DIY PR by Penny Haywood Calder

Businesses on average lose around 10 per cent of their business each year through no fault of their own. I suspect online businesses are at the lower end of that figure because it is an average. An average will include shops and other businesses on the high street that are affected by customers moving away from the area, and what is happening around them in terms of parking, building works and the general location. But even online businesses stand to lose out when customers emigrate, fall ill or sadly, die.

If your business sales figures are currently standing still, or going down, it will certainly do no harm (and should do a lot of good) to add 10 per cent to your sales targets and promotional effort.

This blog will be looking into how you can target that effort more effectively.

Labels: boosting your business, business planning, business promotion, online businesses, planning for success, sales targets

Don’t forget to keep trying out new markets too – either new sectors or new geographical areas – not forgetting online. Companies are laying off some gems of experienced people and others in work are looking for extra cash. They could help you open up new routes to market.


So, use the gloom to get your business into shape to sprint away as soon as the recession ends with great new ideas, new markets, a green gleam, the best possible team, and a sharpened up set of business procedures. Plus fantastic sales conversion rates, superb cross-selling, and of course brilliant sales, referrals deals, marketing & PR.

Then work out what brings in business and do more of it! Spend more on the things that bring business in, so if it’s referrals work out how you can get more - by networking? By increasing rewards to referrers? Increasing profile on and offline?

If all the sales enquiries come through your website: consider getting professional help with Pay Per Click campaigns.

Plus boost natural search optimisation with blogs, newsletters (posted to your website as well as distributed by email to your mailing list) and press releases to on and offline media to add external media endorsement and boost SEO rankings.

Boost sales per customer through cross-selling, great newsletters, and referrals programs with rewards for referrals – it’s much cheaper to sell to the converted than start from scratch.

If there's one thing that will improve sales results faster and more cheaply than anything else, it is this: it's much cheaper to boost your sales enquiries conversion rate than increase the numbers of new business enquiries.

Do better with the enquiries you get is really important, but most people try to increase sales enquiries which is the most expensive option. You can't improve your conversion rate if you don't track it and really focus on improving all the stages involved, so set up a spreadsheet, amend your database or use sales software (there's free options at ZoHo.com).

Analyse how your site performs, where people leave you and how to optimise your site. And ensure that buyers are never more than a click away from buying on every page. Get into Google Analytics - they now have a free course and a personal qualification in Google Analytics you can achieve to test your learning and boost your confidence.

And for B2B sales, become brilliant at converting enquiries to sales with win:win strategies. Teasing out the personal benefits the buyer needs to look great because he/she bought from you will help them keep their job if you are selling to corporates and get you favoured over all those people still stuck on plugging features, benefits and results to the company.

Whether you are selling B2B or B2C, use well written case studies to pile on the peer group pressure to buy from you to get the edge you are giving to their competitors or peers. Good case studies put up on your website also bump up your SEO content.

Have a look at the one we did for Knitters and Sewers World on this website.

Save our business and the planet - drive down costs going green - it'll never be easier to sell in to staff, but develop a policy for your business and do it with commitment so it still has traction to save you money when the going gets better. Gain green credentials on the back of saving money by driving down energy and travel/transport costs, keeping company cars longer, etc - and publicise your green-ness to benefit from increased access to public sector tenders and business from not-for-profits and charities etc. Consider outside accreditation and green awards.

You'll never get a better time to persuade staff to sharpen up their act. Use the economic climate to really crack down on expenses control, budgeting, efficiency and productivity. If you have lost work and need to make redundancies, plan carefully how to lose the staff that don't deliver and seek advice on how to craft a redundancy policy that allows you to retain the best. Make sure you follow the process to the letter to avoid unfair dismissal claims as these have soared since the recession started. Cover workload gaps by seeing what work you can parcel up and farm out to freelancers through sites like peopleperhour.com. There are some amazingly competent people moonlighting or coping with redundancy if you resist the temptation to run with the cheapest bid for handling your work, but watch out for data protection issues and get non-disclosure agreements in place and check how secure the freelancers systems are.

With hindsight, there's always a lot of good things that come out of a recession and this article is designed to give you the insight to not only survive, but thrive, provided that you respond to the times and don't carry on in the same rut.

Recessions make businesses incredibly robust. That's because the businesses that survive make every penny count in this climate and set up a robust business model.

Here's some key areas to tackle.

1) Take the opportunity to improve credit control at a time when it is less likely to offend potential clients. In tough times that's expected. If you offer credit, increase the references you take up and use a credit reference agency. And sharpen up your money collection: although you can use late payment interest warnings, I find that offering inducements for early payment works better. Plus immediate invoicing, done right first time, with correct references to PO numbers and contracts. Log those who are dodging payment & chase: go round to collect in person.