sales | smallbizdream blog

Create Your First Joint Venture in Less Than 30 Minutes Using This App

Many small businesses think twice about getting into a joint venture. They think it’s hard, complicated, and risky. But the truth is joint ventures are some of the easiest and cost-effective ways to rapidly grow almost any kind of business. In this article, we’ll show you how to create your first joint ventures using Small Business Dream in just 30 minutes or less.

Most Small Businesses Don’t Understand Joint Ventures

Most people think of joint ventures as being locked into a room with their lawyers and business partners, long drawn out meetings, and doing a ton of paperwork. They’re often mixed up with things like mergers and joint-ownership (though technically a partnership, joint ventures have a different set of rules and are much easier to implement).

According to some surveys, less than 5% of all business owners know how to joint venture while the vast majority of small businesses didn’t even know it exists. They didn’t quite understand how it works or why they should be doing it. Some of the common misconceptions are that joint ventures are only good for big businesses and that they cost a lot of money.

How Joint Ventures Work

We’ve asked several small business owners and one of the reasons they don’t do joint ventures is they want their business all to themselves (“be their own boss”). While not necessarily a bad thing, it might not be the fastest, most efficient way to grow your business, especially on a low budget.

In fact, the reason why many small businesses fail is they rely too much on their own limited resources when they could have easily partnered up with other businesses whom they can benefit from and vice versa.

To illustrate, let’s say you’re running a small flower shop business and you need to have more exposure. You can strike a deal with complementary businesses like event planners (preferably businesses with a sizeable customer base) to promote your business instead of spending a ton of money on ads. They get their cut in exchange for new clients, and you become more popular as being part of their service.

This is known as the “piggyback” effect and it applies to almost any kind of business. You see, you don’t need to acquire a huge list on your own if a complementary business somewhere within your city already has it. Notice we said “complementary.” You’re not competing with the same type of businesses but you’re trying to establish a mutually beneficial relationship. One of our Small Business Dream clients is a doctor who is a manufacturer and supplier of weighted blankets. Using our system, she was able to partner up with other businesses that deal with anxiety problems (e.g. psychologists and sleep specialists).

The reverse can also be true. You don’t have the product or service but you have a fairly large network and you can easily take your cut through customer referrals and commissions. This type of joint venture is popular among direct sales and multi-level marketing (MLM) companies. In fact, we’re going to show you how to use this method in our Small Business Dream Joint Venture module later in this article.

The challenge comes from finding your ideal business partners. You can try your luck on Google or the Yellow Pages, but this approach can take forever. We came up with a very neat solution that eliminates a lot of guesswork using a combination of highly targeted marketing strategy and sales and marketing automation.

If you want to learn more about this hybrid approach, you can read our blog article on how we help our clients build successful six-figure businesses using LinkedIn or you can download a free copy of our book, LinkedIn 5-step System: Generate 10 fresh qualified leads in 10 minutes for your small business.

The Small Business Dream Joint Venture Module

We’ve made joint ventures a lot easier for small businesses by incorporating our Joint Venture module into our Small Business Dream sales and marketing automation app. This goes hand in hand with our free Smallbizdream business directory app available on Apple Store and Google Play.

Basically what this JV module does is it allows you to create deals and referral programs through your Small Business Dream sales and marketing back office. App users will then be able to view your JV on the Smallbizdream business directory app and choose to join by tapping on it. (Note: app users need to have your code, i.e. your Small Business Dream username, to use the business directory app.)

Their names along with their contact information will show up in your Small Business Dream sales and marketing automation back office where you have the option to accept or reject their request. The good thing with this Joint Venture module is that you control everything – availability, joint venture name, description, terms and conditions, mode of payment, commission payout, and the start and end date.

This video shows you how to setup your business in the Smallbizdream business directory app through your Small Business Dream back office and how to create your joint venture in much greater detail.

Our tracking system allows you to manage all your JV partners so you know exactly who gets what and you can pay them in cash or in-store credit (Loyalty Credits). You can also choose between business-to-customer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B), so you can either have a customer, business partner, or both in the business finder app.

To get the most from the Joint Venture module, you may offer in-store credit for every customer who refers your business to their friends and have them download and install the free Smallbizdream business directory using the code you’ve provided them. Or, if you’re into direct sales and other similar type of businesses, you can use the Joint Venture module as an automated tracking system for your distributors.

