Reinventing your business

[orion_joel]

I want to look at ways in which i can reinvent my business, at this stage, it is doing one thing and that one thing is hardly spinning profits let alone even much decent income. Which i am planning to work on in the coming months.

However what i also want to do is reinvent what my business does, i want to add one or two new product or service groups, that can expand the reach of my business, in to some new areas. I do have some idea's for the areas, along the lines that fit with my business name (specifically the networks part).

More so what i am trying to figure out through is the best way to fit this in and plan it as well as marketing it in my business. In i guess a sort of how to make it really part of the business. Any ideas or tips, or any links about reinventing your business would be interesting if anyone has any off the top of their head.

[greenoak]

heres my old recipe.ive posted this before..sorry......get an interest...start a usefulll good fun blog about it...totally learn it....then offer your tekk services in a way totally related to your chosen field....
for instance, in the foo foo world where i have some interests is this website andi think shes busy...i see her work inlotsof places..... http://theavalonrose.com/
... she knows so much about her field....and would understand my store or sites foo foo needs so much better than a big generic outfit....i know 2 places who do this and both seem to be selling lots.....i like her steampunk site...
she can make sites, blog additions, banners, tags etc etc....
why dont more do this? she has a 6 month waiting list for her custom sites....
just a thought..
ann
ann

[vangogh]

Joel I think the how will depend on the details of how you want to change your business. For example if you own a hot dog stand and decide it would be a good idea to offer burgers as well you're not really reinventing the business. You're just adding another product line. In that case all you need to do is offer the new product and start marketing it so people are aware of you're new products.

If on the other hand you decided your hot dog stand just isn't going to work and you turn the stand into a kiosk for printing digital photos then you do have a new business. It could mean changing your company name and site domain and in effect closing up one business and starting a new one. You might want a new location for your stand turned kiosk and you'll certainly need to change all of your marketing.

It sounds more like you want to do the former and add new product lines and services. In that case start offering the new products/services and make people aware of your new offerings. You might launch a campaign specific to your new products and services or simply add them and continue along as you have been with more emphasis on the new.

You'll likely want to change your site and marketing to reflect the new changes, but it doesn't sound like you need to reinvent the business entirely based on what I think you're planning.

[Dan Furman]

I have mixed feelings about this. Like others already mentioned, if this is just a slight shift, then no problem. But more than that... I dunno. It can work, but is the shift because you are being financially forced into it?

Back in my first business, I tried to compete with those direct mail packs. Made some money/sales, but biz was tough financially. That lasted six months. Because I owed rent and needed quicker income, I switched to specialty advertising. Another six months, mild success... but the rent was late some more, so I switched again. This time to custom printed apparal.

Then I finally owed too much rent and had to shut down altogether.

Would I have succeeded if I just stuck with the direct mail thing? Impossible to say, but looking back, I DO know my constant switching contributed to my demise - I never really gave whatever I was doing a fair chance. Instead, when money became tighter, I switched to something that would (seeemingly) produce more right away.

[KristineS]

If you just want to add additional products or services to your core business, which is what it sounds like to me, than Vangogh is right, all you have to do is let people know those products/services are available.

If you are planning to rebrand and rename the business that's a different story. I was hoping I could come up with a good article or two for you, but I guess I'll have to search my archives. I'll let you know if anything good pops up.

[vangogh]

I want to add to and reinforce what Dan said about completely changing the business. If you really are going to completely change the business make sure it's something you really think is necessary. Changing the business completely is basically starting a new business. Absolutely nothing wrong with that, but if you're starting over should it be under the same company name, etc.

It sounds more like you want to expand the business with new products and services and maybe drop some old products and services. I basically did the same with my business last year. If you remember my domain used to be yellowhousehosting, but I decided it made sense for me to drop hosting as a service. Naturally that meant changing domains. There was a lot of work to do and I prepared months in advance. I actually bought the new domain about a year and a half before I used it and I began dropping hints on my blog that I'd be moving months in advance.

As far as the business was concerned all I really did was drop hosting as a service. I guess I made it clearer that I do WordPress design and development too. Mostly my services stayed the same. All I did was make it clearer what those services were.

