AVIDWORX worked with the story to modernize their look, bring more interactivity to their showroom and diversify their product range, using a selection of AVIDWORX showcases in an extensive reno.

Here’s the blank slate we started with:

Here’s the first phase of installation, hanging the frame:

The next phase, adding speaker boxes:

Adding speaker wires, power, wiring for lights and the controller:

This is what one almost complete showcase for marine audio and electronics, looks like.

Here’s another shot of the wall, almost complete:

And here’s the completed showcase, hooked up and lit by Infinity Glow:

And here’s another view, including our multimedia showcase:

The speaker/subwoofer sound stage is assembled and waiting for mounting plates and speakers. You can see the Infinity Glow lighting system already up and working:

Moving onto a different part of the install, the next few images show just how easy it is to install our new M1 series of showcases – and how little space you need. This setup was created around a pillar:

Almost finished:

Marketing 101: You don’t actually need to be there to know what this sounds, smells or tastes like.

Sell the Sizzle
Everyone in marketing knows the famous expression, “Sell the Sizzle, Not the Steak.” In other words, you don’t just hold up a raw, bloody steak and expect people to want one. People need to see the steak sizzling over flames, browned and cross-hatched by the heat of the grill, and hear that familiar hissing sound to get their mouths watering.

It works in our industry as well. Some of your customers will geek out over the specs of the technology — wattage, frequency response, dynamic peak power, screen resolutions, the bells and whistles of an AV receiver — but most people who come into your store won’t know or care as much about those things. They’re more concerned about price, ease of use, the quality sound compared to their own system, whether a receiver works hands-free with their phone, whether they can listen to the music up front while their kids listen to a movie in the back…

To sell the sizzle in that situation, do yourself a favor and stop selling mobile audio and electronics and start selling the benefits of the technology.

“Are we there yet? Are we there yet?”

Sell satellite radio receivers to families making long road trips on summer holidays by selling the variety of stations and the fact you can tune in from remote camping locations; sell window tinting by reminding people that they provide UV protection and help to keep cars and passengers cool; sell video players and screens to soccer moms and road trippers, emphasizing how much nicer it is to drive when the kids are happy; sell remote starters as a way to pre-cool cars left baking in the sun.

Diversify!
Window tinting is one of the fastest growing automotive aftermarket industries, and if you don’t currently offer it then maybe it’s time to look into it. Also considering carrying a few summer items like sunglasses, reflective window blockers, roof racks and bike racks, car coolers and other items that people buy on their way to the checkout.

Make your Store Comfortable
Air conditioning is good to have as long as it’s comfortable — not too cold for the guy in shorts and golf shirt, and not too hot for the guy in a shirt and tie. And just as it’s good to be able to offer shoppers coffee or hot chocolate during the winter months, it doesn’t hurt to have some cold bottles of water or fresh lemonade in the summer.

Speaking of comfort, how’s your washroom looking? If you wouldn’t let your grandmother use it then it’s not good enough for your customers, either.

How’s your waiting room? If a customer is hanging out while having an installation done are there current magazines and newspapers to read? Is the television turned to news or a sports channel? Is there free wifi so customers can get some work done while they wait?

Make a Scene by Hosting an Event

Like these, only better.

To sell the sizzle you might need to sell some actual steak, or at the very least steak ground into hamburger. If things are slow then use that time to plan a tent/parking lot sale, birthday sale or 12V rally – invite a local radio station, host some contests, flip some burgers, show off some installs, give out some draw prizes, raise a few bucks for a charity, hand out some trophies and t-shirts and move some product.

Mostly importantly, stop looking at summer as a slow retail season and make the most out of every opportunity. Sizzle on!

What you may not know is how exactly BUSINESSWORX can benefit your business, or how you can get the most out of these tools. Remember, the end goal is to improve your business and increase sales, using a proven management system that lets owners and managers spend more time working on their business – growing it – and less time working in it.

Here’s a look at four steps to help you get the most out of BUSINESSWORX tools:

Step 1: Plan Ahead!

British Special Forces like to emphasize The Six P’s when planning strategies, which stands for “Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance.” Planning is critical if you want to succeed in business, and good plans revolve around timelines.

