Month: June 2016

Three Ways to Increase Your Business

Jay Abraham said there are three ways to increase your business.

1. Increase the Number of Customers coming to your business. There are four ways to increase the number of customers.
• Create new customers
• Retain current customers
• Win back lost customers
• Get referrals from your current clients (the best of these come from your best clients).   See my blog on this subject titled: The 80/20 Principle

2. Increase the Average Dollars per Sale

3. Increase Repurchase Frequency

Before moving forward you must know what it costs you to acquire a new customer.

Here is the information you need:

Cost of all Advertising, Promotions, Promotional discounts on 1st transactions plus some Allocated fixed overhead expenses – the same percentage as new customers contribute to overall revenue.

Add these all together, divide by the number of new customers you acquire by month and/or by year.

  • Let’s look at a hypothetical business as an example:
    • Let’s say you spend $15,000/mth spent on advertising (print, tv, radio, billboards, etc)
    • You have one of your employees manage your social media (like Facebook) and manage your website and it takes her 40 hrs/mth = 40 hrs x $25/hr = $1000
    • Fixed overhead is $30,000/mth and you calculate that 30% of your mthly revenue comes from new customers who never return = $30,000 x 30% = $9,000

• You acquire 100 new customers/mth

In this example, your cost to acquire a new customer is $25,000/100 or $250.00.

Here’s the Rest of the Story that no one considers:
A lost customer costs you the $250 you invested to acquire him PLUS another $250 to replace him = $500.

How many business owners think like this? In my experience, very few.

So, hypothetically, this business should be spending $300 to acquire each new customer.

BUT it gets worse:
A lost customer can’t refer someone. With Principle Centered Marketing, Selling & Business Practices we think a desired end result should be that every customer refer at least one other customer to your business.

In fact, the easiest way to double your business is to have every client refer one person.

So, in that first year you lose the new customer that cost you $250 to acquire plus it cost you an additional $250 to replace him.
BUT you also lost the referral he would have sent you and in my blog
What Are Your Clients Really Worth?  we showed you how to calculate the real lifetime value of every customer or client.

Every business I’ve ever spoken to is vastly under-investing in marketing because of the way they think…or don’t think.

Tom Peters in his landmark book “In Search of Excellence” opined that it costs 10 times more to acquire as it does to retain (a customer).

Keeping customers = Success

Losing customers = Failure

What would happen if instead of spending $250 or $300 or even $450 to acquire a new client, you spent $50 rewarding your best customers, making them feel like a V.I.P. and providing so much value that they become your outside sales force?

Principle Centered Marketing, Selling & Business Practices focuses primarily on creating trusting relationships at every level so that not only does your business grow with less time, effort and money invested than your competition, but your personal income grows, becomes more predictable and your personal time with family increases.

Here is an important point: People don’t want to be customers of a business, they want to be in a relationship. They want to be educated, remembered, entertained, made to feel important.

Your clients want to feel personally and emotionally connected to you and your business.

Decide now which way makes more sense to increase your business and then…Take the appropriate action!

We help small business owners:
1. Leverage their time
2. Increase their cash flow
3. Attract and keep the Right clients and employees

How:
1. Essential Elements Discovery Process
2. Automated Email marketing
3. FB marketing
4. Video marketing
5. 1-on-1 “Do It For Me”   coaching, consulting, mentoring

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USP! What is Your Unique Selling Proposition?

If you do not have a Unique Selling Proposition (USP), I can guarantee you are not DOMINATING your market and likely you are just getting by.

USP = Unique Selling Proposition

Every business, every business owner and every product or service they sell is unique.

You have a story to tell. Tell it to the world.

What makes you unique is that distinct and appealing idea that sets you apart from all of your competitors.

You would be surprised how easy it is to determine this uniqueness.

Here’s a Key thought: Always realize that your clients and prospective clients are asking…WIIFM (What’s In It For Me). How does what you offer benefit me? How does it solve a problem I have?

If you can’t articulate your USP in 60 seconds or less, neither can your clients and prospective clients.

The sad thing is, when I ask business owners to tell me what their USP is, in one paragraph or less, the vast majority have no answer.

Why?

I’m guessing because they’ve never thought about how important selling is to the success of their business.

Marketing is nothing more than selling and selling is all about creating trusting relationships.

