Don't Just Rely on Signages. Use the Power of Word-Of-Mouth

(courtesy of safetysign.com)

Imagine being relocated from a very high-traffic part of the Mall to a virtual DEAD ZONE and you can imagine the anxiety and worry that I went through when that just happened to my Lotto Outlet just last week.

To top it all, there are about 5 or 6 other lotto outlets within spitting distance (5o meters or less) from where I was located. The new site is exactly 80 steps (50 meters) away from my high-traffic site.

I knew my lotto customers will not be able to find me as they got used to just seeing my lotto outlet just upon entering the mall.

I placed a Tarp signage (in Bright Yellow background and Blue "Lotto" word across it) but only a handful saw the sign during our first 7 days and you know what brought my loyal lotto customers back , it was WORD-OF-MOUTH, to wit:

1. I stood on my old site and started giving out PCSO Lotto Playcards for them to place their bets and directed (escorted) them to my site;

2. The sales personnel of former

neighboring tenants who also pointed my lotto customers in the right direction;

3. Security Roving Guards also played a prominent role as many lotto customers asked the guards where my lotto outlet is now located;

4. And like a snowball effect, those lotto customers who were fortunate to find my lotto outlet during the crucial first 5 days also spread the word to their neighbors and friends who were also my lotto customers.

Signages are good but nothing like going out there and talking to your loyal lotto customers.

Is Earning a Net of P5,000/month Enough to Get A Franchise???

An ex-PAL stewardess but now a small business owner herself who is into making Premium Cakes for Corporate Accounts related this talk with a crewmember of a Native Delicacy franchise in a mall in Manila:

1. Average daily sales is only P3,000/day or P90,000/month

2. Rent is about P35,000/month

3. Assume Food cost is 30% or P27,000/month (which is on the low side of estimates

4. Salary of at least 2 crewmembers

5. Franchise package maybe about P350 to 500,000

6. Net Income is about P5,000/month.

According to the crew, the owner knows the income is low but gets it back by having several outlets.

PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF THIS APPROACH TO FRANCHISING IS SOUND BUSINESS-WISE?

Super Bad Trip Ba Kayo sa Motorcar Insurance Agent mo nuong Typhoon Ondoy?

Nuong Typhoon Ondoy, na-bad trip kayo sa ahente ng Motorcar Insurance dahil:

1. Comprehensive kuno pero di pala kasama ung flood-damaged?

2. Napuno ka na ba sa ahente dahil sa kapipilit nya na dalhin ung mahalin na sasakyan mu sa di kilalang talyer at DI PWEDE DAW SA CASA??

3. Natakot ka ba sa mga balita na marami pekeng Insurance CTPL at Policies???

4. Kapag-may claim, nawawala ung agente?

5. Hassle ba mag-claim kasi kailangan dalhin ung na=damaged mong sasakyan sa napakalayong opisina ng adjuster para inspect daw?????

Kung nag-Yes ka sa alin sa Tanong sa itaas, DAPAT LUMIPAT NA KAYO SA STANDARD INSURANCE CO. Bakit?

1. Casa lang gumagawa mga repairs (walang small-time na talyer)

2. May Acts-Of-God Coverage kasama sa Comprehensive Motorcar Insurance ng sasakyan mu (para pati nbaha COVERED!)

3. Kung sakali naksidente and inyong sasakyan, itanong lang sa Standard Insurance Office/Hotline kung saan ang pinakamalapit na accredited branch ng Casa sa inyong bahay o opisina at may Standard Insurance representative pupunta duon para kunin ng letrato ng damage at xerox ng OR/CR, driver's license at police report. Napakadali! Di sayang araw nyo.

Masasabi ko na maganda ang service sa Standard Insurance Co. dahil matagal na nk-insure ung 13-year old Toyota Tamaraw FX sa kanila at twing may-claim ako, ako pa tinatanong kung alin Toyota dealer gusto ko ipagawa ung Toyota ko!!!!

