8-6-15 Do you know where your customers live?

A helpful and basic bit of information that can guide your marketing when you run a store front business or a business out of your home is to know the community where your customers live.

The simplest method to learn this is to create a system where you get the zip code of every person who comes into your business or contacts you to make a purchase.  This can be done on a computer or by doing listings and hatch marks on a piece of paper near your register (OK, I know this doesn’t sound very high-tech, but it works).

You can keep track of these zip code tabulations by the month or season, or after your business has a new advertisement or special promotion.

Once you see the patterns, it can provide you with valuable information about where, geographically, to focus your advertising dollars.

7-30-15 Bubba Burgers: Having fun is good for business

I just published an article about “Bubba Flame Broiled Burgers” in Whidbey Local .

When I first spoke to the owner/manager, Heather Koch (her husband, Greg, is her partner in the business), I had to wait while she finished taking an order from a customer.  Taking the order including hollering the order back to the crew, making a silly comment and encouraging her gang to sing while they worked.

Sitting around the Bubba food truck and having lunch on a picnic table under an umbrella, you hear non-stop singing and laughing.  It’s difficult not getting caught up in the mood.  When people pick up their orders, they walk away smiling.

I really noticed the contagious mood created by the Bubba Burgers crew.  You can feel the pleasure customers get just doing the simple transaction: selecting from the menu, placing the order and waiting for the meal to be served.

It’s all done with smiles and laughter.

Of course, it helps that the food is really delicious.

7-23-15 Guidelines for facilitating a productive meeting

As a professional facilitator, it's sometimes difficult for me to participate in a meeting where I feel there is a lot of talk not related to what needs to be accomplished. It's also frustrating to hear people who want to dominate and direct the discussion according to their own opinions and ideas rather than sticking to the topics being presented.

Here are my suggestions for having a meeting that will be productive and make people feel it was a worthwhile use of their time:

• Have a set of clear goals for what the meeting is intended to accomplish;
• Create a simple agenda and follow followed it as much as possible;
• Allow people to contribute their ideas, but keep people focused on the main goals of the meeting;
• Plan two hours for the meeting, so that people will have a little time to socialize at the beginning, but the meeting itself is to be limited to no more than an hour and a half
• Keep everyone focused on the agenda and assure that no single voice dominates.

One of my favorite tools is having people volunteer ideas that I can “laundry-list.”  When everyone seems satisfied that all of the ideas have been listed, invite people to come up and choose three (or five, depending on how long the list is) as their top priorities.

Every time I use this tool – listing ideas and having people prioritize – I am always pleased that there is a clear consensus on three, four or five items. This provides tangible results that can be passed along or used for making decisions.

My overall goal is to have everyone leave a meeting smiling and feeling confident and comfortable that they were able to share their ideas, hear what others had to say and feel that their time was honored and well spent.

7-16-15 The City of Langley launches “Here for You,” a program to encourage tourists and locals to visit Langley businesses

Visitors to Langley will be noticing “Here for You” signs in the windows of many of the businesses, most often posted above their days and hours of operation.  It’s a simple way to let people know they are welcome in the stores and their business is appreciated.

There is a downloadable brochure listing summer days and hours that businesses are open that is available through the Langley Chamber, Langley Main Street Association and City of Langley websites.  Print copies of the brochure are also being distributed by the Chamber and other organizations and lodgings.

This was a major collaborative effort of the Chamber, Langley Main Street and the City.  The brochure lists 67 businesses.  As Mayor Fred McCarthy pointed out, “This is a good time to remind everyone how important it is to shop local and buy what you need here in Langley at our local businesses.”

From a marketing perspective, it combines many aspects of building a successful business: collaboration, letting people know you are open for business and doing a community marketing effort.

7-9-15 Fair Trade Outfitters is filling a niche on Whidbey Island

One of the most effective marketing tools is to offer a product that is unique and fills a niche.  Letting people know you have something special that they want usually portends a successful business.

A new business just opened in Langley that does just that.  Fair Trade Outfitters on Anthes Street in downtown Langley is offering a large selection of women’s clothing, as well as some men’s clothing,  that is “fair trade,” defined by owners Barry and Lily van Gerbig as, “products that are made by workers who have jobs with reasonable hours, who receive fair wages and who work in clean, safe environments.”

While there are some fair trade products available on Whidbey, such as coffee, this is the first clothing store devoted entirely to fair trade items.  

I wrote about Fair Trade Outfitters on Whidbey Local and invite you to read about this new niche business: http://www.whidbeylocal.com/article/view/777