Avoiding the HR Minefield

by Dr Greg Chapman

One of the most daunting things for a small business is taking on new employees. It’s a major commitment. Will the cashflow support the new employee? What must the new employee do to pay their way?

When small business owners do recruit, they often do this themselves to avoid the costs of agencies. There is nothing wrong with this, but it’s easy to make mistakes, particularly if you don’t recruit very often. I’m not just referring to following the latest rules, of which there are way too many, but also just knowing what best practice is in managing people. If you are intent on doing this yourself, there are free resources available to use from Fairwork Australia at their new Learning Center. This includes free online courses on topics such as Hiring New Employees, and Managing Performance. What I particularly like about the Learning Centre are the tools, checklists and letter templates that are provided to help you do everything from hiring to firing employees.

How Anchored are Your Prices?

Ever been to a fancy restaurant, where the staff are dressed in black and white? There are pure white linen table cloths on the table, silver cutlery and crystal wine glasses. The décor is sumptuous and all the customers are dressed in their finest.

As the waiter formally greets you at the table, and hands you the parchment menu, you open it with trepidation, and your eyes fall on the price list and you feel your wallet tremble. As you gaze down the list, each dish looks as if it had been described by an English Literature professor, but highlighted above all the others is their signature dish, their most expensive dish, and there is a quick intake of your breath as you mentally decide which of your children you will need to sell to pay for this meal.

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May Your Business this Year be - As You Plan It.

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Dr Greg Chapman is the Director of Empower Business Solutions and is Australia's Lea ding Advisor on Emerging Businesses and provides Coaching and Consulting advice to Australian Small Business Owners in Marketing & Business Strategies Planning & Systems. He is also the author of The Five Pillars of Guaranteed Business Success and Price: How You Can Charge More Without Losing Sales.

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Lessons for Small Business from Big Business – Appointing General Managers

by Dr Greg Chapman

It’s the dream of many small business owners to one day appoint a General Manager to their business so they can step back and enjoy life. In this dream world, the GM sends the owner regular reports, and a monthly cheque with little need for involvement from themselves except an occasional guiding hand.

Reality is somewhat different as I observed while watching the biopic on Steve Jobs. By all reports, he was not the easiest person to work with, in spite of (because of?) his genius.

Ad of the Month – Glitch?

by Dr Greg Chapman

This month’s Ad of the Month is not really an ad, or is it? You go to the trouble and expense of having a massive product launch. You invite all the influencers to be there to promote your product, and during the presentation, there is a fail of its major feature. Well that’s what happened to Apple. What happens next?

Sales Strategy- The Best Known Sales Secret in Business

by Dr.Greg Chapman

In any business, there is usually one person who outsells everyone else. You wish that all your sales staff were as good as this person. Often this person is you, the owner, but it doesn’t matter how much training you give the sales staff, or even if you increase incentives, little seems to change. What you have stumbled across is the best known sales secret in business.

Let’s Make a Meal Deal

by Dr Greg Chapman

One of the most overlooked strategies for increasing sales is the package deal - and yet any business can do it to instantly add to their turnover and profitability.

Package deals are different from upselling in that, when upselling you or your team member offers the extra product to the customer after the initial purchase decision, a package deal already has a number of products combined. The customer then has the option upfront without the need to be asked if they'd like to make the additional purchase.

In this podcast, I reveal how you can use packaging to increase your sales.

What I learned about Marketing from our Dog and Cat

by Dr Greg Chapman

While our dog is getting on in years, and suffers from arthritis and is almost blind, there is nothing wrong with his sense of smell and he loves his food. If you give him top grade steak, or just plain dog food from the can, he gulps it down the same way he did when he was a puppy. He will eat what our cat doesn't finish from her bowl. In fact if she throws any of it up, he will eat that too. He is just not that fussy. In fact the only thing we have found he won't eat is brussel sprouts. (I can't say that I can blame him.)

How much are Your Sales costing You?

When businesses look at their different products and services, they usually have pricing strategy. For products they may, for example, double the wholesale price to cover their overheads and deliver some net profit. For services, they may look at how long the component tasks take, the cost of the employees delivering the tasks, and again add a factor for overhead to determine their prices.

What few do is consider the cost of a sale. Now some sales are transactional, for example when you order a cup of coffee at a café. The barista isn’t spending a substantial part of her time convincing the customer to buy the coffee as the customer has already made a buying decision when he walks in to the café.

If, however, a person works at a car dealership, all their time is spent making the sale, and quite often there is no sale. In other businesses, employees spend time on both selling and delivering. These costs need to be considered when pricing products. More...

May Your Business this Year be - As You Plan It.

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Over to You. What do You Think? Post Your Comments Below. [Note to those seeking a free ride on our google ranking, blog spam will be deleted, but genuine contributions will be happily approved.]

Dr Greg Chapman is the Director of Empower Business Solutions and is Australia's Lea ding Advisor on Emerging Businesses and provides Coaching and Consulting advice to Australian Small Business Owners in Marketing & Business Strategies Planning & Systems. He is also the author of The Five Pillars of Guaranteed Business Success and Price: How You Can Charge More Without Losing Sales.

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The Australian Small Business Blog