Grow Your Box for Wallet Share
By ActionCOACH Mark McNulty

In my last two articles, we established that it is within our means to not just survive a recession, but actually thrive in one.  The businesses that figure out how to do this will not only grow in 2012, but they will be poised to dominate their markets as the recession ends.  The first step to keeping control is going back to the fundamentals – fiscal planning (a budget), self management discipline (aka time management), and keeping a positive mindset.  Now that you have implemented these three fundamental activities, it’s time to look at what’s next.

The next business activity to master is your Sales and Marketing, and it may be time to shake it up.  The first thing you need to change in your marketing plan is your mindset.  Most businesses think of capturing market share, but the reality is that what you should really be focusing on is wallet share.  Consumers are still spending money, but they are thinking twice about what they are purchasing – what you want to do is compete for your share of what is in their wallet, your wallet share.

The next thing to do with your Marketing is to measure your results – make sure you know where every customer is coming from.  This will let you know which strategies are working and which are not.  Keep building on the strategies that work and rethink the strategies that are not bringing in business.  Step three is getting creative and identifying new ways to market and sell to your target audience.  Many people refer to this exercise as “Thinking Outside the Box”.  While that is often a great method, I want you to take it a step further and “Grow Your Box”.

The problem with just thinking outside the box or getting “out of your comfort zone”, is that once the crisis or moment passes, we go right back into our box or comfort zone.  True growth occurs when we make our box bigger and expand our comfort zone.  True growth companies are constantly looking to make their boxes bigger – through innovation and experimentation.  Now is the time to start innovating with all of the ways you interact with your customer base.

Let me give you a quick example:  A bakery sees sales of sweet loaves of bread falling, so they discount them from $3 to $2, yet sales continue to fall.  The owners do some brainstorming and come up with an “out of the box” idea, and the next week their offer is loaves of bread for $3 with a $1 trade-in allowance for any old loaf of bread that you bring in.

Not only did their bread sales go through the roof, but they got a tremendous amount of free press coverage as well.

The point is - Don’t think, “That would never work for us”, rather ask yourself “How could I apply that to my business?”  The bigger your box or comfort zone, the more opportunities you have to identify new ways to grow your wallet share.

With that in mind, I have included some questions that I have used in the past to “break” my traditional thinking and get creative. Please use them and add any others that get your creativity going. Remember that no idea is a bad idea until it is proven otherwise.
Here are some questions to ask yourself when growing your box:
•    If we had to double sales this quarter, what would it take?
•    Knowing what we are good at, what should we do more of?  What else should we do to build on this strength?
•    What do our customers tell us about ourselves, our competition, and the industry in general?
•    What other target markets should we be selling to?

You are only limited by the size of your box, and with the right mindset, you can expand your box in limitless fashion.  Engage with your team and challenge all of them to come up with as many ideas as possible, pick the most promising 2-3 ideas to implement and measure the results.  And the last thing to remember, is that when things get back to normal, make sure you don’t go right back into your old, smaller box.

Plan Your Way to Success
By ActionCOACH Mark McNulty

What determines the success or failure of a business?  How many of you believe that the reason that many small businesses in our region are struggling is because of the economy?  How many of these businesses planned for an economic downturn?  How many of these businesses have a business plan?  How many of these businesses have a budget and volume projections?

A recent US Department of Commerce study found that overall only 6% of US business owners said they had a business plan. (My hat off to you if you are in that group that plans!)  However, since only 4% of new businesses in the US survive over 10 years, wouldn’t it be great to know what they do differently?  According to the Department of Commerce, 80 % of this so called 4% club of business owners said they have a business plan and regularly follow it.

Many business owners think of a business plan as a document you put together to get your start-up financing.  Nothing could be further from the truth, as the Department of Commerce numbers highlight.  Effective planning for your business is crucial to your success, both short and long-term.  In a challenging economy such as the one we are currently experiencing, planning takes on even more importance.  Here are 3 key steps to creating a business plan for success.

