Ten Tactics for the New Year
Tuesday, December 29, 2015
Here’s an important list of actions that will make your business more successful.
It’s 2016 and most of us have made (and probably broken) more than one New Year’s resolution at this point. So, let’s not call what we have here a resolution list. Instead, what’s below is a set of guidelines to increase business in the New Year. The tactics below aren’t set in stone. Rather, they’re flexible campaigns to be revisited and revised as needed throughout the year.
Social media channels – pick one and get good at it.
Social media offers a way to engage with a large audience on a regular basis. Feeling overwhelmed with all the choices? Cut through the chaos, pick one channel you think will work for you and focus your efforts there.
Perfect your cooking demo.
Cooking demos will draw crowds – more so if you can keep the crowd’s attention. Make the demo a community-based competition, or demo for a charity, and donate the proceeds to a local hospital or school. Use interesting and different recipes, but don’t forget the most important thing – engage the audience!
Sell the experience, not the grill.
When people grill, it’s as much about the experience as it is the food. So, rather than selling a grill as a grill, get creative. Sell the grill not as a piece of equipment, but as the epicenter around which outdoor living will take place.
Don’t forget the little guy.
Remember your accessories! Once people have their grill, they’re still looking for ways to change or enhance the experience. Selling accessories allows people to prepare food in various ways. And once they’re familiar with new techniques, they may be ready to move on to bigger purchases, like a smoker.
Network.
Online is fine, but face-to-face networking is still one of the best ways to connect with others and create lasting relationships. Join community or professional groups and do more than just show up – be an active member and your name will quickly become known.
Stay up-to-date on staff training.
It’s all too easy to forget or forgo ongoing training, especially if you have a small or great staff in place. But everyone likes to feel their work efforts are noted and appreciated, and that they’re making headway in their career. Whether you send staff to training courses, hold training in-house or have monthly or bi-monthly meetings to touch base, your efforts to reach out to staff will earn you rewards in the end. Team members who appreciate learning will step up their selling efforts while also working more efficiently, thanks to regular updates on processes and procedures.
Polish your online presence.
Your website is now your calling card. Make sure it sends the message you want it to with relevant information, grabbing copy, images and contact and “about us” information that is easy to find.
Keep it fresh.
Are things starting to feel routine? Break out of your rut and learn something new. Take a class, study different aspects of your product or employ different business tactics to keep it fresh. Quite often, keeping things fresh on a personal level – taking an art or dance class, cleaning out the garage, painting a room – bleeds over into your work life. Change at any level stirs up the dusty recesses of our minds and helps us see new potential and new ways to attack old problems. So, if you’re in a rut, don’t just sit there. Change something.
Set goals.
This one may seem obvious, but milestones in business are rarely reached without some sort of plan or goals in place. Knowing what you want to achieve gives you something to strive for, as well as incentive to measure how fast you’re getting there and what needs to be changed to ensure goals are met.
Revisit these tactics.
Remember, what’s been described here aren’t resolutions – they’re malleable tactics. And they’re not tactics you have to attack all at once. Take a month to work on cooking demos, start talking to staff about what training they’d most benefit from, narrow down which social media channel you want to tackle. Then, take action. Revisit this list on a regular basis and it’s resolved that you will see results!
Keep Grilling,
Rob