The first thing you need to do is get a calendar and look well ahead, planning your sales and marketing promotions at least six months to a year ahead of time: holidays, sales events, product launches, inventory clear-outs — every opportunity to advertise, draw in customers and move product/sell services. (AVIDWORX is developing an online calendar for clients that will be available soon.) If you’re not preparing for the future, all you can do is react to it when it arrives.

Knowing all your important dates makes it easier to work backwards and plan promotions. Use the PRICEWORX holiday/sales event templates to dress your store for the occasion, and ADWORX flyers to get the word out in your region. Using your social networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, coupon services, etc.) and email list (MAILWORX can help) can help as well.

Step 2: Know Your Numbers!

DASHWORX will help you track the four most important metrics for your business: traffic, sales, average sale value and closing rate, but it’s what you do with those numbers that will make the most difference for your business. Managers need to get in the habit of reviewing and analyzing these numbers on a daily, weekly and monthly basis, and to set aside some time to think about those numbers and set reasonable goals.

Traffic – If you use AVIDWORX’s automated door counter then you can get real-time customer traffic data from one or more stores sent to your computer, but even if you track that information manually there’s a lot you can learn:

• Do your business hours make sense? Most shops that offer sales and installation services will probably see sales peak in the evening and weekends, and will book out the weekdays for appointments, inventory management and other operations. If that’s the case, knowing your traffic numbers can help you adjust your store hours and better schedule workers (e.g. sales and installation) to be more productive and profitable.
• Traffic data can also give you a better sense of your marketing needs. If traffic is slow then it might be time to host a sales event, print some flyers on ADWORX or advertise in local publications.
• Traffic data also makes a case for investing in your store’s exterior to draw more attention. Drive by your store a few times, and then get out and walk around it. Take some pictures and try to see your store the same way a passerby would for the first time. Is it obvious what you’re selling, and what promotions are underway? Is your exterior clean and inviting. Will it draw people in? And will it draw in the guy with an $80,000 car?
• How are your sales and promotions working? Does a Saturday during a sales promotion draw more people than a typical Saturday, and if not is there something you could be doing to draw more attention to your event? Maybe you need to advertise somewhere else, or distribute your flyers in different locations.

Sales – Your end-of-day reconciliation numbers — not just the total value of your daily sales but the total number of sales as well — are not just important for accountants, but are crucial when it comes to analyzing your business as well. DASHWORX uses that data to determine the average sale value per customer, and to determine the close rate of your sales staff. Updating these numbers every day will also provide you a real-time view on how your company is doing without waiting for quarterly or annual numbers from your accountant.

• Up front, you need to do some math. You should already have a good idea of what your annual costs are for rent, staffing, insurance, taxes, repayment of bank loans and so on. Add up all of those numbers and divide that figure by the numbers of days you were open to break down your earning requirements.
• If your business is open six days a week, minus Christmas Day, Thanksgiving, Independence Day and other statutory holidays, then your doors are open 305 to 310 days per year. If your annual costs add up to $200,000 then you need to make roughly $645 per day/$3,870 per week just to cover costs.
• Reviewing your sales numbers regularly will let you know if you’re making that target, and can help you make better decisions regarding staff, how much to reinvest in your business, evaluate what kinds of customers you’re drawing in and figure roughly how much profit you’re making.
• Sales figures, and some knowledge of your inventory, will also give you an idea of how well products and services are selling and what you should be promoting in your market.
• Are people watching release dates for new products, or waiting for sales events? If you have customers that want the latest, then you need to advertise through social networking and other means when those products are coming in. If customers are waiting for sales events to buy in then that might make a case for hosting additional sales events where you offer small reductions rather than one or two events per year where you make larger cuts. For example, instead of cutting prices on Black Friday and after Christmas, consider hosting Inventory Clear-out events, Red Tag Sales and sales for every quasi-holiday out there; Father’s Day, Back to School, Fall Sale, Rainy Day Sales, and so on. PRICEWORX and ADWORX make it easy with almost 20 different sales event price tag templates and flyer templates that are easy to print and place.