The first step of planning for your business is the creation of a cash based budget, that reflects how you expect cash to flow through your bank account.  We all know how to budget for our expenses, but how many of you budget for Sales and Profits?  Budgeting for expenses only can be self-defeating, and completely miss the point of our business, which is to sell more and earn more.  A complete budget includes:

•    Projections for Fixed Expenses, based on prior years experience, target a 10% reduction over previous years in lean times.
•    Projections for when cash will be required to pay for Variable Expenses, also known as Cost of Goods Sold.  Know when you will be making purchases, and more importantly, when you will have to pay for those purchases.
•    Projections for Sales and Profits. How much do you plan to make this year?  What sales level is required to achieve that level of income?  If you don’t budget for it, then you are leaving it to chance.

Step two for your business plan is your Marketing plan.  You need to define how you intend to achieve the Sales and Profits you have budgeted.  What are the low-cost marketing strategies that you have been overlooking or underutilizing?  What are you going to do for your existing customer base, and how will you attract new customers?  Consider creating or updating your networking and referral marketing strategies.

The third and equally important step is the plan for how you will use your time.  How you choose to spend your time might be the single most important decision you can make for yourself and your business this year.  If you choose to let the events of the day make decisions on how you spend your time, you will always feel out of control, at the mercy of the economy, and constantly stressed.  On the other hand, business owners who choose to exert control over their responses to the events of the day feel less stress, get more done, and in the end get better results in their lives.   Jack Canfield gives us the formula E + R = O, or Events, combined with our Response to those Events, leads to our Outcomes.  If you are unhappy with your Outcomes, your Results, then you need to change your Responses.

Planning for your time consists of several steps, four of which are key:
1.    Annual Goals for yourself and your business
2.    Quarterly Plan to achieve the goals – ask yourself what you need to do this quarter to achieve my 2011 Goals.
3.    Weekly Plan identifying the key activities you need to engage in to accomplish your goals
4.    Daily Plan to accomplish the key activities while dealing with the interruptions and disruptions to your plan (the Events and your Response to them).

Having a plan, executing that plan and measuring the results is the single biggest difference in highly successful businesses. Is it time for you to join the Department of Commerce’s 4% club?

What Should I Do Now?
By ActionCOACH Mark McNulty

3.    If you have to pick one competency to build, I strongly recommend financial literacy. Now, more than ever, it’s important to know your numbers.

Don’t just depend on your accountants and financial advisors to tell you what you need to know. Learn how to read your balance sheet, profit & loss statement and statement of cash flows. Understand the story they tell about your business. Monitor the “vital signs” of your business and use that information to make good decisions.

Recognize that these numbers are not only the “language” of business, they also tell the score—are you winning or losing? What’s your break even point? Are you profitable? Is the business generating sufficient cash to see you through the tough times?

And, what can you do about it? What other Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are you measuring in your business to stay on track? Which ones should you measure?
4.    Maintain smart, consistent marketing. Despite the temptation to eliminate your marketing budget, now is not the time to do that. Now is the time to invest your marketing dollars wisely. Now is the time to be very clear on what works and what doesn’t work and to do more of what does work and none of what doesn’t.

Are you testing and measuring so that you do know? How can you make good [marketing] investment decisions if you don’t know? It’s important to communicate and educate both your customers and your prospects: what are your full capabilities (don’t assume they know), what can you do to save them time and money? Your message should highlight value rather than price.

And, in order to do that, you need to understand exactly what your value proposition is and how to articulate it.

Also, learn more about –and take advantage of–low cost, no cost marketing techniques.
5.    Last, and certainly not least, now it’s more important that ever to protect your valued customer base. Hug your customers. Build a fence around them. Let them know how much you appreciate their patronage.

As our good friend Keith Cunningham says: “Find out what they want, go and get it, give it to them.” Make sure that every single person on your team understands the value of your good customers and treats them as they want to be treated. What kind of an experience are you and your team delivering? How can you improve it? How do your customers feel about you? How do you know that? What keeps them loyal—or what would?

To some, all this may seem like a tall order. Others, with an entrepreneurial view, have been prepared and are now able to be strategic. The conventional wisdom seems to predict that things will get worse before they get better. So, how are you going to come out the other end of this economy? Will you squeak through, by the skin of your teeth, barely surviving—or, not just survive, but really succeed? I guarantee that those who just let it happen to them will end up in a bad place. The question is: what are you going to do differently?

What Should I Do Now?
By ActionCOACH Mark McNulty

“Enough with all the blame. There’s plenty to go around. From Wall Street to Washington, from greed to no oversight—a lot of factors helped create the 700 billion-pound gorilla in the economy that is sitting right on Main Street, probably right on top of your business.

