shopping habits, we buy so much more stuff online, Online sales keep growing year on year. 

We buy most of our Christmas presents, music, books etc shopping with online retailers. 

So if you think about it how much do you now buy online?

Our holidays are sorted online so when we go to Crete, fights booked by Jet 2.com and accommodation sored by booking via Crete-escapes or if we go to France, ferry booked via P & O and accommodation booked via Owners direct. 

So what I am saying is that may people don't go into travel agents on the high street so thats why so many of those have closed. 

The power of the supermarkets has also killed the high street with there buying power, extended product range for one stop shopping and FREE parking. 

In my opinion governments and councils have given them an unfair advantage buy allowing free parking etc, change of road layouts which takes traffic way from town centre but to the supermarket, for example like what has happened in my home town of Matlock. It has killed the town.

So in my opinion the key reason for so many empty units is the mix of the recession and most of all the change in shopping culture ie the increase in online retailing and "onestop" shopping in supermarkets.

So if you are an independent retailer my tips are, first of all get the right lease, get you own USP to make you business different by selling  for example "designer clothing or jewellery from up and coming designers" or  "local products or foods", creating a special experience, much like our local award winning farm shop Croots.

Use the internet to develop your brand by having a good website, if you can sell your products online, use twitter etc to get a following and promote your business.

Look professional with your branding and point of sale. 

Employ the right movivated trained staff who have the right passion for the business.

Often many of the big retailers have out sourced customer service to call centres offshore so this is your chance to WOW the customer as if they have an issue you can deal with it with great local face to face service.

Work with other retails in your town to get a marketing plan so that you can all work together to promote each other via a website and leaflets, word of mouth etc. This will also give you economies of scale ie small costs to all retailers to get a website, printed marketing material done etc.

If you can make a USP for your town for example Melton Mowbray who use food or like Hay- on -Wye who use books.

Hope my ramblings have made you think that there is so much more to why our towns and cities are changing other than the recession.

Thank you for reading.

Mike Handley

Our pledge to you from the results of the survey.

Thank you to all who took part in our survey. We got some very interesting facts, ie 80% of people who took part value service against price. The key reason we did the survey was to help us to come up with a customer pledge.

So this is our pledge to our customers.

• Graphic Results promises honesty, flexibility, reliability, professionalism, creativity, giving a great and cost effective service.

• Good communication and good understanding of the brief. Honesty and a good knowledge of what is actually needed.

• We will meet your deadline and understand your brief taking time to fully understand your business and your aims to build a lasting relationship that adds value to your business.

• We will do things when we say that they will be done.

• Up front, transparent pricing with no hidden extra costs.

• Your design work will be a worthwhile investment that will make a difference to your business.

• Graphic Results are willing to take the time to understand the needs of the individual person/business; and are  prepared to listen to ideas and suggest ideas so that the final product is a collaboration; and will be honest about what we are able to do and whether we feel it's within our remit.

• We offer a full and complete range of print products that are competitively priced.

• Graphic Results are very driven, focused and full of energy and fun making your experience a refreshing change.

Now your pledge to us.

• Treat us with the respect and professionalism that we extend to you.

• Pay your bills on time.

• Supply us with the necessary information about your business to be able to do the job.


Mike & Liz Handley

Still not using twitter, well you may be missing out on marketing.

Last night I took part in TheoPaphitis  

Small Business Sunday #sbs "tweet you business between 5-7.30" and he retweets his favourites. 

 

Well last night we were one of the winners and our blog about Backing British Business was re twitted to his 90700 followers. 

 

He is a very well respected business man so being retweeted by him is great for business exposure. 

 

Of his 90700 followers I would think that about 80% of followers are people who run or manage business.

 

This means that we got great business 2 business "advertising".

 

The interesting fact was the amount of traffic to our blog, ie 170 reads of the blog with in 2 hours. 

 

As the tweet that he re tweeted was re tweeted by others our blog would have hit over 100000 twitter accounts. 

 

So if you think about it having your message hitting over 100000 people of which most will be business owners or managers for FREE is a great result.

 

Now this is why you may be missing out on twitter marketing if you are not using it.

Most of all thank you Theo Paphitis for re tweeting our blog.

Why use social media marketing? ie Twitter etc

Did you know that Social media works and can bring your business new customers and much more. 

