SIMPLE WAY #1 Stop Thinking EVERYONE Is Your Ideal Customer
As small business owners, we're driven to helping as many people as possible because we want to make a difference which of course is commendable.
But from a marketing perspective, this is unfortunately our downfall because by thinking everyone is our customer, we don't have a clear message and we're not talking to the customers we really want.
Pretty much, it's a throw mud at the wall and hope something sticks strategy.
And a 'we can help everyone' approach also means it's very difficult for people to refer you to potential customers.
When eg you list the 15 industry sectors you work with, people's eyes just glaze over because it's too hard to remember. Whereas if you said, we specialise in helping businesses working in the childcare industry, I can easily remember that and if I'm at a BBQ and someone tells me that's what they do, I can quickly suggest they contact your small business.
In my case, I coach small business owners who are....
- Ready to GROW but not sure where to start
- Overwhelmed managing their GROWTH
- Looking for possibilities to GROW further
And then when I'm chatting with potential clients, I'm also listening to see whether they are ready for me ie are they coachable and ready to make some changes to grow their business.
So if you want to find more money in your small business, spend some time thinking about who your ideal customer is (and is not) including:
- are they individuals or businesses (B2C or B2B)?
- what industry sectors (no more than 3) do you specialise in?
- what turnover do they need to have to work with you?
- how many staff do they need to have to work with you?
- what traits do they have to have? If you're not sure, then think about your best and worst clients and this will tell you what you're looking for.
So please stop marketing to everyone, otherwise all it does is show you're just like every other small business rather than what's really different about your business from your competitors.
SIMPLE WAY #2 Mine The Gold In Your Database
If you look at marketing strategies these days, they are all focused on getting new customers, and it's the new customers who get the better deals.
Look at any Telco or Insurance ads and see the deals they are offering only new customers. Yet the loyal customers – the ones who've been there the longest and stayed with them through the good times and bad – they usually get none of these opportunities.
Ever done a price comparison on your insurance and when you go back to your provider with a better offer, they'll probably say 'sorry we can't beat that, or we can only do that price for new customers'. Which means they'd prefer to focus their time and energy on getting more new customers then keeping their existing customers happy and truly loyal.
Result: You move to their competitor.
Outbound Engine's article compares customer retention marketing versus customer acquisition marketing and states that acquiring a new customer can cost
five times more than retaining an existing customer.
I know which one I'd like to do more of, don't you?
One of my coaching clients runs first aid training and they were struggling to get enrolments. When we chatted, I asked about their enrolment strategy and it was all focused on getting new business rather than ensuring their existing database did their 2 and 5 year renewal training with them.
So I told them to develop a system which shows them everyone's renewal date, and then develop an automated email reminder sequence 90 days, 60 days and 30 days from this date with a link to enrol in the upcoming course. If they still hadn't enrolled by then, I told them to call and enrol them right then on the phone, telling the customer they didn't want them to lose their job because their first aid accreditation had expired.
By implementing this new and simple enrolment strategy with the supporting systems, they increased their customer retention rate from less than 50% to over 80% which provided a huge increase to their bottom line – both in dollars and productivity.
Remember: We have to make it easier for our customers to buy from us and sometimes, sending someone to your website to complete a form instead of doing it for them on the phone can be the difference between getting the sale or not.
So can you do something similar to my client to start mining the gold in your database?
By contacting customers who already know and trust you, you will undoubtedly increase your sales.
SIMPLE WAY #3 Get The Best 'Salesperson' Responding To Enquiries
In many small businesses, the owner or CEO is actually the best salesperson because they know the product/service being provided and the benefit to the customer.
But often, this job is delegated to administration or sales staff so the owner can spend their time on more important work.
Which in theory sounds great but what if this decision is actually costing you money rather than bringing in the dollars?
One of my coaching clients did this and although his staff were knowledgeable and great at their jobs, they weren't converting enough enquiries into sales.
And he had a great website enquiry system which showed him who enquired, what they wanted and the potential revenue of that enquiry.
When we examined this, I could see a large amount of enquiries would lead to over $50K worth of work for the month that hadn't been converted.
I said to the owner, 'if you rang these 5 people about their enquiries, how many would you convert into business?'.
His answer was 'probably all of them' so I said, 'then why aren't you spending the first hour of every day looking at this data and ringing every enquiry that's over say $5K?'.
He then looked at me and said, 'what a great and simple idea!'.
By changing the process to this and including some more detailed automations for the lesser amount enquiries, his bottom line significantly changed overnight.
So if you are the best person to bring in the money for your business, what system can you implement and what needs to change in how you manage your time to gain a similar result to my coaching client?
Whilst it's great to delegate tasks to your team to free up your time, you have to make sure they're the right tasks to benefit you and the business.
