The POS Software Blog

The POS Software Blog

News from Tower Systems about locally made POS software for specialty local retailers.

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POS software update adds value to small business software

September 23, 2016
2 Min read
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Tower Systems is thrilled to announced the advanced beta release of the latest version of its smart POS software. Developed in-house bbq the Tower Systems retail software development team, this latest release of the Retailer software delivers many enhancements. here are just some of the enhancements:

  1. Enhancements to Special Customer Order Arrivals and Management
  2. Enhancements to Stock Re-ordering processes (Order by Sales and Order Management)
  3. New Improved and expanded Multi-Store ordering and receiving processes
  4. New direct Shopify Integration
  5. New Layby Receipts to match the new POS Receipts
  6. New Layby Notes for collections
  7. New Layby Tourist Refund Scheme compliance
  8. New Customisable Customer Menus
  9. Latest News Corp Route Delivery List Integration
  10. New Bulk Image Import tool for stock
  11. New option to disable receipts for EFTPOS sales
  12. New and more comprehensive ability to manually Edit Customer Loyalty Points
  13. New ability to open Special Customer Order Management screen directly from POS
  14. Enhancements to Linked Items
  15. Enhancements and consistency to Packs (previously Cartons)
  16. Enhancements to Customer Invoice Maintenance Ordering and Re-ordering.

As noted, these are only some of the enhancements to the POS software delivered in the latest update delivered by Tower Systems.

Enhancements are sourced from user suggestions and developed in close consultation with users of the software.

Each update is tested in house, alpha tested in several retail stores and then released to the beta community prior to release to all customers. This process results in stable and enjoyed software.

Tower Systems leftists customers choose when they install any software update. Small business retailers love this.

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POS software Shopify integrated websites for small business retailers

September 21, 2016
4 Min read
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The deep and seamless link between the Tower Systems POS software and Shopify e-commerce sites is proving to be popular with small business retailers keen to transact online in a smart and current technology way.

The now released Shopify POS software link is racking up sales as shoppers shop for what they love with product fulfilled from a high street retailer using the link.

Being able to run one stock file between online and offline is vital for retail businesses.

With the Shopify site being live in a few days and using inventory data from the high street store, Tower Systems has devlieverd a best-practice POS Software / Shopify solution that any small business retailer could use.

WHY SHOPIFY?

Shopify is an easy to use e-commerce platform. We think anyone can setup a Shopify site for themselves. Linking the site to our retailer software is also easy. Shopify is a great place for a business to start on their online journey. You can control pages, products, look and plenty more. Shopify is not as complex as Magento and other more comprehensive website platforms.

WHAT TOWER SYSTEMS OFFERS.

For a modest fee, Tower Systems offers a live Shopify site linked to a retailer’s business with plenty of facilities and functionality:

For ease of reference and clarity, below is a numbered list of all work and tasks included in the above quote. This is the complete list.

  1. Shopify account. We would create this for / with you. It needs your credit card. There is a basic Shopify cost, currently US$29.00 a month.
  2. Template / theme selection. We will step you through template / theme options included in the price and with you and choose one for the site. Note: there are some themes (not developed by us) that you can purchase outside our package price for more specialist options. These can cost up to $200.00 extra.
  3. Overall design to be applied to the template selected to customise the look and feel of the site. The design process is not priced to be a back and forth process. We will listen to your brief and provide a design. Minor adjustments can be made within the quote but any diversion from the original brief would add to the cost.
  4. A functioning live website for your business that works and can be accessed from different devices – computer, phone, tablet – with auto detect of the device so the site looks good. With the website to be based on Shopify with the following:
    1. Homepage. Including text, images, button.
    2. Home page links to any business accounts you have for: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest.
    3. A home page feed of your business blog if you have one and it is published through Shopify that allows data feeds.
    4. Admin page for your management of the site. This is not seen by the public. There is a range of settings you can control for proper management of the site.
    5. About page. Where your business is described. You will provide the text for this.
    6. Privacy Policy page listing a good privacy policy we have developed – that you can modify.
    7. Terms and conditions page listing terms and conditions we have developed – that you can modify.
    8. Contact us page showing your location on a map and making contact easy with you.
    9. A shopping cart facility for managing the products you sell. This is the guts of the site, the most important part. This specifically includes facilities you would use to manually load products or import products from Retailer.
  5. The setup of loading of products into the site via a live link to the Retailer software.
  6. Interfacing to one or both payment gateways: Stripe and Paypal.
  7. Defined to Google and Bing so those search engines know about the site and it can be found. This is vitally important.
  8. Embedded SEO. Each page will be developed with appropriate meta tags to encourage easy finding through search engines. We will use our best-practice SEO knowledge to maximise the opportunity.
  9. Training of your nominated person in the management of the site. This is done over the phone and should take no more than two hours. We would suggest two sessions of training for appropriately skilled people.
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A busy few days at Sydney Gift Fair for Tower Systems

September 20, 2016
1 Min read
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The Tower Systems stand at the Reed Gift Fair in Sydney over the weekend and through to today has been busy. We have had plenty of customers stop by as well as potential new customers.