Over the years I'd also come to better understand why people hired me, which in turn helped me better define my market. Since I was moving to a new domain with a new design I also reworked the content of the site. I added new pages, removed, others, and completely rewrote all the copy.

You may not need to do all of the above, but you can reinvent your business without really making major changes to the business itself. Again all I really did was drop one service. The rest of the changes were how I presented my services and how I marketed them.

[greenoak]

we had a business that went under a long time ago...looking back i say it was an idea or model or what ever you call it, that just couldnt work very well and was getting worse..........and our new idea with our new aim and new customer target did and can work.....the new idea fit the market....
im so glad we stopped beating our heads against a wall on the old idea and tried the new idea...which is our current 30 yr old business....
if it isnt paying you enough i wouldnt worry about a major change...but be more critical next time before pouring all your energy into something..
what do people need in your field? who says? who has more customers than they can handle?
ann

[bwat05]

I currently work for a pest control company in Ohio.
Business is good in the warm months, but in the winter we usually have to lay off one or two people, and the rest of us work less hours.

We wanted to fill the gap in the winter months so we could retain all employees and maintain our wages.
Some companies were doing snow removal, but in our area snow is hit or miss.
So we added residential insulation to the business and it really took off.
It more than gets us through the winter and business is better than we ever expected it to be in such a short period of time.

We knew nothing about insulation and had no equipment.
We were fortunate enough to find a manufacturer that provided free training- we get most of our insulation from them of course. They also have great networking between companies that they supply to, which was a great way for us to buy equipment.

I'm not sure if that is reinventing or simply adding a service, but it has made a huge difference for the company.

[Spider]

I heard a story a long time ago that illustrates this very well. Actually, I don't know if it is true but it could be. In any case, it's a good story and illustrates the problem and solution well.

It seems Wrigley's (the chewing gum people) were once soap powder makers. As a sales promotion, they gave away a can of baking soda with every box of laundry powder. It was so successful, they added the baking soda to their line and eventually dropped the soap powder altogether.

Now they were baking soda makers. Several years went by and in another sales promotion, they taped a stick of chewing gum to every can of baking soda. This was so successful, they added chewing gum to their line and, because it was not congruent with baking soda, they dropped the baking soda business.

Recently, Wrigley's was sold to Mars for $20 Billion.

[vangogh]

Frederick I've heard the same or similar story. I'm trying to remember now if it was Wrigley's or another company, but the gist of the story was exactly the same. Probably was Wrigley's. I do think it's a true story, but I have nothing to confirm it one way or another.

Ok. I had to check and found this on the Wrigley site


William Wrigley Jr. came to Chicago in the spring of 1891. He was 29 years old, had $32 in his pocket, and possessed unlimited energy and great talent as a salesman. He started out selling soap. As an extra incentive to merchants to carry Wrigley's soap, he offered them free baking powder. When baking powder proved to be more popular than soap, he switched to the baking powder business. One day, Mr. Wrigley got the idea to offer merchants free chewing gum with each can of baking powder. The rest is history.

Here's the link to the Wrigley's heritage timeline page (http://www.wrigley.com/about_us/heritage.do) if you want more history

[orion_joel]

Thank you there is some good advice here already. Firstly about the Wrigley's thing, there are similar stories one i believe is Nokia, they started out as a wood-pulp mill in 1865, went through a few different business phases and is one of the largest mobile phone manufacture's today.

More so the reason for me is not so much financial, there is pretty much no financial motivation behind this thought. I don't owe any money or have problems in the financial area personal or business, that are pushing me to drop one idea and pickup another to try and make money quicker.

What i really want to do is expand from the one strain of business i have now and expand to maybe 2 or 3 more strains that give me a wider range of things that i am offering, not so much to make it that i am just trying to offer everything but so that i have a little more diversity in what i offer, especially with different markets that could future potentially connect the businesses together.

[Spider]

Well, that seems to me to be more expanding your business and not reinventing it, Joel. Expanding shouldn't require changes to your "style' - logo, branding and such.

It might be a good idea to keep the new products separate as independent profit centers, but that will depend exactly on how diverse they are from what you are doing now.