Business Growth – Page 4 – Pauline Bright Business Coach

The best ways to grow your customer database without spending a fortune

Size. Isn’t. Everything. When it comes to a customer database, having thousands of thousands of people on a list doesn’t mean anything unless you have a relationship with them.

So don’t go getting all scammy and spammy with the latest tricks to build a list of people who are not now, or never will be, your ideal customer. You’ll find no joy there.

A small intimate responsive database can be a beautiful thing and it’s really enjoyable to serve those people by offering them interesting relevant information, intriguing offers and genuinely helpful content that they can’t wait to receive. Develop a “No Junk Mail” policy when you contact your database or they will bin you for wasting their time.

Here’s how to grow your list without resorting to sneaky underhanded tactics.

You cannot just put someone on your list because they gave you their business card – you’ll need to ask permission. But better than that, have a real conversation with the person and offer to send them something helpful – and NO that is not your brochure or catalogue unless they have specifically asked for it. It might be a newspaper clipping or a referral to your dentist or a great website you discovered. It can be anything as long as it is helpful.

If you were clever you’d be building a bank of your own useful information to share.

Here are a few favourite places and ways to find the best people to add to your database:

Networking events and industry groups – local chambers of commerce are a good place to start.
Business networking groups – go regularly and make friends. Get to know these people, they are your best referral sources and there are things you can help them with too.
Meetup Groups cost next to nothing – choose carefully before you commit the time but you will definitely meet people – even if it’s a walking group.
Attend workshops and chat to the people you meet there. There are plenty of low-cost- to- no-cost business seminars out there – and you’ll learn a thing or two as well!
Online in social media groups – find groups with similar interests to yours and start contributing. But don’t sell unless the rules of the group say you can – it’s SOCIAL – no-one likes a pushy person who is always selling.
On holidays, at the shops, in elevators, at the beach – start talking to people – you’ll be so surprised at the connections you can make.
Have a lead capture form on your website – offer something they consider valuable and highly desirable in exchange for their contact information. It might cost you nothing.
Do direct response marketing – everything you put out needs a call to action to get the person to take some action i.e. contact you for that highly desirable “thing” – not the super big things, just a little taste test. Why do you think supermarkets offer free samples of something yummy in the aisles?
As people to share your content, your business cards, your highly desirable offer, let it go naturally viral. If you are in the women’s market you have inbuilt viral marketers. They will naturally tell friends when they find something of value.
Get over your nerves and learn to speak in public – give talks and presentations. When people see you as an expert they’ll give you their contact details to get more of what you have.

We’ve just scratched the surface.

You’re only limited by your imagination. Get together with a group of other business owners and brainstorm this – there are hundreds more answers. Then put the strategies into action and hold each other accountable to getting results.

Best of luck. Let us know how you go. And if you have a unique way of adding genuinely interested people to your database, we’d love to hear it.

If you’re not using a 5 step follow up process, you’re leaving thousands of dollars on the table

Marketing is like a game of tennis; you hit the ball, the other person hits it back.

But what if they don’t hit it back? Do you abandon the game, take your racquet and ball and slouch off home?

Well you could give up, but where’s the fun in that?

So, why do business owners get dejected when they put out ONE piece of marketing and they don’t get a response? The game has just begun – get back in there and hit a few more balls!

The 5 Step Follow-up Process will capture your prospective clients and encourage them to play the game with you.

But, if you keep hitting the same shot at them and they’re not responding then you’ve got to question the shot. Is it what they’re ready for? Is it what they want? Is the timing right or are they metaphorically tying their shoe laces?

Nothing is more annoying for a prospective client to keep getting the same “Are you ready yet? Are your ready yet? Are you ready yet?” message from you. They stop listening – and you waste money!

You’ve gotta get more creative and mix it up a bit. Entertain them at least so they look forward to hearing from you.

Here are the 5 Steps:

Assuming that you’ve done your homework and you know your Ideal Customer INTIMATELY – (you have done that haven’t you? If not back up a step and get the Target Market worksheet) you’ll be sending the messages over a period of time, increasing the urgency each time.

The messages will be sent to specific people via online media, emails, direct mail in their letterbox – whatever your ideal customers’ favourite media is – it MUST be something they regularly pay attention to.

Anyway, I digress…

The steps…

STEP #1

Send all 5 messages to the SAME group of Ideal Customers. Once you’ve tested and refined it you can gather another group, perhaps in a different location.

First message: The intro. Make an offer: something interesting, just a little taste perhaps, not the whole box of doughnuts. This is not all about you – it’s about them, their problems, desires and what keeps them awake at night.

“Get inside your prospective customer’s head. Show them you know them!” – Pauline Bright [Tweet This]

Step # 2

If they’ve responded, get back to them as soon as you can.

If they’ve ignored you don’t get despondent, try another ball…

Send them another message – make sure they know it is from you – it has to have the look and feel of your business.

Approach the problem or desire from a different perspective – hit them something they can return. Ask them to take some action. “Perhaps you’d like one of these… [insert solution] they’re great for fixing [insert problem to be solved]”

Step #3

Rinse and repeat but don’t punish them.

I see some very sleazy marketing out there that says the equivalent of “hey, you didn’t respond to X are you crazy, why not?” Might work for some but it’s not my favourite approach.

Send them something else they can respond to.

By this time you should start to see some response.

Step # 4

YEP – rinse and repeat again. But vary your message. Educate them a little, tease them a little, if your offer has a genuine “use-by” date let them know that time is running out or that you have limited places or whatever the real reason is that you are making this offer at this time.

Step #5

Send Piece # 5. Do not let this slide – send the 5 pieces of contact, keep increasing the value to them of what you do and asking for a response.

Those who don’t need you yet will remember you but if you don’t keep up some momentum someone will come along and eat your lunch! Everything you have so carefully prepared can be lost in a moment if you don’t stay top of their mind.

I’ve had clients who have been on my contact list for TEN YEARS before they are ready to buy. NEVER give up.

After the first 5 contacts, keep the people who have not responded on your long term nurture list. Don’t forget them – keep in touch at least a few times a year or monthly or whatever your marketing budget allows.

Always give them great value and never pester them just to buy. Be useful or be gone. You are building a long-term relationship with them.

Coming Soon: Bright Business Academy launches in 2017

We’ll dive into your marketing in more depth and help you map out not only the plan but write the exact pieces of content you need.

Email support@brightbusiness.net.au to get on the Bright Business Academy list.

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.

Evolutionary Business Design

Category: Business Growth