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  • Firing Clients: Sometimes You Need To Give Them The Boot
  • Herd Reduction Sale – Buy 3 Get 1 Free
  • From Small Business Owner To Manager
  • Know Your Ideal Customer
  • Just A Reminder
  • Follow Up Is Everything
  • More Holiday Cheer at Costanoa
  • Stable Treats: Monique’s Homemade Masala Chai
  • A New Addition to The Stable Solutions’ Chronicles…
  • Know How You Are Doing…

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I work with a wide variety of customers for both my soap and web design businesses. Some of my clients are very easy to work with, others are not so easy. As much as small business owners don’t like to lose customers, sometimes it becomes necessary to fire clients.

You may be thinking, “Why would you fire a client?”. There are a variety of reasons. Here are some that I have:

• Not paying their bills in a timely fashion.
• Writing bad checks.
• Trying to constantly knock down the price of the services they receive.
• Not turning in content and information required to get the job done.
• Trying to put their business failings on you.

Clients that exhibit any of these behaviors regularly are not good clients. They are taking advantage of your good will, but ultimately eating up valuable time that could be spent on more fruitful ventures. Mostly clients who exhibit these behaviors generally don’t mean badly, they are just inexperienced business people, who are unaware that their behavior is hard to work with.

Before firing a client, I try to give them information to understand my process and what it takes to get the job done. You have to decide for yourself, but one thing I have learned over the years, it becomes very apparent after a while, which clients need to move on, because they hold your business back.

I’ve gone a little wild with making Miniature Horse Guest Soaps.   My Over-zealousness works out in your favor. Buy 3 Minis and get one free!

Lavender, Lemongrass, & Springtime Trail fragrances.

As a small business owner, you probably dream of growing your business. There is nothing as exciting as growing the business enough to hire an employee. If you haven’t done this before,  it is important to be clear on what this employee will be doing. If you haven’t outlined the various activities that form the core activities of your business, take time to do this. If you aren’t clear on what needs to be done, how will you communicate this to your future employees?

Once you have the list of activities that are critical to your business you can write a job description. The job description defines the skills that you need and tasks that will be performed by the person that you hire. Writing this down makes it solid and more real. After you hire your first employee, you are more than just a business owner. You are now a manager.

Next post: Tips to help you as a manager

Who is your ideal customer? Have you spent the time defining that ideal customer’s profile? This is a really valuable exercise to run through,  because you will use your time more effectively and profitably by being selective about who you are serving. By taking every job that comes your way, you may be passing up opportunities for better jobs that are easier and pay better.

I know someone who is trading services with another company. No money exchanges hands, but what happens is that that non-paying client takes up a lot of time that takes my associate away from their core business. You may find that there are some instances where the trade works out really well, bringing in additional work. Be selective, making sure that it works for you.

Take Time To Plan. Rough in your tradeshow schedule and other important events. You will be glad you did.

I have a dual life. Soapmaker by day, Web Designer/Internet Strategist by night. Wait, maybe I’m a Web Designer/Internet Strategist by day and Soapmaker by night.

I really am a techie and have always kept my hands computer graphics, design,, and business consulting.  You can take the girl out of tech, but you can’t take the tech out of the girl.  Long story short, this year I put more focus back onto my design and consulting business,  Screen Caffeen.  Being that there are only so many hours in the day, the area that I didn’t put my total focus into was my wholesale business. With the poor economy, many of my customers closed their stores, buyers lost their jobs, and everyone is cutting back.

While I was filling catalog orders recently, I started to think about how important follow up is.  I thought about the hundreds and hundreds of boxes of soap that lined my dining room table last year. I thought about the many customers that bought my soap last year. I also thought about how many stores I didn’t follow up with, because I was too busy with my web design and consulting business.

Bottom line is that even if your customers love your products, if you don’t follow up and remind them that you are still there, they most likely won’t remember to reorder from you. When the shelf empties out, another product will fill the space. Your product is no longer there. Out of site, out of mind. That is money that is not coming in to your business. And it really takes more resources to develop  new customers versus maintaining your existing customer base.

Usually, when I follow up with customers, they will give me an order.  The key is scheduling time for follow ups and appropriate planning. If you have been selling your products for a while, you should know your customers’ buying cycles. Put the time in y our planner for when you will follow up.  For me, most East Coast stores require follow up for the holidays around August. West Coast has been later, typically October and November. Not following up at the right time results in lost sales,, because the budget gets used up.

For 2010, my advice: Plan your follow ups carefully. Your customers love to hear from you, and will appreciate your attention.

All the best!

Monique

Stop by Costanoa for a new sale featuring the Swanton Artisans. Click the calendar button to view.

After spending 3 months in India in the 1980s, I learned how to make many Indian delicacies. One that is still made regularly in my home is Masala Chai, the delicious, spiced, sweetened tea made with milk.   (In Hindi masala means spice, chai is tea.)

When you order chai in India it is rich and thick; often served piping hot in a small glass.

Whether plain or spiced, in India the chai usually simmers on the stove for hours, developing its full flavor.

I find that many of the packaged varieties are way too sweet. Making my own allows me to control the flavor and sweetness.  I have become so comfortable with the recipe that I don’t actually measure anymore, but approximate the recipe. The recipe is easy to make with only 9 ingredients, 5 of which are spices. Adjust the spicing to your liking and enjoy.

Monique’s Homemade Masala Chai

8-9  cups water

Approximately 2″ of fresh ginger (sliced)

2-3 cinnamon sticks

5 black peppercorns (I don’t like it too peppery)

1 tsp. whole cloves (around 15-20 cloves)

1 tsp green cardomom pods (8-10 pods)

Assam tea (4 tea bags or 1/4 c. loose)

4 c. milk

1/4  – 1/2 c sugar. (depending on sweetness desired).

Boil the water, ginger and spices until the volume is reduce by approximately one half.  Add sugar, milk, and tea.  Simmer until tea is desired strength.  Strain, Serve, & Enjoy!

I enjoy writing about small business and the adventures that I have been having making soap, but I also have other things that I wanted to write about. I usually write about tech issues, mostly for reference on my other blog Fresh Brew. I’ve thought about adding another blog, but decided that I can add other info into the Stable Solution Chronicles.  So I am adding the category Stable Treats. This is favorite treats to enjoy after a day at the barn, or just about anytime.

You need to measure how you are doing in order to improve. Doesn’t matter what it is, if you can’t measure it, you can’t improve upon it. This morning, I ran my website through the hubspot website grader.  Here are the results of my website:

A website grade of 83/100 for www.astablesolution.com means that of the hundreds of thousands of websites that have previously been evaluated, our algorithm has calculated that this site scores higher than 83% of them in terms of its marketing effectiveness. The algorithm uses a proprietary blend of over 50 different variables, including search engine data , website structure, approximate traffic, site performance, and others.

The website www.astablesolution.com ranks 312,557 of the 1,792,092 websites that have been ranked so far.

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