Guide to Presentation and Marketing of the Business

Ask the vendor

It's amazing how you can walk past a shop, let's say a locksmith, and never notice it because you don't need a new lock. But when suddenly your key breaks in the front door and you need one immediately, do you know where to find one? The local locksmith who has done the presentation of his business the best is likely to be the one you will think of first.

I recommend: You can't ask too many questions before embarking in business. If you're buying an existing business, ask the vendor how he does-his marketing and what return he gets from, say, advertising in the local papers. Ask to see invoices for expenditure on advertising. If it's a shop, then wander round surrounding shops and chat to other shopkeepers and their customers. Get the feel for how they perceive your prospective business - do they even know it's there?!

Retail businesses

It is very difficult to make the general public see anything new. You will be amazed how many people will ask where the toys are, despite your having put up a large sign! Or if it's a new line they will say, as they suddenly see the toys on the way to something else in the shop, 'I didn't know you sold toys -1 went all the way to the next town yesterday to buy some.' That was despite a sign outside for the past two months advertising that you now sell them.

I recommend: If your business is a shop or post office, you are probably going to be in a high street or precinct and depend very much on passing trade and regular customers. So you have to tempt in customers with attractive window dressing, special offers and sell yourself as a friendly, helpful trader whom people trust and enjoy visiting.

Service businesses

If your business does not rely on footfall past your door, you must still make people very aware of your existence. Therefore marketing is an essential tool of absolutely every such business at some level. The vendor of the business will know what has worked well in the past and, just as importantly, what didn't. If there were a magic formula for marketing it would have been patented years ago, but the truth is there isn't one. It is very difficult to know in advance what will work and what will simply fail to produce results.

I recommend: Trial and error is often the only way, so be reluctant to change what the vendor has been successfully doing up to now. We will explore a few ideas you can apply to get your new venture or diversification off to a flying start.

Identify your potential customers

Who are they? It is absolutely essential to identify the people or other businesses that are going to need your services. For example, if your new business is a contract cleaning business you know your customers are going to be other commercial businesses and they are not passing trade. You have to find them at a time when they need a new cleaning contract. If you elect to run a dating agency you have to find ways of tempting single people to trust you to find them their perfect partner - an altogether more delicate and personal approach is required. The approaches in these two examples clearly need to be quite different.

I recommend: The cleaning company needs to target marketing in a way that emphasises what makes a cleaning company attractive to potential clients. It will need to consider what are the most frequent complaints that clients have about their cleaners, and concentrate the marketing towards convincing prospects that they will not have these problems in the future if they change over.

Advertising

Many entrepreneurs begin by placing advertisements in their local or national papers and wonder why it doesn't work very well. They may get the odd call or customer, but may have spent hundreds of pounds for a return of very little. When you look through your newspaper, what catches your eye in an advert? Is it size, colour, content or the fact that it has Special Offer plastered all over it? Or if you are honest, do you barely glance at the display adverts and go on to read the news items? Advertising is an essential income for any newspaper and they will try to sell you space, promising the earth as soon as they spot you are new in the neighbourhood. Representatives come and visit offering special rates if you buy so many column centimetres a week for several weeks and you can be tempted into spending your entire budget.

I recommend: If you want to try a few adverts, take the initiative. Call the paper and ask for late space - that is anything they have left shortly before their deadline. They will usually offer you a 50 per cent discount straightaway. Don't take it! Offer them a really low amount and often a compromise can be reached at perhaps 30 per cent of the original cost. Always try to get your advert on a right-hand page. If you imagine reading a paper on your lap, it is always easier to read the right-hand page and the nearer the front of the paper the better. You can waste a lot of money on advertising. Advertising in most minor publications will not work. Opportunities like advertising on the surrounds of local maps, or business cards in dispensers in DIY chains, simply do not work. It is very easy for the salesman to quote how many thousands of people visit the DIY store or use the maps, but the fact is that nobody will notice your advertisement or business card.

Sell the benefits, not the features

There is little point in putting any advertisement anywhere unless it contains a useful message. This applies to posters, handbills and fliers, as well as advertisements in publications. You must sell the BENEFITS of your product not the features. Look at any professional advert and you will see it promotes what the product can do for you. The fact that it is bright green, smells nice or attracts mice is irrelevant. The important points would be that it made acne vanish, took six inches off your hips instantly or provided a life-saving service. Use the words 'you' and 'your1 frequently in the advert thus: Your local computer shop, here when you need us. Put yourself in our hands - then relax.

I recommend: Perhaps the most famous by-line was coined by L'Oreal which they use for all their products and it says so much.

Internet

These days it is not expensive to have a simple website designed and hosted, and it is almost a marketing 'must*. By referring to a website in your advertisements you can direct people to the site where you can provide far more information than you ever could in an advertisement. Increasingly people are communicating by e-mail because it is so quick and flexible.

I recommend:  If your business is called 'Rent-a-villa' it looks so much more professional if your e-mail address is sdes@rent-a-villa.com rather than smith2348@yahoo.com. You can register your own domain to enable you to do this, as well as have www.rent-a-villa.co.uk as your website for less than £100 per year. This would be money very well spent for most service businesses.

Networking

Particularly if your new business is a business-to-business service you will find it very worthwhile joining the local business clubs such as The Chamber of Commerce and the Business Breakfast Club.

I recommend: Word of mouth is by far the best, and cheapest, form of marketing.