Thrive is one of my favourite words at the moment. Arianna Huffington brought this name to the fore with her launch of Thrive Global and I’m so glad she did because I just love it. We all want to thrive rather than just survive as individuals. If you’re a small business owner you thrive if your business thrives. Some fabulous tips in the contributed post below.
Helping Your Small Business to Thrive
Nowadays, small businesses who operate in real life, tangible stores (rather than solely online) have things harder than ever.
Competition is fierce, and brands operating within the realm of E-commerce tend to have fewer outgoings, meaning that they can offer the same goods at a lower price. But that’s not to say that high street stores are necessarily going to disappear.
There’s still big money to be made from brick and mortar stores. You just have to do a few extra things to help your business to thrive and grow.
Here are a few ideas to help you along the way!
Accepting Debit and Credit Card Payments
One area where many small businesses miss out on sales is limited payment methods. Nowadays, not everybody carries cash on them, and though they may have found something in your store that they like, they might not be bothered enough to walk to a cashpoint to get the money out to pay you for it.
Either that or they’ll leave with intentions to come back and complete the purchase, but get distracted along the way. This is why it’s so important that you accept as many payment methods as possible.
Now, accepting debit and credit card payments generally comes with a charge, so you want to make sure that you scour the market before committing to a merchant service provider.
Look for deals with low rate processing to minimise your outgoings and maximise your profits!
Signposting Your Store
Not every store has a prominent location on the main road or high street. In fact, many stores are relatively hidden away down alleyways or around corners.
So you need to find a way of making sure that people, or potential customers, know that you exist and where you are located. If you don’t, they may walk right on by, taking their disposable income to competitors rather than you.
The most effective way of doing this is signposting. This is a technique that you will find many smaller businesses using. Simply set up a signpost or newsboard with your shop name, logo, and an arrow in the direction of your store on the nearest busy street.
Also, give people a rough idea of how far they will need to walk to get there. This will be most effective if the distance is short.
Implement Loyalty Schemes
Few online stores carry out loyalty schemes, as it’s difficult to keep a track of every single order that goes through. However, working in a physical store means you can offer out loyalty cards with each purchase and offer your customers rewards each time they revisit.
Stamp cards are a great option: add a stamp per item purchased, or certain amount spent, then reward customers with a free product or service once they achieve a certain amount of stamps.
This encourages loyalty to your brand, even when competitors offer lower prices or sales. Your customers will still opt to pay that little extra for you, as they may be close to receiving their free treat.
These are just a few ideas to get the ball rolling. Hopefully, they can come in handy!
All set and ready to thrive? What steps have you taken to make sure your business thrives?
Hey Lauren,
that’s a great blog post. In today’s world where so much of our live happens online, it is pretty cool to see people thinking and blogging about how to improve offline business. I feel that this is something really important: Nobody wants all the local stores to shut down and nobody wants empty malls; but everything has to be cheap, cheap, cheap. Local stores and those tiny, specialized businesses are so important for ALL of us, whether people admit it or not.
Did you know that there are many successful local businesses, especially those small businesses that use PPC (facebook ads in particular) to drive hyper targeted traffic not only to their webpages, but also to their “real world” stores. I’d love to read something about that as well! Do you have a blogpost about it or are you about to write one?
Cheers,
chris
Hi Chris
Thanks so much for your exceptional comment. It sounds like you really know this subject inside and out.
I wasn’t planning to write a post about how local businesses are becoming successful by placing Ads on Facebook and driving targeted traffic… but I would appreciate one. It would be the perfect follow-up to this post. Would you like to do the honours?
Lauren, those are some great ideas that you have in your post. I can clearly see how they would help people who are running brick and mortar stores. Do you by any chance have a similar post for people who are running online blogs?
Peace,
David
Hi David, Thanks for the compliment and yes, I do. Let me know whether you enjoy these or whether you’d like me to write something specific for you:
Create Your First Successful Online Campaign in 3 Steps
Be a Real Content Provider
Your Blogging MOT
Hi Lauren,
Really great post.
I was trying to start an online business about guitars and guitar players, but I wasn’t really disciplined enough to get it going and learning about all the things that come with it.
Especially the debit/credit card payments setup and loyalty schemes etc. I was after instant gratification as a lot of people are nowadays. Thinking that an online business is an instant thing when it is the exact opposite, it takes hard work.
Anyway, I have started an Affiliate Marketing business now and learning a lot before I go two feet into it.
Thanks for sharing and I have bookmarked your site to come back to for new posts and information.
All the best,
Tom
Hi Tom
Aah, interesting. Yes, I agree, whether online or offline, it takes time and effort to build a solid, income generating business.
All the best to you for your Affiliate Marketing business and if guitars are your passion, hope you come back to that business in the future.
Once you’ve set up one successful site and learnt how to monetise it, there’s no reason why you can’t set up another… and another.
Great tips for small businesses. Particularly interesting is the loyalty program and various payment methods. This brings constant buyers and money. Thanks for sharing. All the best.
Thanks Maja. I agree, am very keen to set up a loyalty program. Especially after receiving this detailed post about how to do exactly that. Do you already a loyalty program in place?