5 things you can be doing during "Slow season"

5 things you can be doing during "Slow season"

We all have a time of the year when business is slower than other times of the year. But what can we do with all that time on our hands? This blog post is going to go over 5 things you can be doing with your time during the slow time of the year. I hope you find this blog post informative and helpful. I hope you get 5 ideas as to what you can be doing during the slow season.

Every business is different. Every industry has different times of the year when it is slower for business to come in. For the printing and Graphic design business, the slow time of the year is the summer time!! OMG! Dry dessert. During the fall, some winter, and spring business is great. But something happens in the summer. I guess it's too hot for people to go out and market, so things slow up a bit.

Lets get into it.. what can you do during your slow season? Share your ideas in the comments. What do you do during the slow season.

#1 - Prepare for Tax Time

Hey, this is the most time consuming thing ever if you are not organized. So why not use this time to get ready for tax time. Get all your receipts, documents, and spreadsheets together (or accounting software if you are more advanced) and get ready. Analyze your revenue so far and the expenses you have had so far this year. What about those receipts? Do you scan them in or do you have loose receipts hanging around? Get those together and scan them in the computer or enter the data into a spreadsheet. Get organized! Reach out to your accountant and see if there is anything you need to do to make things easier for tax season.

#2 - Market and Advertise

So first thing that should be common sense is use the slow time of slow business to bring in more business. Market and advertise your business to pick things back up during this time. Use social media, email marketing, send out packets or postcards, and even call a few customers to see if they need anything else. Engage with your customers to stay fresh on their minds.

#3 - Revamp your brand for the busy season!

You can use this time to revamp your brand for the time of year when things are busier. You can get a fresh new website design, maybe a logo if you don't have one, and some print marketing items. That way you can have all your marketing stuff ready to go in time for the busy season. It takes time to build a website, plan it out and then get it to a website design professional.

We design websites for a very affordable price. Check out our website www.dttgraphics.com to find out more information. We also have great turnaround time with design time as well. Give us a try! We have already designed many websites for businesses.

#4 - Pick up another business / product / service 

Hey, why not? You have the time so find another business, product, or service that you can offer during your slow time. For example: Landscaping companies generally make the bulk of their money during the summer and spring... it slows up around fall and certainly during the winter. So what can they do during this slow time? Snow plowing! Of course! Many businesses offer snow plowing during this season.

Think of a service or business you can do when things get slow. That way the revenue continues to flow in and you stay busy.

#5 - Clean your office / retail location

Get rid of excess papers. Clean those windows. Organize those files. Clean your emails and computer out of unnecessary files. Get things clean and organize. Always be productive when you have down time. Make things easy to find and easy to navigate. This will make "making money" easy to do when you are on point and organized.

I hope this gave you some ideas of what to do when things get slow with your business. Be sure to check out our website and follow us on all your social networks.

Visit www.dttgraphics.com
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3 ways to Deal with unhappy customers

3 ways deal with unhappy customers

We all will encounter an unhappy customer from time to time. The longer you are in business, the more you may encounter. Why? Because we simply cannot please everyone. You can literally dot all your "I's" and cross all your "T's" and you will still find at least one customer that is difficult to please.

So how do you deal with unhappy customers? How do you control the situation so that they don't write a nasty online review about your company even though you did all you possibly can to please them? Well I can tell you right now, you cannot stop a customer from writing a nasty review about you... however you can reply to it. That way any readers can see that you did try your best. Most of the time you can identify reviews that are simply out of anger or malice. So readers will have common sense to identify if it's true or not (hopefully speaking). Also, if there are 99% good reviews and 1% bad reviews - I think you are doing a great job!

So lets get to the point. How do you deal with unhappy customers?! Be sure to post your ideas in the comments as well.

#1 - Let them Vent!

When a customer is upset... there is no stopping them! They are pissed and want to get some things off their chest. Anything you say will upset them even further. So the best thing to do is let them vent. Pause - Let them vent - when they are quiet .. come back and close out the call. If it is in person, it's another story. Take them to the side away from others or in an office. You don't want them making a scene. If necessary, get security or police involved. People will go as far as you let them. It's too dangerous these days to chance anything. Try to calm them down by listening to them. Take their information and get back to them so that you don't make any quick decisions. Call them later with your decision.

#2 - Accommodate

If they are upset about something you can fix.. hear them out and see if there is any kind of middle ground. No sense in being aggravated over something small. We all know everyone doesn't have the best intentions and some people just want to flat out get away with things. Even though it may boil your blood to bend your policies, see if it is reasonable.. and make it happen.  Take note, and never do business with the client again if you see this happening again in the future. Or let them know you will only do it this time, but next time it's not happening - but of course say it professional and nice -but firm.

We have heard the expression "The customer is always right!"... I'm sorry but this is far from true. Some customers are right, some are wrong. That's true. Some customers understand your policies and some just want to get away with things. Everyone in this world is not honest. Let's speak the truth. Therefore you have to keep fine tuning your policies and procedures to be a step ahead of slick people that try to get over on you. You also have to be a step ahead to avoid issues in the future from anyone.

#3 - If it's your fault - make it up to them!

If your business or employee in your business is the reason the customer is upset or unhappy... then it is in your best interest to make it up to them. If it was a failed product - give them another one. If it is unsatisfactory service or customer experience, ask them how it could be better next time... and in the meantime give them a discount on the next service so they can possibly return. You have to take responsibility for issues you know are your fault and make it right.

