HUNTER LEONARD

What do I need to know when looking to buy a cleaning franchise?

Hi Scott I don't know that company or the specific industry but as a rule these are the things any good franchisor will be doing for you.1) they have good systems for every process in the business and will train you on this2) they are really going to help you on lead generation and also support and encourage you to take responsibility for local marketing of your own business too. they should be able to show you successful examples of them generating leads and also local franchisees marketing successes too. and beware it isn't just ads and brochures - they should have a national or state marketing strategy that supports all franchisees3) they should have a good reputation - speak to existing franchisees and get their thoughts too4) they should have good policies in place and clear concise explanations of what is expected of youOverall, you want them to be interested in you having a successful, sustainable business, and not be in the business of 'selling franchises' if you know what I mean.Once again, these comments are general and based on over 15 years experience in marketing and consulting to small business and working with franchises in different markets. I don't know the company you've mentioned, and I'm not commenting on their specific delivery of the above key success factors for you.Hope this helpshunter

Does anyone have experience with setting up licensing of a service based business?

Hi ElkanahI've run a marketing consulting practice for 15 years, and right in the middle of licensing my IP into a new business and creating a network of advisers using my IP. So whilst it hasn't launched yet, I've done a huge amount of work on the process.If you'd like some tips, please feel free to let me know.SincerelyHunter

Why and IS social media marketing important for all businesses?

I'm afraid the answer to this is actually it's not. Social Media is just one 'tactic' that can be employed by a business to support their strategic value proposition or marketing strategy. Starting with the assumption you have to be on social media in a business is a bad strategic decision.Before you can decide on any tactic you need to do the strategic planning in your business.Know your market, know your customer and their behaviours, attitudes, interests etc.Decide your strategyThen work out and pilot a range of tactics and measure each for effectiveness.If social is part of the mix, and it works for you awesome.But don't make assumptions up frontHope this helpsHunter

When should I write off a receivable as a bad debt? Is it worth taking the customer to court?

Hi SusanI'd say no, unless the outstanding money is significant. My experience is that you'll end up spending way more money, and still not get the debt paid. Best to just move on, and put in place policies to reduce the risk of it happening again.One possible way to force the person to pay up (and provided you've done whatever you promised to do in exchange for that money) is to threaten public naming and shaming of the individual/company. Sometimes the threat of public visibility of their poor credit or payment behaviour can have more weight than a legal threat. Something to consider.Hope this helpsHunter

Can you recommend good web developers in Sydney?

Hi YeeThe best team I have seen in terms of the development of sites and also professional understanding of SEO/SEM etc is a company called CLICK CREATIVE.We've just commissioned them to do a large project for a key client of ours and they have been super impressive in their work so far. I understand they've just opened an office in Glebe, and have offices in Melbourne too.CheersHunter

How do I get retailers to stock my products on their shelves?

Hi WendyYou need several tools to work this out.1. What is that industry and channels business model - for a given retail price, what are the margins required by the retailer, the group(in the case of a franchise or banner group) and the wholesaler. Based on your costs, what margin do you need to make. In many cases the retail price will need to be 4 or 5 times the cost of a product to have enough margin for all levels in a distribution channel, and leave enough for you to market and sell it too.For example - in the pharmacy channel, most retailers will want their stores to make 50% plus in markup/33% margin, at wholesale there may be 9-15% for head office, and you may be paying 15-20% for sales people to sell it in to individual stores. On top of that there will be other % for promotions, investment in catalogues, promotion periods, % for damaged stock, stock returns etc etc. You really have to look carefully into all the elements and know what a particular banner will want from you before you can decide if you can afford to do it. Knowing all of this you can then start to calculate what RRP will help everyone in the channel make money.2. Buyers - with most retailers there will be a head office buyer(in the case of groups) or a store buyer(in the case of single store retailers) and you need to find out from them a number of things including a) do they stock that type of product b) when do they make decisions on their ranges c) what do they expect in a presentation from you d) what support do they expect from you in marketing and other areas.Hope this helps Hunter

How do you price your products and services correctly?