Here’s an Example of a USP:
When Domino’s Pizza first came on the scene, they had a game changing proposition – “hot, juicy, delicious pizza – delivered to your door in 30 minutes or less – or it’s absolutely free.”

They were specific, 30 minutes or less and they gave a Risk Free Guarantee.

AVOID platitudes like the plague.
Like they could have said:  “Best pizza in town delivered to your door.”

“Best pizza”…anybody could say that.

“delivered to your door”…good, but how many questions does that raise?
How long will it take?  Will it be cold and soggy when I get it?… What happens if it isn’t?

Look around your market and see how many businesses say similar things.

Platitudes mean nothing!

Figure out what is unique about your business, about each and every product or service you sell, then tell the world in a clear, concise and honest way.

You have a unique story to tell. 

Tell it often and tell the world and tell it completely…and make sure everyone in your organization is telling it.

Start by asking Smart Questions.
You must identify what the needs or problems are that are going unfulfilled within your industry and market and how you, your products or services solve these problems.

How are we different, better, more valuable and/or more meaningful to our audience? Is it trust? Price? Diligence? Thoroughness? Risk Free Guarantee? Value? Location? After-sale customer service? Selection? Exclusivity? Do you appeal to a certain niche or audience? (small pond)

How aware is the public about your USP?

Is this something people care about? Think: WIIFM

What do people not like about your industry as a whole?

What is the downside of your product or service? What do people not like about them?

How are you different and better than your competition?

Make sure that when your clients think of you, your products or services, they think of your USP.

Principle-centered marketing is holisistic.
It encompasses not just your marketing but every part of your business.

It goes without saying BUT…MAKE SURE YOU CAN ALWAYS DELIVER ON YOUR USP!

Your USP is the foundation around which you will create and build your market DOMINATION.

Invest the time and effort to get it right.

 

We help those who WANT to DOMINATE their marketplace… by teaching and implementing the Principles of Marketing, Selling and Business practices into every aspect of their business…….all while never Breaking the Laws Of God or man. 

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Why Didn’t Somebody Tell us about…profit?

Why didn’t somebody tell us how profit is actually made and how important marketing is to making a profit? 

Marketing is nothing more than Selling and Selling is all about Creating Trusting Relationships. 

No business makes a profit unless and until they sell something.

There are few major subjects about which so many people know so little.
How businesses make a profit is one of them.

More specifically, the economic system that created and sustained most of the free world for generations; the Free Enterprise system or Capitalism here in the USA.

There are some people who don’t like our Free Enterprise system more commonly called Capitalism.

Capitalism is getting a bum rap in our world due mostly I suspect to the infection of Socialism, Marxism and/or Communism disguised as liberalism (all threads of the same cloth I’m afraid) in our news media and political parties.

What people object to is that they think profits are too big.

Probably not one person in a hundred has any idea how big profits really are, and how they compare to wages, salaries, benefits and other expenses to run a business.

Thirty plus years ago, a man by the name of John Beckley wrote a book called “Some Curious Facts About How We Make Our Living”.

He suggested that if anyone doubted this statement I just made, they should ask the following questions.

If they don’t know the answer, have them guess.

Question 1: In the average company, which is bigger, employee compensation or profits?

Answer: In the average company, employee compensation is six times greater than profits.

A good rule-of-thumb for almost any small business is to figure employee compensation runs about 2/3 of the total expenses to run the business.

Question 2: Out of every sales dollar a company takes in, how much goes to company profits?

Answer: An average grocery store, which is a high sales volume industry, as an example, usually makes a net profit of about 1-1.5% or 1 to 1.5 cents out of every dollar.

However, the typical small business net profit margin is between 3 and 6%.

One day, a few years back, my wife, son and I were going through the local grocery store. We found an empty candy bar wrapper sitting on a shelf.

That candy bar had a sale price sticker of $2.00.
Let’s say the grocery store paid $1.70 for it.

That means this store lost $.30 (thirty cents) of gross profit on that theft.

Assuming this grocery store is average and their net profit (net profit by the way is BEFORE Uncle Sam takes taxes from the business) is 1%, in order to make up for the loss of just that one candy bar they will have to sell $30.00 worth of groceries just to break even.

The Calculation looks like this:
$.30 lost gross profit divided by 1% (net profit margin) = $30.00

Keep this in mind the next time you think about cheating or stealing!

