What’s Your “Market Reach”
By Scott Hallman on April 19, 2012

Are you marketing to the maximum number of “Pinpoint Qualified Prospects”? If not, you have the opportunity to increase both your lead generation and ultimately the number of new customers instantaneously.

Market Reach refers to the number of prospects your marketing is reaching. Market Reach is only the first step in the Lead Generation process but it is an important one. We teach several methods for increasing Market Reach but the one I will touch on today is expanding your geographic reach.

We have a Computer Reseller client that saw business activity dramatically fall as a result of the recession – some of their competitors had sales drop by over 80%. Our client had highly effective marketing that kept their lost revenue to a minimum. But they wanted MORE. So they decided to expand their marketing to include additional states. The results lead to record profits for 2011.

How can you expand Market Reach geographically?

Have a brick and mortar business…no worries. Parents were unwilling to drive the few extra miles to bring their children to a leading Children’s Learning Center. They had great marketing, strong closing skills and incredible retention rates… but they were only reaching a fraction of their “qualified prospects”. So the company added “house calls” to their services which enabled them to expand their Market Reach into 3 additional towns!

Get creative and have fun coming up with ways to expand your Market Reach.

To Your Success,

Scott D Hallman

 

 

Using the Power of “Best Practices” to Increase Profits Effortlessly
By Scott Hallman on March 12, 2012

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

 

 

The Power of Pricing Part 1
By Scott Hallman on February 3, 2012

Want to dominate your market in record speed? Now you can using the Power of Pricing in order to create an outrageous offer your competitors likely cannot match.

We teach several strategies for using price to maximize your profitability. With a few exceptions, these never include discounting for discounting sake.

One of my favorite pricing strategies for dominating a market is based upon the lifetime value of the customer. This can be a game changer for a business, and this strategy has literally transformed entire industries.

The strategy involves establishing a super low initial investment for your customers, which is a fraction of the total cost of the actual product or service, and internally financing the rest. You’ve seen these type of offers by large furniture stores that offer either no money down or little money down with no interest for six months. This enables someone that cannot afford to shell out $2500 to simply make a series of “easy” monthly payments.

Game Changer Strategy Revealed

In this Profit Tip I want to share another personal story to drive home this powerful profit generating strategy. ADT Security® is a nationwide home security company that sells and installs burglar alarms. For a typical home this may cost $1,250 if they purchased from a local security company.

In contrast, ADT Security® charges a tiny fraction for their installed alarm system, around $250 in total. But ADT understood the power of the Lifetime Value of a Customer and therefore gets the customer to instead commit to a three year “monitoring service” with a monthly fee of $44 or so.

They charge $250 for the ENTIRE SYSTEM INSTALLED vs $1,250 by the competitors for like-kind equipment.

Let’s take a look at the numbers.

• Equipment and installation charge = $250
• $44 * 36 Months = $1,584.
• Total Revenue = $1,834, not counting the additional years of monitoring after the 3 years that likely adds thousands of dollars to the Lifetime Value generated from the alarm installation.

Game changer? Just try to find a local, independent security company these days that is not a dealer for one of 4-5 such national companies that has now deployed this pricing strategy. Plus ADT generates significantly more revenue and profits!

By the way, this type of strategy requires capital to finance the upfront cost of installing the equipment. If you have high profit margins you can elect to deploy this strategy as a limited time offer to control your cash flow or find an underwriter that will finance the program for you.

 

 

Automatic Referrals
By Scott Hallman on January 20, 2012

Referrals are one of the top ways to generate new, high quality customers… if done properly.

Unfortunately, many companies no longer have referral programs in place because they either were ineffective, or worse, caused them embarrassment. In our “16 Reasons Referrals Fail – How to Unlock a Flood of New, High Quality Customers” program we detail the mistakes that many companies make when implementing a referral system.

One mistake is not “Activating” your customers in the referral process so they connect with their friends and share the positive experience and benefits of doing business with you.

One simple method of activating your customers is by creating a viral email referral that arms your customers with your marketing message.

Netflix, the movie rental company, does just that. As you can see below, they have activated Melissa, a Netflix customer, to reach out to her friends and family by providing a gift to them… the gift of FREE Netflix.

