Multiply your sales with this simple sign trick

"People are four times more likely to buy something they can touch."

That's quite a promise. The quote is from Scott Taddiken, of the Washburn Small Business Development Center, quoted in the Agurban in 2009 and repeated this week.

Photo by revger, on Flickr

I went searching for the source of that "four times more likely to buy" statistic. What I found was a great article by Bruce Baker in The Crafts Report, How to get Customers 4x more likely to buy.

"Once a customer holds something in their hands, they are four times more likely to buy it," Baker said.

Baker continues with a specific trick to make your signs and displays much, much more effective.

"Signs that appeal to the senses and involve the customers in noticing or experiencing an item are key—to make customers literally see, touch, smell, hear or taste (when appropriate) an object."

He gives two brilliant examples:

Moreno Wool Blankets
$78
The softest blankets you will ever feel!

Basil
$1.95
Smell it!

[While I didn't find the source for the "four times more likely" claim, I did find quite a bit of research backing up the idea of touch influencing purchase decisions, including a study titled, "If I touch it, I have to have it: Individual and environmental influences on impulse purchasing" by Joann Peck and Terry L. Childers in 2006. It's very dry academic reading, but the headline tells the story.]

How could you make this work in your business? 

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How to set retail prices and markups

Setting retail prices is like some arcane art form. How the heck are you supposed to figure out what to markup items in your retail business when no one wants to give you real numbers?

Here are two starting points for setting retail prices and markups.

Solving the small business website problem

Lots of small businesses don't have a website. And lots of small towns are the same: website-less, even in this age of online and connected consumers. Sounds like a great big business opportunity, but don't be too hasty. Let me explain why I think it's a quagmire instead.

Website choices

Each time I say small businesses, know that this applies to small towns and tourism sites, as well.

Small businesses without websites either want one or don't want one. Let's leave out the ones who don't want a website, because you don't want to be in the business of convincing people that they are wrong. That's a long hard road. Better to focus on the ones who get it, and are ready and able to act. ("Our job is not to configure customers, it is to configure our business to serve customers." --Liz Struass)

The small businesses who want a website have all levels of motivation. Some are eager, actively seeking and comparing solutions. Most are only somewhat interested: they know they need one, but they are passive. Until they hit something that hurts in their business, they will let it lie.

Small businesses are inundated with different potential website and web presence solutions. Solicitations arrive in the mail and by phone every day to bricks and mortar businesses. Ads on TV promote small business sites by big companies including Intuit and GoDaddy. Dozens, and probably hundreds, of do-it-yourself website solutions are already online.

Well-meaning friends, consultants, and other business owners give all sorts of advice.

"You want WordPress."
"The kids at the tech center make great sites."
"Just get a Facebook page."
"A decent website costs $10,000."

Small business owners are also overwhelmed with the number of listings and databases they are urged to spend time maintaining. Google Local, Facebook Places, dozens of online yellow pages and directories, emerging location based services like Foursquare, all compete for attention and maintenance. Small town tourism groups face just as many listings and databases to maintain, plus being responsible for keeping business data up to date. This is a hell of a lot of competition for the limited attention small business owners can afford to give their web presence.

And yet every month or every week, I see another business built on the idea of solving the small business website problem. Sometimes it's a special web design plus hosting package, or a new portal for small towns, or another business listing service.

If you want to wade in to the small business or small town website problem, narrow up your damn niche. "Small businesses" is not a niche. "Small towns" is not a niche. Pick a geographic area. Select an industry or a field of business. Focus on the businesses that you know and can serve best. Actively seek out the people who are eager for a solution. ("The narrower your niche, the wider your opportunity." --Becky McCray)

Stop dreaming about all the small businesses or small towns out there. Start listening to the limited group of your target market. Once you select a geographic area, an industry or field, and then focus on the ones ready and able to act with a strong sense of need, then you have a strong niche to work on. That way, you can be the right person, at the right place, with the right solution, at the right time. And that is a great place to be.

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Love Small Town America

Nicole Godek tells about her new company, Love Small Town America. I met her at the Kansas MarketPlace by the Center for Rural Affairs.

(If you don't see the video, view it on YouTube.)

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What is the Brag Basket really about

Even though I call this the Brag Basket, it's not really about bragging. It's about sharing. I started this so you can introduce yourself, share some good news, or congratulate a friend.

The basket is open all weekend, from November 26-28, 2010.

Speak up and add yourself or another deserving soul in the comments. We all cheer, and everyone feels great. It lets you meet each other a bit. Reading each others' stories brings us a bit closer to being a community.