Kung gusto nyo malaman kung paano mag-paInsure sa Standard Insurance Co. Inc., text o call ako sa 0922-8831225.

Below ay Excerpts sa website ng Standard Insurance Co. Inc.:

Standard Insurance Co. Inc.

Motorcar Insurance


Standard Insurance provides the following types of motorcar insurance policies:

* Private Car (PC)
* Commercial Vehicle (CV)
* Motorcycle (MCY)
* Motor Trade (MT)
* Land Transportation (LTO)

The Standard Motorcar Insurance gives you more reasons to drive with ease and peace of mind with the following coverages:



Own Damage

Coverage against damages to the property insured arising from accidental collision, overturning, falling, fire and malicious acts of third party.

Theft

Coverage required by the law that protects the assured against liability for death of or bodily injury to third party arising from an accident involving the insured vehicle, subject to the schedule of indemnities incorporated in the policy.

Compulsory Third Party Liability (CTPL)

Coverage required by the law that protects the assured against liability for death of or bodily injury to third party arising from an accident involving the insured vehicle, subject to the schedule of indemnities incorporated in the policy.

Excess Bodily Injury (EBI)

Voluntary coverage answers for indemnities beyond the limit set forth under CTPL coverage.

Third Party Property Damage (TPPD)

Voluntary coverage against liability for damage to third party property arising from accident caused by the insured vehicle.

PA Rider

This is a voluntary coverage that financially protects the passengers against injury or death arising from car accident.

Value-Added Services

* Free Accident Coverage (PA)

Free P.A. Coverage for the family. This includes five (5) members of your family for P10,000 each.

Free Roadside Assistance Program

You will be provided with towing and other services in cases of accidents or vehicle breakdown

Automatic Technical Assistance

A group of auto-experts will assist you in assessing the extent of damages of your car in case of accident

Casa Repair

Because of our extensive tie-ups with Car Dealers nationwide, we provide automatic 5-star motorshop repair for cars 12 years old and below

These are just some of the benefits you get from Standard Motorcar Insurance. Treasure your prized possession. Stop fighting with your Insurance agent.

Should I Go for the One-Time Big Bucks Deal or Make a CLIENT FOR LIFE?

I was having a conversation with an IT programmer whose forte is designing Management Information Software with GPS Tracking for the Transport Industry.

Typically, he would charge a big upfront fee for software development and implementation as he is looking at the project as a One-time Engagement i.e Get-As-Much-As-You-Can-Now attitude.

I told him with his pricing in the P250,000 level (US$50,000), he is only going to attract big fleet accounts who will insist on getting the Source Codes (that will allow their In-House Programmers to reverse engineer for their own future enhancements & therefore, no more future business for him) and which will also mean he will be up against the huge software houses.

I was suggesting he does it on a Software Maintenance basis, to wit:

1. Charge Upfront a fee of P30,000 to P50,000 good for the first 5 truck units;

2. Charge a Software Maintenance fee of P5,000/month with a minimum of 1 year coverage;

3. Charge additional Software Maintenance fee of P500/month for every additional truck unit above 5.

4. While the client is under a 1-Year Software Maintenance Contract, the client is entitled to upgrade to the new version of the software for a certain fee (lower than the initial upfront fee)

5. Software Maintenance will include regular back-up of files, system repair, GPS & other special feature enhancements. (The selling point is to let him do the client's Back Office as the client may not have his own IT team for that)

The point I wanted to make is MAKE THE CLIENT STAY WITH YOU FOR AS LONG AS THE BUSINESS IS RUNNING. I do not think the client will migrate to another system if the programmer's software is already handling several years historical data and is doing a good job of it. Every small business entrepreneur fears loss of data, software downtime due to migrating to a new untested computer system and anything IT that he, the client, does not understand.

Play it right, I told the programmer, and he will have CLIENTS FOR LIFE.

