A lot of people talk about the different business climate here in Australia’s southernmost municipal area. It can be difficult to get a business going and even more difficult to sustain it. I myself have some experience in this area, and I’ve also spoken to a lot of other business owners, current and (usually) former, so I’ve gathered some useful knowledge. I’m happy to share it here.
Making Money By Saving Money
There’s an old saying, “you have to spend money to make money”. What nonsense! How can you make it if you’ve already spent it? It’s ridiculous, of course. The real truth is that the way to make money is to save money. It stands to reason! Look at your business, and consider the things that are costing you. Do you have staff? They can be real money sinks. Products on the shelves? Potentially huge wastes of money! Rent, electricity and water? Maintenance of your premises and equipment? One of those exorbitantly-priced credit card machines? All a complete rip-off, and guaranteed to drain your bank balance.
No, the key to surviving in business for as long as possible is not to spend any more than you need to. Does your shop sell things that might be of interest to professional tradies and also to the home handyperson? Remember that staff cost more on the weekend, so aim for the tradies and only open during the week. Sure, those tradies usually come from a fair distance and have other shops they can go to with a larger range and cheaper prices, but that’s the chance you have to take to save your expensive payroll bill. Don’t weaken! Be strong! The tradies will see that, and they’ll respect you. Probably.
Or what about a shop selling perishable goods? If you keep a lot on the shelves, they may go stale, so it’s much better not to do that. As a bonus, you can save on shelving too, which can be horribly expensive (unless you buy from one of those shops with a larger range and cheaper prices — that’s always an option). Instead, have a handful of products on the shelf and practise saying “sorry, we had a rush at lunch, better come back tomorrow sweetie”. The “sweetie” is important; it shows you’re friendly and community oriented. A lot of those other shops outside the valley are too busy selling their products hand over fist to ever make that kind of personal connection.
Stock – Staff – Staying Open: Choose Any Two. Or Maybe One
A lot of businesses over-extend themselves: they have plenty of stock, they employ sufficient staff and they open and close at the times marked on their front door. Appalling! That sort of bad attitude is thankfully rare in the Valley, but you do still see it. It’s a shame that they know so little about tradition and the Tasmanian way of life, but they’re probably mainlanders so what can you do?
No, a real Huon Valley business knows that the way to get ahead is to always leave the customer begging for more. Keep them eager and they’ll keep coming back. Probably. After all, you can always offer to order in something that isn’t in stock, because it’s well known that nobody knows how to use the internet to order their own urgently-needed products, and it’s not like eBay and Amazon have much experience in delivering things. So that should be fine.
Remember, too, that aspiration is important, and in the Huon Valley nothing is more aspirational than the opening hours marked on the door of your shop. Don’t feel bound by the tyranny of the numbers. You’re open, mostly, most days — what more can people expect of you?
Be Consistent
A lot of business owners look at the tourists and locals wandering forlornly around town after everything is closed, and they feel a pang of regret that they’re not wandering into the shop to have a look around and maybe buy something for a change. So they consider maybe extending their opening hours or even opening on weekends or public holidays.
Don’t rush into this!
By all means, give it a try, on an experimental basis. If you don’t usually open your shop on Saturdays, try it a few times. Maybe the third Saturday of the month for a few months, during a season when business is slow anyway — after all, you don’t need to experiment when things are going well, do you? Stands to reason. But be careful! Don’t advertise it too widely. You are doing a scientific experiment here, trying to see if changing your ways will change your customers’ behaviour. If you advertise as well, how do you know it wasn’t the advertising that made the difference? No, better to keep things simple. Try it out. See if it works. And when it doesn’t work, you can be reassured that your initial decision was the right one. Consistency is its own reward!
Network With Your Peers
Finally, the most important thing as a business owner is to get to know other business owners. I mean, not all of them, obviously — sometimes the business get-togethers happen during the time that some business owners are still working, usually the ones that didn’t pay attention to the advice about opening hours being aspirational — but definitely the other ones who, like yourself, are looking for some way to improve their bottom line. When you do get together to talk, you will find there’s one particular topic of conversation that keeps coming up: how hard it is to run a business in Tasmania. And when that comes up, you can be sure that the answer is right there staring you in the face, especially if you’ve read this article. The problem is, of course, all that council red tape. It’s murder, definitely. Someone should really do something about it.