“Wall Street and Washington are attempting to mop up this historic mess. And, as they do, it will be the small-business-owning, non-Fortune 500, economy-driving entrepreneurs who will help pull us out this hole.

“So as Wall Street tries to steady itself, politicians wave accusatory fingers at each other and the media keep pumping out the melancholy, drama-laden news, entrepreneurs will be doing what’s right—putting in a hard day’s work and powering the true engine of this economy: small business.” (drum roll please)

- Amy Cosper, Editor-in-Chief of Entrepreneur Magazine

So, what’s a small business owner to do? Read on for my Top 5 suggestions for turning the economic crisis into an opportunity.

As a Business Coach, I interact on a regular basis with business owners and business leaders and the reactions to all that’s happened in the last 6-12 months is interesting and varied: some are angry (where’s my bailout?); some are philosophical (it was only a matter of time); some are frozen with fear; some have their heads in the sand, waiting for it to pass (total denial). Still others are doing a lot of whining, using the economy as an excuse, blaming the government, the mortgage industry, Wall Street, greed. And then, there’s the entrepreneurial view: wait a minute, there could be an opportunity here…..So, which best describes you? Which would you like to be.

No question, we are in interesting times. An unprecedented combination of challenges. It seems to beg for a multi-pronged approach.

Here are 5 practical ways that you can make a difference in the outcome for you and your business:

1.    First and foremost, examine your mindset. What’s your attitude about all this and how is that affecting you and your relationships with your customers, your team members, and your family? Do you believe in your ability to survive, to succeed? Or, are you giving into and accepting the current climate of thought? Are you open to the opportunities that may exist—and actively pursuing them? Are you thinking: That which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger?

This is a great time to invest wisely. Or are you Chicken Little, convinced the sky is falling and we’re all doomed? Remember that you are the leader and everyone around you is taking their cues from you—so, what’s your responsibility here? What can you do, how can you contribute to their peace of mind and confidence?

2.    Invest in yourself. Recognize that the ceiling on the growth of any business is tied directly to the level of competency of its leadership. Realize that what got you here won’t get you there. This is a great time to “sharpen the saw,” as Steven Covey says. The best investment you can make is the one you make in yourself and your development: read, listen to tapes, attend seminars, get inspired, gain new knowledge, learn new skills—get a coach! It’s also a great time to invest in the growth and development of your team—sales training, customer service training, team building, communications, leadership. Of course, you need to inspire learning by your own actions and by demonstrating your own level of commitment.

Choosing to Change Your Life
By ActionCOACH Mark McNulty

As business owners, we made the choice to risk in order to have more control over our destiny than those who settle for a job. We recognize that we are not the victims of fate or chance. Changing our lives is a choice that we made. In reality, each one of us possesses the ability to choose to improve our lives! Today I am going to share with you a concept for doing just that. If you take it to heart, this will empower you to exercise greater control over the quality of your future.

To preface my message, we are talking about a word that during every presidential election we see and hear everywhere. Can you guess what that word is? That’s right – CHANGE! Change is a very broad term, isn’t it? It can be positive or negative, out of our control, or under our control. Today I am talking about positive change that is under our control. Words that would express this type of change include growth, transform, and improve.

How resistant to change are you?

Do you prefer routine and predictability over uncertainty and adventure? Or, do you relish pursuing excitement and risk daily, sometimes called adrenalin junky? Of the two categories just described, which would you say would be most resistant to change? Would you agree with me that each of us has a certain level of resistance to change; some more than others? Some people change almost immediately upon sensing dissatisfaction, while others require experiencing a crisis, like a heart attack, before making changes in their lives. Most fall in the middle of this change spectrum. Would you also agree with me that overcoming our resistance to change is often a critical ingredient to personal growth and improving our lives? So how do we overcome our resistance to change?

A formula for overcoming resistance to change

In college, I had a calculus professor who maintained that all complex relationships can be better understood if mathematically modeled. In fact, he stated that complex relationships are not totally understood until properly mathematically modeled. The mathematical model that I am going to provide will give you insight into how we can improve our lives. Are you ready? The formula is: (D x V) + F > R.

