Hey Square Readers,   You voted and chose The E-Myth Revisited by Michael E. Gerber as our Square Readers Book Club book for May & June 2024!     Here’s a quick summary: “Small business consultant and author Michael E. Gerber, with sharp insight gained from years of experience, points out how common assumptions, expectations, and even technical expertise can get in the way of running a successful business. Gerber walks you through the steps in the life of a business—from entrepreneurial infancy through adolescent growing pains to the mature entrepreneurial perspective: the guiding light of all businesses that succeed—and shows how to apply the lessons of franchising to any business, whether or not it is a franchise. Most importantly, Gerber draws the vital, often overlooked distinction between working on your business and working in your business.”   We’ll start reading on Monday, May 6th, so get ready and pick up a copy at a local library, bookstore, Amazon, or anywhere else!    We’ll have discussion threads being posted throughout the next two months, and a Live Discussion Video Chat at the end of June. Head over to this post to help us pick a day and time for this book’s Live Discussion Video Chat!   Don’t forget to: View and Subscribe to all threads about this book   We can’t wait to read with you! Pesso ... View more

Hey Square Readers,   We’re getting close to the end of Worth Every Penny by Sarah Petty and Erin Verbeck, and wrapping up the material this week. So far we’ve talked about the basics of the Boutique framework, the benefits of branding, providing incredible offerings and customer experience, and pricing them accordingly.    Now, let’s dive into section 4 of the book: Marketing & Selling.     Marketing “When you’re boutique, your marketing efforts must be boutique as well. Boutique marketing is focused on reaching customers who aren’t price sensitive, customers who want and appreciate all the extra things you do to make their lives better.”   The authors say that it’s not enough to be a boutique business, you also have to market like one. Old school mass marketing approaches like mailing postcards don’t work for boutique businesses. If you promote yourself like a big chain, you’ll attract price-sensitive big chain customers. Instead, it’s better to go high-touch, developing strategies to build a relationship with the right clients, in a personal and connection-driven way. It’s not just what you say, it’s how you say it.    Educate, don’t sell: By positioning yourself as an expert and teaching your customers, you build credibility, make yourself a reputable source that they want to buy from, and justify the value behind your higher prices. You can do this by explaining your methods one-on-one to your customers, writing blog posts and email newsletters, being featured on local media, creating explanation videos on social media, speaking at conventions, and more.    Build a Database: Keeping track of who your current and prospective customers are is essential to relationship building and being able to market to them. Having a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system is extremely valuable, keeping records that can help you better sell to them. This should include their contact information, what and how often they purchase, relevant details about their lives, and more. Build this out by networking in the community, building co-marketing partnerships with other businesses, donating gift cards to local charity events, running your own events and fundraisers, having a signup list on your website, and of course adding and updating customers automatically through your POS system.    Market for you: Think of your own consumption habits, and market to someone like yourself. If you just throw out mailer advertisements, don’t send them out for your business. If you wouldn’t want someone randomly calling you, don’t cold call others. But if you would be impressed by a handwritten letter, or a Surprise and Delight package, then try that. If you would want one of your favorite businesses calling you on your birthday, then try that too. Promote yourself in the places and ways that make sense for your ideal customer. Anything you do should be high-tough, creative and high quality, drive an emotional connection, tap into the senses, and stand out from others. Don’t be afraid of spending a little or even hiring a professional.    Nurturing Use that customer database you built to categorize your customers based on how much they spend, how often they come, how much they refer new customers to you, and even how much they complain and take up your time. You can then use these categories to treat them accordingly: rewarding the best clients, reconnecting with lapsed ones, and spending less time on the draining ones.   The authors write, “By categorizing all your clients, you’ll quickly be able to decipher who the best ones are… about 80 percent of your business will be driven by 20 percent of your customers… if you focus on treating the top 20 percent of your clients better, you can expend less effort and reap fantastic rewards. You don’t need to sell to everyone… Find your best customers, treat them like gold, and you’ve found a strategy that leads to customer loyalty and mega-success.”   You don’t necessarily need to fire the other 80%, but definitely treat your top 20% better than the rest. The authors provide some great ideas about how to actually do this. You can set up exclusive shopping hours, sales, workshops, and other events just for your top clients, or at least give them first look and early access to these offerings. Treat the very top customers to a better experience without asking for anything in return, just to show your appreciation. Communicate with them personally on social media as friends and humans, not in a selling way. Pay attention to things that are going on in their lives and send random-acts-of-kindness handwritten notes and personal gifts when they do.   Selling “Your job is to create demand for your offerings by sharing the benefits to your clients and prospects… find out how your offerings fill your clients’ needs and point out the solutions you offer… solve problems in their lives.”   The authors say that selling the right way is done without pressure, manipulation, convincing, badgering, or making people buy things they don’t want. Boutique selling happens organically through education, building rapport and a relationship, helping to solve their problems, and delivering high-touch engaging experiences. Focus on the benefits, ask and answer questions, spend time with each customer, be confident about your value and prices, be okay with losing a sale, be proactive, operate with honesty and integrity, and always remedy and fix when things go wrong.    Growing Business growth can happen through opening another location or expanding your customer base, or just by evolving to always be the best version of your business possible. The authors have a set of rules for growing while maintaining the Boutique framework.   They recommend growing by improving your offerings, always looking for the next best product or service, and implementing new ways to add value and thrill your customers. They recommend constantly analyzing everything you do, both existing and new ideas, to make sure it serves and fits your business and brand, is appealing to and helps your customers, and improves profitability rather than just adding extra risk and cost. They emphasize educating yourself on best practices and latest trends through reading, attending conventions, and finding a mentor who can steer you in the right direction and avoid wrong turns.    In our next and last discussion thread, we’ll talk about putting all of this together and the impact it has had on your business so far.   We’d love to hear your answers in the comments: What marketing practices do you currently use that you’ll stop? Which will you start? How can you position yourself as an expert and educate your customers? How can you market your business in a way that stands out and creates an emotional connection?   Don’t forget to: View and Subscribe to all threads about this book RSVP to our Live Discussion    Happy reading, Pesso ... View more

