Author: jgehris

Is it time to position the business for the next step?

Two absolutes still control a Main Street market:

1. Change is constant
2. Change never occurs in a vacuum

A worthy next step goal is to grow sales, increase profitability, and strengthen customer loyalty.

Should this include launching a new initiative? Can leveraging customer loyalty reach more potential customers?

Should a next step include adding select new products or an enhanced service? Does customer feedback indicate an interest in this? Are your primary suppliers introducing a new product line?

Does customer data confirm potential new demographic targets for your outreach? What’s the most effective way to connect with them?

Will a branding and marketing campaign strengthen your brand and extend its reach? Will additional prestige-builders and market differentiators grow sales, increase profitability, and strengthen customer loyalty?

We provide a Strategic Advisory to answer these questions and more.

An initial meet helps us get to know your business, its needs, and your business and personal goals moving forward.

We’re interested in your story as part of our quest for 1000 conversations with small business owners and entrepreneurs. You are in a select group of thinkers, risk-takers, and doers.

We’ll create an Action plan with a Road Map to ensure your next step delivers increased sales, greater profitability, and stronger customer relationships.

See what Latham Wade can do for you.

A friend asked me to help him reposition his second-generation company that was being impacted by forced bidding for the Medicare contract as part of the Affordable Care Act (the ACA).

The new law created statistical areas as part of the bidding process … his area included Long Island, New York City, and several counties North of the City to Albany, an area served by over 250 plus dealers previously.

We crafted a multi-step turnaround plan that included reducing staff, selling the building to free-up working capital, and securing exclusive distributorship rights to new upscale niche products for customers who did not need or use insurance. 

In addition, we trained an in-store associate for Concierge sales when we saw how well he related to customers.

The turnaround took almost 3 years from conception. My friend’s company now has strong financials and a growing loyal client portfolio. We’ll meet again this summer to discuss a next step.

Big Picture change to a market, an industry, or the economy impacts every business. We are living through an unprecedented series of Big Picture changes that affect all of us, especially business owners and entrepreneurs.

A turnaround for a small business starts with a free-thinking top-down review of the business, its products and services, customers, and market differentiators. We’ll complete a fresh market analysis confirming brand strength and positioning, and also assess the industry itself.

We’ll look at change and variation in sales, including where you are experiencing growth, customer buying patterns, customer loyalty, and new customer acquisition. We’ll also look for different prestige-builders to connect with customers and reach more potential customers.

Each business owner has a story that needs to be told. Doing this nurtures customer relationships which is a significant business-builder and market differentiator.

In a few words … we’ll help you determine what needs to be changed, how to do this, and how to build an effective turnaround.

See what Latham Wade can do for you.

                                  

A business owner in a Main Street Community asked me what we do.

I told him we can help him position his business for greater success. Then I asked him, “What is the one thing you would do with your business if you could?”  

He said his business survived the pandemic and is doing OK, but could do better. He said he needs to attract more new shoppers and increase online sales.

I asked him if his market has changed. He said his store traffic is a little better now than it was before the pandemic, but online sales have dropped considerably. His town’s Main Street shopping district has several new stores and a few more eateries, thus downtown foot traffic is better than before the pandemic.

His gift shop is well-niched, too, so he questions whether his sales growth is what it should be.

I suggested we do a fresh market analysis of gift shops within 20 miles while he generates POS data for in-store purchases and a summary of online sales before, during, and after the pandemic.  

We’ll meet again in two weeks, enough time for us to complete the market analysis and for him to generate the requested data.  In the interim, we’ll also assess website and social media analytics, and look at how he communicates with existing and potential customers.

Next, we’ll measure the store’s brand strength and reach, and identify his customer demographics. Then we’ll craft a Forward Strategy with a Road Map and timeline for his next step.

See what Latham Wade can do for you!  

Advertising, marketing, and media strengthen brand and extend its reach which always produce more loyal customers and more bona fide prospects.

