BrightBiz – Page 6 – Pauline Bright Business Coach

5 ways to get more business before you go on holidays!

If I had a dollar for everyone who tells me “My business is quiet at this time of the year”… “You can’t get customers at this time of year”… “My industry is different”…

Well, that would be a LOT of dollars – but that wouldn’t help IF I BELIEVED THEM!

I KNOW you can get customers at this time of the year – some of our best clients have come just before Christmas and other holidays. Here’s why and here’s what you can apply to your business.

1. Get the Jump – Pre-sell before the holidays

Holidays are the perfect time for relaxing and thinking about life. Your customers will be mentally planning (even if they don’t realise they’re doing it) – imagining how they want things to be this time next year – the holidays they’ll take, special projects they plan to do next year, things with the kids, things without the kids.

Think about your customers, what do you think they want right now – or early next year? What is the real benefit to a customer buying now rather than after the holidays? Find a way to help them buy it almost before they’ll need it and give them back their peace of mind for the holidays – you will have taken care of it for them.

What could you do? What have you got that you can pre-sell? You don’t have to deliver now, as long as the customer is happy that it’s a weight off their mind.

2. Position your product as the ideal gift to themselves

Help them indulge themselves.We’ve had clients buy our coaching services as a birthday or Christmas gift to themselves. It’s a little – or BIG – indulgence they may not normally allow themselves at any other time.

And don’t be worried about the dollars – your perception of what they will pay is entirely your own mental bias; people will buy what they want, when they want it and pay the price if it is something they’ve already mentally said “yes” to.

3. Get them started early – what is the benefit to THEM for buying this now?

Our clients pre-pay for their program then do a little “homework” in the interim, before we officially start – not that boring repetitive stuff you did at school but creative, fun, imaginative play; thinking and talking about “What if… we could have this, or make this happen? How would things be different if we…” We have a template for it, just some gentle prompts that are not too taxing but they get to the heart of the matter. Questions you probably wouldn’t ask yourself or each other if you were left to your own devices. Great conversation starters as you relax with a drink.

Give them a “starter” – a session, product or service. Let them get some real benefit and see the value of not waiting until after the holidays.

You’ll need to do some thinking about what you could offer and why the best time for them to get started is NOW!

4. Do special deals – ONLY available between now and Christmas or New Year

Make sweet deals; ones you can be proud of, ones you and your customers will be happy with, but watch your profit margins – don’t go giving away the farm!

Try these – alone or in any combination.

Bundles – what have you got that you could bundle up to add extra value? Have a bundle price that is better than the items/services etc. bought separately.
Freebies – every business has the ability to give away freebies – think “information”. What do you know that others would pay to know? Write it down, put it on a video, make an eBook, make a little online eCourse – give it away for free as a bonus with purchase. You have way more riches in your business than you know!
High value extras that don’t cost you too much – Think about things you could produce or get from suppliers that cost very little but have high value to the customer. What could you buy in bulk and repackage? What could you repurpose, reposition or reinvent – especially if you’re in the information business.
Baker’s dozen – if there is great value in keeping a customer for longer (and there always is) can you offer a Baker’s Dozen: 13 of something for the price of 12 – or any combination of this.
Free or nearly free membership – e.g. $1 deal for first month. If you have a paid membership program, a VIP club or any loyalty program or long term product or service give them tangible benefits to try before they buy.Whatever you do – don’t follow the crowd. Make your offer so unique that no-one else can copy it – be quirky, funny, outrageous – anything that makes you stand out in a crowd. You are not for everyone. Attract only your ideal customers who love what you do.

5. Team up with others – help them get more business too.

Business is not a solo game. Who else in your business community could you team up with to help them get more business? As the saying goes, “Help other’s get what they want and you’ll get what you want”.

Think creatively here – don’t just look at your first circle of affiliated businesses. It’s not just accountants teaming up with bookkeepers. Cast the net a little wider and think about your customers; what else could they be buying at this time of year? Accountants could team up with marketers or IT specialists or systems gurus to help their business clients fill in the gaps. Get the idea? Who would you like to start an affiliate business relationship with?

