Monday, December 26, 2011

Be a Frugal Grocery Shopper!

!±8± Be a Frugal Grocery Shopper!

If you want to be a frugal grocery shopper, there are a few simple changes that you can make to your grocery shopping habits. These changes seem small when you consider them on an individual basis, but overall the small savings really add up in the long run.

The first thing that you need to do to be a frugal grocery shopper is to end the impulse buys. Stop going to the grocery store unprepared, because if you don't have a specific list then you may end up purchasing things that are extra. Walking into the grocery store with a specific list of needs will allow you to quickly find the items that you need, which will in turn cut back on your impulse spending because you will spend less time browsing the aisles of the store.

Another great tip for the frugal shopper is to never go to the grocery store hungry. Always have a snack before leaving the house. This will also help you to cut back on the impulse spending.

Grocery coupons are effective in reducing the total cost of your shopping trip. Coupons are treated just like small pieces of money: when you get to the register, you simply need to hand the applicable coupons to the cashier and then watch your shopping total decrease!

If you really want to be a frugal shopper and take your savings to the next level, you may consider combining these coupons with the sale prices. Shopping during sales and using grocery coupons at the same time will help you to stretch your dollar even further. It is a great idea to stock up on items that you use on a regular basis. When you keep your pantry stocked by purchasing these items on sale, you will be less likely to need to purchase that item at full price.

These tips may seem small and simple, but when you combine them the savings will be huge. Saving a few dollars each week equals a large amount of savings in a year, and you will be glad that you can be a frugal grocery shopper and keep that money in your pocket!


Be a Frugal Grocery Shopper!

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Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Effective Marketing Ideas For Your Coffee Shop

!±8± Effective Marketing Ideas For Your Coffee Shop

Most of what I am going to talk about in this article is geared towards the new coffee shop. However, it can be utilized and directed towards an established shop.

Outside of your regulars, coffee is an impulse buy because the customer saw your sign. Aside from your regulars, most folks do not set out to 'go to the coffee shop' like they would to a restaurant (unless you ask them to so more on this later). You need a steady stream of customers outside of your normal morning commute business.

The morning commuters are your bread and butter, the rest helps fill in the revenue holes. These are your impulse buyers. They are going to come to you mainly via your sign outside, so instead of sending out 10,000 post cards to your neighborhood residents, spend that money on a premium location, visible sign and branding your image. You'll be glad you did:

As far as your signage, get one that is AS BIG AS POSSIBLE. That is, as allowable by your city ordinance and landlord, without being tacky! The bigger the sign is, the more visible it is.

By branding your image, you are identifying your existence within your community. Be sure you have a unique logo. If you cannot design it, get one custom made by a professional! I have seen a lot of cheap looking logos that do not help the image.

Another step in branding your image is to secure your shop's name on the world wide web by registering the domain name. Try to get all the domain tags: .com, .net, .org, etc. This is for email, and your website. You will be glad you did because it gives you a more professional image. Remember, the more common your business name is, the more difficult getting it registered online is going to be because the name may be taken.

As for your website, get one! If you can do this on your own, more power to you here too. I know just enough to be dangerous but you can get a nice website, even with online sales capabilities done economically. Check around locally, I bet there are a few web gurus in your area.

Here is where you have the chance to have every customer take your name with them when they leave allowing others to see it. Whether you have sleeves custom printed or you use stickers and put one on each cup or protective sleeve, they are all part of your branding. Be sure the design is clear and defines your shop well.

The same goes for stamps. You can have a rubber stamp made to stamp your whole bean coffee bags with. Note that the brown Kraft paper bags are what you'd need for this. If you use the foil bags, your stickers will work well for this too.

Press releases are an inexpensive way to tell the world what you are doing. A carefully crafted press release sent to the right person at the right news outlet can be the best form of advertising for you. Just be sure that whomever is on the press release as the contact person is actually available to be contacted.

Another great form of marketing is your use of tee shirts, caps and other wearable's. These are walking billboards for you courtesy of the folks that buy them. You can give them away if you want, it's all good advertising. Yes, they are expensive but I consider this great advertising and an expense under that category. Better, yes if you can make up the cost on them. But put this cost into your advertising budget. See if you can get them locally, if not there are several reputable companies on the internet. You will pay about .00 each in the end, but again the investment is very well worth it.

Where would we be without business cards? Think about it: how many people have you run into that do not have a business card for whatever it is they do for a living? Not many that I can remember. This is your time to tell everyone you meet that you are in the coffee business. Everyone you meet should get one of these and a few to spare. Do not be shy about handing them out!

