In a previous Tuesday Profit Tip, I shared with you the first step in dramatically improving the results of everything you ALREADY do well in your business – marketing campaigns, sales processes, lead generation techniques, upsells, referrals, collections, inventory management and so on.

This system, which I call “Leveraging Your Success”, can instantly add 5%, 10% or even 20% improvements to critical performance metrics like “sales conversion rates” or shaving 10% off the time it takes to perform key tasks.

Perhaps the best part is that none of these incredible added streams of profit will cost you a dime to implement, and you will meet little or no resistance from your staff, and only praise from your customers.

Finding EASY Profits Within Your Business

The first step of the four part series, “Leveraging Your Success”, which I shared a few months back, involved taking a “Success Inventory” of everything that is working well in your company – marketing campaigns, sales processes, lead generation techniques, upsells, referrals, collections, inventory management and so on.

To illustrate the power of this simple process, a Computer Reseller client sells maintenance contracts as part of hardware and software purchases. And this provided about $50,000 a year in revenue…not bad. But can they improve their “Success System”?

You bet…Easy.

In fact, by following the Leverage Your Success system, they have increased the results by over 300%!

Step 1 involved simply identifying their successful procedures, that’s it. Often awareness alone can cause you to identify simple changes that you can make to instantly improve results.

Step 2 of the Leveraging Your Success system involves documenting the current “Success Formula” that is currently used to produce the positive results (whether in writing or not), and spot opportunities for improvement.

Now this may sound trivial, especially for those of you that are resistant to written procedures. However, I have witnessed massive transformations happen when a business simply re-evaluates the steps of a procedure…that’s it…imply re-evaluates them.
Every “Successful” Procedure You Have Put in Place Continues to
Perform at Peak Levels…Right?

Don’t you wish?

I was coaching one of my clients, a $25M specialty supplier, last week. We were discussing “Cementing in Change”, the fourth step of the Leverage Your Success system, because they had a realization that many of the things they implemented, which had produced measurable profit results, would often return to the old levels of performance as they switched gears and worked on the next great idea for improving the company.

Has this ever happened in YOUR business?

If so, then you can likely understand how simply revisiting ANY procedure or process, in and of itself, can result in instant performance increases.

The Power of Observation

As a CEO, I would make it a point every 3 months to spend 3-4 hours actually performing a function in the company. One time I was performing the invoicing function along with the 10 or so other invoicers in the department. As I went through the process I kept coming across opportunities to make improvements. I would ask the team, “Why do we do this step this way?” Routinely I would hear them say, “That’s the way we were taught.” Yet I knew that was not the way it was originally set up.

By the time I finished my invoicing duties for the day, I had written down a dozen simple improvements, some simply involved correcting the way things were supposed to be done and the rest were ideas the staff had come up with.

The outcome was incredible. In fact, just one of the changes that had not been followed was a price increase on a particular service type for a major customer. The run rate on this “missed” price increase was over $1,000,000 a year…in lost PROFIT!

If you have not done this simple process before you are in for a surprise, perhaps a big surprise.

ACTION YOU CAN TAKE NOW

This week, take a few minutes to evaluate a successful procedure, any procedure, which produces positive results – perhaps a lead generation process, sales conversion process, upsell process, etc.

If it is written then first read through it. If not, that is ok…for now.
Next, have someone walk you through the procedure they follow (if you are a lone ranger then walk though it yourself). Note 1-2 things that you see that are either not being done correctly, or at all, or could be improved with a simple change. No hardcore evaluation at this point, just notice the obvious.

My guess is you will find a real “ah-ha” and some nice profit increases to go along with it.

Small Business Growth Club Member Access

If you are a member then you can immediately access the entire four part Leverage Your Success Series by clicking http://www.smallbusinessgrowthclub.com/members/372.cfm

If you want to learn more about this program, click http://www.smallbusinessgrowthclub.com/public/322.cfm

To your success,

Scott D Hallman

Hi, this is Scott Hallman and welcome to this week’s Tuesday Profit Tip where we bring you real world ways to Build-Grow-Manage-Profit from your business.

Many business owners say the 1 reason they fail to achieve their business growth goals is because of the lack of time (or desire) to sell. Whether you like it or not, “selling” is part of the game & a BIG part. Yet few business owners we talk to have been able to implement a sales system that produces consistent, measurable results, and even fewer that have a system that requires zero out of pocket costs.

The Fact is the Vast Majority of Business owners Either Hate to “Sell” or Are Poor at Selling… Are You One of Them?

It is estimated that 85% of businesses are started by “technicians” (according to Michael Gerber) that are good at producing the product or service they provide. So the consultant at IBM starts an IT Consulting business & the carpet cleaning manager at ServicePro starts his own carpet cleaning business, and so on. And if you are a professional (doctor, CPA, etc) you likely never ran a business, much less were trained to sell.