How does it work? You write a comment on this post, email me, tweet me, or comment on Facebook. You tell something great about your week, or you give applause to someone who did good stuff this week. Or you celebrate something wonderful that you tried that failed.

This is not an ad. (I delete the ads.) It's a conversation with friends. So jump in. And remember to cheer for each other.

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Motorcycle Mary on small business and personal finance

"Motorcycle" Mary McCune tells us how personal finance affects your business, and some resources to help you get a handle on it. I met her at the Kansas MarketPlace, by the Center for Rural Affairs. I kind of stumbled into her session randomly, and was very impressed with her down-to-earth financial advice.

Here's Motorcycle Mary's personal finance site.

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Tourism Currents Open House

Sheila and I are hosting an Open House at Tourism Currents this weekend (November 26 - 28, 2010).

Sheila welcomes you! 

What is Tourism Currents? It is an online course on how to use social media tools for tourism projects. It's all based around real life things you do every day in the tourism world.

Based on feedback from tourism pros, we've made it a weekly course. You can now finish all the lessons in six weeks, instead of six months.

To help you see how really amazing (that's not modest, is it?) our course is, we're giving you full access to all the paid membership materials. You'll see all the lessons, video interviews, tons of examples specifically for tourism, and extras in the Resources section. It's a great way to see if Tourism Currents is right for you. But only for three days. After that, the doors close again.

Join us Friday night for a fun conversation in the comment box, Open Mic Night. We borrowed the idea from Liz Strauss at Successful Blog. It's just a fun, social, rambling chat and you participate by commenting on the post. Look for that over at Tourism Currents on Friday, Nov. 26, 2010, 7pm Central Time. Everyone is welcome, whether you work in tourism or not. 

And as a final bonus, during the Open House, you can sign up for the online course for 20% off. We'll post the code at Tourism Currents during the Open House.

So come see us. (I'll even open the doors a bit early on Thanksgiving night. Don't tell.)

Photo by Becky McCray

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Treat it like a business

"If you treat it like a business, it will pay you like a business. If you treat it like a hobby, it will pay you like a hobby."

I first heard that in the Mary Kay world. It came along with some lessons in scheduling, for building a business on the side around all your other obligations.

Start with a weekly calendar, one that includes hourly markings. Block off your set time commitments, whether work, family, or community. Circle the times you have available for this project, even one hour at a time. Assign work to the circled time blocks, starting with your income producing activities.

The opposite is to treat it like a hobby: to work on it when you feel like, or whenever you find time.

It's up to you. Do you want a new business, or do you want a hobby?

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A brag can be a gift

Even though I call this the Brag Basket, it's not really about bragging. It's about sharing. I started this so you can introduce yourself, share some good news, or congratulate a friend.

The basket is open all weekend, from November 19-21, 2010. It's National Entrepreneur Day in the US, and Global Entrepreneur Week. Why not give yourself or someone else the gift of a brag about their entrepreneurial projects?

Speak up and add yourself or another deserving soul in the comments. We all cheer, and everyone feels great. It lets you meet each other a bit. Reading each others' stories brings us a bit closer to being a community.

How does it work? You write a comment on this post, email me, tweet me, or comment on Facebook. You tell something great about your week, or you give applause to someone who did good stuff this week. Or you celebrate something wonderful that you tried that failed.

This is not an ad. (I delete the ads.) It's a conversation with friends. So jump in. And remember to cheer for each other.

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Follow smart people 5 ways with Paper.li

Follow smart people has long been my best Twitter advice. Paper.li is a new tool that makes it easier to follow and learn from smart people without investing all your spare time in Twitter.

Paper.li is a kind of daily newspaper made from links, photos and videos shared on Twitter by a selected group of users or about a selected topic.

Here are five ways to use paper.li:

1. Keep up when you're away.
If I'm unable to check in with Twitter on a given day, I can look at my Paper.li daily to see what good stuff I've missed.

2. Learn more about a particular topic.
I have a daily based on my Economic Development list on Twitter. Anyone can subscribe to it, whether or not they use Twitter, and get some of the best stories shared each day on economic development. http://paper.li/BeckyMcCray/economic-development

3. Share a paper.li summary with non-Twitter people.
Have a boss or board member who doesn't use Twitter, but wants to know more? Share the daily (or weekly) email with them to help them see the value.