I know, I know.  LOL.  Chip seems to be perpetually stuck on our last book, “Profit First!”  But I keep finding reasons that it was a really good pick for us/me.  Here’s another.   It is reasonably certain that I’m going to be opening a second Piper’s Ice Cream Bar.  But, of course, now is the time to run the numbers and projections to be sure that I won’t be biting off more than I can chew, AND to be certain that I’m going to be able to ensure consistent owner draws from the outset.   A few days ago, I started that process and am using the same budgeting procedure that I used for my current operation this year.  So, first, I set an owner draw “goal” for the first year of the proposed location.  That money is now out of sight, out of mind, and I’m analyzing the new location with the only funds available to me for operations after my projected gross sales LESS my desired owner draws.   It’s a very interesting way of budgeting.  Instead of finding that the numbers don’t work with the desired owner draw, I’m finding that my initial operational budget was entirely unreasonable and needed a lot of tweaking.  Honestly, the new budget (and the operations that budget supports) have turned out to be better.  There’s no fat, no waste.  There IS a built-in emergency fund, though.   I feel so much more confident in the numbers I’m seeing so far, especially knowing that I am guaranteeing draws that are satisfactory to us, as partners.   Sweet. ... View more

Hey Square Readers,   We’re just about halfway through reading Worth Every Penny by Sarah Petty and Erin Verbeck, and so far we’ve talked about the basics of the Boutique framework, the benefits of branding, and providing incredible offerings and customer experience.    Now, let’s dive into section 3 of the book: Pricing.     Price Right “People are willing to pay more when the product or service they receive is worth more.”   Pricing your offerings the right way is key to being Worth Every Penny. It’s where all of the work you’ve done so far pays off. Literally.   The authors write, “Determining the price of your offerings can seem frightening. You might be thinking that you don’t want to undercut yourself, or maybe you’re afraid of overpricing to the point where you won’t get many customers. So where do you start?”   They recommend not just guessing, or leaving it up to the customer, or negotiating. Don’t just base your prices on what others are charging because you don’t know their businesses, and there’s going to be a huge range. Instead, your prices should reflect your expenses, but with an added healthy margin of profit to take into account the added value and quality of your services. Once you start creating demand for your offerings (detailed in Chapter 11 of the book), you can then take that into account and continuously adapt your pricing to charge even more, which customers won’t mind.    They say that competing based on price is a surefire way to go out of business. You’ll never be able to keep up with big name discount chains who will be known for having the lowest prices, so it’s up to you to set your business based on the value you can add rather than the price you can beat. Rather than lowering your prices, instead increase the value of the offerings to make the experience worth the price you need to charge.   The Real Cost of Discounts “With any sale, a boutique business owner risks devaluing his brand… And the scars of a sale can run much deeper.    Discounting your offerings may sound compelling to increase your sales, but being busy does not equal being profitable. Selling more at the cost of losing money is not the goal. Running discounts can hurt your business in a few different ways.    If you discount once, your customers will expect you to keep discounting. This applies to your new customers, but even to your existing loyal customers that you’ve spent time and money building up a brand and reputation. But if you never discount, customers know that and will buy from you at any time.    The authors write, “A drop in price teaches the best customers to wait for a sale or consider other, cheaper offerings… Everyone wants a great price. But certain people shop specifically for the lowest price. They are less loyal. They don’t care about the quality of what they are buying because nothing is more important to them than the price. You can’t build the business you want with these clients…”    Even more, you end up devaluing your offerings and your brand by lowering the price. It changes the customer perception of you and your business to that of a discount brand. To the customer, the offerings and your service now only have the value of the price they paid.    However, the authors say, “discounting can make sense in certain scenarios…” Some of those cases where discounting is valid and doesn’t devalue include: fleeting time-sensitive or closeout seasonal inventory, bundling or prepaying, services from employees in training, sampling, and partnerships with other businesses as referral leads. And of course, communicate those reasons to your customers so they know.   So they recommend adding value instead of discounting. You can do this by offering things like a free gift with purchase, or a loyalty program rewarding repeat visits. The difference here is that they are spending the full amount and are getting treated by you to a bonus. They’re seeing the value of buying from you, and you’re maintaining your profit and reputation.   In our next discussion thread, we’ll talk about Section 4: Marketing and Sales.   We’d love to hear your answer in the comments: Do you discount your prices? Why and what effect does it have?  How do you set your prices now? What is your current markup or profit margin? Can you safely increase it?  What makes your prices worth it? What can you do to increase the value of your offerings?    Feel free to share any other thoughts you have about this book. We can’t wait to hear your thoughts in the comments below!   Don’t forget to: View and Subscribe to all threads about this book RSVP to our Live Discussion    Happy reading, Pesso ... View more