Now perhaps you are a great salesperson. But often find that you cannot seem to find the time to sell due to the demands of the business.

So what’s a skilled technician with weak skills or lackluster selling desire to do? Hire a Superstar Salesperson.

What’s a busy business owner with great sales skills to do? Hire a Superstar Salesperson.

But Hiring a Sales Rep Costly, and With This Economy I Can’t Afford it… or Can I?

Perhaps you are cash strapped and believe that you can’t afford to hire a sales person, even though you passionately believe that they can help take your business to the next level.

Or you have cash but have been burned by unproductive and flakey salespeople in the past and therefore have watched your investment produce little or no result. I see this all the time; a business will hire a sales rep (after 1-2 interviewed candidates) and pay say $2,500 a month (salary or draw). Then the sales rep fails to perform up to their expectations and the company let’s them go after 3-6 months. This results in $7,500-$15,000 of wasted cash. Then, determined to make this work, the company repeats the cycle 2-3 more times, now $25,000-$50,000 in the hole and conclude that hiring sales reps will not work for their business.

Three Common Mistakes That Guarantee Failure

There are three common mistakes that businesses make that lead to a failed sales team and the $7,500-$50,000 profit loss I mentioned in the above scenario.

1) The first is that they are paying for time and not performance.

2) The second is they are hiring without a system in place for dramatically increasing the probability of success.

3) The third is that they lack a management system that arms the sales rep with proper training and allows the company to scientifically measure and track progress and results.

For today’s tip I am going to cover 1 – Paying for time. The logical solution is to hire a sales rep on a performance basis – paying only for profitable results. This way you can literally build a sales team cost-free. “OK, Scott, I learned that one in kindergarten”, you say? Well, that may be true but if you have failed to get this particular “growth tactic” to work then stay with me for a few more minutes.

The Problems with Commission Only Sales Reps

If you have hired commission only sales reps in the past then you likely faced three primary problems:

1) Massive turnover
2) Poor performance
3) Management Headaches

First, the reality.

Sales turnover is guaranteed no matter how well you hire or you pay. In fact, a successful ratio is 1:4. One good performer for every 4 good hires (1:10 or even 1:25 without a good hiring, training, compensation and management system in place). It amazes me how the “sales gurus’ fail to share this reality.

One factor that causes unnecessary turnover, management headaches and poor performance occurs when the sales rep cannot realistically earn their baseline income requirements in the first month (or longer). They immediately lose enthusiasm and begin looking for another job on your dime.

If the sales cycle (the time to reach a qualified prospect, promote your product, get approval, get the contract signed, get the order placed, get the product shipped, and get paid) is 30 days or greater, then a commission only sales model almost guarantees failure.

As an example, say a company typically takes about 60 days to close a prospect and get paid. And they pay say 10% commission on a $2,000 average sale. The sales rep cannot make any money for at least 60 days! And worse, it may take 90 or even 120 days before they are making enough sales to generate their base income needs.

To help reduce turnover when paying commission only, we created a concept we call, “Salary-Like”(tm) compensation. What is that? It is where you pay an accelerated or inflated commission for a short period of time in order to help the rep earn their base needs. We teach a detailed program on this (I will be doing an upcoming Tele-Seminar on this subject) but the basic concept is to pay the sales rep for specific activities that logically lead to a sale, say for a written proposal and/or “accelerating the commissions” by paying 2, 3 even 5 times higher percentage during the first 2-3 months – so they can earn their base required compensation. As long as this commission does not exceed the gross profit it represents zero out of pocket costs.

Here is a Simple Action You Can Take

First, determine what hiring a full or part time sales rep could generate for your company IF they were cost free. Be conservative in your estimates.

Next, if the upside is significant, create a simple compensation plan that enables them to earn a reasonable commission month 1 – say $2,500. Do not be concerned as to whether you earn a dime on these initial sales (if they will be finding sales you otherwise would not handle yourself).

Next, place an ad in Craigslist and hire yourself a sales rep.

Small Business Growth Club Member Access

To learn how to hire, train and manage Sales Superstars, simply go to the “Sales” Training Section at www.smallbusinessgrowthclub.com to get full access (Platinum Members) to eight sales training workshops by my friend Chet Holmes, author of the Ultimate Sales Machine and Fortune 500 Sales Trainer.

Also, I will be announcing a teleseminar training workshop on this subject in the next few days, where I will go into complete detail on how to create a Salary-Like Compensation Program for any business, regardless of size, industry or management expertise.