We are thrilled with the mix of people we have seen, from the broad variety of businesses. It is excellent expanding our contacts, showing off the software and connecting with more and more people as a result of this trade shows.

At the Gift Fair this past weekend we have been showing off our latest business intelligence platform, our small business task management software and plenty more including the latest release of our POS software.

Trade shows are wonderful opportunities to get feedback, connect with people and pitch our software.

Being the only specialty retail POS software company has its benefits.

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How Tower Systems settles new POS software users in to enjoy their software

September 19, 2016
2 Min read
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Tower Systems offers a level of personal service to small business retailers installing its POS software. The company has multiple roles in the business focussed on the easy and gentle settling in of the software into businesses using the software. The roles have evolved over time to serve the singular goal of helping retailers get to a happy place with their Tower Systems software quickly.

One of the most important benefits of the Tower Systems approach to new customers is the new customer help desk entry point.

New customers of POS software have different needs to long term customers. We have found that by handling the two are different points on the help desk we are able to deliver a better help desk experience to each.

Our new customer specialists make outbound calls, to get to our new customers ahead of them getting to us, to provide them with intuitive assistance prior to them realising they could benefit from then insights being shared.

By separating new customers out from the everyday support call traffic, help desk resources are better managed and customers more satisfied with the different experiences based on their knowledge and needs.

In additional to personal new customer service, Tower Systems helps new customers settle in with terrific user documentation, training videos, follow up training and business management level insights.

Since we own and operate our own retail businesses using our POS software we are able to speak from personal experience. This is a valuable point of difference for our customers and for us. For example, we can talk about how to setup for easy Xero integration or the ideal product category structure or how to deal with suppliers more efficiently. being able to say this is how we resolve this issue in our shop is a tremendous point of difference our customers love.

There is nothing worse than a help desk person telling you what to do when they do not understand what they are saying in the context of your retail business. Context is everything as they say. We understand the context of POS software in a retail business because we live it. We use this context in helping small business retailers settle into using our POS software.

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Lay-By facilities help small business retailers leverage special event sales

September 13, 2016
1 Min read
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IMG_2549 (1)We are grateful for the opportunity of participating is a special collector event last weekend at a business using our POS software.

While many elements of our POS software helped make the event run smoothly, it was our Lay-Bys facilities that shone through with professional management of many large Lay-By transactions.

Lay-Bys are important to small business retailers as they enable them to capture sales they might otherwise lose. For them to work, though, they need to be professionally managed.

Our software professionally manages the Lay-By from sale to tules to deposit to payments to collection to safe storage.

On a day like this special event, Lay-By was important to help the retailer achieve sales they might otherwise have missed. Our software helps drive consistency for the retailer and build confidence for the shopper.

We love spending time in retail and seeing first hand how retailers use our POS software.

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POS software business intelligence platform shines for small business retailers

September 12, 2016
2 Min read
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The Visual Deck business intelligence platform from retailers using the Tower Systems small business POS software has received more kudos from business mentors, advisors and accountants seeing the BI platform for the first time at Xerocon South, the Xero users conference in Brisbane last week.

The reaction was terrific when they saw the easy access to business performance comparison data in  visual way, from our cloud based application.

They loved that it was accessible from anywhere including by them in their businesses where they support small business.

They loved the fast year on year comparison.

They loved the KPI focus of the app.

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We are proud of what we have delivered in the Visual Deck, that we are offering our customers a platform they can use to see the performance of their business, visually, as our experience is this will guide better business decisions. We are also proud of the elegance of the software.

The syncing between the in-store POS software and the Visual Deck is in the background, non intrusive.

The Visual Deck is particularly useful for retailers who are not in a business often.

Like all good software, the Visual Deck continues to evolve.

Retail business performance, seen differently.

The Visual Deck is a platform through which you can see the performance of your business, visually. Graphs replace reports, making trends obvious and a path ahead clearer to follow. Graphs that change with time and through which you can dive deeper into what is happening in your business.

The Visual Deck is only available for Tower Systems customers.

