All posts by Jay

How To Start My Pie Delivery Business?

Starting Out

I bake pies and am creating a delivery only business.  I have ADHD (but, I find I am not alone). I can’t seem to “finish” my business plan.  Is this project ongoing or is it me? I would like to sell my pies on craigslist.com.  I plan on keeping my job so I meet my business obligations.  I have several people to help with the baking and delivery but I have a problem with being afraid of people ripping me off. Are these all normal concerns?  I have a lot of family and associate support.  Where do I put my foot first?

###

Jay’s Answer:   Your concerns/fears are normal. Keeping your job going is also a very smart move. So how to proceed?

  1. Make sure you’re using a commercial kitchen. Your local health department has the information you need to understand why it’s necessary (both legally and from a safety perspective).
  2. Form a legal company. You’ll want to either talk to a lawyer or at least do your own research (starting with Nolo Press – http://www.nolo.com). The point is that if someone were claim to have gotten sick from your pies, they might sue you. And you don’t want to lose your house because of your pies. The right company structure can help protect you financially. (Note: I’m not a lawyer, and this isn’t legal advice).
  3. You’ll probably need a business license to sell your goods (again depending on where you live). Getting your license to sell your baked goods will also probably necessitate working with your local Health Department to ensure you’re following packaging and food safety regulations.
  4. You’ll want to make it easy for people to pay you for your goods. These days, an easy way to solve in-person payment is a mobile credit card processing machine. People could then pay you either in cash or with an instantly validated credit card.
  5. Since you’re delivering the pies, you’ll probably want additional insurance to protect the pie delivery vehicle and driver. You’re operating a business, and if there’s a problem, your normal auto insurance provider might not be too happy.

The last steps were all to protect you and your business. Now, you need to market your pies to the public. Craiglist is the easy way to sell something, but it might not be the most efficient/effective. How about your local Farmer’s Market? Or, working with your local charity (they take orders for pies, they get payment up-front, you deliver).

All of these steps take time and money. Taking shortcuts might save you time and money short-term, but may cost you dearly long-term.

Cause Marketing Idea for the Holidays

Clubs + Associations, Creative Business Ideas, Publicity

Now here’s an idea worth replicating (from Marin IJ). It lets people choose to donate to a local charity in a way that everyone wins:

Quarters gobbled up by Sausalito parking meters in December go a long way to helping those in need.

During the rest of the year, a quarter will buy you 15 minutes of time for your car in the city. But in December, it will buy you a bit of good karma.

During the Christmas month the city waives all meter fees for the public with the hope people will come to shop in Sausalito.

But to each meter is affixed a sign letting people know that if they drop money in anyway, it will go to a good cause. And despite the recent tough financial years, the quarters drop.

“Surprisingly enough, people do,” said Adam Politzer, Sausalito’s city manager. “It can be anywhere up to $14,000 in donations collected from the public.”

It’s an annual city tradition that goes back a decade.

“What that allows the City Council to do every year is to look for service providers and nonprofits that help the less fortunate and the underserved during the holidays,” Politzer said. “It helps folks here in the city and in the county that need help.”

Last December, roughly 24,000 quarters were deposited into the meters. That means the city had $6,000 to distribute to good causes this year. Quarters being dropped right now will be distributed next December.

Three programs benefited from the city’s and public’s good cheer as they were each awarded $2,000 at last week’s City Council meeting.

Homeward Bound of Marin, which addresses homelessness in the county, was one of the recipients.

The Ritter Center, which serves low-income people in the county, also received money along with MarinLink’s Project Warm Wishes, which once a year distributes “street packs” stuffed with new gloves, hats, scarves, socks and rain ponchos to homeless men and women.

Mary Kay Sweeney, executive director of Homeward Bound, applauded the city’s program.

“This has to get the award for creativity in fundraising,” she said. “This is a wonderful way, a painless way, to raise money for very important causes.”

Tagline For Hardware Products In India

Names + Taglines

I am looking for a TAG LINE for our a new company selling a range of HARDWARE Products in India. These are handles, door closers etc. We want to give the feel of a Trustworthy, Solid, High Quality, International product line. The Indian consumer will probably not like (currently) a witty or casual tag line as they would like to feel they are associated with an EXPERT for these rather technical products. Our company name is RINOX KAUFMANN Limited (Kaufmann indication German connection).

Some current suggestions: Premium International Hardware, Premium Building Solutions, and  Professional Hardware Systems.

