by Dan Beaulieu
Business consultant

No Job too small.

Even if you are technically now a “skilled laborer” you can offer your services and grow your business right now… Without any special tools, equipment, or skills. You just have to know how to work hard and let people know you are available.

I am talking about the so-called small stuff. The type of work that normally falls through the proverbial cracks of normal provided services.

The true essence of a business is to find a need and fill it.

Customers, home owners, small business owners, even other companies have those needs today. They need you right now if you can offer these services:

• Small carpentry jobs from putting in a window to hanging shelves to, yes, even hanging things on the wall, to fixing a broken step or a broken window, people are looking for someone who can do this kind of work. The kind of work that the larger companies can’t be bothered to do. General handyman or woman services to do anything a home owner needs, just the small stuff like repairing a fence or a step.
• Other small jobs of any kind. People need someone to paint their steps, paint their shed, or cut a few branches. All jobs that are too small to even call a larger company.
• Cleaning out attics and basements and garages and sheds and other storage areas. People need someone who can show up, clean their attic, cart away things that are no longer needed and bring that space back to life. No special skills are required. All that you need is strong hand, back and ambitions. Even just hauling away and properly disposing of anything from old paint cans to old appliances. There are no easy ways to do this right now?
• Detailing cars: the largest detailing companies are booked out for months. But the demand for this service remains high. People would be delighted if they could call someone to come to their house and detail their vehicles in their own driveway.
• Taking in and storing window air conditioners in the fall and installing them in the spring.
• Winterizing homes from taking in a storing outdoor furniture including properly storing that barbecue and grill.
• Hanging Christmas decorations on the outsides of homes and businesses. And then taking down those decorations.
• General house cleaning on a regular basis. There is a high demand for someone who can do this.
• And there are dozens of other things you can do, other services you can provide.

Another thing to consider is that Maine has the largest per-capita senior population and many of these people can no longer do that kind of jobs that we’ve listed above. This particular demographic is looking for someone like you right now.

All you have to do is think about it. Consider what you would like to do and get started, you’ll be surprised how quickly you fill out your work schedule. There has never been a better time or a better way to grow your own business.

by Dan Beaulieu
Business consultant

To be successful in business you have to find ways to be better. You have to get creative and find ways for your customers to prefer working with you rather than with your competition.

Finding new ways to delight your customers can be fun. Actually, being better than your competition is fun, not to mention profitable.

As a business owner you should always be thinking about your customers and yes, also about your competitors.

You need to study your customers to see what they like, what puts smiles on their faces? What keeps them coming back?

And you have to study your competitors to see what they are doing right and what they are doing wrong, and how you can be better.

Often, it’s the little things that can make you outstanding in the true sense of the word.

You can be the roofer who leaves the site spotless once the roof is complete. I was once wowed at the site of a member of the company that did my roof a few years ago, going over the driveway with some kind of magnetic rake to make sure no nails were left behind.

I once visited a restaurant, a very busy restaurant in Milwaukee that delighted people who were waiting for over an hour for a table by passing out hot buttered rolls.

Or how about that family-owned hardware store where the woman in the paint department spent a good 15 minutes with my mother talking about just the right paint to redo a lawn chair? Mom talked about that for years after.

None of these things were hard or expensive but they were valuable enough to make customers for life.

Think about your own business. What can you do to be outstanding? What can you do to be special.

Oh, here is an idea, ask your customers themselves. Go ahead ask them for their opinion?

If you own a restaurant, ask them to fill our a simple questionnaire. If you own a service business, sit down and honestly ask your customer what you could do differently and better?

When you finish that landscaping job and are showing the customer what you’ve done, ask her if there is anything else she would like. Ask her if she has any ideas of services you could offer or things you could do better.

Study your industry, always be learning about your job. You can even learn by watching the right TV shows. Just by sitting in a chair in your den with a notebook you get ideas on how to run a better restaurant, bar, diner – you know all those shows. Get ideas from watching HGTV and the Discovery channel. Always be learning and, yes, don’t be afraid to steal those ideas and use them for your own business

In the end it’s all about how dedicated you are to finding new and innovative ways to grow your business.

by Dan Beaulieu
Business consultant

Sure, you see your customers all the time. You see them when you do their landscaping or when they come into your restaurant for a meal, or when they come in for their monthly spa treatment, or when they call you to set up the annual snow removal arrangements. I know that you see that at those times, but what about the rest of the time?

It is always important to stay in touch with your customers even when you are not actually providing them services or products.

Whether you own a hardware store, or a dry cleaning business, or a restaurant, it is important to stay in front of your customers, even when you are not in front of them.

Now, I am not suggesting anything as obnoxious as calling them up once in a while, nobody wants to make that call or especially, to receive that call.

But there are many other ways to stay in touch with your customers. What we call “soft touches”

First of all, there is always advertising in local newspapers like this one. The rates are very economical; and the readership is local enough so that if you are a local small business, you are advertising to your customer base. Advertising locally is a very good way to stay in front of your customers.

The monthly newsletter is one of the best ways to stay in front of your current customers, but even better, it is a way to reach out to new potential customers. By using inexpensive software like Constant Contact, you can easily compile a list of your customers, as well as some target customers.

Create an attractive template and then send one out once a month. It does not have to be long. In fact, it should not be too long. The newsletter can be made up of a message from you, the owner, some tips about your product or service.

