Hard Times? Need to generate more business?| Bite Back at the Credit Crunch |
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The following information is designed to show how you can make your business stand out from the rest and succeed even in a recession.
I am going to introduce new ways of generating business and income and ways of making your business more profitable with little extra work.
Training and education is key in business and something that companies don’t invest enough in, especially small companies. Now we are in the information age and you can get all the information you need from the internet in one form or another. Its how you find the right information for you and your business that matters and then how you use this information to profit.
In the following chapters I will introduce a few basics that when used properly will give fantastic results. If you need help with implementing any of these please call or visit the website.
Contents
Introduction
Summary
Special Offer
Introduction
In the following chapters I have tried to give concise advice on how to get the edge in today’s economy. This is not an easy thing to do and there are some skill sets and principals that need to be applied in order to get the best results.
Continue to learn; don’t ever stop making time to learn new skills and find out new techniques and ways of selling and marketing.
Invest in training; spend time if not actual cash training yourself and your staff in selling, customer service and looking for opportunities.
Get help; Sales and Marketing Wealth Ltd is just one of the many companies and bodies set up to help small businesses market and sell. We offer free help and advice through our website and we can supercharge your business. Call or email us for free advice and help that will help your business do well no matter what the economy.
On our website we have all kinds of useful articles and there is a selection of eBooks available to members for free on the Gold pages of the site. These books cover a wide range of topics and one of the most important subjects, often overlooked, is copywriting.
The ability to write copy that sells is a very valuable skill and the difference between and advert of little effect, and one that generates big sales is small. I write advert copy for several companies and I know the value of testing. Always test and monitor the results of your advertising and promotional material. This way you can see what works and use it again for great results.
There is so much information out there and there are so many offers flying around the place it gets confusing. I personally believe that in business we should perform the KISS test on everything that we do.
Ask yourself if you are over complicating matters; could you say what you mean with less text or fill? Is what you are offering clear and obvious? People can only recall so many things at once and asking them to do more will not profit you.
When making an offer or using advertising make it clear what it is and what prospects have to do. One of my businesses sells timber lodges, they cost from about £50,000 so I can’t just put an advert in the paper and expect the phone to ring. I advertise the first step in the process and get the prospect to contact me.
Break down the process of your sales into steps and then think about how you get people from one step to the next. If you have a retail shop then you have to get people from the street into the shop with your window dressing and offer that you have posted there. Once they are in you can make them other offer and sell to them. But don’t try and sell to them before they get into the shop or they may not come in. Entice them in and then make your real offer and sell to them.
Other businesses offer free quotes for work or some garages offer a really cheap MOT and hope to pick up extra work from that. The classic loss leader strategy is a tried and tested method and we can take that on further now in new information age ways.
The most important and the most costly thing in business is getting new customers so once you have them keep them and sell to them again and again. This is something that we will be exploring throughout this book.
The offer is the centre of all business and is what attracts people in the first place; as I mentioned getting new customers is the hardest part of business so having an irresistible offer will give you the edge.
An irresistible offer is made up of 3 basic elements;
The first is a given; you need to attract people with incredible value and a great return on their investment, the sale price. They need to feel that they can’t do better else where.
The touchstone is like a catchphrase that sums up the offer and your business. It is not your mission statement but more like a slogan. Businesses tend to have a touch stone for a long period, and it helps identify the brand and what they offer. Mac Donald’s “” Burger King “have it your way” Loreal “because you’re worth it” Gillette “the best a man can get” and so on.
Your offer should be amplified by this phrase and then the next time you make an offer people will recognise the phrase and expect that the offer is as good as the last one. My father had menswear shops and his bags said “never knowingly under sold” and before that “more great clothes from….” Hopefully you can do even better if you don’t already have s phrase in use.
The last of the 3 elements is believability and without it you don’t have anything. To prove the point a marketing expert once placed an advert in the national press offering £10 if you sent him £5; he had no one respond. That is an extreme example but it illustrates the point and now more that ever people do not take offers at face value. There are so many scams going people are unsure who to trust and if you market with emails its harder still; more on that later.
These elements are designed to answer the 4 basic questions that prospects have when they make a buying decision.
