7 'Profit Turnaround' initiatives to make 2012 a success for your business...

It's that time of year again when we look at our lifestyle and businesses, and resolve to improve on the previous year. Here are some suggested New Year 'resolutions' for your business in 2012, along with some links to HOW to make them happen.

1.) I will map out my strategies and drive my plan proactively, instead of reacting

Before you look at anything else for your business in 2012, step back and take a look at the big picture. What do you want to achieve? Where are the areas of growth for your business? [Marketing? Where do you start? How does a 72.8% lift in sales sound?]

Then map out the journey a prospect will go through [Creating a Marketing Machine], from first contact to conversion to repeat purchase. Make sure all the elements of your marketing fit together cohesively, and look to increase the conversion rate at EVERY stage of the sales process.

2.) I will track ALL my marketing, from lead to conversion to future sales

There is nothing more true in marketing than the old adage: "If you do not measure, you cannot manage." The problem is, everyone pays lip service to this truism, but the importance of measuring and testing your marketing is often overlooked. [Are you looking for sales in all the wrong places?]

The biggest excuse business owners use is that they are too busy to measure. However, if that's YOU ... think of it this way. You may be "busy" with procedures that are leaking business to your competitors, or at the very least, not achieving the profit margins you deserve.

The bottomline is - if you constantly test the effectiveness of everything you do, while at the same time constantly trying to improve performance, you will ultimately succeed in optimising your profits.

3.) When I am selling, I will do more "ASKING" than I do "telling"

Unquestionably THE most powerful approach in selling is by asking questions [A powerful lesson in asking questions]: questions about your prospect, their situation, their needs, and what they're looking for. 

Again, this seems SO patently OBVIOUS! But listen to yourself. Listen to your sales people. Are enough of the right questions being asked to truly diagnose the problem or need? There’s a real temptation most especially with a salesperson with lots of product knowledge, to revert to TELL MODE.

Be like an investigative doctor, probing deeply about the symptoms in order to diagnose the problem before prescribing the treatment. Doing it any other way would be professional malpractice. The great thing about asking questions and listening to the prospect’s answers is that you can then ‘prescribe’ the solution exactly for their needs, using their language.

Getting to know what your prospects are looking for is the quickest way of increasing your conversion rates, the effectiveness of your ads, and ultimately, bottomline. [Improve your conversion rates]

4.) I will follow-up my old leads

Many years ago, a switched on client of ours, Mark Hartley of The Tree Doctor in Rooty Hill in Sydney (yes, Rooty Hill) purchased another tree surgeon business. He came across their old ‘quote book’, but was told all those leads were dead. Not daunted, he got his team to follow up every 'dead' lead, until they told him not to. He simply DIDN'T give up.

Result? He converted 32% of the old leads on the first follow up! And a further 10% in subsequent approaches. He estimated that one idea was worth around $80,000 in additional sales to him, and more than funded the purchase of the business he’d taken over!

So what should you do? Ensure you squeeze every possible sale, (as long as you do it nurturously and ethically) with a Multiple Contact Strategy. [Hidden Profits in Multiple Contact Strategies]

5.) I will only create 'educative' marketing material

Businesses across the country pour money down the drain with 'branding' ads. Ads with catchy slogans and lots of white space. Ads that quite simply do not work. [Why would a salesperson be vauge and walk away?]

Sure, a punchy headline [the 20x multiplier - headline] and a compelling offer [Multiply your success up to 300%] are important, but if you do not educate as to the REASONS WHY a prospect should act [Truth About Advertising] (whether that is contacting you, requesting a free report, or buying from you), they won't. You wouldn't expect gimmicky, punchy lines from a salesperson, and selling in the written word is no different.

Make a point this coming year to only create brochures, advertisements, sales letters, etc., that EDUCATE.

6.) I will get my quotes paid on time

When I first started out in consulting over 27 years ago, I used to invoice my clients and wait to be paid. It only took ONE client to fail to pay, leaving leave me with thousands of dollars of bills to pay my suppliers on his behalf, to teach me the folly of that.

So from that point on, my ‘terms’ have been 50% up front, and 50% on delivery of the creative. It works for me. Or in the case of monthly installments, they are paid up front on day ONE of each month.