Unless you’re in an industry that forbids you to sell before Christmas or any other holiday, you really have no excuse. Get to it!

Want my pre-Christmas Special Gift?

Book a 15 min phone appointment HERE. Tell me what’s going on in your business and I’ll find something to help.

I love variety so EVERY gift is different and tailored to suit your business.

Keeping score. What are KPIs and Why you need them.

It’s very hard to tell if something is working or not if you don’t pay attention to it.

Why do games have winners and losers; gold, silver and bronze medals; coloured belts, trophies, handicaps?

Why do people keep score on the golf course, in computer games, at little athletics?

There’s a certain thrill in knowing how we are performing – comparing ourselves to others or reaching our personal best; are we getting better, levelling out or dropping the ball?

A Key Performance Indicator (KPI) is a metric you have set up to measure the performance of your business against your business objective. Some businesses use net profit as a KPI, some measure customer retention; some use every step in their marketing system to measure performance: cost of acquiring customers, average spend per customer, conversion rates from lead to sale.

There are literally dozens of metrics you could measure in any business, but the secret to simplicity is to find the ones that matter most, and keep your eye on those.

Think of KPI’s for your business like a scorecard. It is a collection of KPIs that let you know how the business is going.

Keep your KPIs as simple as they need to be to measure the most critical drivers of your business – the things that need to happen to reach a business objective. E.g. are you hitting your financial targets, are you collecting your debts within a specified period, is your marketing bringing you the number of ideal prospective customers you want with a predictable conversion rate to sales?

False metrics

And just like in sport it is possible to cheat your own system – although I don’t know why you would.

You can falsify KPIs with all sorts of strategies to make the numbers look better than they are. A bit of creative bookkeeping, some juggling of numbers on your phone calls log, customer service ratings – many, many ways.

Sometimes business owners don’t even know they are doing it – paying themselves a set salary each month, kidding themselves the business is doing well when they are really living on a burgeoning overdraft, because they are not paying attention to the financial KPIs.

The trick with KPIs is to find the ones that really matter, and it might only be a few, but when you diligently keep score each day, week or month you will see patterns emerge that will give you an accurate picture of what’s really happening in your business. What’s working, what’s not.

From reading your KPIs regularly you’ll be able to make well informed wise business decisions – your business will be flexible, agile, able to move with the times and you’ll be a much better business person for it.

Want to know how to set up your business KPI scorecard? Book a 15 minute phone call with Pauline Bright here

#keyperformanceindicators

The obvious way to grow a business that almost everyone ignores

Business is only as complicated as you want to make it.

You might be spending disproportionate chunks of time, when you’re not actively engaged in doing the work of your business, adding more bells and whistles to your offering, making your office look better, getting new business cards, updating your website, trawling through emails, improving your systems and ploughing through dreary hours of admin… ad infinitum.

But there is one blind spot that people will not, or choose not to see because it makes them uncomfortable, they don’t know how to do it and they don’t know what to do about it…

You can spend countless hours on polishing your product, looking as busy as the next person and tweaking everything about your business – or focus on the one truly effective thing that is guaranteed to grow your business – YOU CAN MAKE SALES.

Nothing happens until a sale is made – doesn’t matter how pretty your office looks or how cool your product is, if you don’t sell it, you don’t eat.

If you’re not actively selling to prospects who are in the market to buy, all those coffee meetings, “important” phone calls and endless networking events aren’t worth anything. In fact they’re costing you plenty in time and money and missed opportunities.

It might surprise you to know that you need to invest at least 20% of your time in sales producing activities – even more if you’re a new business – up to 80% of your time should be focused on sales.

You’ll need a repeatable process to bring you more customers on a regular basis if you are going to grow your business.

The first step is to make sure you’re talking to people who want what you have and are happy to pay for it. That’s an exercise in marketing and making sure you’re in the right business.

The second step is to get MUCH better at selling – so here’s my gift to you…

The Elegant Selling eBook, for people in professional services who think they can’t sell – just click to download. It’s full of ideas, scripts & techniques to overcome sales fears and phobias.

Enjoy!