Answer all these 4 questions well and you are on your way to an irresistible offer. If you can enhance the offer with believability and a touchstone you might just be there.
There are very few truly irresistible offer out there and one of the all time classics must be Dominos Pizza “your pizza in half an hour or you don’t pay” – why would you order anywhere else and most people were glad when it arrived after 40 minutes they got a free pizza. So even under delivering became a good thing; if you can match that you have a gold mine.
Now I don’t want to linger here because this book is supposed to be a short one so if you need more information or want to take this further please go to the website www.SalesandMarketingWealth.com or call or email me.
Now once you have enhanced your offer there are surprisingly few ways to amplify it, I call them the magic 3:
That is over simplified perhaps but I challenge you to come up with a way of increasing revenue that does not fall into one of the 3. If you think you have one email it to me and if you’re right I will send you a free book of your choice from the website.
So let’s have a look at them in turn and see just how much falls under each heading.
Improve the quality of your advertising, increase advertising, increase exposure, write articles, get featured in the local paper. There are many ways of getting your message out there and for more ideas see the website. There is a lot of advertising that you can do for free or very little but time; such as PR. This is also one of my favourites as it is incredibly effective; just like referrals and recommendations.
Word of mouth is very powerful but incredibly hard to get going and that is why you need an irresistible offer; to get people talking about you. Make it so good that they want to tell the world.
This is another big category that includes cost cutting, good buying, up selling, cross selling, increased sales conversion and so on. The biggest of these to me because they are often the most overlooked are up selling and cross selling.
Too many businesses have a closed mind on cross and up selling and miss huge opportunities to make great profit. At the end of this book I will be talking about joint ventures so I will leave that area alone for now, but that still leaves lots of room for your own products.
If you buy shoes you expect to be sold some special shoe protection; if you buy petrol it used to be a can of oil – now it’s a cola and a chocolate bar, or milk and bread. Who would have put that together in the 70’s?
People come in to Mac Donald’s for the 99p hamburger but buy the value meal for £2.99 and still leave happy. So have a good think about what you can be doing to tap this gold mine. Don’t over sell and never up sell until they have fully committed to the original item, other wise you may put them off all together.
Having items at the checkout is a great way to hit this just right and shoe shops do just that with their polish. If you are a plumber you can also do more than just the job in hand. Offer a quote on some other job; offer a professional plunger so next time they may fix the blocked drain themselves and I will go into more possibilities there in the next bit and the Customers are for life section.
So get them in with the irresistible offer and then give them another great product or service to go with that.
This is similar to the up and cross sell and can include the same sort of thing but what it really means is selling to people again and again. And not just your products and services but other peoples too. This category is so important it spawns two whole chapters, Customers are for life and joint ventures; there are even bits of this in the new streams of income chapter.
This is probably the most important and less used weapon in peoples’ arsenals when it comes to profit. It costs so much to promote and advertise that it can be crippling to continually get new customers. Which means the customers that you do get should be looked after and kept – for life. Sell to them over and over, get them back in the store every season, every sale; get them to call your plumbing service before all others. Once you have done the hard work don’t let them get away!
What all businesses should have, without exception, is a customer database. You should have your customers details stored so that you can get in touch with them and keep them informed about your business and offers and do much more as we will see.
There are several ways of keeping a customer database from a scrap of paper, to a diary or address book, to more sophisticated systems that run through the internet or on your computer. Bits of paper and books are out dated and should be replaced by easily managed systems which are collectively called CRM (customer relations management) systems. They can store all customer and prospect information, send emails, schedule meetings and do much, much more.
You can buy an off the shelf package for between £1,000 and £4,000 or have one built for your business. I would not recommend either of these options for most businesses as the former will become out dated and the latter will end up costing you the earth.
Far better pay a monthly fee and use an internet based service. The other advantage of this is that all data is stored on secure servers that only you have access to. If you move, change computers or are in a different location for one reason or another you still have complete access to all your information.
The best of these services is called www.CustomersareforLife.com (or www.CR4L.com) for short. This system lets you enter all your current contacts easily and add to them as you get more. This system cannot be under valued and if you do not have one in place right now you are missing out on profit.