You ARE no different, UNLESS you choose to be. It’s all about positioning. [Are your invoices inviting bad debts?]

It’s your choice as to whether you stand meekly in line, waiting to be paid, and being someone else’s ‘rich uncle’. Or whether you establish the ground rules, and be proud that you deliver such an amazing service, and that you expect to be paid.

One more tip. Consider re-writing your quotes to reflect this new mindset. [Are your quotes losing you business?]

7.) I will create a white paper (or another white paper)

One of the best ways to increase the number of prospects who contact you is by creating a white paper [Could this get you a truckload of quality leads?]. It is a great way to find prospects at all stages of the buyer cycle, from the ready-to-buy to those who are interested but perhaps months or years off buying.

But more than that, having a ‘white paper’ also positions you as the 'expert' in the industry, and gives you an opportunity to pre-educate your prospects before selling to them.

So it has a two-fold effect: it increases leads, and it increases conversions.

That’s it for 2011. My team and I wish you every success and great prosperity in the year ahead …

Chris Newton

Results Corporation

If you know anyone who would find value in reading this article, please forward (or tweet) this link on to them.

Do your profit cogs have teeth missing?

I sat across the desk from a business owner who has a great business concept.  His business should have been doing a whole lot better than it is.  

I could see this wasn’t because of any ‘financial meltdown’.   It was because some of the ‘cogs’ in his business that should have been producing profit, weren’t ‘meshing’.  And faulty cogs in a business chew relentlessly through profits that should be in the bank.

Now, I love bringing things down to their lowest common denominator.  So I pulled out my pen and asked him for a piece of blank paper ... And found him an extra 240% net profit.

I’ve been doing this for 28 years, so finding that additional profit was fairly straightforward.  It’s something I’ve done with hundreds of businesses. 

In this case …

I looked at his lead generation, and clearly it wasn’t working effectively.  In fact, it wasn’t working at all.  His ads had weak headlines. There was no call to action.  The ads did little to tell his ‘magic story’.  And they did even less for his image.


I showed him that by re-writing his ads, and by making some basic changes to his website, and by proposing a way to double his referrals … he would conservatively increase his sales leads by 85% … with very little effort.


Then I focused on his current conversion of enquiries to sales.  His gut had been telling him this was a weak ‘cog’.  In fact, his people were way worse at converting sales than he, especially over the phone.  They’d take names, send brochures with a form letter, and THINK they were selling.


A simple role play of what NOT TO DO, and an explanation of some supporting sales collateral, and we agreed he would, at the very LEAST, improve his sales hit rate from the present 3 out of ten to 4.  That was ultra conservative.


And while that doesn’t sound much, that small improvement represents a 33% increase in sales.  I believe we can lift it to 6 out of ten personally.


Then I looked at his pricing. He had been way too wary of putting his prices up, but with the new presentation and sales collateral I described, agreed it’d be a snap. I reminded him too that sellers will often have more problem with price than the buyer ever will.


At this point, I stopped the exercise.  I knew that if we continued to add in more ‘profit factors’, his profit potential would look unbelievably huge.  But even that little exercise took his sales from $2,850 a week to some $6,500 a week. And his profits from $950 to over $4,000 … a week.


Here’s the really interesting part in all this...


He’d been holding back from taking his ‘hot business concept’ to other parts of the country, because the profits were too thin.  Now, he could see a whole new profit ‘engine room’ that will allow him to expand gradually, but with absolute confidence.


You know, it’s this pencil and a blank sheet of paper exercise that has kept me buzzing all these years.  In some cases, I see such huge potential, I may well get involved in a JV with the client.  And in this may well be the case here.  


Not every venture qualifies to that level.  But there are some amazing ‘sleepers’ out there with profits waiting to be unlocked.  


In a similar exercise several weeks prior...

By phone this time, I identified the missing ‘cogs’ for an importer of industrial equipment. 

Fixing his processes will take his business from under $2 million to over $6 million in the next twelve to eighteen months.  With an 800% increase in his NET profit line.

Look, before I go on, I've got to say something...