Need some sales training for your team? Ask about “The Art of Selling” workshop. Book a phone call here to see how it can work for you.

Why a coach’s perspective is so important when you want to expand your business

“You know what you should do?”

…and so it starts again… the well-meaning but often unsought advice from someone who really doesn’t have a clue about your business.

“Here’s what I’d do if I were you…”, but they’re not you are they?

Everyone’s got an opinion – even people you’ve just met – and they’re more than happy to share it. But who do you listen to and trust enough to give you the right advice?

Unfortunately a lot of well-meaning advice gets tainted with emotion; friends and family want to see you do well, but they worry that you are overworking and not looking after yourself. They want to keep you safe.

They want you to be successful but maybe not too successful in case they lose you! You might get big and rich and famous and leave them behind!

Unless you’re getting business help and advice from a respected successful impartial friend or family member (which is amazingly brilliant and rare – lucky you!) then you’ll need to filter out the noise and concentrate on what YOU want.

So, why would you listen to a coach – aren’t they just another voice in the noise?

Well, the role of your coach is NOT to give you advice.

A really good coach is impartial, has no emotional stake in the business and will listen, guide and reflect back to you everything you need to get ahead. You already have most of the answers – you just don’t know that you do until your coach asks some key questions and keeps digging to get to the heart of things.

A good coach will educate you so that you can make informed decisions – but they won’t make the decisions for you.

If your coach has also walked a mile in your shoes before you, in their own business and life experience, then they may act as a mentor to show you what worked or didn’t work for them, but they won’t do it for you.

A good coach will see you as you are in the moment, without any of the life baggage you may be carrying around, and will be able to tap into your vision for the future, often stretching you way beyond what you thought you were capable of.

As Les Brown says “You have Greatness in you!” Why would you settle for mediocrity?

A good coach doesn’t take any BS – no excuses, no counselling, no jumping the fence to have a pity party with you. Sure, we’re tough but we’re compassionate, we can have a laugh, and we SEE you – I mean really SEE you – the best version of yourself.

We don’t dawdle; we like plenty of movement and momentum – as they say in kindy “You can have fun, but you’ve gotta get it done”.

A really good business coach is well versed in business – not just finance or sales or marketing or systems or HR – but ALL of the aspects of business and how it all fits and glides together.

It’s very likely there are some holes in your business – maybe you’re aware of them, maybe you don’t know what you don’t know.

Shall we go digging together to see what you don’t see right now?

CLICK HERE – a 15 min phone call may change your life!

The Super Short Guide to Making Wise Business Decisions

Decisions are like “the Trouser Legs of Time” as my favourite author Terry Pratchett put it.

And whichever leg you choose you end up in a different space, which is unfortunate if you don’t end up somewhere you want to be, but fabulous if you do.

Now, you don’t want to get it wrong but neither do you want to be stuck – and no decision is still a decision.

Here’s the 3 Point Super Short Guide to Making Wise Business Decisions: ask yourself these questions…

Is this good for ME?

He said “I make decisions based on the 3 most important things in my life –

1. my Health,
2. my Wealth and
3. my Family

It has to be good for all three without compromise”.

Run the decision by your 3 most important values and trust your instinct to let you know when something isn’t a good fit.

WHY am I making this decision?

What are the repercussions of this? Is this something I can live with for a long time? (This is vitally important when you are thinking about business partners).

Am I rationalising this decision and trying to ignore what my intuition is telling me? If you are trying to “hard sell” the idea to yourself and others, it’s probably not in your best interests.

Can I live with the consequences? Will I still be happy about this in one year, two years, ten years from now?

Do I need more time; am I being rushed by others into making a decision?

WHO is involved in this?

If I’m about to make a decision that involves huge amounts of my input, time, money and/or energy –i.e. if it’s all me, we could be in trouble!

Who else can I involve in this? What expert help can I get? Is this a joint decision or mine alone to make?

If you’re struggling with a business decision right now and you want some expert help – someone to approach it with fresh eyes then let’s talk.

Book a 15 minute phone conversation with Pauline Bright here.

Evolutionary Business Design

Author: BrightBiz