4. Get the best info from people, even without following them.
You can add smart people to a Twitter list, even if you don't want to follow everything they say. (Some people tweet a lot.) Or you can use a Twitter list created by someone else, perhaps on a topic you want to learn more about. (You might not want to follow 500 tourism agencies on Twitter, so you could use the @TourismCurrents CVB-DMO-Tourism Folks list to keep up with local tourism trends: http://paper.li/TourismCurrents/cvb-dmo-tourism-folks )

5. Follow a topic or an event by hashtag.
Hashtags on Twitter are keywords preceded by a pound sign, like #NWOkla. They make searching easier. (Sometimes you'll see joking hashtags, like #thiswasmeanttobefunny or #iamadoofus. Ignore those.) Follow interesting hashtags like #140conf for all the 140 Conferences, #WCF2010 for the World Creativity Forum in Oklahoma City this week, or #tourismchat for the bi-weekly tourism learning exchange on Twitter. You'll keep up with the interesting links from an event or chat when you can't be there in person.

You don't need to create a new account at paper.li; just sign in with your Twitter or Facebook account.

One caution: there is a setting to automatically tweet a link every day when your paper.li is updated. It's off by default, but don't turn it on. Remember, we don't all want to be reminded that you want to read your paper. If you want a daily or weekly reminder, use the email reminder instead. Thanks!

How are you using paper.li?

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Tourism is economic development

Tourism is a traded business just as much as manufacturing.

Tourism is a vital part of the economic development of your town and your region. It brings in outside dollars to be spent locally. It allows businesses to survive that could not make it by relying on local customers. 

Please don't take my word for it. Let's take the word of Ed Morrison, economic development expert.

"In the past, economic development professionals tended to look down on tourism development. Now, however, the lines separating economic development, community development, tourism development, and workforce development are all blurring.

Innovative regional leaders are getting back to basics. Any business that attracts money from outside the region tends to improve prosperity within the region. These traded businesses include tourism. " Ed Morrison, cited in a 2006 post. (Yes, I was looking through my archives today.) 

Here's an updated version from a 2008 post. Morrison is still saying it today, I'm sure. I picked this particular quote because it includes the magic economic development phrase "traded businesses."

I still hear economic development people speaking of tourism as a lesser goal than other traded businesses. Too many small towns are focused on that "big score," recruiting that one manufacturer that will change everything.

How are you blurring lines and building bridges with the tourism, economic, community and workforce development people in your region?

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Repeat your message seven times

People have to hear your message seven times before they remember it. Or, that's what I've heard.

Photo by Lincolnian on Flickr

(You may have heard a different number, but the exact number isn't important. What is important is to realize you have to repeat yourself. And if you're in business, you'll have to repeat yourself a lot.)

Small Business Implications: 

• Stick with a theme or promotion much longer than you think. Why do you think Absolut Vodka used the same ad campaign (the distinctive bottle shape, and a pun around "Absolut") for so long? 
• Use multiple media to give the same message. Don't be afraid to put the same basic information into your Facebook Page update, your Twitter stream, an email, plus a sign on the door at your store. 
• Leave information up for much longer than you think. How long does a sign have to be up before your average customer walks past it seven times? How long does the notice have to be on your website before your average visitor will see it seven times? Could be a long time, eh? 
• Repeat messages many more times than you think necessary. How many times do you have to send your message on Twitter or Facebook before your average follower even sees it once? 
• It's fine to blog more than once on the same topic. Add something new, update it, or rework it. Thanksgiving comes around every year, and every year we do a new post on our liquor store website with Thanksgiving wine tips. We always find a way to make our advice simpler every year. 
• Extend the same courtesy to your employees. Repeat instructions in more than one way. Provide the same info multiple ways. 

How do you use repetition to your advantage in your business?

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Let yourself brag just this once

Even though I call this the Brag Basket, it's not really about bragging. It's about sharing. I started this so you can introduce yourself, share some good news, or congratulate a friend.

The basket is open all weekend, from November 12-14, 2010. 

Speak up and add yourself or another deserving soul in the comments. We all cheer, and everyone feels great. It lets you meet each other a bit. Reading each others' stories brings us a bit closer to being a community.

How does it work? You write a comment on this post, email me, tweet me, or comment on Facebook. You tell something great about your week, or you give applause to someone who did good stuff this week. Or you celebrate something wonderful that you tried that failed.

This is not an ad. (I delete the ads.) It's a conversation with friends. So jump in. And remember to cheer for each other.

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Customers notice

So which is it? Double-purified water or triple-purified water?

Even small inconsistencies can hurt your reputation.

And customers will notice. Chaz French did. Thanks for the photo, Chaz.

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The importance of wifi in tourism

Now that most cell phones can access the internet, you might think that you can quit worrying about public wifi for tourism. But more than ever, wifi is important to local tourism strategies, especially in small towns.

You understand that your visitors want to access the web while traveling. They are researching attractions, looking up events, loading maps, reviewing restaurants, and sharing all about how great you are. And you want that, right?