We can help you to discover :-

• The importance of creating a community on Twitter.
• The power of the Facebook 'LIKE' button and smart ways of marketing using this method.
• How Creating short You Tube Videos can bring your product to life
• plus so much more ......

If you need social media help with setting up your account, promotion of your account, 


managing it or advice and training then lets meet up.


Just give us a call on 01773 599159 and see how we can work with you on your social media marketing with  the power of Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Blogging  or Youtube etc.

We have won an award from "Dragons Den" Theo Paphitis regarding Twitter.

We all need to help each other, these are things we are doing that may help you.

As we all know business has been very hard over the last 18 months, most of us in the business world have been "ducking and diving" thinking what's the next issue. 

So these are a few ideas that we are going to do over next few months to try to generate new business and to help us trade to the future for our family and staff. My motto is "help people and people my help you".

The first thing that we are doing is ask our customers for testimonials, this is not me being "cocky" but we know that we are great and offer a great service but if we get testimonials from customers that endorses what we do.

Next thing we are going to do is to work on a new referral scheme, as the best form of marketing/ advertising is word of mouth.

Another idea is to take our blogging to another level by using the audioboo and youtube. This should reach a great audience.

The next idea is a little hush-hush as it will be a charity fund raising event, costing us nothing but raising money for charity and most of all great PR and good will. A true "win-win" situation. Watch this space, it will be messy!!!!

An idea that we are thinking of but will need to get a few partners on board is to do an advice event to help people starting up in business. This is a way of getting in at the early stages of someone planning to start a business and increasing our business exposure. This is so important in the light of the changes happening to Business Link. If you offer services to businesses based near us and would like to get involved please get in contact.

These are just a few ideas that we are working on to help us to trade our business to the future for our family and staff but if you have ideas that work, please add comments to this blog.

Thank you for reading this and good luck to us all.

Back British products and business.

Over the last say 15 years we in Britain have not supported British Business. In my opinion it all started with the lack of long term vision and the short term investment banking attitude. The banking and city investors in general always want quick returns on investments. Another key issue is that governments appear to only want to look to the next general election and not at long term projects.

If you think about it, we have sold off so many of our Great British Companies to foreign company's over last 15 years. For example Rolls Royce and Bentley were sold to BMW and VW for £430m At the time of the sale we in the UK wasted millions on the someones ego called the Millennium Dome  The Rolls Royce brand was a major advert to promote Great Britian.

An example in the lack of support was the sale of Land Rover and Jaguar by Ford to Tata of India. The management team wanted to buy it but Tata won. What I find wrong was the fact that within a short space of time Tata asked the government for a loan ,why did they not give a loan to the management in time to keep the company British!  Think how many companies have gone, ie British Steel, Tetley Tea, Cadburys etc.

When we sold off so many crown jewels utilities we should have only sold off 49% of all the gas, water and electricty companies as we now have no control over pricing or service.

What I find so sad is the amount of land where manufacturing was that has been redeveloped into retail parks or apartments. Liz and I with the children went in Birmingham for a weekend, we went on a canal trip, it was so sad to see all the land where demolished factory's once stood just as waste land waiting to be developed.

The country has not invested and supported manufacturing for so long that we now have major up hill battle. 

We need to look at getting the education system right so that we have the right motivated and trained engineers etc. 

One way would be is to develop more sponsorship placements in SME's and PLC's for students.The students sign for example a 4 year contract but in return the company sponsor the student, some of the costs for the business is offset by reduced company tax. This would be a win win situation ie students coming out of university with less debt and the students getting real work experience, and the business wins by having a student who is motivated and can bring new ideas etc to the business.

So what we all need to do is to support British business and products. Great Britain needs to think more of what's in it for us and learn from the French who if they do not agree with EU law then they don't bother with it!.

We all need to start to focus on Britain so that we can be proud of British business and products. 

The other day on Twitter I tried a #hash tags of #backbritishproducts #backbritishbusiness and the amount of interest was great, so with a new financial year starting in April, why don't we have a national campaign promoted by the government and business to showcase our great skills, products and businesses. 

The only way we can get the country out of the current state is for us all to work together to trade the country out of the mess.

Selling with no gimmicks and no constant sales.