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Small business retail management advice: how to recover from a ransomware attack

September 11, 2016
2 Min read
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The fastest way for a small business to recover from a ransomware or crypto lock attack is to have immediate access to full backup  of data and software from immediately prior to the installation of the malware that led to the attack.

A smart cloud based backup service is the very best protection. It is also the most cost effective.

While many small business retailers prefer the cheaper alternative of manually backing up each day, invariably these backups are either not done every day or they can be faulty.

Some business owners use free cloud backup services but as is the case with anything in life, you get what you pay for.

The Tower Systems smart cloud backup service costs $2 a day and can be stopped at any time. It is fast, continuous, local and off site in a secure server farm.

How Does Tower Backup Work?
The software performs an incremental backup every fifteen minutes. An incremental backup is a backup of files that have changed or are new since the last backup.

These incremental backups are catalogued on your NAS device. They are then collated to create your full system backup. This process allows access to backups from a particular point of time – even at the file level. Because backups are stored on the NAS device you have immediate access in-store as well as being sent to the Tower Systems Data Storage Centre in the cloud where a secure additional offsite copy of your data is kept.

How Does This Differ From My Daily Backup?
Retailer Backup ONLY backs up your Retailer Data leaving your other business data, accounting data, important documents and emails at risk. Tower Backup backs up your entire main PC, meaning all your business data is safe and secure. A copy of your business backup is also securely sent via the Internet to our secure data storage centre, giving you a safe off-site copy for protection.

Once Tower Backup is implemented you will no longer need to perform your daily backup. You or your staff will no longer need to wait for the daily backup to complete. The saving could be in excess of $150 per month if your backup is taking 15 minutes or more to complete.

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Tower Systems invites users to suggest training topics

September 10, 2016
1 Min read
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As we prepare for the next semester of our free online training workshops we are inviting our customers to suggest topics they would like covered. Each time we do this we discover topics of interest – usually in the business operational space where software interfaces with business management.

We are proud to be resourced sufficiently and to have sufficient interest in our weekly online training workshops for us to continue with these.

It is hard work running the sessions, handling the follow up, providing the infrastructure and doing this week in week out. The work is worth it as it provides a valuable point of difference for us.

Years on, our free online training is resource from the company. We love the customer interaction every week.

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Tower Systems POS software featured in XU magazine for Xero users

September 9, 2016
1 Min read
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IMG_2466We are thrilled with the covering of Tower Systems and our POS software across several pages of XU magazine, the magazine sought after by Xero accounting software users.

The latest issue of XU magazine, released at the Xerocon conference in Brisbane this week, is packed with practical business advice and support for small business owners, accountants and bookkeepers. It is a must read for anyone using Xero or connected with the Xero community.

We appreciate the opportunity to be part of this respected publication.

Using our POS software, small business retailers are able to save rostered hours in their businesses, be smarter in selling and marketing and be more informed in business decisions. These benefits are enhanced through the Xero link.

The latest article in XU magazine explains the benefits and presents Tower Systems as the professional software company it is.

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What being at Xerocon South means for our POS software co

September 9, 2016
1 Min read
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FullSizeRender-1Being at Xerocon South is proving to be a wonderful experience. Spending all day talking with accountants and bookkeepers who help small business retailers run more successful businesses.

The discussions are detailed about small business challenges and opportunities, specific to specific niche retail channels that we serve such as toy shops, jewllers, garden centres and pet stores.

Talking business, talking Xero and talking smart cloud based software – we are loving it, loving the detail, loving the learning and loving the optimism.

This is an exciting and motivating event, especially for those of us serving the small business retail space.

What this event mean for us is ne connections, with accountants and bookkeepers – people like us who serve small businesses to help them run more successful businesses. This shared goal brings is close together.

We are the only vertical market POS software company here, enabling is top delve deep into our specialisation with accountants to help them be more specialist with their clients.

We took the photo early this morning before the doors opened at 8am. We love the green look.

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Day 1 for Tower Systems POS software at Xerocon in Brisbane

September 9, 2016
1 Min read
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We are thrilled to be participating in Xerocon in Brisbane this week. As a parter of Xero, we are among a small group of approved connected POS software companies here at the conference.

Yesterday we met with plenty of accountants, bookkeepers and integrators who stopped by our stand. It was the busiest day at a trade show for us this year.

We are showing off our POS software that offers a SAAS model, cloud based through to desktop models for specialist retailers in a range of small business channels including newsagents, jewellers, got shops, bike shops, produce stores, toy shops, garden centres, pet shops and more.

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The first day of xerocon yesterday was terrific. We are excited for what today will bring.