Strategic marketing utilizes the best of these three growth components to position your business for accelerated success in your market. It is designed to satisfy the following universal business goals:

• Optimize customer experience
• Nurture customer relationships to strengthen customer loyalty
• Leverage customer loyalty to grow more new business
• Target potential customers effectively
• Ensure the business is highly ranked by keyword in Internet searches
• Communicate with customers and prospects regularly 

We’ll create a new growth plan that addresses your business needs and wants, and helps you achieve personal goals. This will include specifics with a Road Map moving forward. In addition, we always look at your market since change never occurs in a vacuum. 

Organic content marketing is the most effective way to secure new and sustainable growth. This should include a digital strategy for email marketing, social media posts, website blogs, and newsletters. We also use print media for retail merchandising and POS displays, and as an enclosure when fulfilling an online sale.

Growing a buzz or following is the goal in social media marketing. The key is to inform, educate, and entertain often in social media posts. Funny works well.

Blogging should deliver useful and interesting information about your business, products, and services. This is an opportunity to tell a story and also differentiate your business from the competition.

We believe in the power of a marketing and branding campaign to introduce a new product or service, celebrate an anniversary or special event, and strengthen brand and grow its reach. 

Your new growth plan will have a unique mix of the above. We’ll keep score and adjust the mix and content as needed.

There are more ways than ever to connect with existing customers and prospects, and build-out your business. Indeed, it is an exciting time to be an entrepreneur and business owner!

See what Latham Wade can do for you!   

The Great Reset after the pandemic is ongoing, but the recovery is uneven.

New growth is a must whether you are in Retail, the restaurant business, the service space serving homeowners, or in manufacturing.

How do we get there?

It is a given that a smart plan for new sustainable growth naturally flows from a fresh review of your ideal customer profile, target demographics, how you frame your value proposition, how you communicate with existing customers, and how you reach potential new customers.  

We create unique compelling content to inform, educate, and amuse existing customers and reach more prospects. Effective digital marketing and social media posts strengthen customer relationships and convert more prospects to loyal new customers.

A companion goal typically includes leveraging customer relationships to grow more new business. Other goals could be to increase the frequency or amount of customer spending, introduce new products or services, or expand to additional locations.

You know your customers. A strategic growth plan must strengthen your reputation (brand) in the marketplace, extend its reach, and increase the penetration of target demographics.

We know your immediate needs, wants, and goals are unique, that’s why we start there. They will form the basis of a new forward-thinking growth strategy that grows sales, profitability, and customer loyalty.

See what Latham Wade can do for you!

The goal always is to nourish existing relationships to strengthen customer loyalty and leverage the power of these relationships to gain new customers.  

Effective digital content marketing and social media marketing generate interest, drive more repeat and new sales (customer spend), and also strengthen customer relationships. 

Defining your goals determines how you seek greater sales and new growth for your business. Is an immediate goal to increase the average spend of existing customers, increase the frequency of existing customer spend, target a new demographic, or a combination of these strategies?

Should the digital marketing program include regular or occasional emails to existing customers and prospects consistent with your ideal customer profile?

How should your social media marketing program align with your digital marketing program?

Remember, the most effective social media programs post quality fresh content regularly that informs, educates, and amuses an audience. Showing a personal side with humor is contagious and generates more likes and followers which translates to more new customers.  

Entrepreneurs keep score. They know their customers’ buying habits and patterns. This typically includes gathering data that confirms …  

• Which customers take advantage of digital marketing and social media one-time offers
• What the promotional offers were, including post, time, and date
• Whether the offer was online or in-store
• Which product (or products) the customer purchased
• The dollar value of each customer’s one-time spends
• The customer spend history for digital marketing and social media promotions 

Again, keeping score is a must to thrive in today’s marketplace. Contact us if you have an interest in getting more results from your digital marketing program and social media strategy.  

See what Latham Wade can do for you!

The argument about whether we are in a recession or not continues. The July jobs report was stronger than expected (good news), thus some analysts say we cannot be in a recession despite having negative growth for two consecutive quarters.  