Hi DerrickThere are a number of strategies to pricing correctly. 1. Know what competitors are charging and adjust your price according to your positioning strategy. If you think you offer a better value proposition or you want to be known for higher quality or premium, price higher than them, and if you want to be a lower cost, higher volume producer price lower than them.2. Value - on rare occasions you can completely change the paradigm on pricing in a market - I heard of an example in manufacturing where a company doubled the life expectancy of a key component in a production facility, they could have priced their product at twice the competitor, but ended up charging more than 1000x the competitor because they found out that by doubling the lifespan of that component they saved companies millions in production downtime.3. Cost Plus - in this method you have to understand the cost inputs to your product or service - it isn't just production cost, it's time and money to sell, market, insure and other items- but in essence you cost out everything you can think of and then add a margin which not only covers this but gives you a profit too.4. Survey - by surveying potential customers of a new product or service, you can determine their sensitivity or interest of that product at certain price levels and based on this determine where you should price for optimum return for you.hope this helpshunter

Is there a difference between a branding and a marketing agency?

I respect the diversity of opinion presented in the answers so far. here's my 2c worth and hope it adds to the discussion.my view is marketing is the strategic activity of researching, planning, implementing and measuring the marketing plan - (unfortunately the use of and therefore definition of the word marketing has been so bastardised over the years that it now means all manner of things to all manner of people)and branding is a tactical activity (albeit incredibly important) that is centred on your company image, creative positioning, logo and many other components.personally, i think the strategy and the marketing is more an in-house strategic activity(albeit some smaller companies outsource this to an external person) and branding would usually be an external agency.branding is the process whereby you visualise the market positioning you choose in your marketing strategy.i think one company could do both provided they have the skillset within the team to do it. i've run an outsourced marketing consultancy for 15 years, and worked with companies from $2m to $2b in turnover. i've had internal branding people and also outsourced to them on behalf of clients. both models have been successful for me acting as the CMO for most of my clients and bringing in specialist branding experts as needed. hope this helps you regards hunter

How do you grow a business quickly and smartly?

know your market, your competition, your customer, and your ability to service that customer, in that market - ie: what is your value proposition. unless you've done the work to properly work out your business and market strategy you'll never grow a business either quickly or smartly. the smarts come from the right strategy.the speed comes from having the resources in terms of money, time, people, cashflow etc to grow at the speed you want.hope this helpshunter

For those who attend expos, what do you take that I might not have thought of yet?

if you're attending an expo, I'm going to assume you have the posters, brochures, lollies, incentives, sticky tape, velcro and all the other things you need to put the display physically there in the space you've booked.in my experience the 3 things people forget to take to an expo are not physical things at all. they are1) a specific objective/target for the expo2) the process you'll use to identify prospects from amongst the visitors to your stand3) a policy to follow up all enquiries and leads within 48 hours of the end of the expo because after that, unless your offer was amazing or the prospect intensely interested - you've probably lost your chance.hope this helpshunter

How do I improve my ability to sell?

In my experience the best sales people don't sell. They help you to buy.And to do that you need 3 things1) a complete and competent understanding of what you are selling2) an intense interest in the needs of the client in front of you (question, listen, understand)3) the ability to match customer needs to the profile of your product or serviceand one other thing - the ability to walk away if after doing the above you realise your product or service ISN'T the right solution for that client.hope this helpshunter

What are some blogs and sites a new start-up should send press releases to?

For a start this depends on your start-up's strategy and product area. I find source bottle a really good vehicle for responding to information requests that are specific to your company. I guess it all depends on your business. Have you written a marketing plan? Do you know your target audience. There's no doubt that PR should come before marketing, but I find that unless you have a very targeted message to a targeted blogger or journalist and you have some news of interest to them, getting coverage is not easy.I'd do some research yourself on which bloggers and journalists are writing regularly in your space, or who are specifically reaching your target audience and then survey them on what they are interested in, before then creating a series of articles, blogs or releases on the specific areas of interest. hope this helps hunter

How should one connect with businesses looking at team building conferences?

In my experience the people organising conferences are either an external event management company, the PA to the CEO, or the sales & marketing team. So those are the targets I would aim for within any medium to large business.Hope this helpshunter

Is SEO categorised as part of IT or Marketing?