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Helping small business retailers understand the importance of accurate business data

September 7, 2016
3 Min read
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Tower Systems has been running an intensive engagement program for small business retailers keen to clean up their business data. This service is part of our POS software help desk service yet it goes beyond the traditional help desk work.

The service is focused on how the software us used. But not your usual how.  This is about decisions that are made in a business that can affect the quality of the data cultivated by the software. Like any tool, software can be used poorly.

The engagement from Tower Systems guides better use of the software with an outcome of better data. Here is one of the communication items we have shared with customers to help drive a better outcome:

This advice has been written for use in businesses where the business data has been found to be useless, faulty and / or of little value.

There is no doubt: poor business data = poor business decisions.

If you ever hope to sell your retail business, accurate business data is vital, it will determine the price you achieve for your business.

Don’t be one of those business owners who only cares about accurate business data when you decide to sell as that could be too late.

Here is all you need to do to ensure you have accurate business data.

  1. Ensure you have a good department and category structure. This helps ensure the reports are useful. By good we suggest no more than fifteen departments and no more than fifteen categories within each department.
  2. Arrive all stock into your POS software. The best way to do this is to receive and import into your software electronic invoices from suppliers. This is done in Invoice Arrivals.

The slower way is to manually enter invoices into your software item by item. This is done in Invoice Arrivals.

If you created an order using the software and this order subsequently arrives, you can receive the order – to save time.

  1. Scan all stock you sell at the point of sale. Resist excuses like items are too small or too big or it takes too long or it is impractical. All these excuses can be countered.
  2. Scan all stock you return to suppliers. Use the Returns facility.
  3. Scan all stock you write off. Use the Write-off Stock facility.

Very simple, right?

Accurate business data is up to you. Not your software company, not your suppliers.

Accurate business data is 100% up to you.

Once you have accurate data, track business performance. Use the accurate data to see trends in your business, to guide better quality business decisions.

It is easy to create accurate business data. The operational and financial benefits are extraordinary.

How Tower Systems can help. We have articles in our knowledge base on everything discussed here. We also have training videos that show you what to do. We host weekly online training workshops, accessible from anywhere, where you can ask questions on any topic. Plus, supported customers have access to free one on one training.

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Small business retail advice: what’s next after Father’s Day?

September 4, 2016
1 Min read
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With Father’s Day being an important retail season in many small business retailers, we ask this timely and important question: What comes after Father’s Day?

This is a question small business retailers should ask along with: What do you have planned for the business from today until Christmas really kicks in? Do you have a plan?

We think retailers need a plan. You should have had a plan a couple of months ago when planning for coming out of a major season for this period before the next major season starts.

Knowing what’s next is vital in retail where the everyday on which you rely is not as strong as it was years ago.

Now more than ever shop floor engagement and out of store marketing are vital to attract new shoppers and we cannot rely on major seasons only to do this for if we do we become like old-style gift shops and they are closing fast.

So: What comes after Father’s Day?

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POS software helps make Father’s Day great for retailers

September 3, 2016
1 Min read
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IMG_2313 (1)Tower Systems is thrilled to be helping retailers around Australia leverage the Father’;s Day opportunity with outpost mode enabling easy selling by retailers away from their usual retail location.

The photo shows one large outpost where our software plays a key role helping the newsagency / gift shop leverage the most from the opportunity.

Using outpost mode, retailers using our smart POS software are able to transact away from the business yet maintain total control over inventory, customers and all other key business data.

In addition to providing excellent outpost facilities in its POS software, Tower Systems backs this up with personal outpost assistance, user training and even new casual employee training so they know how to use the software with certainty.

The total outpost package from Tower Systems helps small business specialty retailers to leverage the most from the outpost opportunity.

Father’s Day is an excellent example of the value of outpost for retailers. The data we cultivate helps retailers to plan for more successful outposts.

This is another example of the Tower AdvantageTM for our small business retail customers.

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Helping small business retailers engage in targeted marketing

September 2, 2016
1 Min read
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Next week we are hosting a free workshop on targeted marketing for retailers using our specialty retail POS software. This free training is part of our weekly free live training workshop program, training that people can access from anywhere.

Click here for more details on this training and to book.

We are proud to maintain our commitment to training, first established years ago. It is hard work deliver on the marketing pitch. Here at Tower systems we deliver. Plus, we are transparent about it with sessions listed publicly and numbers showing too – so you know it is real.

Small business retailers want certainty from their POS software company. We are committed to providing certainty of access to terrific software backed by accessible and friendly support.

