I'm a business owner going on 10 years. Completely different field (if you need printing, shoot me a pm), but a couple things I would very highly recommend to all LFS, speaking from experience.
sk8ter, do you have a steady customer email campaign running? If not you really should. Have customers give you their email. At least once a week send out an email with a list of new fish that have arrived and put your number in a big font that says call now to reserve one of these fish. Ideally, take nice pictures of the more expensive fish. Same goes for new corals that come in, or frags from your growout tank. You have to get in front of your customers eyes. My LFS has taken my email a few times, and I legitimately hoped they would send me emails with weekly sales, or new livestock, so I didn't have to drive there to see what they had. But they are lazy and never send out emails, and then I see the fish I want on Diver's Den and I buy it there. Put your store in front of their face! As often as possible. A salty will not mind a weekly email with pictures of fish and corals that they could own right now if they wanted.
There are plenty of affordable companies that make this very easy, like constant contact. Use that, don't do it on your own. They will have proper unsubscribe links, etc.
And I see in a year you have one review on google for 2 stars. I am a business owner, and we kindly ask our good customers if they wouldn't mind writing us a review on google. THEY ALWAYS SAY YES!!! And so we now have 15-20 5 star reviews that are honest, from the people who appreciate our business and what we offer. I have new customers tell me ALL THE TIME that they saw the great reviews online and gave us a call. This is SO EASY TO DO. You must have happy customers. Just ask them. Don't offer anything in return. Just be honest and say it would help out your business and they will do it in a second.
Lastly, look into google adwords. Without question, this is some of the best money a business can spend. If your store doesn't appear properly in local searches, you're losing tons and tons of business to the stores that advertise with google adwords. I did a search and here is what came up:
Those 3 stores sure look like the places I would go to first. They aren't better than your store, but they just got their customers to write reviews, and they pay for clicks on google searches. Any money you spend on google adwords is either you appearing on a search or someone clicking on your ad. It's not just giving google money. You pay for clicks. You pay for impressions (your ad appearing on the top of a search) for keywords that you choose. You set a monthly budget. Whatever you can afford. The more the better. There are also companies that can manage your adwords account for you since it can be slightly complicated. Reach Local is who I use. It was clear as day the increase in phonecalls when we started using adwords. I cannot recommend this enough. Use it use it use it.
These are really super easy ways to help get customers in your store. Word of mouth is great, but you have so many other ways to reach customers nowadays that businesses do not take advantage of.
