All small and medium size business owners, at some point in time, are faced with the pressure to offer lower prices or greater discounts. This is especially true for those of you who sell, or want to sell at the higher end of your market. There are many schools of thought about dealing with this common sales objection, but the general consensus is to steer the prospect away from the conversation of price and toward a discussion of VALUE.
Who would you go see if faced with a life threatening medical diagnosis? A general practitioner or a specialist? You’d be drawn like a magnet to the expert, wouldn’t you? Well, this same decision making process works for selecting any business or professional your prospects trust with their business. The PERCEIVED expert has a massive competitive advantage in any marketplace.
So, are you the recognized expert in your niche and community? Do your customers and target prospect agree? Regardless of the business you are in – even in a business that is considered a commodity – there is usually a way to gain the EXPERT ADVANTAGE. (more…)
3 Ways Profit Maximization Can Turbo-Charge Your Sales Growth
Marketing Spend Slasher #3 – Self Fund Your Marketing
What do I mean by Self Fund? By focusing your efforts on optimizing your profits, you can reinvest those “found” profits into advertising or other marketing efforts. Dr. D “saved” about $1,500 a month (see part two). So he could now reinvest “found money” into another form of marketing…PPC, SEO, direct mail, bigger advertisement, a tele sales effort etc. The new found profits literally pay for your “risky” marketing. It is like going to Vegas, winning big, putting your original money in your pocket and then gambling with the winnings…with no real downside whatsoever. (more…)
3 Ways Profit Maximization Can Turbo-Charge Your Sales Growth
Marketing Spend Slasher #2 – Reduce Client Acquisition Cost
In coaching hundreds of companies, only a handful knew clearly what their cost per customer acquisition was…that is, the total marketing spend divided by the number of customers.
Why is this so important? Because, it enables you to significantly reduce your marketing spend, by first reallocating it towards lower cost alternatives.
All of these will result in different costs to get a customer.
REAL WORLD EXAMPLE:
Leveraging Profit Maximization In Order to Accelerate Your Sales Growth
At a live Internet Marketing Event I conducted a 90 minute workshop for the 600 attendees… from around the world. The audience survey results, over $32 Million in added profit by optimizing their current customer and prospect profits…without spending any money!!!
Now $32M should be reason enough to want to focus on optimizing profits (95% of the attendees said they uncovered at least $10,000!). Yet most businesses choose to want to focus on getting more customers… even though most have way more upside from optimizing their current business.
Therefore, I thought I would share 3 Keys of Profit Maximization over the next few blog posts.
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 15 common, totally avoidable, mistakes that keep them from having a continuous stream of high quality referral customers every month.
The Key is to “Activate” Your Customers
In my last post I shared the first 4 of the 7 buyer decision drivers.
Here are the final 3.
BUYER DECISION DRIVER #5 – Create “extraordinary value.”
Have you ever shopped for something and found yourself looking for the lowest price? Ever wonder why? As we stated earlier, all human beings, no matter who we are or what we do, we all want the best deal. But what is the “best deal?” Is it really the lowest price?
There’s that old saying that you get what you pay for. Would I shock you if I told you that your prospects could care less about price? They shop price because they’re forced to. Let me explain. What prospects really want is the best “value” for the price they pay. They’re more than willing to pay double the price if they perceive that you’re giving them four times the value. Now they know they’re getting the “best deal.”
So then why does price seem to matter so often? It’s because so few businesses are actually “unique.” They all look the same… and they all say the exact same things. They say things like “we’re the best, we have the lowest prices, the highest quality, the best selection, the most convenient hours and locations and we’ve been in business since 1431 B.C.”
We call these platitudes, and they mean absolutely nothing to your prospects. That’s because everything just mentioned was about the business, and your prospects don’t care one bit about your business. All prospects care about is themselves. They want to know how they will benefit from what you sell. How will their life improve if they purchase your product or service? (more…)
There are 7 buyer decision drivers every business must understand to become successful today. Fail to do these and you will never build the business of your dreams.
It’s critical that you commit these to memory. They’re based on fundamental human nature… and will be as applicable 100 years from now as they were 100 years ago.
