Cost cutting is a constant challenge for anyone who decides to open a dollar store. There are many major expenses associated with the operation of a store. Every one of those expenses needs to be examined for reduction. Since store space rent is one of the biggest expenses, it too needs to be constantly scrutinized for reduction.

When you open a dollar store there is the temptation to lease as much space as possible. At times this equates to renting too much space. By renting too much space you are setting yourself up to spend unneeded money. Instead, size your store and extra space to fit the store that your business plan describes.

If you have leased or rented more space than you need when you open a dollar store, examine your options for eliminating that excess space. If possible simply vacate the excess space. If not, negotiate a sub-lease of the excess space. Consider reducing the space or removing stand alone extra spaces such as storage areas.

If all other options fail consider exchanging spaces within the same location. Your store space is exchanged for a smaller store space. There are several downsides to this option. They include costs associated with the physical move of your store and the loss of sales that might occur in a physical move.

Be sure that all costs are carefully weighed before reducing your store space. Such a move must make long term economic and business sense. The bottom line is that any excess space is simply costing you money. That money could be going toward debt reduction or to the bottom line if there is no debt.

To Your Dollar Store Success!

I once had a client who came to me desperately seeking advice on how he could improve his business, as he was having acute staffing problems and was working incredibly long hours to keep the business afloat.

What I told him in our first session shocked him; it was basically this:

“You don’t have a business, you have a job.”

This is the trap that so many business owners fall into – they mistakenly believe that because they are the “owner,” somehow they truly own the business. WRONG!

Merely owning and running a business does not you mean that you’re a business owner in the truest sense; it simply means you are employed by a business entity that you own.

A true business is a system that runs entirely on its own without you physically being there on a day-to-day basis.

A true test of whether or not you own a business is to ask yourself, “If I took 6 months off, would it still be around?”

If the answer is no, then you don’t have a business; you are simply self-employed!

This is a very important principle to understand before you start any business, as it will make the difference between small profits or large ones.

In essence, to create business is to build a system that operates automatically without your day-to-day input.

Instead it operates by you leveraging the resources available to you: your systems, employees, suppliers and…ultimately your customers.

Your relationship to your business should be the same as the one a conductor has to his orchestra – you should be the co-ordinator, the director, NOT the musician; and if you truly wish to be a wealth creator you should maintain this perspective throughout your business life.

The strategy for creating wealth virtually out of thin air involves a simple process that you can apply as often as you like. Once you learn it, the world will never look quite the same way again.

It will allow you to create any business from scratch and also improve any business you presently own. It doesn’t matter whether the business is online or offline, as the same principles apply.

The key component of this system is the concept of leverage.

Leverage, as it relates to business, is the term used to describe how you can utilise a particular resource for your own benefit. Doing so allows you to accomplish things that would not have been possible otherwise.

In essence leverage is:

•Using other people’s time, money, skills, knowledge, equipment and contacts

•Using technology in the form of computers, software and telecommunications

•Using your time, energy and stamina productively to get things done

Once you grasp this concept, you will very quickly realise that virtually anything can be achieved in your business by leveraging the resources available to you.

Having developed your solution into a product or service, your next task is to find a way to deliver it to your hungry market.

A simple way of accomplishing this is to contact a person who is already delivering another product to that particular market and make a deal with them to split the profits. This is called joint venturing, and it’s an exceptionally powerful way to break into new markets that would otherwise have been cut off from you. By doing this you’re benefiting from the goodwill and trust that has already been developed among existing customers, and making a huge savings in marketing and advertising costs.

What you’re doing here is effectively leveraging the contacts and relationships this person has, for your mutual benefit.

By utilising the power of leverage you can:

•Identify a hot market and develop superior products or services that this market is already interested in.

•Develop a business system that will allow you to deliver the product a service that they want.

•Joint venture with other businesses that are already delivering solutions to your hot market and split the profits with them.

Using the power of leverage allows you to stop thinking like an employee and develop the true mindset of an entrepreneur to create the wealth and success you deserve.

The secret lies in learning how to grow your business effectively. There are several strategies you can use to grow your business, but they fall under four general categories.

