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Jennifer Foster Marketing

consultant

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Easy Steps to increasing the value of your business BEFORE you sell it.

For the past several years I’ve had a hypothesis that companies are leaving a lot of valuation on the table as they look for their exit.  The last couple of months I put this hypothesis to the test by meeting with people who are actually helping companies through this process. Most of the CPA’s and lawyers I’ve talked to seem to agree that when it comes time for a company to sell, they often take their foot off of the accelerator.

The most likely cause is that leadership is half way out the door and has already starting looking toward their next chapter, be it retirement or a new career opportunity. It could also be happening because the company is running out of funds and they simply are trying to conserve resources to make the bottom line as good as it can for the impending financial audits.

Increasing the valuation is a major challenge for small businesses and entrepreneurs.

Most of them are already doing less with more. They are often wearing multiple hats and trying to get the most out of every dollar — that’s their normal state. Throw the stress of maximize the value of the business they’ve put so much effort and time into building and it’s enough to break most small businesses.

Here are a few easy ways to keep the valuation high and the stress low(er).

1. Seek advice

Hire an experienced outside advisor who can help you. Preparing your business for sale needs to include having an expert valuation conducted. Selling your business is one of the most important moments in your life as an entrepreneur. Professional advice will help ensure you get it right.

2. Work to boost your profits

Don’t expect high offers if you’re only breaking even. This can be a great time to do an audit of your processes and cut the excess. This has to be done carefully because the last thing you want to create is an air of panic within your walls or in the minds of your potential buyers. But nearly every business can find a way to operate more efficiently.

3. Continue to invest and improve

Keep as much momentum as you can. As mentioned above of the biggest mistakes business owners make is to take their foot off the accelerator before they cross the finish line. The moment you stop investing in your people, new equipment, maintenance and process improvements is the moment you start reducing the value of your company.

4. Create a strategic plan

Clearly document your vision – independent of the sale. Even if a sale is your only viable option, you should create a formal marketing and business plan. These documents help investors see the potential in your business. And  presenting measurable goals and milestones for the coming years will give your business credibility as a growing concern with long-term potential.

5. Empower your people

Your people are still you best asset. I’ve lead a lot of teams through mergers and acquisitions, and no matter the environment training and empowering people never fails to pay off. Pay particular attention to the management team and keep turnover low. Retention bonuses can work well here. When your buyers walk the halls, they will notice the vibe of your employees and it’s your responsibility to foster a positive environment.

6. Use your marketing to stand out

Don’t underestimate the value of your marketing dollars. In many ways, selling your company is a time to ramp up your marketing. The adage “fake it till you make it” is widely underrated. Marketing can help you look successful even if you’re struggling and that’s half the battle. Just like selling a house — a little curb appeal goes a very long way when your buyers are doing their “drive by” assessments. Your social media should be current. Your advertising should be active and your plan should be operating at full speed.  You can even add some flare by asking for testimonials explaining what keeps them coming back to your company vs. shopping their business elsewhere.

If you think having a strategic mindset applies only to businesses considerably larger than yours, I can help you see why that’s not the case. Small business owners actually face a much better return on their investment by working to  increase your values drivers.

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Creating Shareable Content for Social Media and Beyond

The most shareable social media need to be relevant to the reader's emotions.
The most shareable social media need to be relevant to the reader’s emotions.

This past week I was working on a digital marketing proposal for a client. A key element of this plan, or any plan that I’d put together is content: creating good content drives just about any avenue. And bad content won’t be saved by any of them.

Content factors break easily down into the old “Who, What, Where, When and Why”.

Millennials like to say they’re changing marketing by demanding that it be relevant. As a long-time marketer, my take? It’s always been necessary to make marketing relevant — at least  if you wanted to be any good at it. When it comes to making content shareable this is a huge measurement of relevancy. What is relevant gets shared.

  1. Know your audience and understand what they expect you to talk about. If you’re reading this blog or follow me on social media, you know I like to talk about marketing fundamentals and how to integrate them into today’s vehicles. My social media shares tend to be things that I like and believe in.
  2. What do you expect your reader to do based on the information? Generally, I think of social media as my public relations. I don’t expect this blog or that Tweet to convert to a $7k per month retainer (but a girl can dream, eh?) Rather my social media is how I relate to all you and hopefully establish myself as an expert in your minds and hearts.
  3. When is the right time to share? This is where your forecasting comes in handy. In all likelihood your business has some level of seasonality to it. For me, marketing budgets are set in 3rd and 4th quarters and plans are in place by May or June. Meaning if I’m not in the door in the next few weeks, I won’t see a return until 2016.
  4. How can your content help me? It’s no secret that readers are much more likely to click and share if your headline includes words like “Top 10 Lists” or “6 Steps to ____”. We’re all busy and we need help from people we think have good ideas and effective solutions.