Very interesting TV last night, watched Mary Portas Secret Shopper this program is about customer service. Last nights program was about the furniture business. As we all know there are some very big retailers out there there, ie DFS etc.

The main method of marketing is having constant sales with products that have been so called discounted by say 50%. But as we know the original price is not a real price!.

What Mary Portas did was to worked with CLS Sofas by changing the shopping experience. She created lifestyle zones so people could understand the size of the sofas in average size rooms etc. The best thing that she did was to get the pricing policy changed, what they did was to do way with the "sales" and inflated prices and now have " always best price guaranteed ". That means no more gimmicks and customers feel that they get best price first time.

What happens with having offers all the time is that customers do not trust the pricing and will just wait until what they want comes on offer.

Having a clear, best price policy is a great way in building customer loyalty and as the MD of CLS said has increased sales!!

We are looking for New Clients

Due to the up coming public sector cuts we are looking for new clients to fill in the gaps.

Do you want, your logo reworking, your brochure brought up to date,  packaging design that flys off the shelf, leaflets that sell your product or service, a website that wows your customers?

What we are looking for is clients who want great graphic design, websites that work and printed material that make you standout.

Do you want a refreshing change as our policy is always under promise and over deliver.

So who we are looking for are marketing managers in medium to large size businesses, owners of SME's and start up businesses who value the power of creativity, understand the values of two way respect and honesty and also understand about long term business relationships where service is important but in a cost effective way.

So if you a feel that we can work together or you know someone who fits what we are looking for please give me a call on 01773 599159.

Many thanks for reading this.

Regards

Mike Handley

Ps If you don't value creativity, who just buy on price and not service then sorry but we are not interested!

Business tips.

Always look at your client mix and review.

Make sure that your clients are clients that fit your profile, ethics and values.

Be pro-active and not reactive ie we all know cuts in the public sector are coming so plan now.

What SME's can learn from WHSmith and Woolworths.

Christmas has been and gone, as we all know a big historic brand of Woolworths left the high street a fews years and in my opinion unless they make major changes another might be WHSmith. 

The key reason that Woolworths failed is that they lost sight of who the customer was and most of all the change in high shopping and the big supermarkets. Woolworths were stuck in the past and WHSmith to me are also living in the past.

Both Woolworths and WHSmith seemed behind their competitors getting into internet shopping. So these are also some of the key issues that affect WH Smith.

First key issues is being aware of what customers want and to be able to change your mix of products or services and methods of selling. 

If you look at WHSmith their core products are books, newspapers, magazines, stationery products and DVD'S / music and if you think about it they are positioned in very expensive high street locations. 

Over the last decade shopping habits have changed so people do "onestop" shopping in big supermarkets. All the core WHSmith  products can be sourced for large supermarkets. They may not have the range but do sell the key core best sellers in books etc.

Within the music market the supermarket has destroyed the high street sales. Another area in music sales is the amount of retail download sales ie Itures. So again WHSmith have lost out there by not embracing change in technology.

As for stationery shopping again the high street has changed over the years with the likes great retailers like Rymans who use more cost effective retail units.

Also another key fact is the increase of internet shopping, this is where WH Smith lost a lot with in the book market. Amazon who only started in 1994 in the USA have used technology to take the majority of book sales in the UK. How many websites do you see with Amazon promotions running? 

One of key advantages in using technology is that Amazon will have better stock control and less money tied up in dead stock.If you think how many retail units that WHSmith have, how much stock they have to stock just to keep their shelves looking full. So if you are running a retail business make sure that you keep your stock levels right and review all products, if not selling just promote and discount to turn the product back to cash.

Make sure that your marketing and point and sale looks right, over Christmas the point of sale that was in the windows of WHSmith in the Westfield in Derby just looked so boring and lacked any punch.

So what can the SME market learn then?

Understand who your customer is and what they want to buy.

Embrace technology, make sure that you can sell, promote on line. Today don't think local think global!

Always keep reviewing what you are doing right, but find out from customers where you can improve.

Always beware of what your competiors or doing and what there strenght and weekness's are. Then you can plan your marketing.

Make sure that all your marketing, advertising, point of sale stands out, looks professional and most of all works.

I hope that the directors, management and staff can sort out WHSmith as it would be sad to see the loss of another historic British brand dating from 1792.