It is that simple; no matter what business you are in you are exposed to prospects and clients every day. The more you get the more money you can make. If you are in a retail situation then you have the potential to get hundreds or perhaps thousands of clients and prospects on to your database.
The more people you have on your database the more money you will make; it is as simple as that. The better the quality of leads you have effect the bottom line so if you are in a specialist profession or business not just anyone will do.
But in the majority of cases MARKETING IS A NUMBERS GAME the more eyes that see your offer the more money you will make. If you have a limited amount of appointments to offer and once you are booked up that’s that you can still make more money from having more contacts and prospects.
The key to this profit comes in the next chapter and the last; for now we will concentrate on the CRM and its database because this is where the profit steams from.
Firstly you will need to transfer any contacts that you have to the CRM; easy to do and there is help on CR4L.com to show you how. Next you will need to build up the numbers of people on your database or list and the best way to do this is to offer an incentive to your customers and prospects to sign up.
The thing that you will need to provide is value to people and thus a reason to sign up and be part of your list. You should send out newsletters every month offering people discounts, or telling them of any new industry innovations or seasonal changes to your offer – value.
You can also inform them of interesting facts or things that can profit them in what they do – ways to save time or money – value.
Give value to your list and incentivise people to sign up to it not just with the value but with an offer. WH Smith do this, BHS, House of Fraser, B&Q and many other big companies offer people a discount voucher if they sign up to the newsletter/ database.
You can do the same, give away a product or voucher or whatever to get people to sign up. The key here is incentivising the sign up so much that people bother to do it; most people will not take action even if they will profit from it. You should have a signup box on every page of your website to let people join your list and the flyers can drive them to that site and the sign up. But as mentioned people are lazy or have better things to do and will not take action on their own.
So take the action for them; instead of giving them a flyer telling them to sign up on the website and get a free widget, get them to fill out a form at the counter/checkout and then hand them a voucher which they will have to validate with the email that you will send to the address that they just gave you (do that otherwise people will give you erroneous email addresses).
This will have a much greater success rate and you are leaving much less to chance. Train your staff and yourself to do this with every customer and you will see your list grow quickly. Incentivise the staff to do this well giving the person who signs the most each day or week a bonus or time off.
Once you have the forms you will have to enter the details manually but there are normally quiet times throughout the week when you or a member of staff can do this. Make the forms as simple as you like from just the first name and email to much more. People prefer to give less and it’s easier to enter less information later.
If you are a plumber or professional you can do the same with everyone you meet or work for; you will often have more time to do this and can start to build a relationship with the client immediately.
The idea behind this is to give value to this list and keep you in their minds and then the next time they need what you have to offer there will be no decision to be made; they will come to you. You can also stimulate this interest with offers and information in your newsletter and when times are quite you can generate income through them.
It is these new streams of income that make up the next chapter and are one of the key reasons for having a list in the first place. Apart from adding value to your service and keeping your business in customers’ minds you can make money from your list in other ways.
We have looked at the cross sell and the up sell and you need to think about these both in store and on your website. If you don’t sell anything, or take bookings or get any money from your website it matters not. You can still make money through your website and the list of prospects and clients.
If you don’t have a website you can still have a list and make money from that list running it though www.CR4L.com but if you add in a website then you can make more.
Most websites don’t make a penny and are a waste of cyberspace. How about yours?
I have posted on the website the basic dos and don’ts of websites so go and have a look at www.salesandmarketingwealth.com and see if yours is ok. The number one unbreakable rule is; have a signup box to your newsletter on every page. Number two rule is less and more; less text and more pictures. Number three rule; don’t be self serving; no one what’s to know all that about us stuff so leave it out or put it out of the way somewhere.
There are three golden rules of making money online and they are simple.
Now you can have the first 2 but the chances are the last is not going to happen; sorry to be blunt but I don’t want to kid you huge traffic is hard to achieve or expensive and hard.
So how do you make money? Well you have an advantage you can get your customers to sign up to your newsletter and build a list. Lists are better then traffic and you need to build your up and nurture it. Give it great value and have it keen to receive your next newsletter or email.
If you are a plumber or professional you have a limiter amount of time to book with clients and make money. Having a list means that you can leverage your time and make money from many people withy just one email/newsletter.