BUYER DECISION DRIVER #1 – Everyone wants the “best deal.”
Your prospects, no matter who they are or what it is they’re buying, always want the best deal. That doesn’t mean the lowest price… it means the most value for the price they pay. They will gladly pay twice the price… as long as they perceive they’re receiving four times the value when they compare it to the price.
The key words here of course are “perceived value.” So what exactly do prospects value? They value finding the solution to their biggest problem, frustration, fear or concern. And that brings us to…
Ongoing lead flow and a constant stream of new customers are critically important to the ongoing profitability of any business. In this issue, I want to share one simple strategy for getting more leads and turning them into customers – lead optimization.
As I’ve stressed in many of my messages to you, continual marketing optimization in all areas of your business will boost profits, often without spending additional money. To get more leads, better qualified leads and convert them into more customers, you must establish and monitor key lead metrics. Only by monitoring can you continually optimize your lead development activities.
Here are the lead metrics to measure:
Today I am going to share with you the first step in dramatically improving the results of everything you ALREADY do well – marketing campaigns, sales processes, lead generation techniques, upsells, referrals, collections, inventory management and so on.
I am talking about adding 5%, 10% or even 20% improvements to things like increasing your sales conversion rates by 20% 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.
How To Turbo-Charge Conversion and Skyrocket Profits by Finding “Sweet” Spots in Your Product or Service Offerings.
We have been having enormous success with teaching clients how to use packages – that is a combination of products or services that create greater perceived value and allows you to reach different price points in the market place.
Here is one of the three ways we teach on how to use The Power of Packages to instantly increase profits without spending a dime.
Tony Robbins Gets it – To the Tune of $1.7M Per Event
When the government was offering its highly touted “cash for clunkers program,” I heard a commercial on the radio for an auto dealership that really brought home a major problem I see small business owners making every day. The car dealer was berating the governments program… saying that by the time the majority of people got qualified and completed the mountain of paperwork needed to complete the transaction, the money allocated for the program would be gone.
The dealer then went on to proclaim that any customer buying from them didn’t need to worry about this situation at their dealership. Instead, they would instantly discount all of their new cars by the same amount the government was offering, so come on in and buy from us today… no hassle, no problems, simple and easy.
Yeah right… if ONLY! Is there anyone remotely alive today that actually believes this garbage? Now granted, this dealer isn’t lying… they will indeed give you the same amount the government is promising… but the way they do it is to discount the car that amount from the “sticker price,” which we all know is already over-inflated by close to that exact same amount they’re offering.
Unfortunately, most people show up expecting this wonderful discount and then realize they are more or less being exposed to a “bait and switch” routine. Ahhh, the auto industry. Is it any wonder why most people would rather go to the dentist for a root canal than visit a dealer showroom?
Are You Making This Same Mistake?
The “Productivity Enhancers” That May be Killing Your Business
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’s easy to write about certain topics like celebrities, technology or social media. Everybody wants to know about these topics. But what if your passion is botany, supply chain logistics or cognitive psychology? How can you make these topics compelling when your subject is… boring?
In the summer of 2006, an economics book was on the New York Time Bestseller list. The title was provocative and promised to be anything but a boring read. Since I’m not a big fan of economics (hated it ever since college), I skeptically handed over my $25 and took Freakonomics home with me.
From the very first page, I was treated to a wild ride through the most bizarre stories that I’d ever encountered. I learned about cheating schoolteachers, self-sacrificing sumo wrestlers… and why drug dealers still live with their moms.
Every story taught a boring economic principle in a way that made me want more. I realized that Freakonomics was an instruction manual for transforming boring content into sexy must-read masterpieces.
Throughout the ProfitNow system, I continuously emphasize the fact that little changes can produce big results overall. To be sure you find these small changes, it’s important that you know and understand the difference between your prospects response rate and your actual return on investment.
In other words, when you spend money on marketing, how many prospects does that marketing generate, and how much money do you put into your pocket because of that marketing. After all, it doesn’t do you any good to generate a thousand prospects if none of them buy from you.
