This year marks our 14th in business.
Having helped organisations in 35 industries grow in profit, we’ve noticed three fundamental marketing and selling rules many break.
The result? Their growth is stunted and profit declines as they waste both time and money while hoping their phones will ring with a flood of new customers.
But it doesn’t.
Read on to see if you’re in the same boat.
Rule Number One:
You need to focus your activities. 80/20 rule applies. 20% of your marketing activity will give you 80% of your results. But do you know which 20%?
Rather than dilute your efforts on multiple channels, concentrate on the 2 or 3 that bring in most of your business.
I say 2 or 3 because the biggest risk to any business is the number 1. Using only one channel such as Google Adwords, Email or Facebook is a risk because what would happen if you could no longer use that method?
And for those of you who spend copious time on social media hoping it will bring in business, direct email has been shown to be 50 times more effective when it comes to bringing in new business. Highly targeted physical mail is even more so.
One of the first areas we focus on with our clients is exactly where are your clients coming from? What channels are working? How much are they bringing in?
This is not a numbers game. i.e. You might be getting a lot of traffic from one source but the money they bring in is low. Compare that with low volumes of people from another source who spend big.
We’re looking for high quality prospects who convert into high value clients.
Rule Number Two:
People buy from people. Never forget the human connection. And this goes for whether you’re a retailer, professional service or manufacturer.
Think of it this way. No matter how good the product, would you buy from someone who treated you badly, with disinterest or worse, contempt? Of course not.
So the first basic is make sure all your people are thoroughly trained to be customer centric, starting with your receptionist.
Remember first impressions count.
We teach and coach you and your staff in a whole range of emotional intelligence and communication skills. You learn advanced rapport building skills. How to quickly glean what their buying criteria is, what they value, motivating them to take action to become a client.
Rule Number Three:
You must understand the Traffic, Conversion and Economics equation for your business.
To sell anything you need to get people walking past your door. This is traffic. And you get it from your marketing activities.
Conversion is how much of this traffic you can convert into genuine enquiries and then sales.
Economics is what this whole process costs you.
It may be stating the obvious that the economics must stack up. i.e. It must cost you less to get traffic and convert than the profit you make from a sale. (You can go negative in your acquisition costs if you fully understand the lifetime value of your clients – but that’s a topic for another day.)
Now here’s where it gets interesting.
Most people trying to ramp up sales focus on getting more traffic past their door. But this is a flawed approach.
Why? Because it costs money to buy traffic. You have to market more extensively, pay more in advertising, go to more networking functions etc.
And while you will generate more sales, it’s a fixed percentage function of the number of people coming past.
A far better approach is to improve your conversion rate. i.e. For the same number of people coming past you convert more into clients. You’ve paid the same amount for traffic, and you make far more profit.
Improving sales skills is one of the best ways to improve profitability. Sadly though, it’s often neglected. Don’t fall into this trap.
Through our sales training and coaching programs we’ve worked with hundreds of business owners and sales professionals to improve their conversion rates, closing more business more quickly.
Wrapping up…
If any of this resonates with you call us on (02) 9499-7958 and let’s work together to grow your business efficiently.
We’ll streamline your marketing activities to reduce your costs while improving the quality of your leads. You’ll then learn how to convert these quality leads into long term profitable clients.
Net result. A more profitable business which will give you whatever it is you want from it.
Call us on (02) 9499-7958 to get started.
Rashid & Barbara.
