Will Limkemann

Discounts

limkemann — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 15:34:11 +0000

I have never been a big advocate of offering general product or service discounts. Discounting tends to not only devalue a product or service but can also get a customer wondering where the bottom price point exits. Discounting to resellers or for volume purchases is a different matter. What I’m referring to are discounts to lure customers to make a buying decision.

So I was in a bit of a quandary as I prepared for exhibiting at a trade show earlier this month. I wanted to lure people to our products and to entice them to place orders at the show, but without offering any discounts. My solution was brilliant and helped me to exceed my sales goals for the show. It was a simple solution.

The lamps we make and sell tend be be bulky and consequently are costly to ship. Depending upon the distance and the specific product, shipping charges within the United States can vary from $7.00 to over $30.00. The customer pays whatever UPS charges us. So my decision was to waive shipping fees for any order placed at the show.

A prominent sign announced the deal, and I mentioned the savings to everyone I spoke with. It worked, as we came back with a pocket-full of orders! We were able to offer a good deal without discounting product pricing in the eyes of our customers.

Will Limkemann
Siqua Group Limited

A great buying experience

limkemann — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 12:12:06 +0000

I hate shopping, but I had an amazing shopping experience yesterday. I bought an IPhone. Well, not the new IPhone 4 but the prior version. I bought the phone at the Crocker Park Apple store.

Two things made the experience amazing, and both are lessons for any retailer of technical or high-end goods.

First, the sales associate was friendly, knew his product and, most importantly, listened to my needs and wants. Understanding what I wanted he gently steered me to the right products. Did he try to upsell to maximize the sale for Apple? Absolutely! But he did so by educating and not by “selling” or pressure.

Second, the point-of-sale technology was amazing. Advanced technology is no surprise in an Apple store! There is no check-out counter or line. There is no cash register. Each sales associate has a hand-held wireless device similar to an IPhone which scans the product bar-code and in which the associate enters all needed information. To complete the sale, the device has a slot for reading a credit card. If desired, a receipt can be printed in a back room and retrieved by the associate, or simply sent to the customer’s e-mail address.

Both the sales techniques and the point-of-sale technology should be studied by any high-end durable goods retailer. Both make the customer feel important. Both enable the sales to be transacted to the satisfaction of the customer and the retailer in the best possible way.

If you are such a retailer and in need of an Apple product, go to your nearest Apple store and see what you can learn from the experience.

Will Limkemann

How much do credit card transactions really cost you, the merchant?

limkemann — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 13:22:48 +0000

Almost all businesses now consider credit card sales to be part of the cost of doing business. It’s not only competitive to accept plastic, but credit cards provide instant cash and eliminate problems associated with collecting past-due accounts receivable. Certainly the convenience of credit cards come with a cost, and the cost can vary depending upon the processor you have contracted with. But, do you really know and understand what the true costs associated with each credit card transaction are? Check out this article from Inc Magazine.

Will Limkemann

Strengthen the positive

limkemann — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 17:53:47 +0000

As individuals and organizations we tend to focus on improving our weaknesses rather than exploit our strengths. Today I received a blog post from the Institute of Management Consultants addressing this. While the post specifically is aimed at consultants, the advice is good for all individuals and organizations. Read this post.

Are you compromising security when making copies?

limkemann — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 13:17:43 +0000

The digital copy machine is a marvel. It not only copies but can create seemingly unlimited sets from one set of originals, can save paper by printing on two sides, and enable enlarging, shrinking, cropping and more. Depending upon the features included in the machine it can fax, scan, and output directly from a computer.

The dirty little secret that the sales people forget to tell is that every time the machine is used, the originals are saved on a hard disk just like the disk drive in your computer. I do understand that to scan a set of originals and output multiple sets of the same, the machine needs to store the images of the originals for the current run. However, once the copy session is completed there is no opportunity to select a document from memory and reprint. So the question is, why not erase the images of the document once the current project has printed? Yet the images persist on the disk drive seemingly forever.

While the data on the disk drive is not readily accessible, if the drive is removed from the machine and connected to a computer running the right software, documents previously copied can be viewed and printed.

There is probably minimal security threat of a machine currently in use. Once the machine has been traded in or sold you have no idea who might gain access to it for nefarious purposes such as identity theft or corporate espionage!

As a user community we need to ask copy machine manufacturers to expunge all traces of images after a print job has been completed. In the mean time when you trade in or sell your copy machine you should have the disk drive removed after which you should physically destroy the drive. (Of course, a new drive will need to be installed for the machine to be used again).