You get all of these along with our amazing sales and marketing automation tools, including push notifications, in one complete package with Small Business Dream. It comes in two versions: do-it-yourself (DIY) and done-for-you (DFY) where we take care of everything.

So, Have You Decided to Do A Joint Venture?

If this article has been an eye-opener for you, don’t hesitate to seek help on how to make successful joint ventures for your small business. We’d like to spend a moment with you through our FREE 45-minute business consultation where we help identify ways to increase your sales whether it’s through LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, email series, sales funnels, landing pages, business directories – every possible way you can think of. Visit us at Smallbizdream.com and take a closer look at our 5-step Rapid Sales Growth Blueprint.

Want to stay on the move? Get our SBD Sales and Marketing Automation App for your mobile and keep tabs on your business everywhere you go.

Creating an Email Strategy for Your Small Business

We’re all familiar with email marketing. It’s how we get our coupons, discounts, and newsletters from businesses all over the internet. Many of these emails are considered spam. So how do small companies without a big marketing budget do email marketing correctly to engage their audience and drive more people to their websites or into their stores?

We’ll answer the question with a proven strategy using sales and marketing automation. Here’s why you should consider creating an email strategy for your small business:

Half of the world’s population are email users. Estimates show around 3.8 billion email users by the end of 2018. Gmail users alone account for 1 billion email accounts, 75% of whom access them through their mobile devices. In fact, every mobile user has at least one email account for signing up on Google Play or accessing their social media account through Facebook Mobile or Twitter. One in two of your potential clients and customers are email users (give or take, depending on where you live), and by being able to connect with them, you could potentially increase your income by as much as 50%.

Stay on top of user engagement. Besides email, the internet has plenty of other platforms for connecting with other people around the world. But despite the popularity of social media, email still ranks as the best and the most preferred method of communication, particularly on anything business-related. One of the key advantages of having an email list is that, unlike Facebook or Twitter, you have more control over how your message is delivered to your target audience. You could spend hours creating great content for them, but it could quickly vanish from Facebook newsfeed or buried underneath by dozens of other posts within minutes.

Automate routine tasks more easily. Small business owners don’t have much time on their hands responding to every email. Fact is, they don’t have to. Some of the best sales and marketing automation have mailing lists, email templates, and auto-responders taking care of most of the work so they can focus more on things that matter. It might take some work initially getting more acquainted with the ins and outs and creating an email strategy. As you gain more experience, you’ll be spending less time with it, and begin to reap the benefits of using this sales and marketing feature for your small business.

Steps in Building your Email List Using Sales and Marketing Automation

Step 1:

Choose a sales and marketing automtion software with an auto-responder feature. If you’re just starting out with email marketing, you don’t need an expensive CRM like Salesforce, Hupspot, or NetSuite. There are plenty of options for business owners from email subscription service and lead-generation software. Small Business Dream offers service packages for small businesses who want to accelerate growth using this feature. Just remember to stay within the bounds on the proper use of this tool.

Step 2:

Set up an opt-in page or survey form. You can start with a very simple and straightforward landing page or survey form and add your bells and whistles as you get better. Small Business Dream can help you set up your first landing page and survey form. Share the link through your Facebook Page, WordPress, or your company website. Or you can have it the old way and add the contact yourself (be sure to get their email addresses). Another method is to put QR codes in conspicuous places to get your walk-in prospects and customers to your landing page or online survey. Offer freebies or discounts for taking the time.

Step 3:

Wait for confirmation from your subscribers. Double opt-ins is the preferred method of choice for email subscriptions because it accomplishes two things at once. First, it filters out low-quality leads, and second, it helps verify real users. This might seem tedious compared to single opt-ins, but you’ll have better chances of making more conversions over the long haul for getting high-quality leads. It consists of a few lines asking your recipients to confirm they’ve opted in to your mailing list by clicking a link, etc., hence a “double” opt-in.

Step 4:

Segment your prospects and customers. You may start with just a few categories at first. Later, you can add more details to your customer data to make it more granular. Small Business Dream allows you to segment your prospects and customers from your initial survey. For instance, you can include a list of brands, companies, or products on the survey form and Small Business Dream will categorize each contact based on which box your visitors have checked. The same applies for setting priority to every customer. You can update their category by giving out surveys periodically in order to stay relevant to them.