As I write this, I get the sense that it sounds like gratuitous trumpet blowing.  But in truth I'm only stating the facts.  And if I don't tell you the sort of things that I do, it won't get your attention, and that will serve neither of us.


Frankly I see all too many business people missing these opportunities.  They don’t measure the key performance indicators that flag these problems, so they don’t know it’s happening.  Or if they do, they haven’t been able to find ‘marketing’ people who understand that their business IS a piece of machinery, let alone who have the skills to fix it.


I’ve worked with literally hundreds of businesses, doing this.  I’ve owned retail businesses, had equity in a national trade service franchise, worked with professional firms … and I’ve done it over and over again. 


In my seminars, I’ve worked through my examples … such as a lead generation ‘information based’ strategy for a retirement village client that produced a 3,000% increase in enquiry. 

And wrote an ad that produced a 280% increase in sales for an automotive aftermarket company.  And I developed a sales training video program for a national tyre group that DOUBLED their forecourt sales.


For the trade service national franchise group, I developed a selling presentation script which increased the success in conversions to sales by better than 80% for some of the operators, and increased their revenue performance by an average 120%.


My case studies fill my manuals, e-books and online resource library.


Why am I telling you this?

I’d like to offer you an opportunity to have me (and my team) do it for you.
Normally, unless it’s on a profit share basis, I don’t consult one-on-one anymore … but this is different.


First up, I’ve been really taken aback by the overwhelming response we’ve had to this blog. 

One blog entry a few weeks back was featured in the New York Times business blog and a U.S. Chamber of Commerce blog...

But more than that, I've been impressed by the comments coming back from my subscribers and readers. 

There’s clearly a lot of pain out there, and a lot of businesses looking for help.  And for a small window of time, I can provide it.


Second, I’m doing it as an advanced training exercise for my team over the ‘down time’ between now and the end of January. 

So I am looking to do a number of small projects.  For those four to five weeks, we’ll roll our sleeves up and work on the ‘cogs’ for clients’ businesses … helping individual businesses get geared up for a blockbuster 2012.


Third, my experience tells me that in one or more of the projects we’ll review, there will be another ‘sleeper’ … a business 'super success story' waiting to happen.  


If that turns out to be your business, there might be a JV opportunity, ramping up your business to a whole new level, in return for an agreed profit share.


Either way, this is a once a year opportunity.  If you want to take it, you can simply contact us, briefly outline your business and tell us what ‘cogs’ you feel are missing that hold you back from making it a goldmine.


And if we agree it has potential, we’ll roll our sleeves up and get down to the nuts and bolts of how we’d work with you.


How much will having us work on your project cost you?   As a ballpark, it could be in the region of $2,000 to $12,000 … depending on what is entailed.  


But let’s be very clear on something. 

If we do take a project on, we will have VERY clearly mapped out in advance what the potential outcomes will be for you … at best and worst case.  And if it doesn’t show potential to rapidly return you your investment in multiples of net profit increases, we’ll politely decline.


Importantly too, I’ll be personally involved … at every stage.  Including the creation of ‘marketing collateral’, scripting of sales presentations, redesign of websites, providing of sales training tools.  Whatever it takes to make success happen.

As well as identifying those ‘cogs’ that are going to get the ‘business machine’ running at its peak, and that produce the quickest and biggest impact on profits.


And importantly, we will do the actual ‘where the rubber hits the road’ stuff that’s required to IMPLEMENT …


So there you have it … if you’re interested in having us work on your business in our down time between now and the end of January, use the contact button below and we’ll be in touch.


Don’t procrastinate however.  This isn’t a contrived ‘while stocks last … free set of steak knives’ offer.  It’s an honest and straightforward fact that we can ONLY take on a small handful of projects.  We’ll give our all to those projects … but those who aren’t quick to respond will simply miss out.


And without sounding too cute about it, 2012 is going to be a year where businesses will struggle and flounder if they try to operate profitably with ‘inefficient cogs’ … or they can take affirmative action and get solid marketing strategies in place, to guarantee they’ll roar into life in 2012 and produce windfall profits, while others are battening down and pulling back and wondering what hit them.


Again, to flag your interest in this opportunity, use the contact button below and we’ll be in touch.


