Is your business the best in its class?

People like dealing with the best. The only barriers to everyone having the very best of everything are price and ignorance.

Price

Not all motorists drive Beemers, Jags and Bentleys. Why? Because they cost more than Fords, Mazdas and Kias, that’s why. If the price tags of the former were lowered to match the latter – while keeping the same levels of quality, comfort and performance – the latter manufacturers would either have to raise their game or shut down.

This probably sounds a little far-fetched, and of course it is. When it comes to products and goods, the better quality examples almost exclusively cost more to produce, and use materials and processes that are much more expensive. That consigns the vision of a car buyer having a genuine choice between a $400,000 Bentley and a $25,000 Kia to the realms of the ridiculous.

But what about mortgage brokers? Or real estate agents? Or motor repair garages? Is the best option in these service categories 16 times more expensive that the worst? (Apologies to Kia – it’s not the worst, just the least expensive!)

Obviously not. Imagine a real estate agent telling you that their fees are ten times their competitors’ because they’re the best in the business. You’d laugh in their latte. Which brings us to the second barrier;

Ignorance

When businesses compete with each other for your custom, they can never be completely truthful. For the very best plumber in your region to successfully advertise this fact, it would take the second best to follow suit and the third, and so on. ‘Bloggs the Plumber’ would have to head up their advertisements “The ninth best plumber in Auckchurch”.

Clearly that doesn’t happen, and instead we’re bombarded with a multitude of advertisements and listings and billboards and banner ads and radio chatter, all proclaiming ‘pick me!’ Which renders choosing the best business in any category pretty much impossible.

Which brings us to the question; How do you determine who is the best? And the answer can only be that the customer or client is the only judge.

If only there were a fair and equitable way in which businesses could be ranked by their customers regardless of how much the business paid and what they put in their ads?

Well gee… now there is. www.iplug.co.nz

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How do I get more sales?

An often-asked question from business owners, and on the surface it’s perfectly sound. More sales means more profit, right? So how DO you get more sales?

Hang on though, before we get into this, do more sales really mean more profit?

If you owned, say, a Plasma TV shop, and you halved all your prices, you’d get more sales. I guarantee it. But you’d be selling each set for less than what you paid for it, and not only would you NOT make more profit, you’d be going backwards. Likewise if a plumber halved her charges or a lawyer slashed his hourly rate. More sales, but less profit (or none at all).

Here’s another example; if you took out full page colour advertisements in every newspaper in the country, you’d also get more sales. But a typical cost structure might be this; turnover up by $50,000 during the campaign, gross profit up by $12,000, additional net profit of $6,000 – and all it cost you was $30,000 for the ads!

More sales are easy. But the question should be ‘How do I make more profit?’

One of the best ways to increase profit is certainly to get more sales – but to attract those sales for NO COST to your business. And the best source of no-cost additional sales is your current customer base.

I’m sure you’ve heard this before; it’s far easier and more cost effective to draw additional sales out of happy customers than it is to attract new ones. That’s why a decent email database and marketing campaign is so good for business. These people already trust you! They’ve experienced what it’s like to do business with you. (And if they shy away now, you have a problem.) Every marketer in the world worth their salt will advise that you keep plumbing the depths of this resource.

But here’s the kicker… don’t restrict yourself to selling to these people.

Use their experience with you to convince others that you’re reputable, efficient, cost-effective and (fill in attribute here). In other words, use your present customers as a source of more sales from new customers. Ask them for referrals. Ask them if they know anyone else that you might be able to help. And if that’s a little difficult for you to do, at the very least ask them to PLUG you! Get them telling others how great you are, and new customers will come to you.

This is how you get more sales – that equate directly to extra profits. It doesn’t cost anything to market to existing customers, and any new customers that you attract will be pre-qualified (unlike those who come from expensive advertising campaigns or serious price-cutting).

You have a page on iplug.co.nz, and it’s available for all to see, so why not start using it!

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iplug launches again with version 2.0

iplug 2.0, son of iplug, is here!

We launched iplug a month ago to a select few, and listened to their feedback. We wanted to know how intuitive the site was, how easy to access and understand its principles, and what people thought of the sign-up process.

We then listened to all the comments, suggestions and raves (mostly raves!) and decided on the spot to revise the site. Not that there was much wrong with Version 1.0, just that we wanted it to be Goldilocks Perfect before we spread it to the rest of the country.

And we think we’ve achieved that. iplug 2.0 is lighter, faster and has 67% less fat.

Well that’s it. This is the final version for people to use, and it’s available now. For new users, it’s a simplified process;

1. register with the site, and this allows you to Plug (or Slap) businesses,

2. registered users can then list a business (or more than one), and

3. registered users can become an Affiliate and earn money by promoting the site to others.

That’s all there is to it. New Zealand will be a better place if all consumers spoke up, praising the businesses and services who do well, and informing them when and where they might stray from the path of perfection.

iplug really is Word of Mouth on Steroids!

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iplug launches!

It’s here. The business tool that New Zealand has waited 20 years for has arrived, and launches officially on May 16th, 2009. Mark this date kiwis!

But what exactly is iplug?

The iplug phenomenon is in fact several products and services, encapsulated in a single website. Okay sure, it’s just a website. But then so are eBay, Amazon, TradeMe and Google – and how have our lives been changed by them?

If you think of eBay as a modernisation of the town marketplace of 1000 years ago, then iplug is a similar update on the way in which the tradesmen and merchants of that time found customers.

In the days before advertising, if you needed someone to thatch your roof, you asked around. The man (yes, always a man back then) most highly recommended was the man you approached. Simple.

With iplug it’s the businesses that are the most recommended that rise to the top of the pile. It worked 1000 years ago, and it works today. Because let’s face it, here in 2009, if YOU need someone to thatch your roof, are you going to call the man (only a man would still be thatching in 2009) with the biggest ad in the local paper, or the one recommended by the most people?

Word-of-mouth is still king in 2009, and iplug is word-of-mouth in writing!

 

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