Average Sale – There are two key ways to increase sales. The first is to increase traffic to your store, which can be challenging and might require an investment in your store and marketing. The second, and much easier solution, is to sell more to the customers you already have. DASHWORX will do the math for you, based on total sales and the number of daily transactions, but how you use these numbers is critical:

• Increasing average sale value can be as simple as stocking more accessories and front counter items that will capture your customer’s attention — cables, docks and connectors, cleaning products and air fresheners for vehicles, sunglasses, stickers, tools, interior/exterior accessories, etc.
• Sales staff should be trained to suggest accessories that go with various products, and to assemble packages that add value to customers. For example, if a customer is installing some new speakers then a sales person could suggest a tweeter, woofer, sound dampening, phone/MP3 player dock, charge cables and other items. Selling additional service warranties can also increase sales.
• Looking at your SKUs can also help to increase your average sale value. Many retailers such as Apple have found that streamlining product lines and carrying fewer products can actually increase sales by making things simpler for customers while highlighting the products you choose to highlight — such as high-end AV receivers or speakers that command a higher purchase price. Carrying two or three different brands of speakers and receivers at different price points is often more effective than carrying 10 or more different brands, and can help you get a better price from the manufacturer/distributor as well.
• Average sale values can also get a boost from diversifying your product selection. For example a customer that invests in high-end 12-volt AV systems and speakers is also the kind of customer that invests in high-end rims, window tinting, remote car starters and other features. Be ready to shift with the market and with customers’ needs.

Closing Rate – Knowing how many people visit your store and how many of them make purchases can tell you a lot about your business, your sales staff and the overall retail experience.

• Higher/lower closing rates can help you get a read on your sales staff and see which staff members are most effective in engaging customers and making sales. It can make a case for more and better sales training, more professional development events where staff learn about the new technologies, and for incentive and commission programs.
• Your closing rate can also tell you something about the retail experience in your store, the inventory you’re currently carrying and, if you compare your data to the calendar, about your business hours and the overall effectiveness of marketing, sales events and promotions. If customers take two steps into your store then turn around and leave before your sales staff even has time to say hi, you need to know why.

Step 3: Hire The Right People

When filling positions most employers make decisions in the first 30 seconds after meeting someone, trusting to gut impressions and handshakes. Fortune 500 companies, however, know better and have invested significant resources into refining the hiring process to ensure they get the best people every single time.

HRWORX provides small and medium-sized businesses with the same hiring and human resource tools used by big business, from job descriptions that emphasize success and accountability to personality profiling tools that ensure your sales staff are effective communicators, your administrators/bookkeepers are detail-oriented, and your installers are focused and accountable. Temperament matters.

• Take some time to download and amend the job descriptions and posts in HRWORX to fit your specific business, ensuring that you’re prepared and can hit the ground running if a position opens up. Delays in hiring can cost you money and aggravation, and can affect other staff members who have to pick up the slack.
• Start maintaining your database of applicants. Maybe the right person for the job this time is the person who was your second choice the last time the position was available.
• Go over the personality profiling materials so you understand how they work and how the right person for the job is the candidate right personality and temperament. While you’re at it, go over the interview materials so you can conduct efficient, professional interviews that answer your most important questions.
• Take some time to customize the orientation tools we’ve provided to ensure that all new hires have a copy of your handbook, clearly understand what is expected of them and know how they can succeed.
• Your calendar should also track when all your employees were hired so you can do regular annual reviews of performance, as well as acknowledge long service. Just acknowledging a staff members’ birthday can do a lot for morale and can make an employee feel appreciated — which in turn will make them work harder for you.

Step 4: Get The Word Out

With the internet and price comparison shopping to contend with, reaching customers has never been more important. Study after study shows that customers really do care about service, quality, convenience, professionalism, reliability and other factors even more than they care about price, and the good news is that these are all factors you can control by hiring the right staff (HRWORX), carrying the right products and projecting the right professional appearance (AVIDWORX). But if people don’t know about your business or what you do then you’re going to have a hard time growing.

