thenumber creative

Planning For Business Growth In The Coming Year

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 11:03:00 -0800

The new year is here, and now is the time to plan for growth in the months ahead. For many industries this is a slower time as their customers slowly shake off the sluggishness of the holidays and get into gear again. For your small business to grow it is important to take advantage of the slower times to work on the business (rather than working in the business). Here are some tips on how to prepare to have solid growth this year.

Budget For Advertising and Promotion

Set aside a budget for monthly promotion, and more importantly, make sure you use it. It's easy to forget about promotion when you're busy, but that is the most important time to promote your business. Promotion and advertising during the busy times will reduce, or even (fingers crossed) eliminate, your slow times. Take the time right now to decide how much you can afford to spend on promotion, and lay out a rough plan of campaigns for the next 6-12 months. This plan can be adapted as the year progresses, but lay the ground work now and hold yourself and your employees accountable to follow it.

Think Like A Big Business

Your small businesses may not have the resources of your multi-national competition, but that is all the more reason the be wary of do-it-yourself advertising. The digital age has made it easy and affordable for anybody to take their own photos, layout their own ads, and create their own websites, but sometimes the shortcomings of home-made promotions just make the big businesses look better. When competing against big corporations, professionalism in your promotional materials can make the sink or swim difference. Hiring a professional designer, photographer, web designer, or copy writer pays for itself with increased business.

Improve Your Processes

For a small business, growth often comes with growing pains. What do you do when your work outweighs your resources, but not enough to justify bringing in new staff/equipment? The answer is to improve the efficiency of your existing resources. Two easy ways to improve efficiency are batching tasks and optimizing skill sets. Batching means doing similar tasks all at once. Significant time savings can come from small changes such as dealing with email only twice per day (once in the morning and once at closing), or sending all the week's invoices on Fridays instead of one at a time during the week. Optimizing skill sets means having your staff doing what they do best. For small businesses it is common for everyone to do a bit of everything, but by separating tasks into specific skill sets allows staff to be more efficient by only doing what they do well, and minimizing lost time from switching gears to do different tasks. Improve your efficiency now for greater success down the road.

Plan Additional Resources Today For Tomorrow's Growth

Your slow time is the perfect opportunity to explore your options for outsourcing tasks (such as accounting and payroll) and bringing in additional resources. If you have all this information gathered in advance, then when you get busy enough to justify the additional resources it'll merely a matter of doing it.

Retain Your Existing Customer Base

While getting new business is always important, keeping your existing customers is even more important. Finding new customers takes time and resources (read that as "costs money"), keeping existing customers and getting more business from them costs next to nothing. Follow up regularly with your existing clients. The beginning of the year is a good time to ask them what they might need from you in the new year, or what products/services they'd like to see added to your business. Plus, happy customers refer their friends, family and co-worker!

New site and new media for theMAKE

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 14:27:00 -0800

Be sure to check out the new site at themake.ca where we've posted some previously unreleased photos and video from theMAKE installation art show. For those unfamiliar, theMAKE is an art book featuring 50+ local artists that thenumber participated in the publishing of. The book was launched with two installation shows (one in Victoria, one in Vancouver), with Buck 65 making an unannounced, intimate performance at the Victoria show.

The New Whitehallsolo.com Goes Live

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:43:00 -0800

We're proud to announce that the new site for the Solo 14 for Whitehall Rowing and Sail. The Solo is their low-maintenance hybrid fixed-seat/slide-seat rowing boat. Whitehall are longtime clients of thenumber, and we were proud to provide strategy, design and implementation of their updated site. Check it out at whitehallsolo.com.

Announcing Phoenix Hunt

Sat, 15 Nov 2008 08:33:00 -0800

We are stoked to announce a great new way to waste time in the office - Phoenix Hunt at phillipsbeer.com.

Swing by their site and check it out. If your thirsty, try a pint of Phillip's Dirty Squirrel, which is just out for Nov. If you don't know where to find the best beer in town, check out the beer-o-find page, which will help you locate your next brew.

How Does My Website Rank?

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 08:50:00 -0700

http://keywordspy.com/

http://www.quarkbase.com/

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

My Favorite Business Blogs/Podcasts

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 08:46:00 -0700

Staying up to date on what's happening in the business world and the latest marketing techniques is an important part of your businesses growth. Here are some of my favorite online resources for keeping up to date on marketing techniques. While some of it is obvious, I find a gem in almost every edition of these Blogs/Podcasts:

Help My Business Sucks! - despite the accent and cheesy stage, this guy has some great input and advice on daily business decisions.

Harvard Business IdeaCast - A bit dry, but provides interesting insights into big business.

Internet Marketing Secrets - Tons of tips and tricks in a newsletter format

The Difference Between A Logo And A Brand

Fri, 17 Oct 2008 12:18:46 -0700

The Difference Between A Logo And A Brand

Fri, 17 Oct 2008 12:18:00 -0700

The terms "logo" and "brand" are frequently used interchangeably. In fact, they are quite different, yet fundamentally connected, things. A logo is a simple graphic or symbol used to represent a product or business. A brand is an entire identity, a promise of worth, and a set of values rolled into one. A well designed logo will reflect all the elements of the brand it represents.

Brand Identity

A strong brand becomes almost an entity of its own. When potential buyers think of your brand they should automatically associate it with an entire personality. A soft drink company, for example, may choose to brand its product as fun, youthful and exciting. An expensive wine, however, might be more inclined to come across as classy, distinguished and reserved. Whatever personality you choose for your company or product, the target market should be kept in mind to ensure that it will appeal to them.

Brand Promise

In order to give customers confidence, a product or service it needs to provide a promise. With a service this is easier to identify than with a product: fast, friendly, reliable, or affordable can all be promises for a service. Some of these promises can be used for products as well, but often a stronger promise is that of how the product will affect the life of the buyer. A brand may promise happiness, convenience, or even the admiration of peers. A solid brand promise gives buyers a reason to choose you over your competition.

Brand Values

A well thought out brand will also reflect the values of the company. Concern for the environment, unwavering dignity, devotion to the customers' satisfaction, and ethical business practices are among the many values a brand may represent. Along with the brand's promise and identity this will create an emotional response in potential customers. Care should be taken to ensure that the three facets of the brand compliment each other, and together have strong appeal for the target market.

The Role of the Logo

Logos are small, simple creatures with a huge burden to shoulder. It is the job of the logo to convey the brand's identity, promise and values. A logo should be as simple as possible to ensure that it is easily recognizable and that it will reproduce well at a variety of sizes and in a variety of media (on screen or paper; in rubber stamp to embroidery). This means that a logo must say a lot with very little. The process of developing a logo and brand should be carefully planned to allow for growth, continued, and resilience in the fickle, trend-driven marketplace.

thenumber is in Douglas Magazine

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 10:39:00 -0700

Look for us in the Sept/Oct issue of Douglas: Victoria's Business Magazine. Douglas is the source of trends and resources in local business, and they have chosen do do an article about us. Look for Chris' and Niels' handsome faces in looking out from page 8. Check out www.douglasmagazine.com for more information about Douglas Magazine.