Go for it. Do this simple exercise and Profit NOW(tm).

How to Double Your Sales Force Without Spending a Dime.

Welcome to this week’s Tuesday Profit Tip where we bring you real-world ways to Build-Grow-Manage-Profit from your business. My goal is that you earn at least $1,000 an hour for every hour you spend learning and applying our profit strategies.

We have all heard that developing strategic Partnerships or Joint Ventures can transform your business. This is likely the most powerful marketing leverage on the planet! As you have learned, there are tons of other businesses that have strong relationships with your targeted prospects.

YES, but do you know HOW to systematically develop such a program? If you are like the 94% of the 68 entrepreneurs that we surveyed (that have spent at least $2,000 on marketing programs) the answer is a solid NO!

I am talking about the critical details. To creating a winning formula– how to find, reach, and approach the right partners: what to say to them, how to craft equitable deal structures, contracts (if necessary), payment options, measurements, profit analysis and more.

A Guru’s Missing Advice causes Thousands to Fail…were you one of them?

I have talked to hundreds of companies that attempted to create strategic alliances and the vast majority failed. And they failed for a variety of reasons but one important reason was that they tried this with just 1-2 potential partners.

My friend and big time marketing guru, is one of the leading proponents of strategic alliances. One day we were spending a day together brainstorming and we talked about strategic alliances. So I shared that the problem is that most companies try this with 1-2 companies and then they give up. I said, and that is only the beginning of the problem. They have no clue on HOW to implement such a program.

He looked me in the eyes and said, “Well you know that you need to have 50 in play to close one great partnership!” I was blown away and said “Well, you never mentioned that in your seminars and training programs.”

So YES, Strategic Alliances can be powerful but only IF you know how to implement them. In our Strategic Endorsement System, we teach the complete 10 Step Detailed process. But for this week’s Profit Tip, I want to get you started on a simple way to drive in new clients, customers and patients using this powerful growth strategy.

Strategic Endorsement Opportunity 1
Get Other Businesses to Endorse You to Their Trusted Customers

How can you gain access to the customers of other businesses that sell products and services that compliment yours? If you could point a laser beam at your targeted prospects and then get someone they trust to refer them to you, this would be the ultimate in leveraged marketing, wouldn’t it? It is like having a separate sales force that you don’t have to manage or pay unless they produce profitable customers. Effectively taking advantage of this opportunity can double or triple the number of customers you can sell to, without any risk or cost to you!

In addition, the cost to reach these “ready to purchase” prospects is a fraction of what it would cost you in advertising to find such prospects. Why? Because the “strategic endorsement partner” you align with already has the trust of your target prospect – namely their customer. By them introducing your business to their customers, you instantly create a “warm” feeling before you even make your offer.

Let’s discuss three (3) ideal situations where other businesses can endorse you to their customers.

1) They can endorse your product or service to their customers that have a need, but which they can’t fulfill.

By them helping their customers to locate top quality companies with favorable prices and terms, they are really providing a service to them. And by you performing a quality service for these customers, you are performing a valuable service for this strategic endorsement partner as well – that is, you are helping them maintain a lifelong relationship with their customers. Make sense?

The second situation where other businesses can endorse you is…

2) When specific purchases trigger related purchases.

Many purchases are “linked” to other purchases. When these subsequent purchases occur shortly after the initial purchase, it creates an incredible timing opportunity for endorsement.

For example:

The homebuyer must choose a home inspector and mortgage broker within 48-72 hours after the offer has been accepted.

A person buying tickets to a play will often call for a restaurant within minutes.

A person booking a hotel for their wedding reception will certainly be selecting a dress, invitations and so on within days or a few weeks.

Wouldn’t it be of untold value to the home inspector if the Realtor informed them that someone just signed a contract? Or better yet referred this buyer to them – Boom, instant sale!

The third situation where other businesses can endorse you is…

3. When inquiring prospects don’t convert to customers.

These prospects represent someone that took the step to inquire, and you and your strategic endorsement partner can both win by helping these prospects purchase from you.

What are the situations that cause someone to inquire but not purchase?

The businesses’ product or service is either too high or too low in quality.

Perhaps the prospect wants to build an elaborate room addition and your strategic endorsement partner exclusively does framing. In the past he turned down the job, but now he can refer this work to you – the master builder – and in turn get both the framing job and a referral fee as well.

The business is too busy to service the customer timely.

What do most businesses do when someone inquires about their service and they are currently buried with customer orders? Right, they say “I am sorry but we are booked or can’t get to that repair for six weeks or can’t install your landscaping until next year.” Do we, the “I want it now” generation, wait? Heck no – we find someone else, don’t we?

