The Business Bulletin

In this week's edition:

• Why value pricing isn’t the magical solution people rave about - Nishi Patel
• Telesales just got easier - Michael Palman
• Let’s talk tone of voice! - Hannah Brady ??????
• Why should you have written processes in your business? - Kathy Bassett
• E-learning – considering the possibilities - John Scotcher
• Is having a vision or mission important for a small business? - Marie-Louise O'Neill
• Decision making, hindsight-bias and analysis paralysis - James Tarry
• Spotlight on:? Jessica Shailes , Ideal Marketing

Why value pricing isn’t the magical solution people rave about - Nishi Patel

In this article, I wanted to talk about why value-based pricing isn’t always the magical solution to small business profitability that everyone always talks about. When you run a small business, there are really two types of pricing strategies that you can implement when you’re trying to work out how much to charge for your product or service. Traditionally, a lot of businesses have used something called cost-based pricing which is about looking at your costs in the business in terms of employee time, in terms of your overheads, and any specific materials that you need to actually provide that product or service. Then it’s about adding a certain markup or to create a margin on what you charge to make sure that you recover those costs, plus make enough to cover your profit requirement.

In the past, it’s always been about cost-based or cost-plus pricing, and that’s probably one of the most common types of pricing model. However, one of the pricing strategies that’s becoming more and more common now, and especially when you talk to business coaches and financial coaches is something called value-based pricing.

Instead of thinking about what a product and service are costing you to deliver, you actually need to think about what that product or service is worth to the client, and then charge a proportion of that so you’ll share that benefit. For example, in one scenario where you’re going down a cost-based route, you might have to buy a bit of software for a client which costs ￡10 a month. The staff hours that go into supporting that client costs another ￡30 a month, and then you’ve got a share of your overheads which go into supporting that client, and that’s another ￡20 a month. Overall, you have ￡10 plus ￡30 plus ￡20, which equates to ￡60 of costs.

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Telesales just got easier -?Michael Palman

Your sales structure for outbound calls can be summarised using the well know acronym AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action) we will explore at a high level what should be happening during a telemarketing call.

Open the call then set your agenda

The opening minutes of any sales call are vital. You must remember that rapport is built immediately, so how you sound is important. Everyone makes decisions about who they are talking to in seconds. This is why it is so important to sound great, as we are immediately graded and however we do will be the starting point of the relationship. We are now at the beginning of the process of building rapport and developing what we hope will be a long term, profitable relationship – so sound fantastic!

When we meet someone for the first time we typically shake hands, smile and then swap business cards. On a call we also have some definable stages that can be measured and optimised. The opening part of the call is where we ask low risk questions which may, or may not concern their business. We might have a common interest, or even know the same group of people. Working on the phone is not really so different but in many ways is harder, as we have no visual clues and can only ‘hear’ how the prospect is reacting. This is where you learn that different approaches to different people will get different results.

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Let’s talk tone of voice! - Hannah Brady ??????

This is one of my favourite subjects but did you know that it’s also an area that is very often neglected when building a brand?

So…what is your tone of voice?

In its simplest form, it is how you sound to others.

It’s how you talk to people online, in meetings, pitches, over the phone, in your literature, on packaging – basically everywhere!

“You know you’ve got a strong tone of voice when you remove your logo from a piece of content and people can still tell it is yours.”

So, for a minute, take some time to think about a brand that you love…

Is there something unique that you can pick out about the way they communicate? Is there a particular tone to their content that resonates with you? Do they use any distinctive phrases that have become part of their trademark style?

One of my favourites is?Brewdog .?They are consistently straight-talking, real, and witty.

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Why should you have written processes in your business? - Kathy Bassett

Let me ask you a question, does everything in your business always get done on time and to the standard you expect?

Are you thinking there is always room for improvement?

How about this for a train of thought.?Maybe your team lack direction? Do you ever get unplanned absences in your team? You do? What would you do if a key member had to take an extended period of time off? Or decided to leave? Would your colleagues know what to do if you were taken ill suddenly and were out of action for a long time? If your answers to these questions are “I don’t know” or “No” then read on.