###

Jay’s Answer:

  • Premium Precision Architectural Elements
  • Brilliant Precision Architectural Elements
  • Beautiful Construction Hardware Systems

Clarifying The Mission & Message Of Organization

Clubs + Associations

I am working with a website/marketing/social media organization. The CEO wants to craft the mission statement of the company; for internal employees and to publicize his philosophy to the world.

The original idea was “Changing the Way Businesses Behave”, but that really isn’t what they do; he wants to discover the core heart of a company and share clients’ marketing/social/human face to the world.

1. He is sold on the word remarkable —not meaning amazing, but meaning that others will remark, message, refer, tweet, and share about the organization.

2. He wants to discover the heart and soul of his clients’ organization and message their their unique brand via social media and get others to “remark” about them.

Any mission/tagline thoughts on this one? I am stumped.

###

Jay’s Answer:   Mission statements tend to be an exercise in futility. You get something that everyone agrees on, says nothing, and does nothing for the people in the organization.

As for a tagline, consider: “Our Business Is To Make Your’s Remarkable”

Promotion Ideas For a Resort

Publicity

How can I promote my resort?

###

Jay’s Answer:   The key to promoting anything is understanding who exactly would love your offering, and describe how/why they would love it.  Here are 5 tips to help you get started:

1. “Who” isn’t “everyone who’s visiting in your area”. It’s what type of people enjoy your resort the most. Age? Travelling alone? Budget? Luxury? Convenience?

2. Based on people’s experiences in the past, why did they choose the resort? No doubt there are some logical reasons, but the emotional reasons are even more important (color, room size, staff helpfulness, specialty food prep, etc.).

3. How do the people you’re targeting research resorts in your area? Online? Travel agent? Magazine? Word-of-mouth? Put your advertisements where the right people look.

4. Interview your (prospective) guests. Find out their needs/expectations. If you can meet/exceed them, do it. Positive word-of-mouth is the best marketing. If you ask at the end of your stay “was everything okay?” it’s too late.

5. Close the loop. Follow up with your guests (you have their contact information, right?). Find out how their travels went (not just your resort) and find out what other local merchants/services they used. Co-market with these local businesses in the future.

Name My New Wedding & Event Planning Business

Names + Taglines, Starting Out

I’m in the process of finishing a course to become a wedding and event planner.  Once completed I intend to start out with my own business.  The problem is I am stuck on a business name.  I am after something that is professional enough for corporate events but also has the right feel for wedding planning, many that I think of are already taken, any help would be great.

###

Jay’s Answer:   Congratulations on finishing up and best wishes in launching your new business. I get a lot of requests about naming a wedding/event planning business; in most cases my answer’s the same:

http://www.manygoodideas.com/2010/07/21/name-my-wedding-planning-business/

New business owners are excited to launch a new business, print business cards, create a website, and start trying to get business as soon as possible. That’s understandable – you’ve got an idea, passion, and see an opportunity for yourself to make some money. However, if you don’t think ahead strategically, you’re likely going to find yourself stuck. You’ll have a website, business cards, a business phone number, and you’ll be waiting for the phone to ring or emails to arrive. Or, you’ll be handing out your cards to anyone who’ll take them, hoping that they’ll contact you. That’ll quickly lead to frustration and disappointment.

Instead, imagine yourself in the future with your ideal client(s). Who are they? Where are they located? Why did they contact you specifically? What about your personality, skills, knowledge made them choose you from your competition? How much are they paying you? What do you love about working with them? What challenges you in working with them? The clearer you can describe your future, the better you can plan for it:

http://www.manygoodideas.com/2010/09/01/what-is-your-ideal-business-day/

This is probably not what you wanted to hear – you wanted simply a name. But a name alone won’t truly help you unless you’ve done your planning ahead homework (marketing/business strategy). And I do want you to succeed, so throwing out something “cute”, clever, or “catchy” won’t be of long-term benefit to your business.

If the person who’s teaching your course has given you wise counsel for marketing, you might have the information you need at-hand. If not, save yourself time & money now. Plan for your own success.

Tagline For A Pawnshop

Names + Taglines

Need a catchy tagline for a pawnshop to encompass their pawnshop/money remittance/send money abroad services. Something along the lines of: “For your total money needs” or “Your financing partner”

###

Jay’s Answer:   Consider:  “Put Your Money Where You Need It” It addresses the key points and is easy to remember.