This brings up a critical distinction:

The prospect that calls a hotel to book their wedding reception, only to find out that it is unavailable until after their wedding date, is really called what? An absolute guaranteed customer! After all, they will most certainly call other hotels until they find a banquet hall and 50-100 rooms won’t they?

If this hotel created a strategic endorsement with another hotel or similar quality, they now can say to the inquiring prospect “I am sorry we are booked but The Plaza Hotel is quite elegant (if a high end buyer). Their Grand Ballroom is filled with crystal chandeliers and beautiful mahogany decor. Louise has been a master wedding specialist for over 25 years. I can call to see if they have availability and have them call you or you can reach Louise at 555-1212. They could also say “If I call I can save you 10% on the entire package because of our affiliation.”

Wouldn’t this motivate these inquiring prospects to at least call?

Let’s Put This Information to Use

Ok, let’s identify where you may have strategic endorsement opportunities in which you can leverage off of other company’s client list.

What I want you to do is write down 1-2 opportunities that you have to provide your product or services to other competitors. Also, list which products or service would be the best fit. For example, the hotel could link up with wedding coordinators, churches, wedding gown shops and so on.
P.S. To access the full 90 minute audio training workshop and Implementation templates, simply click http://www.smallbusinessgrowthclub.com/public/356.cfm

Several weeks ago I told you about a private, invitation only networking event I attended at the Silverado Resort in Napa Valley, where I was privileged to be on the invitation list with 42 of the world’s leading business coaches, speakers and trainers – Bill Bartmann, Chet Homes, Jack Canfield, Ron Leblanc, John Carlton, Alex Mandossian, Stephen Pierce and several other leading internet and offline marketers.

Millions of Dollars in Profit Potential but only if…

The ideas were flowing like Niagara Falls…But now we are all back home and back to email backlogs and daily business demands. So how can we ensure that we take advantage of all those awesome ideas we just learned from each other – inside tricks and tips not shared outside this elite group…conversion secrets, list building systems, profit optimization strategies, sales systems and more?

Now, Everything Has Changed … Are You Ready?

The content of this blog is the same as I did several weeks ago but it has never been more important than NOW. I urge you to go through this exercise and get crystal clear on what you and your staff must focus on in this unprecedented economic collapse.

What great ideas are buried in your piles, or file cabinets? Ideas that could be critical to your cash flow and profits in this challenging economy? What do you need to dedicate laser focus on?

Here is the problem. In a state of overwhelm, like many are feeling today, we tend to do nothing…therefore missing out on implementing things we KNOW will produce results. Has this ever happened to you? Have you attended an event or read a book or listened to a training program and got a bunch of great ideas and then implemented only a few, if any? And do you have a list or a pile of notes that you plan to get to someday…but never do? Well if so, the system I am going to share with you can transform your ability to execute way more of your best ideas, now and in the future, so that you reap tons of extra profit from your business.

Here is The Secret for NEVER Again Missing Out on Implementing Your Best Ideas

So, how can you ensure that you always work on the most impactful projects and tasks so that you create exponential growth in your business or just to survive during this economic Tsunami?

Well, the most powerful way I have found is to deploy the Hierarchy of Opportunity(tm) System I created a few years back to help seminar attendees “crunch down” all the ideas they receive at these 3+ days event.

What is The Hierarchy of Opportunity? Well, in essence, it is a system for prioritizing your projects. What makes this system unique is that it helps you prioritize based on your unique set of criteria:

Your ability to implement the idea
Your capital and cash flow
Your long term strategy
Your risk tolerance
Your business demands
Your time demands
Your resources, including people
And more

The actual full blown workshop, which I will conduct this Thursday at 5:30 CST, will take participants through the Hierarchy Workshop, focused on the challenges we face in the market today.

It is an hour long process that involves the business owners listing all their ideas, and then going through a ranking process so they end up with a prioritized list of 25-50 realistically doable ideas (works for every area of your business by the way), complete with the expected profit impact of each one. It ends with a ProfitMap(tm) that graphically has all the worthwhile ideas on one single page, ranked, that they can access anytime, for life…very powerful.

Let’s Help You Get Projects Done That You Have Been Putting Off – Ones that are Critical to Not Just Survival, but “Thrival”

To help you get started, select an idea you believe will have a measurable impact on your revenue and profit…one that you have been putting off.

Next, apply the abbreviated list of criteria I listed above to determine what is keeping you from executing on the idea. Is it the investment required? Or the time involved?

Next, determine the expected profit (and cash flow) IF you actually implemented the idea. Let’s say you wanted to implement a new referral program and felt that it would bring in 10 customers over a year that would generate $5,000 in profit each over time. That would equal $50,000…that’s $50,000 in lost profits you are missing out on due to your procrastination!