Step 5:

Create a simple email follow-up series. Take some time reading through the templates to see how each customer engagement progress seamlessly to the next, and so on. It usually takes some practice and experimenting to make sure it won’t sound robotic. As much as possible, we want to avoid the impression that they’re dealing with a robot secretary instead of a real person, by a adding a human touch to every conversation.

Conclusion

Having a mailing list for your small business is more of a necessity these days, now that our target audience is moving towards mobile. Take some time learning the ropes and start making your own email strategy.

Learn more on how you can successfully build your business through sales and marketing automation. Visit SmallBizDream.com and start using our suite of tools to increase your sales and profitability like never before.

5 Ways CRM Can Help Your Auto Body Repair Shop

Standing out in a competitive world of auto repair industry is becoming more challenging. Shops are pretty much the same with their services offered, and they all share a common problem with regards to cycle times, turnarounds, and customer satisfaction. But there is a way to beat the competition and fix these problems using the right tools.

Growing Your Customer Base

Customer acquisition can take some time unless you actively market your business. Traditional means of getting exposure through ads and promos are still being used in the digital age, although they’re not always as affordable and effective as having your customers spread the word about your auto body repair business, i.e. through customer referrals or word of mouth. CRMs enable business owners to grow their customer base by reaching out to their target market more efficiently. Consider the following examples for auto body repair shops:

Acquiring information of potential customers on-site. Shop owners can collect customer details such as contact information from walk-in prospects and customers asking for quotes on their repair service and follow up on them based on their preferred method. Shop owners can also leverage by offering a referral program and give points redeemable for discounts, free items, and services to existing customers who can bring along new customers on-site. Small Business Dream’s Card Scan function takes a step further by having a data entry service to do all the typing work for them.
Acquiring information of potential customers online. Tech-savvy shop owners can acquire customer information through their websites, blogs, Twitter account or Facebook page and import them to the CRMs’ contact list. One advantage of having an online presence is it allows shop owners to collect customer data basically on autopilot. Small Business Dream can be used alongside existing auto body repair website, blog, Twitter, or Facebook Page, or it can create one for them as a micro-site or as part of a sales funnel. This automated feature not only increases your chances of acquiring new customers, but also saves your business time and money.

Managing Your Customer Data

Customer information has a lot of potential for growing your income. Unfortunately, many shop owners don’t have a system of collecting and storing them, or they have no idea what to do with the information they have. As a result, they miss a lot of opportunities for making conversions and repeat customers. CRM keeps all the customers’ data in one spot and shop owners can easily organize them however they want. This allows them to do the following:

Segmenting contact list. Business owners should be able to categorize and manage their contacts if they are to stay relevant and top of mind with them. Majority of email marketing campaigns fail because they are too generic or end up in the recipients’ spam folders. Small Business Dream CRM enables auto body repair shops to hone in to a specific type of audience based on category, whether they are new clients, regular customers, or you can categorize them based on their cars’ make, model, mileage, ownership status, and so on. With Small Business Dream you can also send automated or semi-automated emails to let customers know what stage their car process is at. For example, an email can go out that you’ve got a quote for the work from insurance. The next email can be you’ve started work and so on. This is an easy way to keep your customers engaged and will ensure a higher level of customer service which will in turn get more referrals and more sales.

Prioritizing qualified leads and customers. Shop owners pay careful attention to cycle times and turnaround times in order to stay on schedule. Small Business Dream CRM allows them to prioritize who comes up first on their Action List and when they wish to have them back on that section. This feature will come in handy when you want to give your customers a heads up in case you experience some delays with your auto parts supplier, auto insurance company, or if you want to update them about the status of the repair. You can also set the date when you want to follow up on them based on your turnaround date so you can quickly notify them of a successful repair, and a thank you note for choosing your shop.

Maintaining Customer Relationship

Brand loyalty can be a game changer in the auto body repair industry; you need a tool to keep your business top-of-mind to your customers and be able to do them with minimal effort. CRM helps maintain customers’ interest by automating certain tasks for you. Touch base with your customers if they need a tune-up. Offer tire changing services for the winter and summer season. Small Business Dream lets you accomplish all these tasks with just a few clicks after searching for a specific category of clients and potential customers on the Email Group section you wish to communicate with.