Menus are a great example of simple marketing. These are the take out type so try to keep it simple. Under four pages, printed on an 8.5"x11" sheet of BRIGHT colored paper and folded in half is best. You can leave them at area businesses if they allow it. You can also put them on your counter by the checkout and anywhere else your customers will see and take them. You can have them copied at any copy place, or see if you can have a local copy shop do them. They should cost about .10-.15 cents each. All you need is a place to make them on a copy machine. Menus printed on a printing press will be more expensive in most cases.

Support materials are also a good way to advertise your products. You can usually get POS materials FREE from any supplier you are using. This goes for tent cards to put on your counter to full color posters to hang in your windows. Check with your distributor. If they do not keep these kinds of materials on hand, a call to the manufacturer can usually get them in your hands relatively quickly.

Vinyl lettering on your vehicle is another form of advertising, and another type of moving billboard. There are several places online that will allow you to use a particular vehicle template to design your lettering. Again, check around locally for better service and pricing. I had vehicle lettering made for my SUV: rear window and both rear side windows or under 0.00. Your vehicle will essentially become a moving billboard.

Vinyl lettering can be gotten for your store windows too, which will be similar to your vehicle lettering. Check with the same source.

Word of mouth is an excellent source of marketing. Customers can be your biggest and best marketing source for you. It can also backfire on you if you tick someone off or if a customer ends up having a bad experience at your shop, for whatever reason.

Make every effort that all customers are satisfied before they walk out of your door. You may never have the chance to do it again and everyone that that dissatisfied customer meets may be told of the unfortunate incident at your store. They may not come to your store if there was ever that chance they would.

Talk to the world online via your blog. This has got to be the best invention since a website and the internet itself started. Where else can you talk about nearly anything and let the world read it? You may just develop a following not only locally, but around the world.

Have event nights. This is great for weekends and 'dead' times. Earlier, I spoke about customers coming to your shop if you asked them to. This is where you have that chance. Events that will bring in business are almost plentiful. A few examples are trivia night, open mikes, singer-songwriter and other music performances, book signings and poetry. It can also be just about anything else you can think of that is of interest to others.

A word of caution about playing DVD's and TV/cable shows: Most of these are copyright protected and although you may not think you are breaking any laws, it can be construed as such. It's a royalty issue because you are making money on your beverages, in your establishment showing a DVD bought for 'personal' use. Just be careful here.

It's been my experience that this coupon mailers are usually a waste of money in the specialty coffee industry. There are way too many coupons in most of these mailers and most recipients throw them out. I know I do.

Internet advertising is good if you can limit to advertising locally using your zip code. You can reach a captive audience on the internet. It's relatively inexpensive because you choose what to spend on each ad and only pay per click. This is also good if you choose to sell whole beans online, however if you do not roast in-house this may be cost and inventory prohibitive.

Be careful when using coupons in any form. Coupons tend to cheapen the specialty coffee industry so I do not recommend using them. Bogo's (buy one get one) are ok for some advertising, like opening a new coffee shop but, you will get your bargain seekers that wait for those coupons in order to patronize you. You could create more monsters!

You will also, occasionally get regulars that bring in the coupons. Even though they are as deserving of the coupon as anyone else is, your aim is to get NEW customers so the 'coupon' doesn't always work. The only way I recommend a coupon is for a first time customer. You can usually get mailing addresses of new residents from your chamber of commerce and do a select, targeted mailing to the new residents only. So there are some easy, mostly economic ways to effectively advertise and market your coffee shop.

Remember, your customer service and quality will always have to be top notch but you can skimp on some advertising dollars by being crafty and conservative.


Effective Marketing Ideas For Your Coffee Shop

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Friday, December 16, 2011

11/18 Target Haul - Free Johnson & Johnson,Smart Ones Buy 5 Get 1, Free NYC

If you watched my Target Haul from yesterday, Thurs Nov. 17th then you know I was a little disappointed with the few items I was able to get on my list. My goal today was to stop by another Target on my way home from CT and I'm glad I did because they had a fabulous variety of items and the store was huge + CT sales tax is less than NY. I was able to pick up 2 of the Maybelline baby lips which I don't think I mentioned in the video. They were .99 and I used (1) off bricks.coupons.com printable coupon stacked with (1) Target printable coupon per lip balm...so free baby lips..There were several flavors and I got pink punch and peach kiss. They both have SPF 20 Sunscreen. The skinny cow coupons can be found in the 10/9 Smart Source off any multipack and .75 coupon at Target's website. After looking over my receipt I noticed at least 1 coupon wasn't deducted, the off Maybelline Baby Lips so now I guess I have to practice what I preach and write out my list so I have an idea of how much my transaction will be or do smaller transaction so I can add everything up in my head. The cashier did drop some coupons !!!! Did she do it on purpose or was it a simple mistake? Happy Savings!!!!!

