Anyway this week’s was about a piece of software I’ve used in my business for the last year or so which I find really useful (to do with creating and editing PDFs).  I was fairly sure everyone would have something already but they might find this option better.

So I was really surprised to find that I received more ‘thank you’ mails about that than any mail I’d sent for a while with most saying they’d been paying other people to do the PDF editing for them.

The lesson for me: even with five years of providing support, the teaching and learning doesn’t stop.  As many of my subscribers say to me “I love knowing that I’ve got this edge over my competition – it really makes a difference”.

One thing I did struggle with when I started is that I’m trying to deliver one website to two different audiences.  I need to provide help, useful information and local interest to the community.  But I also need to ensure that any businesses that visit the site know why they should advertise with me and how.

I’ve cracked it now though so if you’d like to see an example of what you might get in with Mags to RIches, it’s here.

In the process of doing this I had a bit of a tidy up of my own databases, one of which is of course my own magazine advertiser base.  After the tidy-up I was able to do an analysis of my current advertisers and particularly how long they’d booked for.

Now I’d always known we have a very high retention rate, but this analysis showed that 83% of my advertisers are on a continuous booking.  That means they’ll advertise every month without question unless they call me to cancel.  And a further 4%  repeat year after year but being in the gardening business only advertise in the summer months.

So if you had 50 advertisers, over 41 of those advertisers would be pre-booked for the following month too (assuming the lower rate of 83%).  Well that’s not bad is it?

So whether I’m working at home, working away from home, or on holiday I’m still going to have a good chunk of my income assured.  That’s why this is such a fantastic business.

Anyway, she brought along some fairly poorly designed business postcards with a glaring error: it said her rates were 10p/per hour.  I pointed this out and she said “yes I know it should have been £10/per hour, but it was such a nightmare dealing with the printer.  We’d designed our own advert, and sent it to the printer who kept sending it back because it wasn’t in the right format for him so we missed the mistake.”  She was asking what were the exact details that we needed ads supplied in.

I explained that usually we design adverts for our customers, and there’s a very small charge (£10) or even free for a long booking.  But if she really wanted to design her own, send it over in any format and we’d tidy it up and send back a proof – no charge.  She was so surprised she was almost sceptical.

95% of our customers are one or two person businesses.  They may be great beauticans, efficient electricians, perfect plumbers or whatever; they aren’t great marketers. And this is the USP (Unique Selling Point) for doing business with a local magazine. We love small businesses, we love helping small businesses and they love dealing with us.  We just make it as easy as possible for them to advertise with us… and advertise they do!

PS: Alena phoned this morning to confirm the details of her order and to give me her card details so I could take the money in advance.  That’s just one of the reasons we love small business: instant decisions, no signoff process, pay on the spot.

This other system and the company that owns it have a terrible reputation.  On some of the business forums in the UK there are stories of people being so trapped by some of this company’s agreement that it has caused marriage breakdowns and bankruptcy.

The caller to me had said that when she initially looked at what I was offering and thought “the other company have a good website and I know the truth behind the smoke and mirrors. Who is to say you are any different?”

Without blowing my own trumpet, it goes to show two things: firstly that one spoiler can make people think the whole business is rotten; and secondly the internet exposes undesirable ethics, meaning that these days your reputation is so important.  I sent her off to do some digging on me – I have nothing to hide.

But in summary whatever business you are looking to go into, make sure that you do your research before you go ahead.  Don’t just buy into a business because they have a nice website and some nice testimonials.  And that includes us.

His latest piece was called What not to wear and starts as follows:

It was nearly lunchtime when I realised I still had my slippers on. Horrified, I ran a quick mental reconstruction of the day so far. I’d walked the dog at about 8, got home just before 9, taken my wellies off, put my slippers on, sat down in The Office (converted garage, no heating), and started work. Three hours of work later (interspersed, of course, with the odd cup of coffee, piece of toast, and game of solitaire), I still wasn’t fully dressed! And worse, I hadn’t cleaned my teeth! So, am I letting myself go?