Who would not want a free month of movies and TV shows? This makes Melissa a bit of a hero, which motivates her to share this opportunity with multiple friends, and makes the recipient feel special because they got a gift.

And in turn, Melissa’s friends and family will also want to share this gift with their friends and family… Thereby making it a highly effective viral campaign.

One more key distinction is that Netflix armed Melissa with the precise marketing message they wanted the recipient to receive in order to maximize conversions. In addition, this makes it super simple for Melissa to forward to friends without having to make up her own message.

The cool thing is, it’s relatively easy to set this up and costs little or nothing.

I am all about OPTIMIZING by making small changes that can be easily, and cost effectively implemented to produce a measurable result.

So go take action on this tip and check out ScottHallman.com Business Tools for more valuable free resources and ways to take your business to the next level.

 

 

Using The Power of Compliance to Reduce Refunds and Increase Customer Loyalty
By Scott Hallman on January 3, 2012

Getting prospects to buy your product is just the first step.

Often products are returned because the purchaser failed to utilize the product as intended, whether due to inactivity or confusion.

Today, more importantly than ever before, it is critical that you ensure that your customers are effectively using your product and fully enjoy the benefits so they keep it, love it, and want to buy even more from you.

The Power of Compliance is about first getting the customer to utilize the product as intended. Failure to do so will ensure it is returned for a refund and often will lead to the customer no longer purchasing from you.

I bought this gadget in order to make putting up my Christmas lights easier. Simply hook the gizmo to the strand of lights, extend the pole 15 or 20 feet, and snap them on the gutter. Simple enough? Well, after 3 of us could not figure out how to get it to work, we returned it to the store along with the disposable hooks that we would have needed year after year. Simply providing more comprehensive instructions in the package as well as online, and/or an 800 number, would have ensured I used the gadget correctly.

The Power of Compliance applies to many types of purchases, especially those that are repeat in nature.

Apple is doing just fine… Record growth, record profits and products that are in massively high demand. This Christmas we bought one for my mom and received the following email:

Join us for a free workshop. Come back to the Apple Store for free workshops created for new iPhone owners of all experience levels. Sign up for our Getting Started and Going Further workshops to take your skills to the next level. See all workshops	Get your questions answered. If you have questions about your iPhone, our Apple support team is here to help. We can even call you at your convenience. Support calls are free for the first 90 days after you purchase your iPhone. Request a callback
Siri. Your intelligent assistant. Ask Siri to make phone calls, send messages, schedule meetings, set reminders, and more. Siri understands what you say and knows what you mean. Learn more about Siri See Siri FAQ	Find My iPhone. Set up Find My iPhone in a few simple steps. So if you ever lose your iPhone, you can see its approximate location on a map, display a message on it, and remotely erase its data. Learn how to set up Find My iPhone
Photo Stream and iCloud. With Photo Stream, take a picture on your iPhone and it automatically shows up on your iPad, Mac, and PC. Learn more about Photo Stream and iCloud	Discover the amazing App Store. You’ll find over 500,000 apps in just about any category: productivity, social networking, education, and more. And many of them are free. Here’s a handpicked collection of apps to get you started. View the Apps Starter Kit

Notice that they are focused on getting my Mom to COMPLY… or that is, understand how to use the phone and to maximize the features she uses. Instructions via video demonstrations; customer service reps standing by to help her; and even classes to teach her how to fully take advantage of these features!

Why do they do all this? Well, my guess is the reasons include the fact that it dramatically reduces returns (due to frustration or buyer’s remorse from spending too much for something they will not fully use). It also ensures she will keep the phone longer as she gets reliant on the phones capabilities – likely leading to her buying the iPhone 5 when it comes out. The more features she uses, the more locked into Apple she becomes.

Perhaps this explains Apple’s cult like loyalty, even when their products are missing key capabilities that the competitors possess (4G… Larger screen, Better camera etc).

And it does not stop there. Compliance leads to buying other Apple products and recommending them to friends.

So my Profit Tip this week is to evaluate how well your customers are utilizing your products or services and how effectively they are enjoying the full benefits. This will ensure you reduce returns, increase buying frequency, and create raving fans.

Till next time.

To Your Success,

Scott