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Tuesday, December 6, 2011

How to Start a Welcome Service

!±8± How to Start a Welcome Service

First, let's cover our bases. What exactly is a Welcoming Service? A Welcoming Service serves two purposes: 1.) to welcome newcomers to the area & 2.) to support and market area businesses. This service involves soliciting sponsors from area businesses, creating a pretty gift bag, compiling a list of newcomers and making the delivery. Sound easy? Well, it is, in theory. Putting these ideas to work can be a little more complicated.

Basically, what the consumer (newcomer) gets is a nice, friendly welcome from you & a beautiful gift bag filled with goodies from area businesses. Since Welcome Services are individually owned and operated, you can choose what types of 'gifts' you want sponsors to include. Some welcome services allow sponsors to include coupons or generic advertising flyers and such. Other, more selective welcoming services will only allow promotional items or gift certificates. It is generally up to you how to approach this. Some businesses may not have promotional items available, and this might be a chance for you to team up with a promotional items company and earn some commissions from those businesses.

From a consumer standpoint, the advertising that will stick out in their minds will be the gift certificate and promotional items. Those don't generally end up in the trash like junk mailers often do. I know from personal experience that if I get a nice fridge magnet or a pen, I am not going to just throw it away. Flyers and coupons, in my house at least, get tossed upon arrival. Experienced Welcome Services will usually advise you to stress the importance of actual gifts to your sponsors. That said; please use common sense when approaching the sponsors about their items. You certainly wouldn't want to lose a sponsor simply because you are too stubborn to bend your rules here and there.

Sponsors are paying to advertise in your bag. A good businessperson will understand the importance of gaining the newcomers as customers. If they can catch them before their competitors do and they provide excellent service, it is highly likely that they will gain a loyal and repeat customer. Most businesspeople will tell you that it is much easier to keep existing customers than to solicit new ones. From my experience, most businesses are very receptive to this idea of personalized advertising.

Think about a time when you were new to an area. What kind of businesses or services were you interested in knowing more about? Doctors, dentists, pharmacies, churches, beauty shops, daycares and plumbers are just a few of the businesses that newcomers will need to know about. I suggest thumbing through the Yellow Pages or even looking at your local Chamber of Commerce's website to make a list of potential sponsors. The possibilities are endless and you should always be on the lookout for new sponsors. Joining your local Chamber of Commerce is also a great networking tool.

Though prices vary, it is up to you to set a price for sponsors who wish to advertise. You want to be sure you are making a profit after all of your expenses, but at the same time you do not want to overwhelm the sponsors. Another good rule of thumb is to set your prices at a decent rate in order to allow yourself some room to increase that price in following years. Always take into consideration your gas prices, prices for any lists of newcomers you may have to purchase, and gift bag materials. I have seen sponsor prices range anywhere from .00-.00 per bag delivered.

Another great method of selling your service to sponsors is the monthly delivery list. You should prepare a list at the end of each month detailing your deliveries. The family's name, address and phone number should be listed here. Not only does that serve as an invoice to the sponsors, it also provides them with a little extra marketing tool. You should ask them not to abuse this information, but they can use it to mail promotional and information items in the future.

When calling upon sponsors it will be important to have a rough estimate of how many bags you will deliver each month. Several sources are available, depending on your area, to find the names of newcomers. In some areas, the water or electric departments area good source. The courthouse always keeps records of new people moving into the area. If you have any connections with real estate agents, those may be good sources too. I know some people who use title companies and pay a monthly fee for access to their lists. If your area has a newspaper with a good website, many times you can find these names and addresses in the Real Estate section. Having a rough estimate of how many newcomers move in monthly will be a deciding factor to many sponsors. Some may not want to spend a lot of money through this form of advertising, while others will want to reach as many people as possible.

I would also recommend having some businesses cards printed up. You can find a few websites that offer free business cards, others are very inexpensive or you can buy business card stock and print them up yourself. It may also be wise to print up some informational letters about your business. Keep it simple and to the point, and use bullets to highlight your services and what it will offer the sponsors. Remember: to businesses, the bottom line is what you can do for them, they don't really care about the rest.

After you have a good estimate of the number of bags you will deliver monthly and you have some sponsors set up, please be sure to have the sponsors sign a contract. In your contract, you should state the purpose of your Welcome Service, the fee-per-bag, when and how you wish to be paid. You will also need to set up a time on a monthly or weekly basis to meet with your sponsors to pick up their promotional material. Once you have all of your bases covered, you are ready to start putting your bags together.