Holidays Tagline

Names + Taglines, Publicity

I work for one of the biggest travel agents in Ireland, we sell package holidays to all the sunny spots in Europe, Med, Greek Islands etc. We are launching our national ad campaign in January, I am relatively new with the company and want to make a big impression with this. One initial idea i had was a big of flip flops laying on a beach with the tag “Step into Summer” hasn’t been ruled out yet but I could use a few more options, any suggestions much appreciated. The focus this year is on family holidays.

###

Jay’s Answer:

  • Book Your Sunshine Now
  • When Was Your Last Vacation?

 

Speak With Passion: Your Storytelling Structure

Creative Business Ideas, Publicity, Speak With Passion, Videos

Storytelling Structure

Photo by Alan Levine

When you consider how to tell your story, you’d do well to follow some of the more popular storytelling formats. Using these age-old formats helps to shape expectations and therefore easily have people know how to receive your speech.

The sales speech is basically a long advertisement for a product or service. It’s goal is to have the listener take a specific action. Sales speeches generally showcase the risks of not buying and the rewards for buying your offering. These may combine elements of biographical speeches, but instead of simply connecting with the listener’s emotion, you want to connect with the listener’s wallet.

A lecture demonstrates how to solve a problem. A college lecture, for example, will start with a question, and offer best practices for solving the question. A cooking demonstration shows how to make something delicious. The format of the lecture is a “cookbook” for solving the problem so that you can go home and reliably reproduce their results.

The inspirational speech is best exemplified by Martin Luther King’, Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech. Inspirational speeches are ideal for when you want your audience to share your vision. The format is a series of short contrasts: this is what life is like today, but this is what life can be like. The contrasts showcase the divide, and your speech can focus on the steps the listener can take to obtain your vision. These speeches need to be kept relatively short, otherwise they become sermons that people will tire of (too many contrasts become repetitive and few speakers can enthrall their audience for a long time).

The biographical speech shares your personal history with the audience, using specific anecdotes to highlight key points you wish to make. Biographical speeches are great for showcasing how a series of events contributed to the learning you’re imparting, and the stories help the audience remember your “teachable moments”. These speeches can be much longer, but can suffer from the “Yeah, that was your experience – and it doesn’t relate to me at all” feeling. It’s important to somehow take your specific story and generalize it for others to learn from.

The fairy tale is the most ingrained form of storytelling, since these are the stories we heard when we were young. Fairy tales have both a specific format (every day…until…and because of that…and because of that…and ever since then…) and an underlying moral. A fairy tale is a powerful storytelling structure since it allows you to combine fantasy and reality in a simple package with a powerful punch. Crafting a fairy tale is hard – since you really need to distill the characters, their actions, and reactions to their essence to make it truly fairy tale-like. Otherwise, you story becomes a biographical speech, which doesn’t pack the childhood innocence-like feeling you’re trying to evoke.

While it might be tempting to mix-and-match the structures (a fairy tale that’s also a sales speech), be very careful doing so. Your audience won’t know what you’re trying to convey, and are likely to internally have resistance to enjoying your story. Instead, if you want two structures, put them back-to-back, creating a separate “chapter” of your speech.

By matching your speech goals with the right storytelling structure, you make it easier for your audience to “get” your message.

For some great examples of some of the speech structures, I suggest watching Nancy Duarte’s TEDxEast talk:

Marketing – a Little or a Lot?

Creative Business Ideas

A

Photo by Groupon

When you are marketing a product or service, how do compare it to the competition? Is your product 5% better? Are your prices 10% less? Is your offer 100% guaranteed?

Unless your offering is already the market leader, people will naturally be comparing what you’re selling with what others are offering. If your product is slightly better or slightly cheaper, it’s unlikely that people will pay you much notice. Why should they risk a mistake of not choosing the market leader for small win?

To get noticed, your offer needs to be significant. How much is significant? For large ticket purchases, a few percentage points may tip the scales in your favor. Otherwise, 5-10% will likely be ignored. You want to shock people awake to your offer, so if you truthfully do so, make the claim that your offering is dramatically better – 25%, 50%, even 100% better. Prove it not just with your words, but with testimonials and comparison charts (where appropriate). Groupon typically features 50-90% off discounts – that gets attention.

Once you have your prospect’s attention, you need to convince them that your offer isn’t just hype. Explain how your service can be 33% better than the competition. Support the claims with white papers and/or testimonials from your happy customers. You don’t want your prospects to feel that there’s any risk from buying from you – that’s why you want social proof to show that you’re the smarter choice, and that others have found you as well. Make them feel that they’re on the “next great thing”, and you’ve made them feel smarter and safer for risking doing business with you.

People are deluged with messages daily. Have your marketing message stand out by making bold claims that are clearly supported.