Good business ideas are usually simple.
Over the last 5 years . . .
Have your fuel costs or electricity charges remained constant?
The 'red tape' compliance paperwork got any less time consuming?
Your wage bill got any lower?
When was the last time you had a pay rise?
Good business ideas come from the free small business assessments I do.
(Yes, it's free, if you haven't done one with me, click here to request one)
Most small business I do my assessment with, tell me they haven't increased their rates for 5 years!!
What else has stayed as cheap as it was 5 years ago?
I know you think that if you increase your prices you will lose clients or quotes.
Here's a surprise for you - you won't.
Good business ideas come from solid research.
In fact, a recent Gallup Survey of the American Society for Quality Control, ranked what customers said was good quality service (the stuff that solid businesses are made of).
The most important one was:
1. Courteous and polite treatment
Then
2. Having their needs satisfied
3. A good past experience of you
4. What others recommended about you
5. Your promptness
And then way down the list came
6. Price
[Could it be that constantly focusing on price is actually costing you jobs?]
You upgrade your equipment and qualifications to be better at what you do. Do you charge for this expensive equipment and higher skill level?
You give excellent customer service - often 'going the extra mile' to please people, don't you?
Sometimes you'll do extra for people, just cause you're a nice guy and you want to help out, am I right?
Isn't all this, worth a good return on your investment of time and experience?
Good business ideas make you extra money
Put your rates up!
No, I don't mean by 20%.
The new year is almost here. Now is the time to increase your rates by say 5%.
Nobody will even notice.
Then next year, increase it another 5%.
There, now you are beginning to catch up on all your overhead cost increases.
The next year put it up another 5% - then slow the increases, down to a little over the CPI increases.
When I do my Quick Customer Satisfaction Survey with each of my new clients [in my trial - Session 1], I ask 15 of 
their customers to rank the small business (on a scale of 1-6) on punctuality; going the extra mile; phone manner; honesty; quality of workmanship; reliability; tidiness; professional attitude and price (among other things)
Many just put a '6' in every box (which doesn't help me very much). Some really think about their answers and grade each subject carefully.
When the surveys come back in their reply paid envelopes, I go looking for a lower score under 'price'.
"Why would you want a LOW score in 'price', Paul" I hear you say.
Well, if you give excellent service, don't you think people should pay for that? It has a value.
On the surveys, I go looking for higher scores on everything, but a low 'price' score, to tell me that people love you and what you do for them; they'd have you back any time and probably refer you to their friends . . .
BUT
they think "he's a little bit expensive".
A high score in most of the boxes above tells me you value clients;
a lower score in 'price' tells me you value yourself.
Good business ideas include increasing your rates regularly.
Until next time,
Paul Johnson
Missing Piece Marketing
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