• It’s in every businesses best interest to recognized as a leader in their market. Investing in your store’s appearance and some marketing will help in that regard, but there are other more cost-effect ways to get that exposure such as “positioning,” which is another way to say “name recognition.” For example, if someone woke you up in the middle of the night and asked you to name a drink company, what would you say? Not necessarily the brand you drink or prefer, but the brand you know best from commercials, billboards and other ads. ADWORX, allows you to create and distribute branded store flyers in minutes, which will help you improve your name recognition in your area even if every flyer doesn’t immediately translate to a sale.
• Your sales staff should be tasked with collecting email information from customers, allowing your business to direct market to customers that have already purchased from you and that are most likely to recommend you to others or use your services again in the future (that is, as long as you provided good and timely service). MAILWORX will allow you to reach those customers with short monthly newsletters that are designed to educate, entertain and keep your business top-of-mind.

The Bottom Line Is…

… your bottom line. Passion is important and people in the mobile audio and electronics industry are as passionate as they come: they love music, they love cars, they love technology and gadgets, and they love a good challenge.

But passion is not the same as business sense, and to be successful in any industry you need to focus on the right details and take time to step back and see the big picture. BUSINESSWORX provides small and medium businesses with an affordable, easy-to-use toolkit based on the same systems used by the biggest companies in the world.

What are you waiting for?

We’re calling it a “beta” at this point as we do some fine tuning, but all of the components have been tested and are ready to go. Even the components you might already be familiar with – PRICEWORX, which was released in late 2011, and DASHWORX, released July 2012 – have been upgraded and improved for the launch.

What is BUSINESSWORX?

Put simply, BUSINESSWORX is a set of powerful and easy-to-use online tools that will improve many key aspects of your mobile audio and electronics business. There are five components: PRICEWORX price tag generator, DASHWORX analytical tools, HRWORX human resources solution, ADWORX flyer/ad creation tool and MAILWORX monthly newsletters.

A limited free version of PRICEWORX is available, and we have plans that let you add components you need. The complete set of tools is available for one low monthly fee, based on the size of your business.

Here’s an overview of how everything works:

For the PDF, click here.

Why BUSINESSWORX?

Marcel Newell, founder of AVIDWORX, explains: “One thing that’s always impressed me about this industry, and the reason I wanted to be part of it, is how passionate the store owners are about what they do. They live and breathe this stuff. They love music, they love cars, they love electronics and gadgets, and they go to work happy every day because they get to share what they enjoy with other people.

“Over the years since I started AVIDWORX, we’ve worked with hundreds of small businesses to help them look more professional, and I think we’ve succeeded. But we’ve also discovered that a lot of people in the industry don’t have much applied business or management experience, and they’ve kind of been learning as they go. It might have worked in the past, but that’s not going to cut it in this competitive economy. Customers are looking for a professional, personal touch.

“That’s where BUSINESSWORX comes in. I wanted to provide all these amazing owners with a simple, powerful and affordable set of management tools that are similar to the systems that all the big stores already use – everything they need to be more successful.”

How Does It Work? More Importantly, What Will It Do For Me?

Each component handles a different key aspect of your business:

PRICEWORX is an online price tag generator that comes preloaded with SKUs from more than 20 major manufacturers in the industry, plus the ability to generate custom labels at any time. We also have more than 20 different price tag templates available for every holiday and sales event, as well as generic tags you can use year-round.

As well as being easy to use (you can price tag your whole store in an hour or less), our price tags are also designed to enhance the image of your store and move more product. Your brand is front and center, as it should always be, and every template includes fields where you can highlight features and benefits to educate yours customers. If an item is discounted the price tag will tell you how much, and if a sales representative at your store is negotiating with a customer an optional special code will let them know how much they reduce the price or what they can include with purchase (e.g. free installation, three-year unlimited warranty, etc.)

More importantly, PRICEWORX leaves a key detail out: there’s no bar code anywhere to make it easy for customers to price compare online. Some people will do this anyway, but why make it easy for them?

DASHWORX is a powerful set of analytical tools that focuses on the four key numbers that every business needs to watch to be successful. Traffic (number of visitors to your store), Total Sales (total value and number of sales), Average Sale (the average spend per sale) and Close Rate (number of visitors who made a purchase).

