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Safeguarding your Home
Staging or Interior Styling Business
during economic downturn
Surviving in business this year for
many will depend on keeping services as wide ranging as possible,
Keeping costs low and working on your networking skills, PR and low
cost advertising to maximise business opportunities.
Web site costs
If you have a web site which
is expensive to update then reconsider your options before making costly
changes this year. When you need to change prices or add new
images it can be an expensive overhead to pay a web designer
to do this for you.
Remember that, if you registered your
own URL (domain name) you can move it to a self build web site package
or forward it to a page on another web site.
Improving hits
Its also worth considering
optimisation but be wary of optimisation companies (SEO's) who
may hook you into regular updates to keep your web site highly
ranked. Beware similarly of Directories that tell you
they can get you on page one of Google - it may not last once you've
paid a hefty fee.
Hsnwk
Directory
The Home Staging Network are working to upgrade the Home Staging Network with a
bright new
appearance, a forum and option to have
full pages that Members can update themselves and add images to.
If you feel that your business may be
in difficulty and want to cut costs by not renewing your personal web
site hosting talk to me about forwarding your URL to a temporary page
Individually set up for you at the Network until we launch the new web
site. If you feel your business brand is not performing well enough to
draw the customers in then using the House Wow! brand as your hook may
be the answer. www.housewow.co.uk
UK Home Staging and Styling business brand licence available in
certain areas.
Be
flexible and broaden service options
When times are tough the businesses that survive are those that respond with flexibility and determination to persevere against the odds. History shows us that many businesses survived recessions and depressions and came out the other side. Not everyone went bust! How though do you make sure that you’re on the winning side?
If things seem difficult at the moment then the indicators seem to be that they will get worse. None of us can afford to be complacent or bury our head in the sand. A careful peek above the parapet may reveal the next opportunity. However, a wise business owner is selective about the opportunity and doesn’t assume that just because it presents itself that it is necessarily worthwhile.
Consider your
potential client groups - who has the money?
Business advisors would say ‘consolidate what you have but don’t batten down the hatches and dig your heels in waiting for the upturn’. Instead be ready to widen your focus of business operations and broaden your services to appeal to a wider client group. Analyse who takes up your services and ensure that your services will appeal to those within the economy that can afford them. Consider the client groups that are cash rich and where you might find them.
Finding new
customers
Finding new customers to market your services to is not that difficult. If you deliver services within the locality in which you live ask yourself how many of the people within a 10 mile radius of your home know about what you do, how you do it and how it can benefit them! People buy from people and word of mouth recommendations are exponentially more successful than an impersonal advertisement, no matter how expensive that advert is.
Actually
- Who does know what you do?
Ask yourself how many people you know by first name and how many people they know and how many people they know etc. Think of a chain letter email and how quickly that passes around the world. Your friends and family list may not create millions of new contacts within the week but it’s a start. Other options to get the word out include
School PTA's and fund raisers - offer to run a stall, provide a prize
- FREE Consultation, find your local business networking groups and
turn up (there are low cost and free ones – check Businesslink.org.uk), talking to groups who need guest speakers and low cost industry specific directories that provide customer confidence in the businesses listed. The Home Staging Network is
an industry specific Directory and that is why we receive so much
focussed traffic. http://www.hsnwk.com
Blogging,
internet networking and free listings
The
whole concept of blogging can blow your mind. People with too much
time on their hands writing rather a lot about not much at all - or so
some would say. Partly I would agree. You have to choose wisely where
you blog and where you list your business in a free online Directory.
Some web sites are making a lot of money from your content rich
wording which draws in the hits - only for you to see these site
visitors re-directed to the sponsored ads that the web site owner
places neatly above your well written text. You will, hopefully,
notice that the Home Staging Network does not do this. We have only a
few sponsored ads carefully placed and none are on the Directory pages
where your business gets found.
The Home Staging
Network Group at MyDeco
The Home Staging Network have listed
some Groups and a forum at My Deco.
Check
out our the Network My Deco groups
Getting
the best from advertising
Considering expensive advertising to promote your business? If you run your own business you will be contacted by sales people for advertising in various ways on a regular basis. The best advice I can give to you is not to pay too much attention to their sales pitch or figures of circulation (circulation is no guarantee of readership or that the potential customer or client group will read the publication or your ad anyway).
Before you part with your hard earned cash in an effort to create more hard earned cash consider the following: How many jobs of work at your average income per job would the advert need to achieve to pay for the cost of the advertising and how likely IS that?
Consider the size of the advert and its location, potentially in a sea of articles or on a page next to a full page spread with letters a quarter of the page high advertising the latest sofa sale or half price burgers at Macs. Would you notice your advert – IF you hadn’t been the one to pay for it?
In most cases low cost local advertising gets better results and as
said - networking with local businesses cannot be underestimated.
Okay
over to you! I do wish you all the very best of good health,
happiness, wisdom, success, friendships and wealth - in that order!
Contact
the Network with feedback or your comments and articles for online display
Anita
Richardson
Founder
The
Home Staging Network
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