When it comes to writing your content keep in mind that most content comes in one of 3 flavors

1. Motivate: Inspiration loves Company We love to be inspired. If I had a dollar for every motivational quote in my collective newsfeeds, well, let’s just say the retainer mentioned above wouldn’t need to be as big. Sometimes motivation for marketers comes in the form of making a sale (yep, sometimes). So leverage your content to help create or cement a need within your readers’ minds.

2. Educate: Keep, Stop, Start In doing my research for this blog I looked back over my personal shares and nearly all of them intend to help someone learn something. Start using an online app to raise money for pet shelters when you walk your dog, stop eating processed food, keep promoting the good deeds of my favorite political candidate. I share what I care about. So do your customers.

3. Entertainment and Current Events Last week when the royal princess was born, I was a bit irritated that no one had shared this. It was Saturday morning and I hadn’t turned on the TV yet, but of course I’d checked my various news feeds, probably more than once if the truth be told. There was no mention of this sweet new baby girl for nearly 2 hours! Imagine that?!?! If you’re like me, we expect our news to be everywhere, quickly. And if you can’t be first, you need to be unique.

The secret sauce: combine these flavors — a neapolitan social media strategy if you will — and you’ll hit the emotional sweet spot! Remember the inspirational story of the man who walked an extreme distance to or from work? It was a social media trend topic that THEN became a current event. Presto!

Would love to see your content ideas. Tweet me @jrfoster75231 or post your comments below.

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Market Research: What you can learn from your least satisfied customers

Anytime anyone asks me about the biggest risk associated with his or her corporate marketing plan, I always tell them that most vulnerability comes from within the market research. It’s either faulty, missing, or disregarded each of these can yield a very frustrating situation. There are several key ways to gain market research data but the most basic is via customer satisfactionThink like a customer.

Several months ago, I added a meme to my Facebook business page that read: Your most unhappy customer is your greatest source of learning. And I genuinely believe this is true. So much so that when I sit down with you as a client I generally tend to focus my questions and my curiosity on your least satisfied customers.  Even if the number of dissatisfied customers is relatively low, looking for trends in them can help you understand where to focus your process or product improvements.

How to Gather Customer Information
There are several ways that you’re probably already gathering customer information:

1. Primary Research Customer satisfaction surveys are a very easy ways to quickly get to metrics because they generally are done on a numerical scale they easily convert to averages and trends. You can also apply weighting to the questions because it may be more important that a customer is satisfied with her product’s installation process than she was with the advertising. An experienced market researcher can help make sure your surveys are worded in a way that doesn’t steer or create bias within your survey. Surveys should also include potential customers when you were unable to convert a sale.

2. Listen to your customers Chances are your customers are talking to you about your products and services. Listen to them and dig into their concerns or observations. It’s easy to try to jump to resolution, but understanding how a customer didn’t get their membership card or didn’t understand the invoicing process can help you begin to identify a trend that may need larger attention. You may have to talk to your customer service representatives to get this level of information.

3. Secondary research There is probably a company out there that you can learn from — for free. Research white papers and articles about your industry and some of the customer satisfaction measures out there. Marketing and consulting agencies love to publish their success stories. They’re generally available online and easily can be extracted to your specific situations.

How to Improve your Processes using your Findings
1. Reduce inbound calls. If you see trends in your research about why your customers are making (expensive) inbound calls, after receiving a monthly statement like an explanation of benefits, it may be an indicator that your communication materials aren’t clear. It could also be that they are in appropriately timed. So not only are you paying printing and postage to mail a piece to a member but then you’re causing them to make a call in to a representative.

2. Improve your personas. Using market research will automatically help you understand your customer better. You’ll know if they look for your products at certain places, or that if, you rely on distributors, how they feel about those partners. For example, in the Medicare space a member can actually open a grievance with a plan based on a retail pharmacies cleanliness. This obviously isn’t anything a health plan can control, other than their overall relationship with the distributor.

3. Product Development. This is where you’ll get the most bang for  your market research dollar. When it comes time to upgrade your product or introduce complementary products, you’ll know exactly what your best customer are looking for. This should save you time to market.

Market research can seem daunting and cumbersome but it doesn’t have to be, there are easy ways to constantly listen to your customers and use their feedback to drive process improvements throughout your company.