Reasons wifi still matters

1. Your can't control your town's cell service. Not every town has great coverage for every type of cell service. Even if your visitors can make calls, they may not be able to load data. I have this exact problem in much of Kansas and Nebraska with my phone.
2. International visitors hate roaming charges. Many avoid using any data services while traveling. That doesn't mean they want to be offline.
3. More devices love wifi. I'm writing this on a wifi enabled iPad, and I see them everywhere. Add in the smart phones, laptops, and netbooks, and all the other devices I don't even know about. That's lots of reasons to offer wifi.

Ways to give visitors more wifi

• Find out where wifi is available now. Ask. Ask everyone: schools, libraries, businesses, and even housing.
• Let people know about the wifi you found. Make big, consistent, simple and easy to read signs. Get those signs posted everywhere that public wifi is available.
• Pursue more wifi. Encourage your local government or telecom provider to get involved.
• Make wifi safer. In this era of simple hacking, wifi needs to be secured. Cooperate with your local chamber or tech school to host a workshop on how to make public wifi more secure. As of right now, setting a password, even if it's publicly available, adds some protection.

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Tools to get to know your customers

Knowing each customer as a real person is a strength of the best small town businesses. New tools allow you to keep that kind of small town connection even as your business grows or moves online.

How well does the College Street Pub
know these customers?

You probably keep an email address list of customers, right? Do you feel like you are using it effectively? For most of us, the answer is no.

How well do you do at recognizing and connecting with new customers, or new prospects who email you? If you're ready to improve, here are examples and tools to get you going.

Get to know Millennials aka Gen Y

The Millennial Generation may be one of the biggest trends that affects small towns. It is a huge generation, larger than the Baby Boomers.

Millennials Robin Seth
and Lauren Madrid

Jack Schultz of BoomTown USA says they are the most entrepreneurial generation in history.

Jon Swanson gives you an inside look into one Millennial, his son, in "They are coming."

Marci Penner at Kansas Sampler includes them in Power Ups (people ages 21-39), and talks about the great value of these young people who are rural by choice. 

You want to get them involved in your business, your local government, and your community. Are you ready?

Your first step: learn more about them. Start with this infographic from Flowtown about Millennials. (When you arrive at the Flowtown site, click on the infographic to enlarge it.)

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A wide open brag basket

Even though I call this the Brag Basket, it's not really about bragging. It's about sharing. I started this so you can introduce yourself, share some good news, or congratulate a friend.

The basket is open all weekend, from November 5-7, 2010. 

Speak up and add yourself or another deserving soul in the comments. We all cheer, and everyone feels great. It lets you meet each other a bit. Reading each others' stories brings us a bit closer to being a community.

How does it work? You write a comment on this post, email me, tweet me, or comment on Facebook. You tell something great about your week, or you give applause to someone who did good stuff this week. Or you celebrate something wonderful that you tried that failed.

This is not an ad. (I delete the ads.) It's a conversation with friends. So jump in. And remember to cheer for each other.


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Meet two economic development and social media resources

At the International Economic Development Council's annual conference in Columbus this year, I presented on a panel with two great economic development people who are also resources on social media use.

First is Victoria Hershberg. She is with McAllen Economic Development Corporation, and actively uses social media to promote McAllen. Here presentation outlines their current techniques and results. You can see it on SlideShare "Social Media and Linkages to Multiple Markets."

Next is Isabelle Poirier. She is an expert in economic development and also tourism and the use of social media. You can also find her presentation of best practices on SlideShare. Also stop by her site, Tools for Thought, to get a copy of the Canadian Cities Online Marketing Index (c) 2010.


And don't overlook Stefphanie Harper, with the Columbus Mayor's Office. She was our moderator, and very sharp at keeping us moving and on topic.

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Can a sole proprietor have more than one business

Question: Can a sole proprietor have more than one business?
Answer: Yes. Next question.

Easy peasy.

Seriously, as a sole proprietor, you may have one (1) business or several businesses. There is no limit to the number of businesses in which you may engage.

The Internal Revenue Service says you must report your income and your expenses from any endeavor entered into with a profit motive. That can be one or a dozen or even more.

When reporting your business on a Schedule C, you must enter a Business Code. Therefore, if each of your businesses is in a field unrelated to the other--say, if you own/operate the following: Fine Leather Shoe Shop, K-9 Kennels: Prime Pups, AAA Accounting--you will need a separate Schedule C to report each business.

Then, all Schedule C's will be totaled together and the final number will be carried to the front of the Form 1040.

See? It really was easy.


Helpful links for sole proprietors:

• Checklists for starting your first business
• Simplified accounting for side businesses
• Simplified business plans for the real world
• Simplify your small business marketing plan