At the end of the day, you are in business to make money. If your services are bad... how do you expect to make money?

I hope this short helpful blog post helped you figure out 3 ways to deal with unhappy customers or at least gave you a better understanding as to why you should handle it these ways.

We at dttgraphics.com strive to provide the best quality service we possibly can. We partner with vendors that have a great reputation and have not been problematic with us. We work hard to make sure you have a clear understanding of our processes and policies. We provide affordable prices and have many convenient ways to place an order.

Visit www.dttgraphics.com for more information!

Post your ideas and comments about this topic.

3 Ways to know how to Trust an Online Business

What is it that you look for in a business or online business to know if you can trust that business? Do you look for Seals, referrals, or big name clients? Do you look for business registration, business cards, or a website? What says to you that you can trust an online business or business?

Online businesses are becoming more and more familiar in this day and age. Anyone can create a e-commerce website so easily and start selling online. So how do you know you can trust them. In this blog we are going to discuss 3 ways to know how to trust an online business. Reply or comment to let us know if you have other trust factors that you look for in an online business.Share your knowledge. We can share together.

So lets get a little background going before we dive into the 3 ways to know how to trust an Online business. We started our business back in 2009. One of the top things we had to break through was getting new customers to trust us to know if they are comfortable doing business with us. I can remember people not interested in doing business with any "work from home" type businesses because they felt if you do not have a store or office "I cannot trust you". They would literally hang up the phone. That was not good. So pushed us into getting and office and then later a storefront.

Now even though the caller(s) would not even step foot in the door, but they knew you had a store location, they would then trust you. To me that was ironic. It was like we were paying monthly operating costs and rent just for trust in order to get sales. So you mean to tell me that after you hear my address you are good and will then order online and never come in my store? Well, why do I have a store again? Oh yeah - for trust. OK, got it.

But what about companies like Vista print or other online printing companies? How did they get trust from customers that would literally just go online and buy from them without second guessing where their location was. How could this be? Is this fair game? Is it because they thought in their minds that they were a larger company - so they must trust larger companies? Perhaps. Makes sense, larger companies "have more money and insurance" to be able to back any orders. Understandable. But is that enough? It doesn't guarantee anything. It's just a thought - right?

We went through so many measures to gain the trust of customers so that we can make sales. It wasn't easy. We got listed on the Better Business Bureau, we got listed on many directories including the Yellow Pages, and we even had our business listed in the yellow pages phone book itself. We actually had a customer tell us one day, I can't find you in the phone book... how do I know you are in business?

It's funny because some people don't know that the only way are you in the phone book is if you have a landline phone number with your business or if you take out an advertisement in the yellow pages. So in effort of getting more sales we were forced to take out a quick ad in the yellow pages and be listed in the free directory of the yellow pages in the phone book.

Wow! Talk about going through loops to get business. That's what we had to do to gain the trust of our prospects years ago. Now that time has passed we realized there are literally 3 main ways to know if you can trust an online business.

So tell me, what do you do to gain trust in customers?
Is your story similar to ours?
Are you a "work from home" business?

Here are 3 things you can do as an online business to gain the trust of customers:

1 - BE REACHABLE

What does that mean? Be available to speak to your customers as often as possible. We actually provide customer service 24/7 via email and text message. So whether you are reachable via email, cell phone text messages, phone, online chat, video chat or even in person - you must be reachable. Voicemail is a bad idea if that is all a customer gets all the time.  Trust me, I know. At one point I couldn't have the phones answered fast enough and I would lose business that way - so I feel your pain. One solution is a virtual receptionist. What we use now is a phone system that directs calls. It is just too much for us now to answer every phone call, especially since most calls are for quotes or solicitations. That's why we offer emailing and text messaging and online ordering.

Think about the type of calls you will receive. Most of our calls were quotes or telemarketers/solicitation calls. So we needed to direct those calls elsewhere. We cannot spend that much time on the phone when we needed to process orders instead.

Calls from people that actually wanted to buy something didn't really happen, they just emailed and texted us or ordered online. Your needs may be different. Decide how you will be reachable as an online business.

2 - BE NOTICED ONLINE

What does that mean? The internet makes it so easy these days to quickly search up a business. Then you can go even further and be searched under reviews online. So get noticed online - and in a positive way. Have every social media account there is. Get listed on as many online directories as you can, including Google Maps, Google Places (same as Google Maps), Yellow-pages, Bing, Yahoo, and local directories. Most of these are free and easy to get listed. Customers want to be able to go online and find you.

3 - DO GOOD SERVICE

You will not gain the trust of every single person ever. But until you come close, you should be doing good work! Good work equals referrals. Referrals are golden! Some businesses have been said to survive on referrals alone! So do good service and you will grow! Nothing beats quality work and a happy customer. Once they have done work with you and love it- they will most likely buy again and again because now they can trust you. They will eventually refer your services to someone else.

I hope you find this blog post informative. I hope that you now understand or have a better understanding of 3 ways to gain customer trust for your business or online business. 

Please visit www.dttgraphics.com and find out why we offer excellent services that you can trust.

Please comment and reply with your reasons to trust an online business or local business. We would love to hear from you.