Next, determine if the thing that is causing you to “put it off” is worth missing out on the $50,000…if not, use this to motivate you to TAKE ACTION!

At last week’s network event, Alex Mandossian said, “Every business on the planet needs to go through your (Scott’s) Hierarchy workshop.”

Go for it. Do this simple exercise and Profit NOW(tm).

How to “own” more of the business your customers purchase.

Welcome to this week’s Tuesday Profit Tip where we bring you real-world ways to Build-Grow-Manage-Profit from your business. My goal is that you earn at least $1,000 an hour for every hour you spend learning and applying our profit strategies.

When I was taking my technology company public, we purchased a company that was run by two incredible entrepreneurs, Jessie and Rohit. While we were over-focused on getting new clients, they were focused on maximizing the revenue per client – literally “owning” these clients. And the results spoke for themselves. They were by far the most profitable division we had, and this fact caused me to pay close attention.

You see, they learned that getting new clients was extremely difficult in the competitive arena of technology. They also learned that they could penetrate deeply and “mushroom” out (expand) into many more opportunities within these same customers & and as they did, they developed stronger relationships, had more opportunities and actually became harder to replace.

In their case they used this strategy to dramatically, and I mean dramatically, increase revenue per client. As an example, they landed a large telecommunications client (namely due to confidentiality) with a small $10,000 strategy job. Rather than send in their $90 an hour consultants (as the bid provided for) they staffed it with a $225 an hour stud (at the same price). This brilliant move ensured the client was delighted and it also enabled the stud to “ask around” and identify other projects that were coming up.

Turning $10,000 into $26,000,000 Methodically

The result? The $10,000 job turned into over $1M per month, for 26 months! That is $26,000,000 for a $10,000 job!

Mushrooming is all about focusing on meeting more of the needs of your customers. It is about:

Understanding the client’s needs
Understanding how you (and a joint partner if needed) can meet their needs
Building relationships with multiple decision makers
Maintaining “stealth insider info” so you know what they are buying and from whom (and it will be you if you focus on this strategy)
Mushrooming applies to many types of businesses & perhaps all.

If you are a chiropractor it means understanding all their health issues and nutritional issues so you can meet more needs, and understanding their families needs as well

If you are a parts supplier to major corporations it means finding other purchasing agents that are not buying from you – both within that physical division and other divisions/locations

If you are a duck farmer it means getting out and visiting your customers to verify you are the sole supplier and if not, what you must do to be that

If you are a seasonal specialty item company that sells into large retail chains it means learning what other seasonal items the same buyers that trust you need/sell so you can create it or partner with someone that would die to have those relationships

If you are a carpet cleaning company it means learning about their needs for rug cleaning, repair, furniture cleaning, padding, and perhaps even other household cleaning needs

Mushrooming Protects Your Market and Margins

In Jessie and Rohit’s business, the strong presence in these accounts often meant they had little price pressure. Why? They were trusted, reliable, and fair.

So margins were awesome!

I used this same “mushrooming” strategy to protect my market share in my national medical record company. What started as a new concept developed by two of us quickly became a field of 1600 competitors, all who looked and sounded the same… sound familiar?

So, to protect ourselves, we mushroomed deeper by developing other services our hospital clients needed. This made it more difficult for the competitors to duplicate our offerings and it entrenched us more solidly in the hospitals we were in. We continued this year after year, which I am confident, was a big part of our remarkable 94% client retention rate over 8 years.

So “own” your customers and profit like never before. Apply this strategy and Profit NOW(tm).

To your success,

Scott D Hallman

P.S. If you are already a Small Business Growth Club member or are interested in accessing the step by step process for fully implementing strategy going directly to http://www.smallbusinessgrowthclub.com/public/352.cfm

How to Overcome Them and Turn Your Customers Into Your Greatest Sales Force.

Part 1

We have all heard that Referral Marketing represents one of the lowest cost and highest-leverage strategies on the planet. Why? The answer is simple. The cost to obtain a new customer from outside marketing is 500% to 1000% more expensive than a referral customer. Business owners can increase profits by 10% to 30% with an effective referral program.

But There is a BIG Problem

Unfortunately, this powerful business building strategy has been nearly put to death by many “business trainers” that touted its merits without teaching the HOW. As a result, business owners routinely make 16 common mistakes that keep them from having a continuous stream of high quality referral customers every month.

The Key is to “Activate” Your Customers

Most businesses do not have a formal referral system in place. Yes, they get referrals as a result of providing quality services and products & but these are passive. Turn these passive referrals into active referrals and watch your referral business soar. 
Passive referrals are those that happen by accident & that is, the customer refers someone to you without you doing anything to motivate this action. Now these are cool. After all, it feels great when a customer thinks that highly of you. But a passive process yields few referrals.

