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 this

2) 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 franchisees

3) they should have a good reputation - speak to existing franchisees and get their thoughts too

4) they should have good policies in place and clear concise explanations of what is expected of you

Overall, 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 helps

hunter

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

Hi Elkanah

I'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.

Sincerely

Hunter

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 strategy

Then 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 front

Hope this helps

Hunter

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

Hi Susan

I'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 helps

Hunter

Can you recommend good web developers in Sydney?

Hi Yee

The 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.

Cheers

Hunter

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

Hi Wendy

You 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 Derrick

There 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 helps

hunter

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 helps

hunter

Are Facebook ads or Google ads better value for money?

advertising should never be judged on 'price' they should be judged on ROI. and to do that you can't answer in generalities as to which of these two is better.

there are so many factors which impact the return on investment for an advert which include

1) how good is your marketing strategy in terms of your positioning and target audience

2) how well do you communicate the value proposition in the ad

3) have you done enough research to know what 'button's' your target audience will respond to in a communication

4) have you targeted the ad to the right people

5) how competitive is your segment in your location

6) what is your breakeven analysis

7) what are the results from your testing of each ad

with these answers in place, you could then answer the value question in regards to fb or google for your business

cheers

hunter