See this CBS news report.

Will Limkemann

Does Ethical Behaviour Pay?

limkemann — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 13:41:32 +0000

I firmly believe that most business owners strive to do what is right for their employees and customers, and act in socially responsible ways. Other than having a clear conscience and being able to sleep at night, are there rewards for such good behavior? I’ve always liked to believe that customers would prefer to deal with ethical companies. Studies are now proving that believe to be fact. Read this Wall Street Journal article, “Does Being Ethical Pay?“.

Will Limkemann

Internet marketing

limkemann — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 13:35:25 +0000

My lamp manufacturing business primarily markets on the Internet, leading me to spend much time, energy, and thought on how to best use the Internet and various tools available for marketing, selling, and analysis. It looks like we’ve done some things right, as our primary product, a music lamps for organs, is currently at the number 1 position on the first page of Google searches when the key words “organ lamp” or “organ music lights” are entered. We’ve not been quite as fortunate, yet, with other product categories. As an aside, we have not used pay-per-click marketing proving that Google does not necessarily give preferential treatment to sites using pay-per-click.

What we have done is to constantly “tweek” our web page content making sure that we are doing everything we know how to do to improve the SEO (search engine optimization) of our sites. We also frequently get a rating of our sites using www.websitegrader.com and follow its advice for improving our SEO. Several months ago, when we first stumbled upon websitegrade, we improved our grade from 15 to 60 in 24 hours by simply implementing what websitegrader recommended.

Any business relying on the Internet for business needs to constantly find ways to improve page content and SEO. It’s also vital to analyze the statistics for your site. Part of my daily routine is to review the statistics for all of my sites.

While we’ve not used pay-per-click, a strong argument can be made for this marketing tactic. Diana Ransom has written a nice Wall Street Journal article on the subject, called “Seven Ways to Make Pay Per Click Pay“.

The Internet is crowded with companies selling their wares. Those businesses that pay attention to the Internet marketing details will certainly rise above the fray.

Good luck with your Internet marketing.

Will Limkemann

A better pizza site

limkemann — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 18:36:16 +0000

Over the past few months I have become very sensitive to effective and ineffective web sites as we have worked hard to continually improve and measure the effectiveness of the site for our line of lamps – www.ektralamp.com.

One of the best commercial sites I’ve run across lately I discovered when my grand-daughters wanted pizza. In particular they asked for Dominos Pizza and suggested that I order over the Internet. This was new to me, as I’ve always ordered pizza by phone. No more!

At 2:30PM I visited www.dominos.com and discovered an amazing site. The entire process of ordering a pizza to be delivered at 6:00 PM took just a few minutes with outstanding navigation. I selected the types of crust, then visually built each pizza with the desired toppings. I did not need to create an account (but could have if I had so desired) and was given the choice of paying by credit card or paying the drive upon delivery.

Out of curiosity I followed the progress of the order through the later part of the afternoon. A progress bar shows when the pizza is being made, when it has been put in and taken out of the oven, and at what time it left for delivery. I’m happy to say the delivery was made just five minutes after six.

I hold up this site as a masterful piece of customer-oriented engineering. It is fun, easy to navigate, and very effective. Dominos does a good job of promoting their products while you order, but with uncluttered screens. Anyone looking to build a customer-centric commerce site would do well to carefully examine this site.

Will Limkemann

Boards

limkemann — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 14:16:20 +0000

In the past I’ve mentioned the value of boards of advisors for even the smallest businesses. With advisors you will have a sounding board, mentors, and possibly even hands-on help when you need it. But you need to carefully select your board, nuture it, and most important, listen to what it has to say.

But how do you effectively assemble and use a board? If you are in Northeast Ohio you may find the answers in a seminar by Jumpstart at Corporate College East on February 25. Check out this opportunity at http://www.jumpstartinc.org/Resources/Events/Details.html?EventID=647

Will Limkemann
Siqua Group Limited

Royalty Financing

limkemann — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 16:41:20 +0000

Here is an innovative financing strategy for cash-strapped businesses. It’s called royalty financing. It works like this: The business borrows money against future sales and in turn pays a small percentage (royalty) of each invoice to the lender until the loan and interest is paid off. I’ve just recently run across this interesting financing strategy, and it may be worth businesses looking into. My suspicion is that it is a costly way to borrow but may be an option for businesses that have exhausted other options. Check out this brief article.

Will Limkemann