Gasoline prices have come down, but are still more than double nationwide what they were in 2020. Some food prices have also recently declined, but this change also follows a serious run-up.  

New economic data confirms new credit card spending is near an all-time high. One key to remember is that 70% of annual GDP is consumer spending for goods and services.

Here are several questions relevant to the remainder of 2022: 

• Were sales the past six months greater, about the same, or less than the previous 6 months?
• Was your average customer “spend” more or less the past 6 months than the prior 6 months?
• Have you grown more new customers the past 6 months than the previous 6 months?  
• Are you using web-based digital content marketing to reach customers and prospects?
• Have you targeted a new demographic in the past 6 months?    
• Are you satisfied with your social media presence and reach?
• Are you getting more or fewer testimonials and referrals than 6 months ago?
• Have you added new products or services in the past 6 months?
• If your market has changed in the past 6 months, how has it changed?
• What is your most immediate need?

We’ll distill your answers to these 10 questions into a Road Map to satisfy immediate business needs and achieve business goals. In addition, we will help you create a winning strategy for the next step whether it is to build consistent new growth or hold sales, profits, and market positioning.

See what Latham Wade can do for you!

It seems counter-intuitive to see opportunity when wholesale change impacts the economy, but it need not be your reality. The predicted V-shape recovery has been replaced by spiraling gasoline and energy costs, 40-year high inflation, and slow or no-growth.

Here are several ways to reinforce customer loyalty to maintain profit margins during the run-up in costs, continuing inflation, and supply chain disruption:

1. Streamline customer service
2. Enhance the customer experience
3. Find additional ways to thank your loyal customers.
4. Communicate with your customers regularly
5. Use prestige-builders to strengthen brand and extend its reach
6. Make it easy for prospects to do business with your company
7. Be honest about supply chain problems
8. Look for alternative suppliers

Communication with employees and management staff is also key. Here are a few absolutes:

1. Communicate with your staff regularly
2. Implement new Team-building exercises
3. Encourage and support staff effort
4. Reward staff’s exceptional customer service

Having an effective new growth strategy is more important than ever in a sluggish or recessionary economy:

1. Leverage customer relationships to secure more online testimonials and word-of-mouth referrals
2. Use digital web-based and social media marketing to reach customers and prospects
3. Consider one of the traditional niche advertising media
4. Enhance user website experience with new content, linkage, and navigation
5. Invest in local and off-page SEO to generate more prospects
6. Launch a branding and marketing campaign to reach a new target demographic
7. Use data-driven takeaways to adjust your strategy as-needed
8. Consider a power-partnering Joint Venture with another business owner or entrepreneur

Some say the future is already in the present and we simply need to look for change to find it. Embrace change by identifying the new opportunity it always brings. Counter disruption with innovation. Use the basics to create the future.

Stagflation could be with us until 2024. What you decide to do right now will determine to a large degree how the twin challenges of sluggish growth and continued high inflation affect your business.

See what Latham Wade can do for you!

The pandemic shut-down has changed how America works. In addition, it has elevated the importance of a comprehensive marketing plan.

Will the old ‘normal’ return or are we looking at possible permanent change in how we shop, how businesses connect with customers and prospects, and how America works?

The full answer is not an easy one because each small business is uniquely different given its different products and services, location, and market niche.

An effective digital Front Door is a must for your website and your business. Making the website “alive” rather than a billboard is a must. Posting regular fresh content that is useful, interesting, and compelling will ensure your website drives more customers and prospects to your patient funnel.

Here are the broad strokes of a successful reboot:

1. Set immediate needs, short-term goals, and longer-term goals
2. Assess current advertising, marketing, and media
3. Generate a fresh market analysis because nothing happens in a vacuum
4. Create a tactical and strategic marketing plan to grow sales and customers
5. Launch a Reboot Campaign
   • The Digital Front Door
   • Digital marketing (push and/or pull marketing)
   • Social media campaigns
   • Customer loyalty rewards
   • Leveraging testimonials
   • Multimedia tools to enhance brand strength and expand reach

Sound good?