My viewpoint is simple - Marketing drives the strategy - your marketing department should be deciding what to optimise and the IT department or outsourced consultant works out how and reports back on progress against the strategy or target set by marketing.Marketing is correctly defined as a strategic process that involves researching the market, deciding on a strategy, implementing it and measuring. It is most definitely not a technical function in coding, backend IT stuff, which is best left to the experts.

Is there such a thing as too much marketing?

The simplest way to answer this is too much is the point at which the money you're spending STOPS working to bring you profitable business. In other words, if you need say $5 in sales for every dollar you spend in marketing to break even (assuming say a gross margin of 20%) ***insert your own figures here. Then on average your marketing has to deliver that. If ROI drops to $4 then you've either got the mix wrong or you've hit a point of too much based on the business you get in exchange. Of course this is incredibly simplistic because it may take some time for marketing to become effective in a new business, you may have to invest some up front before you start getting a business flow in exchange. And if you're hungry, and marketing keeps delivering a return, and you can continue to expand then there is never too much marketing.However, there can be TOO much communication which is masquerading as marketing. I find there are too many companies out there now who harvest your email from a promotion or 'free' offer and then absolutely bombard the crap out of you with daily emails without ever checking if you were actually interested in the first place. My recommendation to you is make sure you have some good 'antenna's' or feedback loops set up in your business. Then make sure you're checking with new and existing customers what their needs and wants are in terms of contact and then customise your outflow to match their needs and wants. If you see a jump in lost customers(churn rate) make sure you're doing exit interviews and see if they're leaving because you bombarded them.

Is it true that the main way to do online marketing is through paid ads?

No it's not true. If you just consider the mechanics of 'ONLINE' what you're really talking about is your presence in that space. Much like a store on the high street, it's the complete profile of you or your business on the web. So online marketing covers all the work you do to prepare and load your profile - content, images, videos and so forth, and the actions taken to then create outbound and inbound 'FLOWS' to that content. You can do this both unpaid and paid. Everytime you post a blog and a new person follows, likes or responds to you this is creating new 'FLOWS' and networks on that communication line.Yes, you can pay for ads to boost a particular flow, but it isn't the only way.Don't forget there is the offline world (I find it funny that the real world is 'offline') and there are many ways to boost your online marketing through offline activity, like promoting a competition in your store, or through a business network. Making sure you include website address and social media pages on all your collateral is a good start. It's one way, but not the only way. Cheers Hunter

Does social media contribute to your bottom line?

Hi Lina, I'm not sure whether you're asking this as a general question or as a specific one. I have invested a lot of time building up a strong Linkedin profile over the last 5 years, and have over 3000 followers. I measure all my marketing as a consultant and can nominate specific work that has come through this channel. I would say I've probably broken even if I counted all the time I invested in blogging, content, networking and so forth.If we take this as a more general question, I'd phrase it this way. If it isn't contributing to your bottom line, then you shouldn't be doing it.Bottom Line is a complex 'metric' since you're taking overall sales minus overall costs, so you'd have to be doing to fancy 'assignment of costs to put a component of your book keeper, accountant, office, furniture, phone and internet and insurance towards social media but if we take it as a simple metric - are you getting more business from it than what it costs you, I would hazard a guess a really big percentage of business wouldn't know the answer. They operate social media like active sonar - banging out with their sound but not listening to the answers.As a strategist, my recommendation to any business owner is simple. Pilot your communication channel (eg facebook) and set up a method of measuring the outputs and outcomes you get from it. An outcome being a paid customer/lead whereas an output would be visitors, likes and so forth. If over a period of time, this metric remains positive - awesome. If not, then maybe you're implementing it wrong, or you need a different channel to communicate with prospective clients.

What aspects of the process are entrepreneurs blind to?

I've benchmarked over 1000 SME businesses in regards to their marketing attitudes and behaviours asking over 50 questions of each business. So i'll confine my comments to marketing and strategy. The absolute number 1 is lack of research. Entrepreneurs by their nature are courageous, risk takers, and innovative. They expect others to see their ideas as brilliant and that "sell themself" - we found that less than 15% of SME business owners had done sufficient research of their market, competition or their product prior to launch. They spent money and time on product development, on fitting our their offices or warehouses, on branding and websites. But they rarely invest enough time in truly understanding the dynamics of their market, their competition and importantly what strategic positioning they are going to adopt in the market.