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  • Difficult Decisions
  • A Quick Tale about Commitment
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  • Want To Make A Teenager Happy?…
  • Firing Clients: Sometimes You Need To Give Them The Boot
  • Herd Reduction Sale – Buy 3 Get 1 Free
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  • Know Your Ideal Customer
  • Just A Reminder
  • Follow Up Is Everything

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This is Stable Solutions’ 5th year as a small business. It is an interesting time for me, because I realize that I have to make a decision that has been coming for a long time. I’ve been putting off what to do about my small handcrafted business, but since I am focused more on my web design and consulting business it may be time to sell Stable Solutions or just let it go dormant.

I naturally gravitate toward technology, so I realized about 2 years ago that Stable Solutions needed to be my hobby business more than my primary business. I had been treating my more profitable consulting and design business as a hobby business. Not a good idea when you need to make a living.  What can I say other than duh?  I really wrestled with the fact that my family verbally gave support for the business, but very little physical support. And even so, I usually made them angry by asking them to package the way I had been packaging products for years, not any old way that they felt like it.

Even my husband, who tries to help, can’t bring himself to asking how I want to see the products done. As a result the dozens of soaps that he helped bag and tag, need to be redone, because the way he tied the tags will result in the labels getting bent up and left looking unattractive.  As I was retying bags this morning, I had to ask, “Is the aggravation worth it?”.    Over the next few weeks, I will be looking at reducing my inventory.  There are a few local shows that I am still planning to attend, but after this year, my soap making will be on a smaller scale for fun and creative enjoyment.

Just a quick tale about commitment as a reminder that when we undertake a small business, being committed is paramount:

A pig and a chicken are walking down a road. The chicken looks at the pig and says, “Hey, why don’t we open a restaurant?” The pig looks back at the chicken and says, “Good idea, what do you want to call it?” The chicken thinks about it and says, “Why don’t we call it ‘Ham and Eggs’?” “I don’t think so,” says the pig, “I’d be committed, but you’d only be involved.”

I have experience with start up businesses, small businesses, and fortune 500 companies from body care products to computer software and hardware to electronic products. No matter what industry that I have worked in or clients that I have consulted for, one of the key issues that I see is that keeping focus is critical. I see many businesses that try to be something to everyone. When they do this, they lose focus that is critical to staying on track. No matter what industry, losing track of your core competencies will result in a waste of time, and dilute your marketing effort.

Ask yourself:

1. What is my key focus?

2. What are my core competencies?

3. Am I straying from focusing on my core competencies.

These are all important questions to know the answers to. If you don’t know, then you may easily find yourself straying off course.

…Buy some Stable Solutions’ Saddle Soap!

My 16 year old daughter loves eventing. In order to compete, she raises the money to pay for the show entries. This year, she has some big goals with horse trials, Pony Club Championships, and her C3 Pony Club rating. In order to pay for her habit, she is making my saddle soap and helping sell it, too.

This is a 100% vegetable glycerin saddle soap that smells great, too. A favorite of Pony Clubbers from around the Bay Area and beyond! Works really well on shoes, purses, and anything leather. Not just for tack.

Does your leather need refreshing? Stable Solutions’ Saddle Soap will help!

And each tin of soap that we sell makes a certain teenager very, very happy.

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

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