You hear, of course, of people who’ve been working from home for years who have got out of the habit of getting dressed at all. People who spend all day at the screen in just their vest and pants. People who are still in their jim-jams when the kids get home from school. People whose teeth are green. People whose stubble isn’t designer, just disgusting.

Do I have the same standards as my office days?  Do I heck!  But yes, I may not wear a designer suit to the ‘office’ but there really is no excuse answering the door to the delivery man at 11am and still being in your PJs.  Even if I am dressed it’s often because I’ve been out for an early bike ride or walk.  So dressed yes, showered no.  Note to self: must try harder.

But this doesn’t mean that we are actually getting more information into our heads!  There is a limit to how much we can absorb and so the brain very cleverly filters out stuff that isn’t relevant.  As in a crowded room where you don’t hear everybody else’s conversation but if someone says your name you can pick it out.

So it is with advertising.  If you’re in the market for a new car, you’ll notice all the adverts for new cars.  You might think it an odd co-incidence but it’s not.  The adverts were there all the time, it’s only now that it’s relevant to you that you notice them.

Unless a piece of information can find some common interest or common ground in your brain it will get ignored.  This is where local advertising works.  When you live in an area, any news or flier that mentions your home town, is going to have a much higher chance of making it through.  And once it has your attention, you are much more likely to feel a sense of kinship and even trust.

So when a resident receives a whole book through their door, full of local businesses, local numbers, and local information they are naturally going to give it more attention and feel more loyalty towards your magazine than to the ‘yellow book’ which covers a radius of 30 miles.

Be your own boss rather working for an employer. Except that the franchise will put rules on you, which they can change further down the line.  If they are going to take a percentage of your profits, they’ll push pretty hard to ensure you do as you are told.

You’ll get a head start and help. A common saying in the franchise industry is “You’re in business for yourself, but not by yourself.” Absolutely true but why do they need to tie you into a long term contract to do this?  If you’ve paid your initial fee, surely you should be entitled to help.

Gain additional training and assistance. Franchises have a vested interest in your success because they will often take a percentage of your income.  Again true, but many will make you pay a fee even if you aren’t successful.

You will profit from name recognition. This depends on the franchise.  Yes if you are buying ‘McDonalds’ this is a big plus compared to setting up ‘Jo’s burger bar’ but if you are setting up a small franchise without national or global coverage, the name won’t mean anything.

They’ll protect your ‘area’.  Any franchise which has a territory assigned to it will then be protected from any other franchisee of the same company encroaching on your area.  True, but it doesn’t stop a competitor franchise from coming into your area.

And here are the disadvantages:

If you want to grow your business, to expand into another area, you’ll have an big up front fee to pay all over again, without necessarily getting anything more than territory rights.

If you sell your business on later, the franchisor will want a share of your sale.

Now despite everything I’ve said above I’m not totally against all franchises.  I think some of the big professional ones can really give you something you’d struggle to ever achieve alone, e.g. head office marketing, buying power, and a global brand.

What I am against is a small business franchise which doesn’t add those factors, but still expects all the returns.  It is of course great business for the franchisor but the balance of the benefits is all with the seller and not with the buyer.

If you want to take up a franchise of any type, do your research, find out what their franchisees are saying on the internet, and never sign any contract without a solicitor (of your own choice) viewing it first.

(Of course I am biased, but I sell Mags to Riches with your territory rights assigned, with support promised, with a community of people to share with and with some great contacts for our industry.  What I don’t do is to retain any control over your business or take any of your profits.)

Anyway, getting to the point, I had a lady call early on Saturday morning to leave a message on our answerphone.  She started the message with ‘This is one of your very satisfied customers’ and went on to say how pleased she was with the service from one of our advertisers and to let me know a little bit of local info that I could include in the next edition of the magazine.

I believe it’s knowing that they’ll get through to ‘the horse’s mouth’ that makes people call.  They know that a compliment is received by the person that actually does the work.  And that inclusion of local info will actually happen because it doesn’t have an editorial team trying to decide whether to sign it off.

I bet she’s never called Yellow Pages or the county newspaper!