Small Safety Business Success
By the late George Robotham
- Must have passion for products & customers
- Must have continuous customer feedback
- Test / pilot product with customers
- Do not expect any thanks
- Never take your eye off the ball
- Adequate is not adequate
- Have a positive attitude and do not whinge
- Be careful what you say about others
- Have an attitude of success
- Push the envelope
- Ask the customer for the sale
- Do not be scared to ask questions
- Do the things you like least first and get them out of the way
- Set your goals and focus on them
- Get out of your comfort zone
- Get past your past
- If it was easy everyone would be doing it
- Life is not fair and the sooner you accept that the better
- Love what you do
- Wash your dirty linen in private
- You attract what you are
- Admit mistakes and fix them immediately
- Do not discount
- Find a hole in the market & fill it
- Great technical people do not always make great managers
- Keep it simple
- Measure what you treasure
- Ear to mouth ratio is 2 to 1
- You get what you pay for
- Pay your bills
- Accentuate the positive
- Be proactive not reactive
- Have a uniform & name tag
- Have an attractive office
- Embrace change
- Say thank you
- Apologise when necessary
- Get a great team
- Train your staff
- Bad news is better than no news
- Use what you sell and sell what you use
- Ego is a dirty word
- Offer choices and let the customer decide
- Deliver more than you promise
- Try to put yourself in the shoes of the customer
- Communicate your goals clearly
- Trim your expenses and chase all tax deductions
- Join clubs / organisations that can help with business networking
- Understand your industry and be an expert in that field
- Study competitor web sites
- Sign up for industry newsletters
- Reduce inventory
- Focus on your target market
- Discover what your customers need and learn about them
- Get marketing advice
- Keep customers happy
- Always keep your promises
- Document critical processes
- Find profitable partnerships
- Back up computer files
- Customer retention has more to do with making an emotional connection with customers than good customer service
- Be different from the competition
- Build strong relations with customers
- Have a vision for your company
- Measure success and failure
- Standardise your processes
- Get better or die
- Be innovative
- Live in the real world
- Be positive and lead by example
- The most learning occurs in the real world
- Have meetings with your staff to talk about their challenges
- Using company structures can help to minimise personal liability
- Maintain a weekly business journal
- Do a needs analysis of potential customers
- It is easier to sell to existing customers than find new ones
- Write a business plan, lots of good books in the library
- Do a S.W.O.T. analysis to start with
- Pays to do an analysis of potential customer needs early up to build your product portfolio
- Have a regular newsletter
- Optimise web site, use appropriate links
- Be easy to deal with
- Respond to customer needs
- Always treat the customer like a King or Queen- If you do not your competitors will
- Return calls promptly
- Respond to complaints
- Always be ethical and honest
- Always follow up
- Have a a Unique Selling Proposition
- Know your customers and competitors
- People buy benefits but they want to know about features
- Continually measure the performance of your business
- Always deliver more than you promise and give something of value free
Do you have any thoughts? Please share them below