You can make your bags as simple or as elegant and you wish. I recommend scooping out a dollar store of some kind and find some attractive bags to use. Ribbons and tissue paper should also be purchased and any other inexpensive ornaments you desire to spice up your bags too. You should aim to make your bag attractive, yet don't go overboard since these expenses cut into your profit. After you have your supplies and promotional items in hand, feel free to arrange your bag in any manner that you see fit. Simple elegance is a sure-fire way to impress just about any newcomer.

It is recommended that you attempt to contact the newcomer prior to the delivery. A quick phone call to say hello and tell them who you are is an easy way to set up a meeting time. If you cannot find a contact phone number, you can always drop the bag off without notice, however, this should only be done in extreme circumstances. Be friendly and open with the newcomer; most will be glad to see a smiling face in an area that they don't know anyone. They will be very appreciative of your gifts and may even ask you questions about the area. Be prepared for them to ask you some common questions such as shopping centers, daycares, doctors, churches, etc. The point of your visit is not only to bring them the gift bag, but also to sincerely welcome them to the area and make them feel at home.

Your income from this business can vary greatly, but mostly depends on your drive and determination. Don't assume that just because you live in a very rural area that it can't work. Likewise, don't assume that because you are in a metropolitan area that you will breeze through the processes. Take your time in learning about area businesses, look at local newspapers to see who is advertising. Getting a good feel for your market area is a necessary first step. Let's say for example you are charging .50 per sponsor, per bag delivered and you secure 20 sponsors. You have a rough estimate of 20 bags a month to be delivered. Before the costs of the bags and accessories (which should be minimal), you have a gross total of ,000 per month. That, in my opinion, is a very good income for such a very part time and flexible job. This is just an estimate - profit may be more or less depending on what you put into it.


How to Start a Welcome Service

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Friday, December 2, 2011

Why Use Construction Contractor Estimating Software?

!±8± Why Use Construction Contractor Estimating Software?

Would you like to not only improve your cost control and profit margins as well as freeing up the evenings to enjoy your life again? If you are like many contractors you may live from job to job, hand to mouth while barely making a profit. Do you feel like your business operations have you living in your office, working long hours on job sites and still taking hours at night to figure out where all the profits went? Managing a business is hard work. Of course, one of the problems of working so hard is sometimes not working too smart.

Sitting in contemplation figuring an ingenious way to do something will not pay off when working a job site. When you have the blueprints and materials, there no amount of clever thinking that is going to drive nails into the drywall, it takes action. Sure, nail-guns take no benefit from your thoughts of running a business, however, many serious contractors benefit from construction contractor estimating software while managing their business and so can you.

Construction planning practices the art of working your way backwards, beginning with the finished project and working your way back into the empty lot. Since it is much harder to miss a step when constructing structure, especially considering the amount a client pays for the finished project, in construction it is vital to do things right the first time. This is why you measure twice and cut once. It is the same for the construction planning and the estimating software, you use. Construction estimation packages for contractors will assist you in working backwards, in this way, you can build your schedule early and easily update.

After building your schedule with the software program, you then search for ways to improve your profit margins. For instance, if you need the same types of materials for short order multiple construction jobs, such as when constructing sets of similar apartment complexes, you can check for bulk discounts from suppliers. On the other hand, if you know you will require an electrical contractor, you can try to schedule the days the electricians are out in advance, this way, one contracting fee is substantial enough over multiple jobs.

A good construction estimating software program makes it easy to update live data with actual costs as they come up, this allows you to see where your profits are going. It can also help you track the expense of labor and construction per hour, while aiding you in creating incentive programs for your best crews.

The construction business is all about cost control, since it seems that everything costs more and takes longer than expected. A good construction estimating software program will tie into the databases of contracting supply chains, to keep you alert to prices of construction materials, tools and finished goods before submitting your bid on any project, rather than after a bid.

Construction estimating software should be user friendly while working in tandem with your accounting program. A good construction estimating software program will include clear documentation and systematic instructions on how to progress, even mouse-click-by-mouse-click instructions as well as tutorials, preferably video tutorials so you can follow along while learning your new construction estimating software.

Make sure to purchase software that is easy to use and maintain with clear understandable labels. Anything written by someone who has never been on a job site and has no idea how real projects run seem to be harder to use and too terribly expensive, with no real use.

To make it easier on yourself, ask around and find out what others are using and what they think about the construction estimating software programs they use. Keep in mind that you can always get construction contracting software, for contractors in a try before you buy package deal.


Why Use Construction Contractor Estimating Software?

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