Creating an Email or Content Marketing Strategy

As a shop owner, you can share your expertise and experiences gained in the auto repair industry to educate your prospects and customers about proper care and maintenance. Small Business Dream’s autoresponders, enables you to build an email series for your subscribers about the importance of rotating their tires once every 5000 miles to evenly distribute wear and maintain traction, or preserving their cars’ lustre and shine by using automotive cleaners instead of liquid soaps and detergents. This CRM feature can also lead to a sale or a new customer when used with the sales funnel and following up on them through the Action List.

Listening to Customer Feedback

Business owners learn a lot by listening to their customers and can make you stand out in an industry that isn’t known for its customer service. Small Business Dream’s Survey Funnel allows shop owners to find gaps in their services and act accordingly. By automatically sending out a survey to all its customers it allows you to receive valuable feedback. How many of your customers prefer shorter turnaround times and those who prefer to have a thorough check-up, damage assessment and repair? Survey forms can be fine-tuned at any point in time to stay relevant and collect more information from your customers as needed.

The Small Business Dream Survey Funnel is extremely easy to use and doesn’t require any special web skills. All you need to do is write the questions you want your customer to answer and then create an answer field. You can use multiple choice or a checklist – whatever fits your needs.

Whatever your customer service needs, Small Business Dream is an amazing tool to collect, contact, and manage all your customers and leads.

Take your business to the next level through sales and marketing automation. Visit SmallBizDream.com and start using our suite of tools to increase your sales and profitability like never before.

How Prepared Is Your Business For the Future?

As business owners, we know we live in tremulous times. New industries – such as cryptocurrency – are being created overnight. Jobs are disappearing. Companies are switching industries. Tech companies continue to push the boundaries of automation through deep learning and artificial intelligence.

As modern technology pushes forward into our traditional businesses, the question for many of us is, how prepared are our businesses for the future?

Machines Are Taking Over

Businesses that fail to adapt won’t stand a chance in today’s fast-changing industry. People are now being replaced by robotics and automation for quite a number of reasons. People can only do one task at a time. They get distracted, make mistakes, and buckle under pressure; machines rarely make mistakes, they don’t take breaks, and are incredibly efficient at multi-tasking.

Technology enabled businesses to grow faster than ever, and it only gets better with time. As people put more resources in technology, production costs go down, giving more room to invest in better technologies. Back then, long distance phone calls cost 25 cents per minute or around 2 dollars overseas. Nowadays, we can talk to someone from half a world away through the internet for just a fraction of the cost. (Imagine what this would do to traditional phone industry.)

Soon, nearly every task will be automated. This implies two things: first, most manual jobs that don’t require critical thinking, problem-solving, and creativity are in danger of being taken away by automation. Industries will continue to downsize and low-paying jobs might soon be gone. White-collar jobs aren’t safe from the onslaught of automation. Neural networks might soon replace analysts, accountants, and personal assistants, as A.I. and deep learning continues to evolve.

Second, companies that rely on traditional methods could soon go out of business, unless they keep up with the times and stay relevant with modern-day customers. Amazon and online shopping will always be a threat to traditional retail businesses, and telecom companies are in dire need of a solution against the growing popularity of internet calls.

Uber and Airbnb have redefined travel and accommodation, challenging long-established companies within the industry. Cryptocurrency and blockchain technology is a growing threat to our financial sector with its permissionless, secure, peer-to-peer payment system. Innovation is no longer just an option for a lot of businesses. As a matter of fact, it’s the only way for businesses to survive in this day and age.

Fortunately, some jobs are more resilient than others, particularly those that have to do with complex human emotions. So-called soft skills and out-of-the-box thinking will be more important than ever for businesses.

The World Has Changed, and So Will be Our Businesses

History is littered with the remains of old industries that fell out of use as better technologies emerge. You’d be lucky to find relics of the past in people’s attics like the portable cassette player, VHS, film camera, and encyclopaedias. Yet they remind us of the bygone era when they became a booming business in the late 80s and 90s.

Fast-forward to the present, people do things a lot differently. We spend more time on the Internet and consume online content more than from traditional media. Over 2 billion people connect with each other using handheld gadgets many times faster and more powerful than the NASA computers of the first moon landing. Our world today is vastly different, and so will be our businesses.

Conclusion

Businesses have evolved over the years alongside modern technology. Sooner or later, they’d have to come up with something fresh, something which has never been tried before. It could take the form of a much better technology, a new concept, a better strategy, or a business opportunity. Who knows what the next disruption will be?

Take your business to the next level through sales and marketing automation. Visit SmallBizDream.com and start using our suite of tools to increase your sales and profitability like never before.

