Have you used an in car GPS?

My wife and I spent a night in the City a few weeks ago. We stayed at the Sydney Harbour Bed & Breakfast.

We had a great time and maybe a review later on. But I had just obtained a Navman and thought i would use it to get to there from our home at Glen Alpine. Now you may say that this trip was not difficult. Just M5 to City, take a city exit and make you way over to the Rocks. Well yes.......

On the M5 no problems, but loved the speed camera alert that was pretty accurate. It said I was near it in the M5 tunnel and I looked around and sure enough I could see the camera for the first time.

Next, I would normally take the Kings X exit and make my way across the City that way. The Navman told me to go further on the ED and exit around the Art Gallery. It then expertly directed me, with Karen telling me to left and right etc through Hunter Street, across George and eventually into the Rocks ending near the King George V Recreation Centre and the ubiqutous Australian Hotel.

The story was the same the next day. My wife had taken the train to the City and she heard all about the Navman at dinner that night. Mrs Technophobe was even impressed by the Navman on the way home although she was wondering what other voices were available.

I have been thinking of new voice that could save your wife from having to get huffy on the usual car trip. "Turn left 300 metres.....turn left 100 metres.......Oh [sigh].....turn around and turn right 100 metres....I told you we would be late !"

theBizWiz

www.boulterassociates.com.au
www.informgroup.com.au

Asus EeePCs

The other day my daughter was looking for a laptop for University. She would have a long commute to/from University and wanted something cool that would not be a piece of luggage. I thought I would ask some questions on LinkedIn.

The response was great. Within the hour I had comments from all over the world. Some people were users and not geeks, others were geeks. the balance was great. I quickly understood the technical aspects of the machines in question and also had live experience from users.

Just about all the responses (over 80) were positive. There was always a note of caution about what the machines limitations were. These essentially revolved around the screen sizes and the keyboard. The screens are around 10" in size and the keyboard a bit small for lots of typing.

My thoughts would be to have the no disk drive version (SSD) and carry a small external drive (like a Seagate 120GB) that plugs into the USB for the files I may need sometimes.

Battery life was exceptional and the weight was a plus. The price is outstanding and on EBay you can pick these up around the AU$399 mark running Windows XP.

theBizWiz

www.boulterassociates.com.au
www.informgroup.com.au

Retaining Customers in Hard Times

Back to basics is probably the best advice that was given to me recently. You may be having trouble getting people to buy your products or services at present, especially if your business is not in the necessity category. But if you already have customers that buy from you regularly, keeping them is a number one priority.

So how?

Well first remind them of your services or products.But you have to watch your own costs, so develop a focused and planned marketing message that consistently reaches your target audience through the best channel.

Tell them why you are different. Brand is partially about great customer experiences. If a customer has a good experience with your business they will relate better to your brand and be a marketing channel for you.

If a customer is loyal, reward them. This can be as simple as a discount program for repeat purchase. It could be a competition only open to existing customers. It could be special days where only existing customers are invited to your showroom and items are specially discounted.

We all know how hard it is to get a new customer. Keeping the ones we have is even more important.

theBizWiz

www.boulterasscociates.com.au
www.informgroup.com.au

Worlds Best Sales Tips #4

More Sales Tips from a really good book. "The World's Best Sales Tips" by Ciaran McGuigan is a quick toolkit for improving your sales techniques.

On Page 4 Ciaran talks about "Who is presenting? You or Bill Gates".

The article is a good reminder of the classic death by PowerPoint. The 20 slides in 20 minute thing is a waste of everybody's time. In fact, maybe all you need is 3-4 slides at most. If you want to leave some material behind with the customer, do that, but don't present it all.

What people want to know is usually: what is the problem you are addressing, how is it going to be solved, what's in it for me and what are suggested next steps. Using NLP is also a good way to get the message across. VAK works !

theBizWiz

www.boulterassociates.com.au
www.informgroup.com.au

Against the Trend

There is lots being said about the worldwide financial crisis. The natural reaction is to conserve resources and not spend till the crisis is over.

Well, maybe that is what your competition is doing, regardless of what business they are in.

What if you did the opposite?

I guess it depends on what you are selling. Some products are resistant to the market changes. If you can afford a Lamborghini then you probably dont really pay attention to the market or the advertising. But if you are after services to help you while you work harder to earn extra money or to help organise your finances then you will be looking. If you are a supplier of these services then now is the time to advertise more.

Sometimes your natural reaction to be conservative in tough times, is not necessarily the right thing to do.

theBizWiz

www.boulterassociates.com.au
www.informgroup.com.au

The future of Magazines.....and Newsagents

With the green movement being all pervasive. Is the Newsagency dead? If we stop using paper for glossy magazines how else will we get our fix? One way might be via the Internet through sites like Zinio.

Have a look and you will see magazines you can buy at the newsagent today. the first thing you will notice is the price is substantially less. Click on the "Try It!" near a magazine and you will get a download of the covers, contents and a few pages. Roll your mouse over the top right hand corner and you will see a cool way of turning the pages, just like the real thing.

So if this is the way magazines are going how will the corner newsagent survive?

Selling Lottery tickets and stationary items is one way as well as the upbiqutous Birthday and Xmas cards. One thing is for sure in 10 years time a newsagent will look a lot different to what it does today. Maybe you will walk in and dock your iPod like device, in the special News dispenser, to get the daily newspaper to carry to work on the train. Of course you will buy an instant lottery ticket, hoping to win, so you can afford the fuel for the trip back home from the station that night.

theBizWiz

www.boulterassociates.com.au
www.informgroup.com.au

Really Good Sales Websites

Lets face it, without Sales your business is dead. You can have a great product, you can have the best quality services but without customers and actual sales you have nothing.

Here are some good resources for you:

• Sales Gravy is a wealth of resources. It has pointers to other sites and aggregates things such as Podcasts, Blogs, Videos. It has a Community section where you can sign up and chat with others, look for jobs and find others to work with. There is even a shop where you can buy books and download free books. (If you are in that market, unashamedly, check out our Business Book store)


• SalesRoundup Podcast is great podcast for anybody into complex sales. It is delivered by Joe and Mike who have been is Sales forever. If you dont listen to Podcasts while on the road, in the car or the plane, then do yourself a favour.


• Plain old Google. Google Alerts are a great way to track information on a suspect in your sales funnel. Just set an alert on a persons name or a company and each day you will receive an email of what has been mentioned on the Internet that day about them.


• If you want more intelligence about what is happening in your marketplace use LinkedIn. By following the Questions tab of your LinkedIn account and setting a RSS feed into something like Google Reader, you can get a pulse of what are some of the issues happening


• Lastly is the book I have referred to before. The World's Best Sales Tips by Ciaran McGuigan

If you are in Sales what resources do you use?

the BizWiz

http://www.boulterassociates.com.au/

http://www.informgroup.com.au/