If R is our resistance to change, then we must muster enough of something to overcome that resistance. The left side of the equation, (D x V) + F, must be greater than R, the right side. D stands for dissatisfaction with some aspect our current life. V is our vision of how we must have our life to be. (Not wish, not want, but must). And F represents that first step that we need to take to affect the desired results. Martin Luther King stated: “Faith is taking the first step, even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” Robyn Davidson in her book Tracks, which chronicles her 1700 mile journey on camel across the outback of Australia, states: “The two important things I did learn were that you are as powerful and strong as you allow yourself to be, and that the most difficult part of an endeavor is taking the first step, making the first decision.”

As business owners, you know about the excitement of overcoming the fear of taking that first step. The first step is important, but looking at the formula, where does the power lie? Which is more powerful, multiplication or addition?

So how do we increase D and V so that we can overcome our resistance to change? For example, what does complacency do to our level of dissatisfaction regarding our current circumstances? Complacency lowers our dissatisfaction level. What does having a greater vision of where we must be do to our level dissatisfaction? A greater vision increases our dissatisfaction because it increases the gap between where we are currently and where we must be. Dissatisfaction stems from a belief that I can achieve more than I have. It requires belief that the vision is possible. Do you see the power behind this formula to affect positive change in our lives?

In summary, if we want to significantly improve our lives, be it financial, relational, physical, or spiritual, we must overcome our resistance to change by creating a bigger vision for our future, resulting in greater dissatisfaction with our present, and then muster the courage to take the first step toward that vision.

It ain’t over till it’s over

To close, I issue to all of you a call to action. Dream again! No matter at what stage you are in life, dream again! Then allow yourself to deeply feel the dissatisfaction of where you are currently and overcome your fear of taking the first step.

Remember that big dream when you first started your new business? Recall the excitement, the faith, and the energy that you drew from that faith to affect great accomplishment. So many business owners have allowed the day-to-day grind to steal that dream and the faith that they had in that dream! They no longer believe in the vision that they once had. Are you one of those? Do you want to know how to re-create a vision that will propel you forward? Then take that first step. Find someone who can give you a fresh perspective. Someone who can help you blow through what’s been holding you back.

Overcome your resistance to change! You can transform your business into a profitable enterprise that works without you!

I Just Can’t Find Good People!
By ActionCOACH Mark McNulty

Do you find yourself saying this?

The US Department of Labor reports that 2 out of 3 new hires prove to be a mistake within the first year – at a cost of thousands of dollars for each departing employee. Hiring mistakes negatively impact productivity and erode your company’s profits. In Jim Collins’ landmark study and book “Good to Great” he states: “The good-to-great leaders understood three simple truths.”
1.    “If you begin with ‘who’, rather than ‘what’, you can more easily adapt to a changing world”
2.    “If you have the right people on the bus, the problem of how to motivate and manage people largely goes away”
3.    “If you have the wrong people, it doesn’t matter whether you discover the right direction; you still won’t have a great company.”
What would your business look like if your hiring system delivered the right person 75% of the time?  Here are some tips to stack the odds in your favor.

Create thorough position descriptions
Most business owners use position descriptions to insure the candidate understands their duties and responsibilities; but here’s where many fall short. A good position description should also include a list of the skills and competencies required to perform the tasks and duties expected. Other information that should also be included:
•    The role of the position in the business
•    How we measure success; the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) you will use to evaluate performance for this position.
Well-written position descriptions for all team members help keep you focused on what you want, facilitate quick hiring when the need arises, and communicate your expectations to candidates and current employees.

Market for employees, just like customers
Recruiting, like marketing, is most effective when it is targeted, planned and executed with consistency.  Start with the basic question, “What makes your company a great choice for potential employees?” Having a written Culture Statement that is alive and well will help you to answer this question. Cross checking your Culture Statement with your employees’ experience should be a regular practice. Now is a good time to ask your current team – they’ll tell you.

Next, identify the best ways to reach potential employees for the position you are hiring. It will likely vary based on the position. Develop the ‘advertisement’ to attract them and be creative. The rules of good advertising apply – great heading, good content and a call to action. Include the aspects of your company that make it a great place for the type of person you wish to attract, as well as the “spirit” of the person you desire. Additionally, always be on the lookout for good people who can bring value to your organization. Make recruiting something that is ongoing, not crisis driven!  Remember “Good to Great”.