In contrast, an “Active Referral System(tm)” gets your customer involved in, well, actively recommending you to their friends, associates and family members. An Active Referral System engages your customers in the process. In fact, ideally they will contact their friend on your behalf and sing your praises.

On our membership site, www.smallbusinessgrowthclub.com, we teach an hour and a half workshop that helps members develop 5 Referral Systems. But for this week’s “Profit Tip” I want to share one key that will help you get more referrals now.

In order to get your customers “activated”, a few things must be in place:

You need to catch your customer in what I call a “peak referral state”. That is, when they are ecstatically happy with your product or service.

The key here is to know when these peak times are. Make a list and begin to watch for them. Here are a few examples to help you get started.

On the day that your customers jump in their new pool the first time, they are sure to be in a peak referral state.

When a patient shares the fact they feel better than they have in years, they are in a peak referral state.

When a customer gets their first checks from the website you created for them, they surely will be in a peak referral state.
However, the peak state is not always when the service or product is delivered. Instead, it is when the benefit is delivered. For example:

When a back patient is first treated, they may actually feel worse for a while & it may be on the 5th or 10th or even 20th visit before they get the breakthrough, and yes, at that visit they are in a peak referral state.

When a customer purchases your nutritional supplements it may take 2-3 months before they feel the positive effects &.it is therefore critical to determine this time frame in order to catch them in their “peak referral state”.
Sometimes the peak referral times are caused by outside forces.

Today, when the stock market had it biggest loss in history, would be a terrible time for a stock broker to ask his clients for a referral if they are in the market and just got creamed.

However, it may be a great time for the stock broker that had his clients “shorting the market” (betting the market would drop) to ask for referrals of clients whose friends and families just got creamed.
It is critical that you learn to ask for the referrals at precisely the correct time. It takes a bit of work but it will increase your referrals significantly. And perhaps more important, it will end that horrible feeling of being embarrassed or feeling awkward when asking a client for a referral.

So this week ask for a referral at the peak referral state and see what happens & who knows, it just may be contagious.

Apply this strategy and Profit NOW(tm).
To your success,

Scott Hallman

P.S. To get instant access to the full Active Referral Workshop, click here now http://www.smallbusinessgrowthclub.com/public/353.cfm

The “Productivity Enhancers” That May be Killing Your Business.

Hi, this is Scott Hallman and welcome to this week’s Tuesday Profit Tip(tm) that is focused on the “Manage” your business section of what we teach.

Technology has provided us with some incredible ways to increase productivity. But is it possible to get too much of a good thing? Well, when it comes to our personal availability – anywhere, anytime, in an instant, the answer is absolutely yes.

Now don’t get me wrong, 24/7 access can be a great thing, but it needs to be controlled and balanced to avoid contracting a Entrepreneurial Productivity Killer Virus’ that will weaken your ability to maximize your business potential.

If you are like many of our clients, you may have tremendous difficulty staying focused and therefore struggle with getting important tasks completed – even ones that can have a measurable improvement on your profits, lifestyle and competitiveness of your business. You may also have a habit of putting off planning “until you have time”.

If that describes you, even a little, then I think you will get a ton of value out of what I am going the share with you here.

It took a week in the extreme wilderness to get me to realize the problem

I just got back from the remote area in Canada, where one of our lake houses is located. It is remote to say the least. In fact, we are 40 minutes from a grocery store and there are only 19 homes and a few fishing lodges on this 10,000 acre lake!

There is not a lot to do up there except relax…something I have yet to learn to do well. And, the cell phone does not work here at all and there is no Internet access!

What I noticed while I was there was an incredible burst in my creativity. In fact, I could hardly write the thoughts down as fast as they came to me. I even finished two chapters of my book, which I have put off for two years. My ability to focus was unbelievable.

Well, you say, “That is because you were in paradise.” Perhaps, but my contention is that this had only a small part to do with it.

Let me continue with the story.

As we re-entered the US, via car, I instantly began getting calls, texts, emails – over 200 of them, and was back in the fast, constant interruption state of mind…you know, that state where it is almost impossible to stay focused on anything and where you feel this ludicrous need to answer every email, call and text immediately.

What occurred to me is that one of the major problems with Personal Productivity is these interruptions that are part of our 24/7 communication world… regardless of whether we are at dinner with your family, at a ball game, driving, sleeping, or working on an important project. We simply have little uninterrupted time these days and this can destroy our ability to stay focused and get things done.