A small town lawyer in the states did this by writing a newsletter every month with useful information and advice. Pretty soon the whole town was signed up and taking about it and it spread to the next town and then went national. That meant huge influence and power to sell to a big captive audience.
With the credibility built up from all the advice and help when the author of a newsletter recommends a product or service people will take note and buy. That is the key – credibility. Then the offer and the numbers will make the profit all the bigger.
If you have a corner shop you have access to huge numbers of people who come through your doors. Grab their details and get them signed up to your website and newsletter. Keep them informed about your offer, what’s new, the neighbourhood and whatever else you think they will find value in. build credibility and then you can sell to them easily.
What do you sell? It does not matter to a certain degree as long as it is related to your product or service and it gives great value – always give great value!
Look at Click Bank or Affiliate Window for ideas or ask me for help. You don’t have to make or provide anything extra because there is good money to be made from recommendations – affiliate profits (for more on that see the website www.SalesandmarketingWealth.com ).
So to recap; in-store cross sell and up sell – look for products and services that compliment the ones you offer. If you are a builder do a deal with a plumber and a decorator and get a commission for recommending them to a client. If you are a dentist get commissions from an orthodontist or some other complimentary service. In a position of authority, where your list has trust in what you say (believability), you can recommend things that are not particularly related to what you do and people will still follow your advice and you will get paid commissions.
Don’t over do it; don’t get carried away recommending rubbish or poor value products or services because you will quickly alienate your list and that is the end of the income stream. Always give value.
Look for new products and streams of income online and cross and up sell through your website; the easiest way is with affiliate links. Ask for advice and suggestions on the best way to go about this; email or call me directly as below and I will suggest something for your business that will make you extra profit.
Joint ventures are, strictly speaking, one of the new streams of income that can be created for your business but they are so important that I decided to give them their own chapter. In fact they are a magic number 3 as well but then all ways of increasing profit fit in to the magic 3.
Joint ventures are where two or more businesses or people join together to one purpose or common commercial enterprise. So if you are a potter you might team up with other potters in your area to hold an event that you could not do on your own.
Joint ventures can help small businesses achieve things that they couldn’t on their own. Pooling resources and using different company’s strengths to the good of all concerned.
Choosing one that suits your business, compliments it or is completely unrelated is the key thing and the best thing to do is get help and advice or look online. These days it is easier than ever to get involved in a joint venture and if you have a list as we have talked about then reciprocal mailings are one easy way to start off.
Find a company with a list of similar or larger size to yours and offer to mail your list about their product in exchange for a reciprocal mailing from them. You can also approach a company and just ask them to do the mailing offering commission on any sales it generates.
Taking that the other way round once you have a list you can offer to do mailings in return for commissions – similar to affiliate profits already mentioned.
Joint venture offer: if you have a convenience store or small shop and do NOT sell the national lottery we would like to team up with you. We have a great joint venture that will cost you nothing to set up and run but will make a great profit. Call now for information and to start making extra profit.
For an easy to use joint venture agreement follow this link:
This website also has many other useful legal forms and documents for business and personal use – you can even do your will there.
Summary
Don’t waste time doing anything that is not related to your irresistible offer or one of the magic 3; other than administration and logistics – but even there being efficient is a category number 2. Anything else is a waste of time and should be avoided so think about it before you do it.
Learning is key and skills should be developed and enhanced. Training is essential for you and your staff. You cannot expect to up or cross sell anything successfully without first training your staff to do so. For even greater success incentivise the sales; commission or even better who ever sell the most xyz gets to leave work half an hour early that day.
Get proactive and find out how best to build and amplify your offer. If you need help then go to the website www.SalesandMarketingWealth.com or call or email me directly. You can explain your situation to me and I will come up with ideas for your business right there and then – and I will not charge.
I sell loads of books and through Sales and Marketing Wealth Ltd offer courses, one to one training and bespoke business packages for marketing and sales. But I am also available by email, and phone, to ask a question or get advice on the spot at no charge.
If you are successful then that potentially means more business for me and my business and if you don’t use us for your sales, marketing or web plans I hope that you will recommend us to others. My motto is value first and I love to over deliver so I hope that this free book has helped and please get in touch if you need anything more.
Alex Joll
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