Make hiring a De-Selection Process
Your time is valuable! Don’t waste it interviewing potential employees who don’t possess the character qualities you need or don’t fit into your culture. You can improve your results and save time by incorporating a de-selection process, using a phone screen and group pre-interview assessment to test for integrity, work ethic, and passion.  If you design the group pre-interview assessment properly, those that have the “fire in the oven” will stand out and those who don’t will leave (de-select themselves), saving you time and hiring mistakes.

Your written Vision, Mission, and Culture statements are a valuable tool at this point to assist in the de-selection process. During the group pre-interview meeting use these tools with the position’s KPIs to communicate the high standards of behavior and performance expected by all within your company. If you effectively communicate these criteria, those that you would not want on your team will depart, leaving you with the “cream of the crop”.

What are you looking for at this stage? – Passion, confidence, and the desire to grow. These attributes are much more important than knowledge or experience, which can be taught. Stay disciplined and only interview candidates who make it through both the phone and group interview steps.

Once you decide to schedule someone for an interview, email them the job description so expectations are clear before they arrive. Have the candidate meet with multiple people, when possible, and employ behavioral interview techniques and tests to probe for the skills and competencies that are most critical. Be willing to turn down candidates who are not the right fit and don’t settle for less than the best!

Believe You Can and You Will
Sounds simple, but too often we defeat ourselves before we start. Telling yourself ‘I just can’t get good help’ becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Instead, start telling yourself “I have a great team committed to achieving our goals”. Even if it’s not yet true – YOU can make it so. Remember the objective when hiring is to be able to say 3 years later that, “Knowing what I know now, I’d hire this person again in a heartbeat!”

If It’s Going to be Right I Have to Do It!
By ActionCOACH Mark McNulty

Assure the systems you develop are used
Have you heard of the proverb: “What gets measured or monitored gets done”? As you create systems or document processes, include a monitoring or measuring protocol to insure the systems are used.

Make the system selectively accessible
Not every team member needs to use every system. Your master manual should contain all of your systems. Individual team members should have copies of only the systems that involve them. This makes it easier for someone substituting as backup or when training a new team member.

Get the team involved
Who better to help document the systems than the people who are currently doing the tasks? The team can also help you improve the current systems by identifying redundancies and what’s not working.

Make sure the team knows their role in the overall process
Unfortunately, it is normal for team members to disagree on the sequence of tasks and how to best complete them. Team members need to know their role and how it affects the overall results.  Clearly written and agreed upon roles (job descriptions) go a long way toward accomplishing this.  So start the systemization process with clearly written job descriptions.

Documenting the systems in your business may seem overwhelming.  Don’t try to do them all at once.  Document one or two systems, implement them and monitor the results.  Once you are satisfied, move to the next one. So where do you start?  That’s easy – select a task that you are currently doing (but shouldn’t be) or one that can fix a problem you are currently facing such as product rejects, low sales conversion rates, poor service or customer satisfaction, etc.

A final thought: take it one step at a time – but just do it!

If It’s Going to be Right I Have to Do It!
By ActionCOACH Mark McNulty

Do you ever find yourself making that statement? Do you struggle with your staff delivering inconsistent service quality or handling customers with your level of professionalism? Do they sell your products or services as well as you?  For many business owners, the answer is NO!  So what is the solution?

The default solution for too many entrepreneurs is to work lots of hours and do it yourself.  If this sounds like you, how is this “solution” affecting your lifestyle, time with those you love, and your amount of recreation? There is a way out! Put systems in place so others can do the tasks the same way you would, or possibly even better.

Systems are your way of empowering your team to perform the work on a level as if you were doing it personally. View the word SYSTEM as an acronym for: Saving You Stress, Time, Energy, & Money! Systems reduce your hours and stress by empowering average people to do great work. Systems also insure that customers receive the consistency they expect - each and every time. Sound too good to be true? Ask yourself: “How do other businesses grow beyond the owner?” - by creating systems to run the company, freeing the owner for strategic growth initiatives. Below are some simple guidelines for creating systems that work.

Keep them simple
If the system or documented process is complex, then keep working to distill the activity down to its critical essence. When you thoroughly understand something, and present it well, it will become simple for someone else to replicate. When is it truly simple? - when someone else, unfamiliar with the task, can complete it using only what you have documented in the system.