Written processes form the backbone of every successful business. They provide the directions for everyone to follow and can help fill in the gaps when people change roles, leave, or are absent from the business. They also provide a step-by-step guide to everything that happens within the business.

There will, of course, always be times when a human being needs to make a decision, the systems can only do so much, (80/20 system/human rule).

Now are you sitting comfortably? Here are 10 reasons your business should have written processes:

• Everyone saves time – written processes make clear what everyone’s job is within the business and how they should get it done.
• Vital to a consistent approach – whether it’s sales, customer service, or billing, a written process sets out how your employees should approach the task and ensures that it is delivered in the same way every time anyone does it.
• Easy to measure elements and change if necessary – written processes form the framework for everyone to work to, they also allow people to develop and change if they find a better way of doing things. You just need to make sure that the relevant process is updated to take this into account.

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E-learning – considering the possibilities - John Scotcher

E-learning solutions have become commonplace. Even before COVID-19 pushed everyone out of the office and into their spare rooms, opportunities to engage in remote education had grown from classic open university style origins and had, to use bumbling yeti, Boris Johnson’s favourite catchphrase ‘levelled up’. Courses, delivered online with video content and other multimedia thrills, were here for good. Once the pandemic had got us into home working for a few months, it became hard to move around online without slamming into someone’s advert for an online course.

And not only did one get hit by the online courses themselves, one also got regular adverts from course creation experts and platforms telling you how they could transform your course idea into a stunning piece of online education that would kickstart a passive income and have you living on a beach in the Med within about seven minutes. In fact, the industry facilitating would be course creators has without a doubt made far more money than most course creators themselves.

So instead of telling you how you can make a fortune with an online course (realistically – you probably can’t), I want to focus on a far more useful benefit of e-learning, saving time and money training your staff and/or team.

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Is having a vision or mission important for a small business? - Marie-Louise O'Neill

Hands up if you have a vision or mission for your business? I wouldn’t be surprised if you don’t. I didn’t either when I put myself forward for this article. Sshhhh! Don’t tell! At least I didn’t have it written down in a formalised way.

Let’s figure this out together! Firstly, what does vision and mission actually mean?

What is a mission statement?

A mission statement is set in the present and describes why your company exists. The focus is on what you are doing in your business right now.

Examples:

• LinkedIn: Connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful.
• TED: Spread ideas.
• IKEA: To create a better everyday life for the many people.

Let’s look a bit closer at the TED mission statement, which has only two words, but says it all. They really do “Spread ideas” through every talk and video they share. They may have recorded some of the most famous presentations in the world but they still keep their mission at the heart of what they do.

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Decision making, hindsight-bias and analysis paralysis - James Tarry

When I first went self-employed, some eight and a half years ago now, one of the pitfalls I hadn’t planned for was how to make effective decisions.

In the past, I’d always had bosses. Not that many of them were that great, which was part of the reason to strike out on my own. Bosses should be the easy way to improve, they should be able to take a view of you and the problem you’re looking to solve. They should be able to help you with your decision process as well as your judgement. However, this is actually quite hard and subjective and requires people to do a lot of thinking and have a decent amount of empathy. Therefore most of my managers over time defaulted to resulting. By this I mean they took the view that good outcomes are the result of good behaviours and decisions, and bad outcomes are therefore the result of bad decisions. So there was a fault in the system that prevented an improvement in the ability to make good decisions.

And decision making is remarkably important. By and large, our successes are the results of the actions and decisions we have made over time. But how do we get better at making decisions? Particularly in avoiding our inherent biases (we all have these, there’s no escaping them).

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Spotlight on:? Jessica Shailes , Ideal Marketing

Jess has worked in digital marketing for over ten years and has seen it evolve from an experimental marketing option to an essential tool for most businesses. She is driven to help businesses achieve their goals using the best marketing resources available and recognises that each business is different.

In her role, she connects business owners with the right marketing tools to meet their business objectives by really getting to know their business, customers and market. She has a passion for learning, problem-solving and sharing ideas with others, and is proud to be a nerd at heart.

Watch and listen to her business journey plus some top tips on marketing.