6/30/2009

Finding Your Senior Move

Business Opportunity Today
Ideas to Help Your Business Thrive in a
Challenging Economy

Adrienne Simpson
Smooth Mooove Senior Relocation Services, Inc.
1

Strategy Objectives
Market more for less (vs. doing less marketing)
Protect and grow your market niche
Invest in productivity and systems
Strengthen your cash flow
Strategies to take advantage of economic
conditions
Communicate more with customers, employees
and partners

Adrienne Simpson, President,

Smooth Mooove Senior Relocation Services, Inc.
Native of Detroit, Michigan
Operations Director for 2 national health
insurance carriers
Downsized and unemployed twice
Original biz plan was a 1 person senior
packing/unpacking service
Make Mine a Million $ Business winner
Winner of Atlanta Business League NonNonTraditional Enterprise Award
SBA and SCORE Business of the Year
Featured in Family Circle, MORE, PINK,
Womans Day, Essence, Black
Enterprise, Where to Retire magazines
Interviewed on Martha Stewart Living,
TV1, CBS 46, and ABC 5
Featured in Whats Possible By Daryn
Kagan of CNN and Web Marketing for
Dummies
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What I wish I knew in my first 2 years of

business
How great the need is for this service
How expensive owning a business is
How much time the business demands
Insights into the senior niche market
Cost effective marketing
Successful systems and procedures
Strategic partners and alliances
Business resources
What the heck I was doing and getting into
That Im not Superwoman
4

Market more for less

Reallocate your time
Generate more wordwordof
of--mouth
Maintain price
Find less expensive
ways to market
5

Reallocate your time

Know your time
-Keep a journal of how you spend your time
-Define your workwork-life balance
Structure your time
-Draw an organizational map
-Put a price on the time you invest in each job
you do
-Create a notnot-to
to--do list
-Fire yourself from at least one job and
delegate it to someone else
Consolidate time
-Reallocate your investment in time to the 5
highest return activities
-Create an advisory board
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5 Places to get the highest return

on owner time
Promoting and prospecting for
new customers
Growing existing customers
Creating systems to structure,
automate, and outsource
administration
Create unique offerings that grow
margins or revenue per customer
Develop sales, service, and
operations staff
7

Why Developing Sales, Service and Operations

Staff Can Make a Big Difference
Hiring or developing another salesperson is regarded as
the highest return on investment a business can make.
Business owners tend to carry the vast majority of the
sales burden for their businesses. Hiring a new
salesperson is regarded as the highest ROI.
Developing customer service people effectively frees up
business owner time. This may initially seem risky
because small businesses rely on excellent customer
service for their competitive edge but owners are wellwellsuited to train others.
Hiring a person to support operations is regarded as the
second best source of time leverage.
8

Low Cost Marketing Tactics

Use satisfaction surveys to identify needs, improve
results and gain referrals
Create a customer referral program with incentives
Create customer databases
Optimize search engines and ee-mail newsletters
Find your special story. Use it to gain free media and
exposure
Create coco-marketing partnerships and customer sharing
Join groups with similar look alike customers
Obtain additional certifications

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Actions to generate more

referrals

Reasons why business

owners do not generate
more referrals
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

1.

They forget to ask for

referrals
Lack confidence in
relationship
No customer satisfaction
measurements
No referral systems and
programs
Insufficient customer
contact

2.
3.

4.
5.

6.

Create a system for

asking for referrals
Measure and track your
best referral sources
Create formal customer
referral programs and
incentives
Communicate better with
customers and
influencers
Develop referral networks
with local partners and
centers of influence
Build contact strategies
that create more positive
reasons to reach out to
your customers
10

Look Alike Customers

What does your perfect customer
look like?
Show customers and influencers
a picture of your best
customers.
Capitalize on Word of Mouth
through training, tracking and
offers

11

Protect and grow your market niche

Protect your core market niche
-Focus your resources
-Segment your market
Grow within your niche
-Advertise
Find a new profitable market niche
into which you can grow
-Diversify your customer base

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Invest in productivity and systems

Document your business
processes to identify easy
improvement
opportunities
Investigate systems that
can structure, automate,
eliminate, or reduce work
Get process improvement
input from staff
13

Strengthen cash flow to protect

your business assets
Put all your costs up for grabs
WTGBRTDT or Whats the
good business reason to do
this?
Put in place a monthly budget
Reevaluate staff pay vs.
performance
Match expenses to income
Share resources
Speed cash receipts
Slow cash payments
Find deals
14

Strengthen cash flow to protect

business assets
Raise prices. Bundle
services and offer as a
package.
Sell more to existing
customers
Acquire more new
customers.
Create new services from
customer needs survey
Expand your reach
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Strengthen cash flow to protect

business assets
Alter payment terms
-Collect deposit before starting
work
-Charge penalties for late
payment
Add incentives for speed of
payment
-Pay within 5 days for %
discount
Offer volume discounts
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Strategies to take advantage of the

economic conditions
Win the war for talent by
capitalizing on a weak
labor market
Bargain shop for deals on
goods and services
Refinance to capitalize on
lower interest rates
17

Communicate more with customers,

employees, and partners
Prepare for changes in
customer spending patterns
Encourage employee
productivity improvements
Dont go it alone, work to
leverage other people and
resources

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How I Did It
Get FREE or low cost business assistance
from:
-Small Business Administration
-Service Core of Retired Executives
(SCORE)
-Search for government agencies in
your area

19

How I Did It
Use creative approaches for seeking alliance partners
-Become active in community service groups
-Join or start a Senior Networking Niche group
-Host an event of broad interest to the community
Spend one day a week working ON the business, not IN
-What one thing can I do today to grow my business?
Spruce up your old sales pitch
-Does it reflect your enthusiasm?
Find new techniques or reasons for the followfollow-up
-Share interesting information with referral sources
20

How I Did It
Build Confidence That Your Business IS a
business. Not a hobby.
Create the appearance of being a larger organization
that you actually are.
-Get a PO box at the UPS Store. You will have a
physical mailing address for the same price as a box
with USPS. This gives you the appearance of a brick
and mortar business.
-Get a separate phone line for your business, not a cell
phone. Contract with Vonage now while everything is
free, the monthly cost is $24.99.
-When speaking with prospects, use we, not I.

21

6/30/2009

How I Did It
Stand Out and Get Noticed
NAIL YOUR ELEVTOR PITCH!!!
Be memorable, not boring
-Find your gimmick and use it every time, everywhere.
Keep business cards in your pocket, car, purse,
everywhere. If stuck in traffic, park and hand them out.
Give business cards to staff to hand out.
Give staff $$$ for any jobs they bring in
Leave a useful promotional item with each client
Give 2 cards to everyone, not just 1
22

How I Did It
Get comfortable with Public Speaking
Join Toastmasters
Offer FREE educational sessions
Build relationships not only with clients but with
your referral base and community
Learn how to make people comfortable,
immediately
Be personal, approachable
23

Know Your Competition

Become a Mystery Shopper
-Call your competition, act like a prospect
-What are their fees, deposits, services, etc?
Know what makes you different than your
competition?
Develop a strategy on how to compete
Build and grow on your strengths
Exploit your competitions weaknesses

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6/30/2009

Read
The EE-Myth
by Michael Gerber
The Business Coach
by Brad Sugars
If you dont have big breasts, put ribbons on your
pigtails
by Barbara Corcoran
Beyond Selling Value
by Mark Shonka
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Questions

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