12 Tips to Help You Succeed – Part Two

Wollongong, NSW

It’s taken me 38 years in business to learn these 12 tips, most of them the hard way! You certainly don’t have to agree with all of them, but I hope that at least some of them help you.

I gave a detailed introduction to this series at the start of Part One. So I won’t repeat it, but simply link to it here.

5. Your Brand is Much More than Your Logo

Customers will pay more for an item if they value that brand. Just look at Mercedes and BMW. Why do so many customers pay such huge premiums for these brands?

A customer’s perceived brand value is based upon far more than the logo.

• Your branding includes everything from your staff’s product knowledge through to:
• The quality of your mechanical servicing
• Your willingness to warranty your products and services
• The ways that you make it easy for your customers to purchase including payment methods, perhaps a home delivery option
• The presentation of your showroom

…and so the list goes on.

If you want to build ‘brand equity’ then you can’t take shortcuts. Have you seen any shabby looking Mercedes or BMW showrooms lately?

One final point on branding; by becoming a dealer for one or more a strong global bike brands, you’re standing on the shoulders of years of brand building, but whose brand do you really want to build?

As we have seen in recent years, some of the multinational brands won’t hesitate to close a dealer’s account for a variety of reasons, some of which may be beyond your control.

When it comes time to sell your business, you need to have built value into your own company brand. That’s what’s going to boost your sale price the most, not just the brands of the products that you stock. I’m sure some wholesalers may disagree with this point!

6. Marketing is Much More than Just Advertising

Over 20 years ago a business savvy bicycle wholesaler, who was also a major advertising client of Bicycling Australia at the time, sat me down and drew a pie chart.

As he drew, he explained that advertising is just one wedge shaped slice of the pie. He then drew names on the other slices including:

• Public relations
• Product pricing
• Customer support
• Staff sales training
• Community involvement (think shop rides, working with your local school etc),
• Rider or team sponsorship
• Market research
• Shop cycling kit
• Signage
• Free first bike service

Plus he listed a few others. Today you would add social media and perhaps a few more items that didn’t exist back then.

Where does marketing fit in? Marketing is the whole pie.

You should think of marketing as everything that you do in your business that enhances the exchange between you, your customers and your potential customers.

I highly recommend that you read books on all aspects of business management. One of the best books I’ve ever read about marketing is called “The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing” by Al Ries and Jack Trout. Sure, it may have been published way back in 1994, but at its core, marketing is all about people and emotions, so the fundamentals have not changed at all.

I’d recommend you read this book because it’s written by a couple of battle hardened marketing strategists who have little time for ‘conventional wisdom’. But just in case you don’t take my advice, I’ll finish this section with three of their 22 laws.

• Marketing is not a battle of products, it’s a battle of perception.
• Unless you write your competitor’s plans, you can’t predict the future.
• Failure is to be expected and accepted.

7. Winners Take Responsibility

I’m definitely not going to name names in this section because I know how hard you all work and I don’t want to personally offend anyone.

But from the hundreds of bike shops, wholesalers and other bike businesses around Australia that I’ve either visited or interviewed for “How’s Business?” and other articles, I’ve noticed a consistent, common theme.

The winners, that is the businesses that are clearly doing well, take full responsibility for their destiny. They focus their time and energy upon the things they can influence that will improve their business. Sure, there are some things beyond their control, but winners don’t get bogged down worrying about these.

But the losers, if you’ll excuse such a harsh term, almost always externalise the factors for their poor business performance. “It’s the weather!” “It will be better once this stupid election is over!” “Everybody’s doing it tough at the moment and anyone that tells you otherwise is lying!”

How do they know this? Has every other business posted their latest financial statements online?

When you’re pointing the finger of blame at someone else you’ve got three fingers pointing back at yourself. They are the fingers you should be taking notice of.

Winners operate subject to the same weather, elections and other externalities that are beyond their control, but they think about them far less. When they do, it’s usually in the context of what they can do to counteract them.

Wet or cold weather? Great! “Let’s ramp up our stock and display of rain jackets and winter gloves! Let’s convert our basement and run indoor spin classes!”

I was taught this lesson well by a highly successful Olympic cycling coach who also coached my local state team. He made us speak out our goals in front of our peers, then taught us what was required to achieve those goals. Apart from the obvious one, hard work, another key was to be able to objectively assess your own strengths and weaknesses as well as those of your competitors.

Being overly optimistic was just as unhelpful as being pessimistic.

Another huge factor he stressed was our mindsets. Some people go through the motions without ever expecting to win. I knew I wasn’t always going to win, but that didn’t stop me playing through all sorts of scenarios that would see me cross the line first.

Largely because of this, I ended up winning at least twice as many races as I would have based upon my relatively modest physical ability alone. Sure, I still lost 90% of the time but if you keep going and ride a thousand races it still means that you end up winning about 100, which was roughly my lifetime tally.

If all of this talk of winners and losers sounds too competitive for you, then it’s probably time for you to sell up and work for someone else, because like it or not, the world of business is no less competitive than the world of sport.

Over time, your reality ends up matching your expectations. So if you don’t already think of yourself as a winner, start doing so today and aim higher!

8. Do What’s Best for Your Business

Should you become a concept store carrying only one bike brand or should you carry many brands?

Should you trade seven days or just five?

Should you sell via mail order or only through your store?

The answer to these and other questions is, “Do what’s best for your business.”’ In other words, the right answer for one store may be the wrong answer for another.

The concept store vs multi brand question is one of the most contentious of all. I’ve heard dealers on both sides of the fence swear black and white that their strategy is the right one.
But like all real world decisions, the reality has more shades of grey.

Concept stores allow simplicity in ordering, a greater depth of relationship with one key supplier and possibly larger margins. But on the other hand, you’re totally reliant on that supplier keeping good stocks of the bikes you need and for their overall brand to remain popular and competitive.

Multi brand dealers stand by the principle that, “Customers want to see choice!”

I know of one long-established Melbourne shop that used to stock multiple brands, but was really struggling to sell high end bikes. Then they became a concept store. They made the most of that brand’s shop designing team and gave their store a magnificent makeover which lifted them up to best practice, whilst highlighting their unique heritage. They did every training course that their supplier offered and really took the lessons to heart.

Now that store has no trouble selling the highest level bikes as well as the “bread and butter”. The owners’ financial wellbeing has been transformed.

Meanwhile there are still plenty of very successful multiple brand stores around, including some of the largest stores in Australia.

Only you can decide what’s right for you.

Next month we’ll conclude this series with part three that will contain tips nine to 12 and some final remarks.