Think about a time that you wrote a plan or thought through a complex problem or developed sales copy or a script, or designed a compensation plan, or any other activity that requires concentration. Now, how long did it take you to get in the “creative zone” – fifteen minutes, thirty minutes or even an hour? And if you were interrupted, how long did it take you to get back in the “creative zone”? Well, if you are like me, a one hour task can take four to five times longer with just a few interruptions.

Amazingly, as I am writing these very words my wife just came in and massively interrupted me with a non-urgent issue (my view anyway). And it totally interrupted my “creative zone”.

Where was I, oh yes…

It took the past to understand what we need in the future

When I built my first national company, I developed 90% of it while driving in the car, BEFORE there were affordable cell phones. I was in the car several hours a day and it was during that “quiet” time that I did my creative thinking and planning. I would leave a prospect’s or client’s office and instantly start creating solutions to the problems or improvement to our service.

My friend, Jay Abraham, once told me that when he writes copy he often puts it aside and does something relaxing until the inspiration hits and his creative juices go nuts…sometimes this takes him a week or more.

Give Yourself the Gift of Being Disconnected

So let me ask you a question. Do you give yourself permission to turn off the phones, email and interruptions to focus on important projects?

If not, my challenge to you is to carve out dedicated times each week where you allow yourself the chance to get into the”Creative Zone” by getting totally disconnected and working on important tasks and projects.

A couple important keys to doing this effectively:

It is critical that you give yourself time to unwind and get into state. This may take 30-60 minutes so don’t get frustrated.

Go somewhere where any signs of work and electronic communication gadgets are no where around. I have several areas I work in depending on what I am doing. My creative place is by my pool and pond.

Work on only ONE project or key task at a time
.
Enjoy the feeling of creativity. It is an energy like no other and the rewards of getting things done are awesome.

Go for it and Profit NOW(tm).

The Power of Getting Things Done.

Hi, this is Scott Hallman and welcome to this week’s Tuesday Profit Tip where we bring you real world ways to Build-Grow-Manage-Profit from your business. My goal is that you earn at least $1,000 an hour for every hour you spend learning and applying our profit strategies.

I just got back from a private, invitation only networking event at the Silverado Resort in Napa Valley, where I was privileged to be on the invitation list with 42 of the world’s leading business coaches, speakers and trainers – Bill Bartmann, Chet Homes, Jack Canfield, Alex Mandossian, Stephen Pierce and several other leading Internet and offline marketers. There was over $2B of earning power in the room, openly sharing ideas with each other for three full days!

Millions of Dollars in Profit Potential but only if…
The ideas were flowing like Niagara Falls… But now we are all back home and back to email backlogs and daily business demands. So how can we ensure that we take advantage of all those awesome ideas we just learned from each other – inside tricks and tips not shared outside this elite group… conversion secrets, list building systems, profit optimization strategies, sales systems and more? I personally identified at least $1M in added profit for my business from just a handful of mind-blowing ideas.

Here is the problem. In a state of overwhelm we tend to do nothing… therefore missing out on implementing things we KNOW will produce results. Has this ever happened to you? Have you attended an event or read a book or listened to a training program and got a bunch of great ideas and then implemented only a few, if any? And do you have a list or a pile of notes that you plan to get to someday… but never do? Well if so, the system I am going to share with you can transform your ability to execute way more of your best ideas, now and in the future, so that you reap tons of extra profit from your business.

Here is The Secret for NEVER Again Missing Out on Implementing Your Best Ideas

So, how can you ensure that you always work on the most impactful projects and tasks so that you create exponential growth in your business? Well, the most powerful way I have found is to deploy the Hierarchy of Opportunity” System I created a few years back to help seminar attendees “crunch down” all the ideas they receive at these 3+ day events. I have conducted this “workshop” at events with Jay Abraham, Jay Levinson, Chet Holmes, Mark Victor Hansen and more. And next week I am doing this workshop via Webinar for this elite group I mentioned above.

What is The Hierarchy of Opportunity?

Well, in essence, it is a system for prioritizing your projects. What makes this system unique is that it helps you prioritize based on your unique set of criteria:

Your ability to implement the idea
Your capital and cash flow
Your long term strategy
Your risk tolerance
Your business demands
Your time demands
Your resources, including people
And more

The actual full blown workshop is an hour long and involves the business owners listing all their ideas, and then going through a ranking process so they end up with a prioritized list of 25-50 realistically doable ideas (works for every area of your business by the way), complete with the expected profit impact of each one. It ends with a ProfitMap” that graphically has all the worthwhile ideas on one single page, ranked, that they can access anytime, for life… very powerful.

Let’s Help You Get a Project Done That You Have Been Putting Off

To help you get started, select an idea you believe will have a measurable impact on your revenue and profit… one that you have been putting off.