1. Attract more new customers (Reach)
2. Increase the average sales amount (Average Check)
3. Make your customers buy from you more often (Frequency)
4. Hold on to your customers for life (Retention)

I believe small businesses focus to much of their efforts on issues that have nothing to do with these four strategies. It is very easy to act with knee jerk activities to the issue dujour. The key is to do go through the proper planning process, and then choose the area that needs to be focused on. Today you may decide to focus on new customers but a year from now you may need to change your focus. This is an ongoing process and your local sales area changes every day. You will have to change with it or you will die.

Don't get me wrong. Referrals are the best kind of customers. But if you spend the majority of your time and money trying to get them you may be neglecting a whole slew of new customers that are waiting to buy from you.

In the same vein, if small business spends all its time marketing to new customers and ignoring existing customers, you may be missing out on a lot of low hanging fruit.

As I mentioned, there are many ways to leverage your marketing efforts in these four categories. here are just a few ways to improve each of your areas of growth:

Attract more new customers...

*Select a niche market that you can easily contact and dominate it.
*Develop an Education Based Marketing Program that compels your prospects to contact you to learn more about how you can help them.
*Establish a proactive referral program with centers of influence that can open new channels of growth for you and your business.

Increase the Average Sales Amount...

*Up-sell your customers to high quality products and services
*Suggest accessories and add-on items and services that compliment your customer's purchase
*combine several items into a package that would cost less if sold seperatley

Make your customers buy from you more often...

*Establish ongoing communications that present compelling offers that can't be turned down.
*Follow up with your customers to see how they're enjoying the benifits of the new product or service you sold them, and suggest products or services that would increase their satisfaction
*Track your customer's usage and buying patterns to suggest purchases right before they actually need them (this also helps keep the competition away)

Hold on to your customers for life...

*Deliver uncommon customer service by going the extra mile
*give your customers the opportunity to go on record by giving you testimonials about your great customer service
*Perform stealth surveys with your customers from time to time to gauge their level of satisfaction

Your goal is to design systems and programs that surround these four categories of growth strategies. In the newsletters I will send you will be given specific marketing tactics for each of these areas to grow your small business.

What kind of quality objectives should you have in an ISO9001:2000 quality management system?

When first setting up an ISO9001:2000 quality management system, one of the most common questions is "What should my objectives be?"

One of the requirements of the ISO9001:2000 quality standard is that the organization establish and monitor quality objectives. There is no specific requirement about how many quality objectives you must have, or what those objectives might be. As with much of the ISO9001:2000 quality standard, this is left up to you and your auditor.

Having only one quality objective is probably too few. Having twenty is probably too many. In this writer's experience as a quality manager and ISO consultant for several ISO registered companies, its good to have somewhere between 3 to 8 quality objectives. It's always a good idea to keep your quality objectives, as well as your entire quality system, as simple as possible while still meeting the standard's requirements.

Some people may feel that a good quality objective should relate to the company's profitability. A good case can be made for this, as most profit oriented companies hold the bottom line above all else. However I believe that merely looking at the company's profit is not going deep enough when deciding what your objectives should be. Profit is a good indication that your company is doing something right, of course, but there are other, better objectives for a quality system that will lead you more profits, as well as increased customer satisfaction, fewer returns and reduced overhead.

One of the common quality objectives, and a good one, is to measure customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction is subjective, to be sure. And it is difficult to measure using a ruler, micrometer, or calipers. Some companies include a survey with their products, using a stamped, addressed card with various questions, in the hopes that the customer will complete the survey and return it to the company. While few customers take the time to complete such surveys, if only one percent of your customer respond, you'll probably have a pretty good sampling of customers' attitudes towards your company.

Measuring customer satisfaction is usually a very worthwhile objective, as customer satisfaction covers a large part of your company's activities, including sales, R&D, manufacturing, purchasing, etc.

Be sure to write your survey questions in such a manner that they can be easily scored using a numerical system. It is much easier to measure an increase (or decrease) in customer satisfaction if each response can be assigned a number. For example, one of your quality objectives could be "To have a customer satisfaction score of 98 percent". If you ever reach your objective, you should increase the goal so you are constantly trying to improve your quality system.

Another quality objective might be "Number of returned products per month to be 10 or less". This is an easily tracked objective that also relates to numerous areas of your company. For example, returns might be due to faulty information given by the salesperson. Returns might be due to defective product. A return can come back due to a shipping mistake. Keeping track of the reasons for returns, and how many returns are attributed to each reason, is a good way to know where your company needs to improve its procedures.