How you communicate with customers or clients and prospects will determine how successful you are. Everything now is in-play.

Marketing 4.0 begins with a Strategic Advisory to assess your marketing component. We’ll work with you to create the right tactical and strategic marketing plan for your business.

Our Strategic Advisory will ensure your Reboot Campaign satisfies immediate needs and short-term goals, and positions your business for sustainable growth and profitability longer term.

This will be “the new normal” for small business America that is nimble, tactical, and strategic.

Federalism mandates governors have the authority to design a reopening plan that reflects their state’s COVID-19 data and meets the needs of their state’s citizenry.

A recent review of the national response to COVID-19, including distilling the real data, produced the following takeaways:

1. The all-of-America federal response led by President Trump and the Task Force was the correct approach
2. The public-private partnership produced sufficient ventilators and PPE. Antibiotics, and ICU beds have been sufficient to meet demand.
3. Doctors are using protocols that work with viral pneumonia successfully and are innovating to save lives
4. 99.996% of all mortality has been in adults over the age of 18 – children have no risk and need to resume the entirety of their lives
5. If you are under 60 years old and do not have diabetes, heart disease, lung disease, cancer, or an auto-immune system disorder. your risk is no greater than with the seasonal influenza
6. 38% of all mortality nationally has been nursing home patients. This cohort is the most vulnerable group among us
7. Several governors implemented policies that resulted in the death of thousands of nursing home residents. (67% of all deaths in one state have been nursing home patients)
8. The virus binds with a patient’s hemoglobin like malaria; diabetics are the most at-risk because they already have diminished blood oxygen levels since glucose binds with their hemoglobin
9. 69% of patients with heart disease who were given a blood thinner while on a ventilator survived versus only 18% without a blood thinner
10. As much as 20% of the general population is asymptomatic … they already had the virus, did not know it, and now have antibodies. 70% of these people have strong enough antibodies to give themselves future immunity and donate their blood plasma to save lives
11. Blood plasma therapy that was used successfully 100 years ago with the Spanish Flu and is again successful in defeating the virus in initial studies
12. The AHCE virus model that projected from 1.5 to 2.2 million deaths if President Trump did not shut-down the economy was badly flawed
13. The real data confirms the mortality rate nationally will be .1% which is consistent with data on the seasonal flu (Dr. Scott Atlas, Hoover Institute of Stanford University and a former Stanford epidemiologist)
14. The data shows that we need to reopen our economies and return to our way of life now. Many governors are doing this while others are slow-walking the eventual normalization
15. If a Walmart and Target can be open because they use smart social distancing and limit in-store customer traffic to 25% of total capacity, large retailers and all small businesses should be open now
16. All businesses need to reopen now using smart strategies to protect the most vulnerable in a transition period
17. School needs to reopen in the fall and all youth activities should resume immediately
18. 48% of patients who were undergoing treatment stopped their treatment because of fear of contracting the virus. Some of these patients will die as a result
19. Suicides and substance abuse have spiked more than 4-fold during this shutdown.
20. Continued Shelter-in-Place Orders by governors will cause more deaths than they will save
21. A significant percentage of prisoners released during this pandemic have committed another crime (this is another example of bad policy)
22. The national media continues to push a false narrative about the federal government response and now is hyping fear of a Second and Third wave despite the facts
23. Some governors seem to be all-in for nonsensical restrictions that confirm a totalitarian bent
24. COVID-19 is not a naturally occurring virus – it has been manipulated and thus is an RNA virus. There has never been a viable vaccine for an RNA virus. Early returns on the Moderna vaccine are not promising
25. Some existing therapeutics (anti-viral drugs) have lessened the severity of the virus; several promising new therapeutics are in the developmental pipeline

Some want to fundamentally change America and are using COVID-19 as the vehicle to accomplish their goals. Keeping Americans closeted will ensure our way of life vanishes as millions of America businesses will never return and millions of Americans will remain unemployed.

Now is the time to reopen America!!