Write only systems that make money or reduce risk
You are not in the business of creating manuals, so only create a system if it simplifies a task, improves quality, or speeds up a service. This will keep you focused. Start small and grow the system(s) with time.

Manage Your Sales Funnel
By ActionCOACH Mark McNulty

Most of us know Pareto’s Principle or the 80/20 rule – 80 percent of your revenues will come from 20 percent of your customers.  But often times, sales management does not follow this maxim.  But what does working the 20 percent mean?

Managing your sales funnel is a practice whereby you can identify where each prospect is in their buy/sell process with you. Think of a funnel, wide on top, narrow at the bottom.  Not all of your prospects that start out in the top of the funnel will make it to the bottom.  The percent of those who make it the whole way through is your conversion rate.

And there are specific steps within your funnel that should move a prospect closer and closer to you, one step at a time.

To make sure you are managing your sales funnel, take these following action steps:
1.    Identify the steps of your sales funnel.  List out all the steps you and your sales team take from the time your marketing stops until the deal is closed.  It’s better to err on the side of too many sales steps than not enough.

2.    Make sure that your sales steps match your target market’s buying steps.  For example if your target market uses the internet heavily, make sure you have a strong, education based website.  Remember the rule “make it easy for them to buy.”  You could be losing sales if you are requiring prospects to jump through hoops that they could find tedious.

3.    Decide your “moment of truth” in your sales funnel. Too many business owners who are also their own sales people think all the way to the end- all the way to the sale.  Instead, I recommend that you back up and look for the critical step that will get them to the sale.  For car salesmen, it’s getting the prospect into the car, for a own hospitality business, it is getting the decision maker to see the facility.  Clearly identify your own moment of truth sales step.

4.    Create a simple system that can chart the prospects and precisely where they are in the sale process.  This way at any given moment, you can identify where your prospects are in your sales cycle.

5.    Implement Key Performance Indicators to measure your conversion rate.  The simplest of KPI measurement is the conversion rate from lead to sale.  You may want to consider additional indicators that measure a second conversion rate from the critical sales step to the sale.

6.    Create a fool proof system for your sales process.  Give some thought to this by answering questions such as, “What happens when a lead calls in?”, “What marketing material do we send out to interested prospects?”, “Are all sales inquiries followed up the same way?”

How Many Customers Can You Afford to Lose?
By ActionCOACH Mark McNulty

According to the Harvard Business Review, 67 percent of customers who choose a new supplier said they were satisfied with their former supplier!  On an average, most U.S. companies lose half their customer base every five years.  So why would customers who are satisfied stop doing business with you? Well consider this – “Customers go where they are wanted and stay where they are appreciated”.

Varying estimates place the cost of acquiring new customers at six to ten times more than selling to existing customers.  Losing customers can drastically affect your company’s reputation, credibility, referrals, sales, and profitability.

Seven Ways to Retain Your Valued Customers:
1.    Never assume you know what customers want – ask them!  Customer surveys are a great tool for understanding customer needs and identifying innovative ways to solve their problems or exceed their expectations.

2.    Measure and reward customer satisfaction.  If customer satisfaction is really a priority in your business, demonstrate this to your team.  Develop a method to measure it, set goals for improvement and reward the team when the goal is accomplished.

3.    When you hire people to interact with your customers, make sure they possess good customer service skills like trust, empathy, flexibility and verbal communication proficiency.  Each customer contact with your team is an opportunity to build your reputation or destroy it.

4.    Say Thank You.  Sounds obvious but consider this.  When was the last time you received a thank-you note from a company you do business with?  This simple strategy can really make an impact and says a lot about your company and the value you place on customers.

5.    Stay connected with your customers – by phone, mail or email.  While the frequency may vary, every customer should receive a ‘touch’ at least once per quarter.

6.    Make valuable customers feel more appreciated than non-customers or prospects. While new customers are critical to growth, make sure current customers get some VIP treatment.  Programs, offers or specials just for current customers work well.

7.    Look for opportunities to sell multiple products or services to your existing customers – to create the perception of a one-stop solution provider.  Research shows this builds loyalty and retention.  It’s also a great way to increase revenue and profit!

Finally, make customer service everyone’s responsibility – especially in a small business where team members wear many hats.  Train your team on customer service.  From the receptionist to the delivery driver, your team will make an impression.  The kind of impression they make is up to you.