Quantcast Smallbiz Central Discussion
Managing through the Recession - ways to maintain a competitive advantage
Moderator: Brenda Gilchrist, SPHR
Date: 01/27/09 12:00 AM
introduction
Help...I need ideas to motivate my Team!!
Moderator: davemechanic
Date: 08/24/09 12:00 AM
introduction
Team motivation comes from a committment and belief in the brand!
By: Suzanne Tulien
Date: 10/30/09 12:57 PM
There are sure fire ways to motivate your employee team and keep them highly focused. The key piece to this is undergoing a internal brand-defining initiative. This process will awake and re-energize your team to take ownership in the brand they represent. We have seen amazing paradigm shifts in employee cultures when they begin to truly understand and CONTRIBUTE to what the brand stands for.  Too many businesses, unfortunately, do not take the time to create the brand foundation and provide an clear definition of its own Brand DNA. How can employees truly embrace an employer, especially when times are tough, when they don't clearly understand what the brand stands for?

Through our proprietary, step-by-step, online course you can engage your employee team through powerful experiential brand-defining activities that not only build teams, but help them get crystal clear on the brand and take ownership of its success. This process re-ignites the meaning and depth of your brand and re-energizes it through unique behaviors and actions that help you create more consistency and distinction in your marketplace.  I highly encourage you to check out this comprehensive MISSING PIECE in small business growth. http://www.BrandAscension.com - Would love to speak to you personally, you can reach me at Suzanne@BrandAscension.com.
I shop at dollar stores more
By: Demos Loizides
Date: 05/29/09 08:45 PM
I've started buying a lot of personal items and cheap business supplies at dollar stores. My new favorite supply store is Dollar Tree.
It costs less to retain existing clients than to acquire new ones.
By: TiagoSoromenho
Date: 04/02/09 12:00 AM
In tight economic times, it's hard to avoid tightening one's financial belt, usually scaling back on advertising and other marketing activities. It's a natural response. One way to be able to do that and still not lose out on a lot of customers is to try to make the ones you already have come back again, and more often.  Loyalty programs are the best way to achieve that, but they have always been very expensive to implement (plastic cards, hardware, transaction fees, etc. etc.) 

My wife's salon started seeing a downturn in demand for high-end salon services, and she found this company, StickyStreet.com that lets her create her own points and referral loyalty campaigns for $29.95 a month, and requires no hardware, plastic cards and no transaction fees. Then she uses the data collected to runs reports on her most frequent customers, or the ones that have spent to most amount, and sends them thank-you cards with small gift cards for them to give to their friends for a discount of services. She figures that if that customer likes her services, her friends likely do too. 

We've been hearing a lot of other salons around the area complain of falling sales, especially with the high-profit, luxury services (color, extensions, massages, facials) but I think because of her loyalty program (http://www.mosaic-bethesda.com/mosaicrewards.html -- if you want to see details) and although the number of new customers has indeed dropped significantly, her repeat customers have been coming back more often, and requesting the high end services just as much as before.