The DASHWORX system comes with an automated door counter to track traffic, and simple tools for entering the other numbers on a daily basis. The software will compute the other numbers for you, send out reminders if you forget, and generate simple graphs to let you easily compare your daily, weekly, monthly and annual numbers with your goals.

The benefit is that you get a real-time snapshot of how well you’re doing at any given time without waiting for end-of-year accounting or quarterly statements, and can compare those numbers to your goals. The data you collect also helps you make better decisions when it comes to managing your business.

For example, if traffic is low then you might need to invest in some marketing or improvements to your building to draw people in. If your close rate is low then your sales staff may need more training. If your average sale value is dropping, you may need to look at the products your carry or the accessories you have available – or diversify your product offerings to include other technologies or services, or more accessories.

If you’re not getting real-time analytics then you’re working in the dark.

HRWORX is a 360-degree human resources solution to help you hire, manage and lead the people in your business more effectively. Our system provides small and medium businesses with the same hiring tools used by Fortune 500 companies, allowing you to get get past first impressions and first handshakes to make the right hiring decision every single time.

Most employers make hiring decisions within the first 30 seconds of meeting someone. You need to get past that because the having the right people in your organization will help you go further than you ever could on your own.

HRWORX includes detailed job descriptions for the most common positions in the industry that you can easily customize for your business, plus interview tools and guidelines, online personality tests, a database to compare prospects and more. Once hired, HRWORX provides you with sample orientation tools, and templates to help you evaluate employees on an ongoing basis.

ADWORX provides your company with dozens of predesigned flyers for every sales event and promotion. Load your logo and some information about your store into the system, and you can print and send out professional quality ads/flyers in minutes.

With ADWORX you can reach more people, increase traffic to your store and ensure you never miss an opportunity to draw customers into your store.

You can post 8.5×11-inch flyers in your store, direct mail them to customers, post them online, email them to contacts, or send them to publications in your region to run as traditional ads. Add your your logo and store information into the database and initiating new campaigns is as simple as clicking a few buttons and hitting “Print.”

MAILWORX: Unleash the power of direct marketing and stay in touch with your customers with MAILWORX, a monthly newsletter service by AVIDWORX.

How it works: Collect and upload email addressees from your customers into the MAILWORX system, and every month choose a professionally written newsletter that will be mailed to your customers with your logo and contact information.

Each newsletter includes an entertaining “DID YOU KNOW” section, plus an educational article on the latest mobile audio and electronics technology. Articles range from general explanations of in-vehicle technologies like navigation, AV receivers, remote starters, subwoofers or geotracking, to more specific articles about the latest technology releases.

Newsletters can also include coupons or promotions if you choose.

Click Here to see a sample newsletter.

I have more questions…

Want to know more about BUSINESSWORX? Contact Jody Culbertson at Jody@avidworx.com or 1-414-326-7162 for more information.

PRICEWORX — The new and improved PRICEWORX system includes complete SKUs from more than 20 major suppliers, giving you the ability to price tag your store in less than one hour with your own logo center stage. As well, there are now more than 20 different price tag designs available to cover every promotion and sales event.

DASHWORX — In business, some numbers matter more than others. DASHWORX provides a fast, easy and real-time way for businesses to measure the most important numbers — traffic, total sales, average sale value and your sales closing rate. Know exactly how well you’re doing and what you could be doing better.

HRWORX — A full service human resource center with tools for advertising jobs and posting job descriptions, conducting interviews, understanding your prospects through industry-standard personality tests, orienting new staff to the job and monitoring their performance and professional development. It’s a complete, world-class hiring system at your fingertips.

ADWORX — A complete online ad generation system to help businesses to create store-branded flyers and sales promotions in a matter of minutes. Save time and reach more people.

MAILWORX — Your email list and our newsletter service combine to create a powerful sales tool that unleashes the power of direct marketing. Each month the program will send out a different store-branded newsletter by AVIDWORX to all of your contacts sales, keeping them up to date on new technologies and promotions while keeping your company front and center.

Want to know more? Visit the website or contact Jody Culbertson at (414) 326-7162 or jody@avidworx.com to find out what BUSINESSWORX can do for you.