If you are in specialty retail and want to engage in targeted marketing, this free workshop could be ideal for you.

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Shopify POS software interface live and helping small business retailers online

September 2, 2016
2 Min read
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The direct and deep interface between the Tower Systems POS software and Shopify is working brilliantly, transacting saves, managing freight, managing replenishment and providing certainty for a retail store with an online website powered by Shopify.

Thanks to meetings with Shopify experts at the Shoptalk conference two months ago in Las vegas, Tower Systems has delivered an elegant integration that enables physical store retailers to engage online using Shopify quickly and easily.

Our own Shopify experience has helped us deliver a better outcome for our customers as we speak from our own real world experience. This is a key Tower Systems difference as we are users of our POS software too. Not too many POS software companies can say that.

Our Shopify integration is another professional integration from our development team, leveraging our experience in retail and tech to create a valuable whole of business solution through which a retailer can discover new shoppers and leverage above average revenue for their type of business.

Beyond the tech itself we are able to guide and assist retailers to understand opportunities, to use the full power of the internet to help people discover the business who might otherwise not have known it existed.

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Loyalty fatigue forces POS software points-based loyalty programs to change

August 31, 2016
2 Min read
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Shoppers are tired of points-based loyalty programs where the value of points is challenging to understand and where rewards are difficult to access.

Take the retail group where shoppers have to sign up for the program and spend $500  in-store to accuse 500 points that are then converted to a limited life voucher sent to the customer.

This type of program does not make sense when you look at the hopes the customer has to jump through.

Compare it to a competitor offer where a shopper can have a $$ award on their receipt from the first purchase. No sign up. No delay in accessing benefits.

The Tower Systems POS software handles both the scenarios outlined above. Our preference as retail experts is for the latter. We say this based on years of working with independent small business retailers. While the points approach is where loyalty started, it shifted a few years ago and now more retailers prefer the $$ benefit on retail-ts because their customers react so well to it.

The example above where the customer has multiple steps to reach. These steps act as barriers. Shoppers can forget about the goal as they work through the barriers.

Don’t believe us, ask shoppers. Present the two scenarios. Ask which they prefer. We have done this. 5:1 they prefer the $$ off showing on the receipt without sign up. They love it in fact.

The feedback we have from customers is the Tower Systems POS software loyalty offerings are best-practice for retailers and for shoppers, they genuinely add value of retail businesses, costing a fraction of the gross profit achieved from incremental business driven by the program.

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Small business retailers benefit from using tags in smart POS software

August 29, 2016
1 Min read
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More and more of the small business retailers using our POS software are using the tags facilities in the software for more efficient management of inventory data managed by the software.

Tags in the Tower Systems Retailer software provide an easy way to manage stock. In the powerful stock manager facility you can select all items with a tag and then:

  1. Change price.
  2. Change description.
  3. Change department.
  4. Change category,.
  5. Change supplier.
  6. Add to an  an order.
  7. Stock take.

Tags are a terrific tool in your software for managing stock. We encourage you to use them. We can help.

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Sunday retail management advice: how to sell your retail business when no one is interested

August 28, 2016
2 Min read
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Small and independent retail businesses can be a challenge to sell even in a strong economy. This is because they are often not understood and not presented well for sale.

One way to make a business more appealing is to be more open about it being for sale.

Put a sign in the window. Yes, this will tell your employees, customers and suppliers that you want to sell up and move on. Own that decision, embrace it. Stop worrying what people will think. Explain your good reason for putting the business on the market and then run the business with more energy and focus than ever before.  Your actions will demonstrate that people need not worry.

The sign in the window works on a couple of levels.

First, small businesses are more likely to appeal to people who live locally, people who may not be in the market to buy a business until they see your sign.  I know of one small business that had not sold in over a year and then sold in a week following a sign being put in the window. It could be that an employee is interested in buying the business.

Second, the sign is your reminder that the business has to be sale ready every day. Shoppers walking through your door are coming to an open house to see the business for sale. That’s how you should approach it – working your heart out presenting the business perfectly and appealingly every day.

Businesses can take time to sell. Sometimes it takes the right people seeing the ad at the right time for you to find a buyer.  The stars aligning aside, the most important barrier to selling any business is that it does not look or feel appealing, manageable and or capable of delivering the level of return a prospective purchaser would want. This is why you have to work hard and relentlessly to make your business look valuable, appealing and enjoyable.

Too often small business retailers think that the economy, retail channel issues or other external factors are slowing or halting the sale of the business. Even if this is the case, reject these thoughts, bring it back to you and your actions. If you want to sell your business then run it as if you want to sell it – every day.

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