Follow me on this thread while I provide you with free,yet powerful tips to help you grow your business.To start with,you must identify your competitors.Your competitors are other businesses that offer similar products or services to the same customers you are targeting.Examine your competitors to see if you can identify a weakness in their products that you can use to win their customers.Can you provide a consistently better product/service for the same or lower price?Do not forget to download the free manual on my signature and start your own Liquid Soap Production business today.SUCCESS!

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I‘m impressed! Kudos...

I like this.

omotola1: I‘m impressed! Kudos...

Thanks.

Subscribes to thread.

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Good work here Mr. Pat, am into production of customized air freshener for companies, org & NGO etc. Pls i need a copy of business proposal and how do I submit my business proposal letter to these companies without a registered coy of my own? Though am working for a client now on small production but am targeting the big ones. Pls i would appreciate any detailed info from you. Thanx.

We develop business plans not business proposals.You can download a free business proposal template at www.biztree.com

I’ve shared this on this forum before.
25 POWERFUL RETAIL BUSINESS TIPS

1. Find out who your customers are and what they need.
2. Determine your customers` location, age, income, and occupation, population, buying habits, interests and life styles.
3. Know the reason customers patronize your shop and improve on that aspect. Remember that there is always a room for improvement.
4. Understand the market forces affecting your customers` behavior when it comes to price and how much they are willing to pay.
5. The price of a commodity as an imperative role to play in the quantity purchased. Provide lower prices than that of your competitors and also better customer service.
6. Seek suggestions from loyal customers on how you can serve them better.
7. Try to re-establish lost or inactive customers.
8. We are in the era of relationship marketing. Customers are more confident to purchase goods from who they are familiar with .Every business that wants to succeed must create and nurture meaningful personal relationships with customers.
9. Use a questionnaire to help you determine customer needs.
10. Train sales attendants to attend to customers in a friendly and professional manner.
11. Analyze customer complaints and take prompt and necessary actions to prevent recurrence.
12. Get attractive T-shirts with your business name and logo printed on them for your staff to wear to work.
13. Call customers to inform them when new products have arrived.
14. Produce bags with your business name on them to pack goods for your customers.
15. Create new opportunities for customers to purchase more frequently from your store.
16. Nobody wants to be associated with a dirty environment so keep your shop as neat and tidy as possible. Arrange your goods neatly on shelves.
17. Implement proven business formula of other successful retail businesses in your area.
18. Have the name of your business boldly and beautifully printed on a signboard at the top entrance to your shop.
19. Many small business owners view financial record-keeping as a waste of time. Proper accounting records provide information that would assist in making business decision. A small retail business without adequate internal control system and record-keeping stands the risks of being ruined by dubious employees. Keep proper records of inventories, sales, purchases, cash etc.
20. Develop a system for tracking slow-moving merchandise and those that are your best sellers.
21. Know your average sales transactions and what you can do to increase them.
22. Offer discounts and incentives to customers. They so much appreciate it.
23. Your employees are in the best position to give advice on how customers can be serviced better and how your business can be improved. Endeavor to seek their opinion regularly, especially before making strategic decisions. Respect your employees and make them feel important. One of my lecturers at the University of Benin once said that man is the hub around which every activity in an organization revolves. All other resources put together without labor to co-ordinate them, amounts to zero output.
24. Reward employees with bonuses and gifts for their extra effort and innovation.
25. And finally, the most important of them, location. The location of your business can make or mar it. If you have not already decided on a location for your business, ensure to choose a location that makes you visible to your prospective customers. Choose a location with a lot of traffic. An American authority in marketing wrote that the three most important factors to be considered in business are location, location and location.

beautiful!!!!!!!!!!! Strolling into the thread, taking d front seat, grabbing my bucket of pop corn and totally subscribing! Mods front page pleeeaaaaase!

What advice do u guys have for a young entrepreneur thats sells recharge vouchers(mtn, airtel etc.) like me that wants to make it big . Pls advice needed thanks

This is another good thread.

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Good post. Following...

Employ referral marketing techniques by encouraging, informing, promoting and rewarding customers and contacts to think and talk as much as possible about your products, business and the value and benefits they derived. There are only three reasons a customer will want give referral to your business:
1. He wants to help you.
2. He wants to help the person he is referring.
3. He wants to help himself.
To get more referrals, you must encourage these motivations and make it EASY to refer you. Customers will only refer their friends and relatives to businesses they know, love and trust. We recommend you employ the following techniques:
Incentives: A gift, a commission or a discount, can all work as incentives for customers to help themselves. Adding an incentive alone is not generally sufficient, since whatever you offer is unlikely to make up for the possible risk involved. Think of incentives more as the carrot to push a referrer from ‘thinking about referring you’ to ‘actually referring you’. If you do offer incentives, it is important to do it with tact and care. This is because you don’t want your customers to feel you are trying to buy them and neither do you want their referrals to think they were referred for some other reason than for your awesome products and services.
Ask and you shall receive: Don’t be shy, come out and solicit referrals from satisfied customers. If you don’t like asking in person, then, send an SMS to your customers to tell someone about your business. They will be happy to do that.
Provide them with the tools they need: Ensuring your referrers have an easy point of contact-whether it’s a website, a Facebook page or just a business card to give out means you are removing one more obstacle to getting those referrals. And of course, make sure that the phone gets answered, emails get responses and you follow up on those referral leads. Don’t let them go to waste or you are unlikely to get referred again by that person. (Note: A large number of satisfied customers telling the world about your business is much more effective than any amount of advertising you can pay for).

Goodmorning friends,Our tips will continue shortly.If you're driving,pls remember to move at a safe speed.If you're the passenger,you have the right to caution the driver if he over-speeds.Exercise that right if the need arises.Do have a splendid day ahead.

Beautiful and powerful posts, Businesstools.Superb stuff from business school. Thank you.God bless you.
www.entrepreneurialjunction..com

We'll continue with our tips tomorrow.Meanwhile,Let's share with you an inspirational quote by Tony Dorsett,"To succeed,you need to find something to hold on to,something to motivate you,something to inspire you." This applies to every of life's endeavor,including business.

I am trying to do an online electronic shopping site that allows people within west Africa to buy products. It will also include revives too. Please can you kindly recommend a good business plan. Thanks. You can reach me on Oscar.4real@hotmail.com

Every business that wants to succeed should develop customer service strategy which is aimed at achieving the following objectives:
• To learn about customer experiences.
• To help customers find what they are looking for.
• To achieve competitive advantage.
• To keep customers informed at all times.
• To facilitate customer-business communication.
• To make business look less intimidating and more humane.
• To manage customers better.
Shortly, we’ll be providing you with powerful customer service strategies to help you retain your customers and improve profitability.

oscarvicto: I am trying to do an online electronic shopping site that allows people within west Africa to buy products. It will also include revives too. Please can you kindly recommend a good business plan. Thanks. You can reach me on Oscar.4real@hotmail.com

It is not a good idea to manage your business based on someone else's plan.Every business is unique in terms of goals,vision,strengths,weaknesses,resources,circumstances etc.Consequently,what works for business A might not work for business B.BusinessTools is a leading firm of professional business plan writers committed to transforming your ideas into reality.To find out more about our great business plan writing services,we encourage you to call 07030949450 or visit our website, www.businesstoolsng.com

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