It’s Tougher Than Ever To Advertise on Facebook. What Should Small Businesses Do?

Facebook offers more control to users on what they want to see on their newsfeed; it will start filtering out ads and content they’re not interested in. This came as a response to the growing concern with regard to social media’s role on our society’s well-being.

In this article, we’ll talk how putting more emphasis on community-building over competition for viewer’s attention on social media can benefit small businesses.

Why a Change in Focus is Vital for Social Media

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube have changed the way people interact with each other. They paved the way for communities of like-minded people to share life’s experiences and interests over the internet.

Since then, users have always thought of getting more people to like their posts, and it wasn’t long before sharing became attention-seeking. Internet marketers quickly saw its potential for marketing and spared no expense getting more ‘likes’ and comments to stay on top of everybody’s newsfeed.

Other businesses won’t just stand and watch while competitors get all the attention on social media. Facebook ads, page boosts and paid ‘likes’ soon became the norm in social media marketing, and staying on top became increasingly difficult (and expensive) as more and more people and companies fight for user attention.

Ads were just one of Facebook’s many problems. They also have to deal with fake news, scams, clickbaits, and viral posts which doesn’t serve its users. Changing Facebook’s algorithm gave users a much better experience. (Notice how your friends’ most recent posts always come first. Same goes for more informative posts; irrelevant posts are demoted or removed completely.)

Facebook is getting more serious about its purpose as a company. Mark Zuckerberg is a little concerned and vows on “protecting the community” which he believes is “more important than maximizing profits.”

Facebook’s Focus on the Community

Most of us can only look back when YouTube was totally ad-free before Google bought it for 1.65 billion USD in November 2006. It soon turned into a money-making social media platform with ads taking the likeness of TV commercials but with some degree of user interaction. Remember how quickly you skipped the ad as soon as it starts, or piqued when forced to watch all 20 seconds of it?

Facebook went down the same path when it started Facebook Ads, paid likes, and page boosting. However, after dragging users into countless hours of endless scrolling and passive consumption, they’ve decided to redeem themselves by giving more attention on things that matter most – meaningful social interaction.

This might cost Facebook a lot of money, considering most of their income comes from advertising. To get around this, Facebook might give users the ability to choose ad-free subscriptions on a monthly basis for a fee which is approximately the price per user paid for by advertisers on Facebook. Another option is to provide premium accounts the ability to fine-tune their viewing experience and exceed certain limitations not accessible in free accounts.

From the standpoint of a social media marketer who rely on Facebook ads for traffic and customer acquisition, this can be somewhat unappealing, since most of their high-end clients and potential customers who can afford ad-free subscriptions would be out of reach by then, and they would have to settle with what’s left of Facebook’s free user base.

Having an ad-free, community-centered Facebook for users is much more complicated than we think. Facebook’s intention to take away distractions from the user experience is a noble one, although much of it remains to be seen. As with any kind of business, it has to somehow generate income in order to survive, i.e. by giving “free access” to services, paid for by advertising.

What This Means for Small Businesses

One of the biggest advantages of small businesses over large companies is the community that was built around it. Creating and maintaining customer relationships is much easier on a tightly-knit group of customers than having to deal with a very broad audience. Instead of social media being used as the battleground for people’s attention, it will become a truly engaging, interactive space where real businesses and customers with common interests can share their ideas.

Paid advertising will always have its place in the marketing mix, but social media is not really about throwing your ad into a prospect’s face. Be genuine with your customers, speak to them on a personal level and they will refer you to their friends. That’s the power of Facebook, not trying to outspend the competition.

Big businesses who rely heavily on advertising might have to take their outbound marketing strategies elsewhere. And what better place to advertise than Google? This way, we won’t have to worry going against these giants on an ad-free social media. We can devote more of our time and resources building a community of customers and growing our businesses through customer referrals, word of mouth, and other networking strategies.

Having your own site where you can take your customers for a brief tour of your goods and services is the next big step after you’ve accumulated enough audience from social media. This is where your business starts experiencing exponential growth through organic searches and visits driving more traffic to your site.

As a small business, we need to start somewhere, and social media could be one of those places where we can grow our audience. Creating and maintaining customer relationships has always been the key.

Take your business to the next level through sales and marketing automation. Visit SmallBizDream.com and start using our suite of tools to increase your sales and profitability like never before.