Next, apply the abbreviated list of criteria I listed above to determine what is keeping you from executing on the idea. Is it the investment required? Or the time involved?

Next, determine the expected profit IF you actually implemented the idea. Let’s say you wanted to implement a new referral program and felt that it would bring in 10 customers over a year that would generate $5,000 in profit each over time. That would equal $50,000&.that’s $50,000 in lost profits you are missing out on due to your procrastination!

Next, determine if the thing that is causing you to “put it off” is worth missing out on the $50,000… if not, use this to motivate you to TAKE ACTION!

At last week’s network event, Alex Mandossian said, “Every business on the planet needs to go through your (Scott’s) Hierarchy workshop.”

Go for it. Do this simple exercise and Profit NOW.

Click on the following link to get instant access to The Hierarchy of Opportunity(tm) Workshop.
http://www.smallbusinessgrowthclub.com/public/351.cfm

How To Instantly Increase Your Sales Conversion Rate and Add $25,000-100,000+ To Your Profits by Changing One Tiny (no cost) Step in Your Sales Process.

What is “Downselling”?

Many of you now utilize the point of purchase maximization technique of upselling (and I trust optimizing the results with what I shared with you in a past Tuesday Profit Tip). To make sure we are on the same page, upselling involved offering an additional item to the primary purchase to increase the overall price of the transaction.

In contrast, downselling is where you offer an alternative to the primary purchase to decrease the overall transaction price. Why would you ever do that? Well we teach several applications of this strategy but for this brief tip I am going to focus on the application of “Increasing Sales Conversion”.
If you are losing out on potential clients because they cannot afford (or chose not to) your product or service, even though they want what you provide, downselling provides a simple way to “give them what they want” and convert them into profits instantly.

This strategy applies to most businesses and can be profound for many. When I taught Chet Holmes this concept, he said it was one of the most impactful things he ever implemented in his company.

Essentially, downselling is where you offer the prospect a lower cost alternative. This may be a smaller quantity package or a lower quality item, or even a first time buyer “special purchase” opportunity. The goal is to win the customer so you gain the opportunity to do business with them in the future as well.

Downselling Leverages What You Already Provide
 
Downselling can be amazingly simple if you simply utilize the exact products and services you already offer to create the lower priced item. If you are a health club and trying to sell a prospect on a Gold Membership that includes a one year membership, an obvious downsell is a 90 day “trial” Membership. You win a customer and a chance to convert them to a regular member. Taking this a step further, you could have a second downsell to a 30 day membership &..and finally to a one week membership.

Real World Example 1*
An Instant Increase in Sales Conversion of over 125%

At my company, Business Growth Dynamics, we recently implemented a new downsell program in our coaching division. So we simply created a series of lower cost ways they could benefit from our coaching services and training.
Our sales conversion rate increased by 125% in the first month. These are clients that would have never purchased coaching services at our standard one-on-one rates. But, and this is critical, they wanted and needed the service!!

Real World Example 2*
Marketing Systems Training Company adds $10,000 a month in Profit

I recently spoke with the CEO of an international Marketing System Training company that said he heard my interview with my friend Eben Pagan and was intrigued at the concept of upselling&. So I gave him some distinctions and helped him immediately create a downsell strategy – two training programs priced below their current lowest priced one.

We quickly determined it was at least a $10,000 per month profit stream (based on past lost prospects that would have purchased) & and the CEO said that he expects it to grow to over $50,000 a month in profit!

The great thing is that it includes the exact same services that they already provide, just stripped down versions. So it required little effort to put it into practice.

Real World Example 3*
$96,000 a year in profit while helping people – How cool is that?

A healthcare provider immediately added $2,000 a week to their profits when they learned the detailed implementation systems we teach in our 30 minute “Downsell Workshop”. The strategy is totally proprietary so I am not allowed to reveal the details, except to say that there are 200 patients a year getting the help they need due to this creative downsell solution. And 50% of those that were offered the lower priced alternative are accepting the offer.

Profit Action Steps

Ok, let’s get you ringing the cash register. Select any product or service you offer and create a simple downsell that you can offer to prospects that do not purchase your standard product or service. Remember, it can be a lower quantity, quality, include fewer bells and whistles or even be a one time deal.
As with every strategy I share with you, Downselling for Profits costs virtually zero to create and test. So go for it and Profit NOW”.
To your Success,

Scott Hallman

P.S. If you are a member or are interested in accessing the step by step audio training workshop for fully implementing this and other business growth strategies, go to www.smallbusinessgrowthclub.com or click on the following link to get instant access: http://www.smallbusinessgrowthclub.com/public/343.cfm

* Detailed names or specifics of the strategy are excluded due to confidentiality.