Either way, my kindest regards.  All the best to you and your business, now and 2012 …


Chris Newton

Short business development Video from our UK colleagues

 Our colleagues in our UK office of Results Corporation have put together an excellent video that really encapsulates the basics on how we create a solid plan for optimising sales and client acquisitions.

To watch it, just click here. It may take a little while to load, but it is well worth it.

Or copy the URL below and paste it into your browser's URL address:

http://www.resultscorporation.co.uk/MARKETINGSALESMACHINE.asp?S=1

Enjoy,

Chris Newton

If you know anyone who would find value in receiving the recession proofing white paper or indeed to receive Strategy Briefs, feel free to email Daniel at: daniel@resultscorporation.com.au, and he'll organise to include them.

Mapping out your Master Strategy

If your business is like most businesses out there, you may sporadically do some unconnected, unrelated promotions, but have no real master strategy. 

As I'm sure you have discovered, this approach produces varying outcomes, and offers virtually no measurement or accountability. 

And when these random promotions DO capture leads there’s typically no system for handling them. They'll get misplaced, left so long they go cold, or mishandled because there is no follow-up system and no one has been assigned responsibility.

This results in massive wastage of marketing dollars, and massive inefficiencies, and ‘leakage’ of sales opportunities that should have been in the bag.

Now, this may not accurately reflect your situation. But even if there is a shade of truth in this scenario, you need to fix it now! 

TEN STEPS to a Lead Generation Master Strategy

A Lead Generation Master Strategy involves mapping out a series of highly logical steps, from lead to sale and beyond. This should be done before even considering the ‘creative’ elements of the pieces. 

1. Set Sales Targets. How many new sales (as distinct from repeat customers) are required in a given period to achieve the revenue targets outlined in the overall marketing plan. Define this targeted figure and you can work backwards to determine the activity required to get it. Starting with …

2. How many leads are required? Determine the conversion rate of leads-to-sales which will determine how many LEADS must be generated to achieve the sales targeted in step 1. 

3. Determine the ‘acquisition allowable cost of a lead’. As a simple example, if the company is prepared to invest $1,000 to get a SALE, and 1 in 10 leads turns into a sale, then the ‘allowable’ to get a LEAD is $100. Simple concept, but few companies know these figures.

4. One Step or Multi-step? Clearly, the bigger the buying decision, the more steps will be needed from initial lead to serious prospect. EACH promotion will have its own strategy. A website generated enquiry for example, may be followed by a qualifying phone call, sending of information with a promise to follow up, a follow up phone call, fact finding meeting, demonstration, proposal, further follow up call … and so on. It’s a system, not ad hoc activity. 

5. Sales Processes. What process will maximize sales? This depends on the nature of the product or service, and how ‘warm’ and ‘pre-educated’ the lead is. 

6. Target Markets. The correct selection of target markets impacts on your outcomes up to 1,000% or more. This one fact provides you with more leverage than virtually any other in your entire marketing thrust. What are your best target markets for new leads? The logical ones are not necessarily the best. 

7. The Matrix of Activities. When the various media options are selected, a matrix can be drawn up. This matrix shows at a glance all the efforts to be tested, dates, response lead times, and most importantly, the cost per lead and cost per sale from EACH promotion. Like the conductor of an orchestra (with the overall objectives as your music sheet), you can increase the intensity of various promotions, add new ones and reduce or fade out others as the individual performances are analyzed.

8. The Allocation of Responsibilities. Once the processes have been flow charted, responsibilities need be established to ensure that the processes identified actually happen.  

9. The ‘Creative’. Being creative is fun. But actually, it should be the LAST thing you focus on. Here’s a key fundamental truth: Once the strategy is right, the creative will come. But good creative with poor strategy will never work effectively. 

10. The Review Process. At key points in the implementation of the Master Plan, perhaps monthly for some objectives, perhaps campaign by campaign for others, review the outcomes. Are you achieving what your overall plan requires. If not, what change in direction do you need to take to get back on course?

This approach takes discipline and constant attention. But it’s so analytical, and structured … it forces you to be more successful in your marketing. And how bad can that be?