The Good News Blog

Great benefits can be gained from issuing regular media releases or conducting a media conference to announce a new product/service for the business. Surprisingly, there are a lot of business people who do not recognise this. News is created out of noticeable change, but you have to be able to inform the media about that change. There are significant benefits to a business from front-page headlines on your business or even editorial comments. To achieve this, the media must recognise the aspects of your business that you wish to promote as news. If you ignore the use of the media, then one of the major avenues of promoting your business is being ignored, and this is hardly good business sense. Sounds interesting? Call us and we can give you introductions to public relations consultants that can assist you.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are tools that are used to help people analyse their business’ performance on a regular basis. It would be a good idea for your business to select the key performance indicators that relate to your business (through budgets and previous financial results) and then have the key performance indicators calculated daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annually as required. This would enable the actual key performance indicators to be compared back to budget estimates to give management an indication of how the business is performing.

Here are some key performance indicators that would apply to most businesses: - Yield % (for a processing business)

• Write Off/On % (professional firms)
• Debtors’ days outstanding
• Stock on hand – number of days sales
• Stock turnover
• Creditors’ days outstanding
• Shrinkage percentage (retail stores)
• Net profit on sales %
• Individual department sales to total sales
• Gross profit percentage
• Labour to turnover percentage
• Key expenses such as rent - to sales expressed as a percentage
• Conversion rate (actual sales to prospects entering the store)
• Average sale
• Average sale per customer
• Sales per square metre
• Productive time %

Let us know if you would like to discuss Key Performance Indicators and how they might help your business.

Weekly performance reports are prepared so that management can monitor their business’ actual performance. These reports should be produced on a weekly basis and for each business unit. This helps to keep management and the business unit team informed as to what is actually happening and also allows monitoring of variable trading conditions, costs or product pricing and how it all affects the bottom line.

Whilst weekly performance estimates will not be 100% accurate, if the estimates are prepared on a methodical basis using as many ‘known figures’ as possible, the final result should be very close to the actual figures when they are prepared based on the monthly financial accounts.

The real benefit of receiving regular weekly performance reports is that it enables you to immediately investigate any key performance indicators which are not in line with your budget estimates and to instigate remedial action within a few days of the end of the week. If you relied on monthly financial accounts it could be at least 4 or 5 weeks later before remedial action would be taken.

If you would like some help to implement a weekly profitability reporting system for your business, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Expensive, slick advertising could be a total waste of money if your shop or workplace is dingy and uninviting. If your business is retail, your entire shop is an advertisement, as well as the attitude of your staff, the way your goods are arranged and so on. Dirty, dowdy or badly-lit premises and dusty goods will definitely put people off, even if your prices are competitive. In fact people are likely to choose a more expensive shop down the road for similar goods because it is bright, colourful and welcoming. If our shopping experience is pleasurable, chances are we’ll be back for more.

Train your staff

Staff are a huge advertisement for your business. Select them carefully and put ‘positive attitude’ high on the prerequisite list. You don’t want a horde of potential customers turning up, lured by persuasive advertising, only to be faced with rude or inattentive staff. Not only have you wasted thousands on advertising, you may never see these people again!

The same rule goes for talking to customers on the phone. Never be grumpy or abrupt or leave people waiting unnecessarily. And if you’re taking messages for others, make sure you have a system for always returning calls within a specified time.

Systems for using the phone and email are particularly important for home and internet-based businesses. Because you don’t have a bright and attractive shop to show off, or staff to give one-on-one attention, your ‘electronic etiquette’ is crucial to supporting your fantastic products and services. Most people will understand if you cannot help them with a particular request – either on the phone or in person. But don’t leave the conversation dangling – is there another way around the problem? Has the caller thought of this option? Where else could you recommend they try?

Even though you might not get thanks, most people will notice your efforts to help, and you may be rewarded with a sale at another time. Having a customer-friendly attitude is good advertising for your business.

Clean the company car

And don’t forget the car. Company advertising on vehicles can work really well, but do keep them clean! For many people the value of the advertising will be dinted by their reaction to the dirt, unless of course the vehicle is advertising off-road adventures where a little mud could go a long way! Advertising, like charity, begins at home. Keep things in good shape on the shop floor before you start advertising further afield.

What a difference 365 days make. The collapse of a number of high-profile American financial institutions around this time last year and a subsequent credit freeze spurred a tidal wave of media speculation on whether the rich world was poised for another Great Depression (and also inspired the idea for a dedicated Good News Blog here on the Openside website as a small effort to dissuade the naysayers).

Right now, of course, it’s hard to move sideways without another new reported sighting of green shoots in the market here in New Zealand -- see here and here for a couple of recent examples.

Overseas, an editorial in The Wall Street Journal offers some good analysis on what is and isn’t happening in the United States:
The larger story here is that the economy’s natural healing tendencies are asserting themselves. Banks are writing down bad loans, raising new capital, and in general cleaning up their balance sheets.

Having reduced their inventories to the nub, manufacturers are looking to increase production at the first sign of demand. Households have also been improving their balance sheets by saving more.

The rush to exploit the federal “cash for clunkers” car-purchase subsidy testifies that consumers have money that they will spend when they conclude that their jobs are safe and they have some financial breathing room.

And here’s another recent opinion piece from the Journal, written by Allan Meltzer, a professor of economics at Carnegie Mellon University, on why the reports on a looming Great Depression were always plain silly, even 12 months ago.