Business Success & The Milkman…

Jim Rohn often says "you need to work harder on yourself than you do on your job".  When you've got a business you want to grow, working on yourself means getting smarter at business.  That means understanding not just the product or service, but getting to grips with marketing, selling, financial control, business processes, people management, leadership and so on.

So how does this relate to the milkman?  Our milkman is under pressure.  The supermarkets undercut his milk prices because of their bulk-buying capacity and now his fuel costs have gone through the roof. 

Last week he dropped a note through our door explaining that he's going to switch deliveries to alternate days, giving us the same amount of milk but in fewer visits.  This will cut his fuel bills and and it's also fine with us.

About six months ago we got another letter telling us the price of milk had gone up to cover his costs.  It's obviously tough in the diary delivery service.

He really works hard to deliver for his customers, but if he wants his business to thrive, he needs to invest time on himself, especially his marketing skills. 

There are thousands of books, videos and courses he could choose from.  Each would give him more knowledge than he has now and eventually that knowledge will pay off in the form of more sales.

So let me pick from the top of my head a few things that I know that he could try…

• Sell milk bottle holders - especially insulated ones to prevent over-heating in summer or freezing in winter
• Sell organic cheese, butter, eggs and bread - quality, staple items we use everyday that could easily be delivered fresh
• Freshly squeezed juices or smoothies during the summer from local growers
• Premium milk - like the charcoal-filtered stuff that's more expensive at Tesco
• Barbeque charcoal & other bbq accessories

All of these are just extra sales ideas.  The other thing he could do is make his milk special by telling us about the farms it comes from, the way in which the cows are cared for and how fresh we get it because we're getting it within hours of bottling, or whatever the story is.

It's worth reading the small business marketing blog entry about Obvious Adams for tips on writing great marketing.

He could easily use the milk as his foot in the door and then offer all sorts of extra things that he can really make some profit from. 

Unfortunately he keeps worrying about the effect of adding 30-40p a week to our bill, which nobody will really notice, rather than thinking about getting deeper into our wallets!

So now apply that same thinking to your business - if Richard Branson or Duncan Bannatyne took over your business today, do you think they would put up with it working like it does now for you?  Not on your life!  They would very quickly grow it into something special or get out.  So what is it that makes them so easily able to achieve such success?

They think differently about business.  They can do this because they have worked hard on themselves for a long time and they "get it".  If you don't get it, you'll always be stuck doing things like you do now.  Don't live life in the slow lane, decide to do something different today. 

Read a book and try some of the ideas for real…

                     Go to a business class…

                                         Meet up with a business coach…

Just do something different to get out of your comfort zone and take your business to another level.