My Lotto Customer Wins P50,000 from PCSO Scratch It Card

Yesterday morning, my Lotto customer bought a P20 (US$40 cents) Scratch It card and ended up winning P50,000.00 (US$1,000)!!!!!

Actually the winning Tic-Tac-Mo Scratch Card (a play on the Tic-Tac-Toe game) was partly crumpled and we did not expect anybody to still want to buy it but BUY my lotto customer did. She could not believe it and my lotto operator was saying the winning lotto customer was so nervous winning such a huge amount.

Which is better, Low-Margin High-Volume or High-Margin Low-Volume?

The above question is faced by most small business entrepreneurs in choosing a business concept to go into. There is a tendency to choose the low-margin high-volume because it may also mean lower capital outlays.

Jewelry is high-margin but low=volume. Some processed foods are low-margin but high=volume. Is it worth the effort to do the latter?

Some say that as a small business entrepreneur, we have limited everything: time, money, resources, manpower and therefore, we should aim for the high-margin low=volume route to maximize what we have.

Please give me your comments on this. Thank you.

Small Business Ethics and High-Pressure Selling Tactics

Say you are a Life Insurance Agent. Is it right to tell the client that if he does not fork over his credit card now so that you can swipe it for the amount of the premium on the insurance coverage, an accident might happen to him as he steps out of your Office and it will be too late for him to get insured?

Maybe it is not that drastic as the above but the objective of the company's sales management on its agents is to get that sale RIGHT NOW!

Please comment what you think about this?

Variety is King of Sales

At our small business, a Lotto outlet, we sell scratch cards i.e. cards that you scratch to reveal money prices that you can either exchange for cash or purchase more cards to scratch. Price is P50/card for the Diamond Dazzler & Cash Extravaganza and the rest are sold for P20.

They go by names like Go Bananas, Cash Extravaganza, Lucky Pick, Sargo Eight Ball, Pera sa Baul (which is Tagalog for Money in the Chest), Bee Lucky and many more.

Some people say focus on a few product variations to hold down inventory costs. I want you to look at the following situation as it challenges the Limited product concept:

1. When we started, we had only 4 kinds of cards. Now, we have about 15 kinds of cards.


(Picture shows a sample of the many kinds of PCSO Lotto Scratch It Cards that is the craze among Lotto patrons)

2. My supervisor noticed that sales is better when our customers have a choice of all 15 kinds. When we are down to say 10 as when we have ran-out of some card types, sales is less.

3. Seems like our customers want to see many choices even if invariably they only play 2 or 3 kinds per day. Think about that.



(For the Knockout Scratch card, find the pic of a Boxing Glove and win the amount below)

The Cost of NOT PAYING FOR A GOOD LOCATION

Every business startup goes through this, much more so for a small business like our Lotto Outlet. We have all heard the saying LOCATION. LOCATION. LOCATION. But what if we already have a location and are already operating our small business and then suddenly, A NEW AND BETTER LOCATION COMES UP. What do we do? Read on:

Try to imagine this layout as I don't have a sketch (hay): Between Mall Entrance 1 and 7, there are food restaurants, namely Resto A, Jollibee, Resto B, Resto C and McDonalds. Entrance 1 is the highest pedestrian traffice entrance to the mall while Entrance 7 is the lowest traffic. After sometime, Resto A closed shop as their food fanfare did not suit the mall type of clients.

1. The road fronting the two entrances is a Main Thoroughfare but all public buses and jeepneys stop in front of Entrance 1, hence the reason why Entrance 1 has the highest traffic.

2. Even at great expense, I feel McDo should transfer their operations to the site of Resto A to take advantage of the heavy traffic.

3. They did not. KFC did. And now, KFC is siphoning the eaters from the other restos except Jollibee,

4. Jollibee still kept its traffic despite being beside KFC is that Jollibee is popular to kids and as we know, parents follow whatever their kids want.

5. For adults, KFC tops McDo, I think.

Let me know what you think of my analysis.