If you are a landscaper you can provide some short seasonal tips on what has to be done to your lawn at this time of the year. If you own a restaurant, you can give out some recipes, or better yet, highlight some new tempting dishes you are offering this month.

The newsletter can also provide some special discount coupons to urge your customers to use your services during that month. You can also provide a little humor: a tasteful anecdote or joke and maybe even a quiz or trivia question. The key is to make the newsletter pleasant and attractive enough that people will look forward to receiving and opening in when it shows up in their email box.

One of the keys to s successful newsletter is to have an ever growing list of current and potential customers. With your current customers ask them to sign up for your newsletters. Offer them incentives like “Valuable Special Discounts” just for signing up. Don’t push, be subtle and friendly about it, make it fun and appealing. Put a sign up email address in your advertising if you advertise, put it on your flyers and your invoices.

The more people who consistently open and read your newsletter the more potential customers your will have. And that’s a perfect way to stay in touch and, yes, to grow your business.

by Dan Beaulieu
Business consultant

Here is a book all business owners should read:

Leaders Eat Last: Why some teams pull together, and others don’t.
By Simon Sinek
Copyright 2014 Portfolio/Penguin Random House L.L.C.
Price: $18.00 Paperback
Pages: 350 pages with index
A time for leaders

Leaders create culture and culture; the right culture, is what makes great companies and organizations. Leaders lead by example. Leaders allow the key word there being allow their teams to be great.

No matter the size of your organization from three people to 3,000 people, culture is always important. Culture is what makes a great company in the end. And that must come from the top.

The simple example of a company president walking down the hall of his company and bending down to pick up a piece of paper off the floor is powerful. Much more powerful than all the talks about keeping the place clean.

Leaders look out for their people. In fact, author Simon Sinek says that we need to treat employees like our children and look out for them the same way we would our children.

A few years back, in the ‘80s, when Milton Friedman’s economics declared that companies only goal was to make money for the shareholders. Yikes! Look where that got us.

The big heroes at that time were Jack Welch and Al Chainsaw Dunlap whose answer to every problem was to cut heads. And whenever they did that, Wall Street cheered!

As an aside the children and now grandchildren of these headless victims watched this happen. It affected them first hand. No wonder they come to us today with a deep built-in distrust of corporations.

Consider where we are today, now when these ensuing generations are wary of joining companies, They don’t trust companies. They witnessed first hand that lauded leaders like Mr. Welch bragged about laying off ten percent of his management staff every year. What are they supposed to think?

No longer is this style treatment working, nor will it work in the future. The new trend of leader eats last. This means she takes care of here people first…and then they will take care of her.

As an example of the new kind of leader, the kind who is succeeding today, the author relates the story of Bob Chapman and his company Barry-Wehmiller. Bob Chapman is known for buying distressed companies and making them better. When one of these companies ran into trouble, Bob did not want to lay off people, which went against everything that he had been taught. He felt that if his family ran into financial difficulties, he would not send a couple of his kids away. And the same thing applied to his company.

Instead of laying off people he talked to his people, and they found ways to cooperate with one another to make sure everyone took care of everyone else.

This is just one example of how leaders eat last. How they are finding ways to take care of their people which in turn will take care of the company.

Okay, I can hear some of you humming Kumbaya in disgust. Sorry you feel that way, for your own sake. You had better read this book and get religion, or you are going to be one of those companies that goes out of business for lack of a work force. It will certainly help you be a great leader of a growing company.

by Dan Beaulieu
Business consultant

The best way to know what your customers want is to ask them. One of the biggest disconnects between your company and your customers is not having a comprehensive agreement of what services the customer expects from you.

I have found that a clear understanding of what a customer’s expectations are goes a long way in you being able to meet or even exceed those expectations.

I know it is not always that easy. That customers are not always clear in expressing their needs. And sometimes they are not even sure themselves what they want which might lead you to assume what they want…and that leads to very dangerous ground indeed.

In the end it is so much better to take the right amount of time to have a good discussion with your customer and this way create a clear and concise understanding of what those expectations actually are.

Here are a few tips on guiding that discussion with your customer to make sure you get a complete understanding of what they expect from you:

• Listen carefully when the customer tells you what they want.
• If you do not yet get exactly what they want, ask more specific questions.
• Once they answer you, repeat what they told you so you both know that you both understand.
• Sometimes a customer says one thing but really means another. Ask again for clarification.
• Dig in to make sure that what the customer is asking for is really what is going to solve their problem. This is especially true when you are brought in for home repairs like plumbing or electrical work. Find out what the real problem is rather than what the customer wants you to do. What they want you to do might not be the right solution for their problem.
• And always not only listen but actually hear what your customers are telling you.
• Once you’ve had your discussion with the customer and you feel that, yes, you have a good understanding of exactly what he or she wants from you, then it is a good idea to document it. Depending on the complexity of the project or the product, write down exactly what you understand the customer wants and give it to them to review, agree with and sign. When working extensive home improvements projects for example, this is a must.

The success of your product and service is based on whether the customer is happy or not. In the end it doesn’t really matter if your product is perfect, if it’s not what the customer wanted then you all lose.

Having a good and clear understanding of what your customers’ expectations are and meeting those expectations is, in the end, the best way to grow your business.