Why don’t people know these things?

One reason: Our educational system, news media and politicians are made up mostly of liberal thinkers who have never hired, fired, trained, managed or led anyone in their lives.

Very, very few have ever had to worry about how to meet payroll the next day; or put a 2nd mortgage on their own home to get a loan to grow their business.

They’ve never been taught the hierarchy of profits.

The Hierarchy of Profits goes like this:

Sale Price…minus  Cost-of-Goods sold…equals  Gross Profit

Gross Profit…minus  Operating Expenses like: Employee Wages, salaries, benefits, taxes a business has to pay on behalf of employees like social security taxes, medicare taxes, workers compensation; insurance on the buildings, liability insurance, etc; interest on loans, utilities like gas, electric, water, sewer; maintenance expenses on facilities, lawn care, snow removal, capital improvements to facilities, signage, some businesses pay things like franchise fees, advertising and marketing expenses, etc, etc, etc……after a business owner pays all these…
equals Net Profit before taxes and that typically is 1-2%.

After the government takes it’s taxes, the business owner can then, and only then pay himself.

But keep in mind, just like any prudent family, he has to leave some in reserve for emergencies, investments, etc.

So if the Sale Price was $100.00…minus $85.00 Cost of the Product sold…equals $15.00 Gross Profit… then subtract $14.00 in Operating Expenses…that leaves $1.00 of Net Profit before taxes.

Now you know more than 97% of the world about how business REALLY works and why it is so important for every business to do everything possible to make a healthy and consistent profit.

Nothing happens until you sell something and that takes exceptional Principle-centered marketing.

 

 

 

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What Are Your Clients really worth?

What are your clients really worth?…their Lifetime Value

If you don’t know your Key Performance Indicators are,  like the ‘lifetime value of your customers’, your ‘average margins’ and the ‘cost of acquiring a new customer’ you are flying blind.

How do you know what’s working and what’s not?
You can’t improve what you don’t measure.

Why is it so important to know the average profits you make from a new customer, the average profits you’ll make from a customer in their “lifetime” of dealing with you, and a few other key “metrics” of your business?

The reason is simple. Those key pieces of information can guide you in creating effective marketing and advertising strategies that make you real profits and help you DOMINATE your market.

Let me give you two examples…
Let’s say that your average client brings an average profit of $75 on every sale. And they purchase from you an average of four times a year and they stay your customer an average of 5 years.

The Lifetime Value or your customer is $75 x 4 times a year x 5 years = $1,500

Theoretically you could spend $1500 to bring in a new customer and still break even.

But this doesn’t even account for the number of referrals that client will send with the same Lifetime Value.

The point is if you’re spending less than $1,500 you know you’re making a profit.

If you KNOW you can afford to spend up to $1,500 in acquiring a new customers or retaining current ones, then you can create advertising, special offers and deals with that key number in mind…

Here is why big ticket retailers, like auto dealers really benefit.

According to NADA, the average new vehicle gross profit margin is $1088 and the average used vehicle gross profit margin is $1534.

Plus the average customer visits your service/parts department an average 2.5 times per year to the tune of approximately $700 in revenue or $350 of gross profit.

As an auto dealer let’s say that you make a gross profit of $1500 on the sale of a used car/truck. This customer then typically visits your service/parts department an average of 2.5 times per year at an average of $350 additional gross profit each year.

The first year value of this used car customer is $1500 plus $350 per year in service/parts gross or a first year value of $1850.
Consider then, a conservative 5 year lifespan with you and you have a conservative lifetime value of $3250.

If you are also a new car dealer, the first year value is approximately $1450.
The 5 year lifetime value of a new car customer is then approximately $2800.

Here is a different perspective:

Jeffrey  Gitomer in his book “Customer Satisfaction is Worthless, Customer Loyalty is Priceless”  says: The Value of a Customer is 20 Times his Annual Sale Volume

I’m going to take a more conservative approach and state that the value of a customer is 20 times his annual gross profit:

$1450 x 20 = $29,000 Lifetime Value (LTV) for a new car customer and
$1850 x 20 = $37,000 Lifetime Value (LTV) for a used car customer.

Your competitors who don’t know this Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) will either lose their nerve or lose serious money trying to compete with you.


None of these calculations include the number of people she/he refers to you over their lifetime that you didn’t have to spend any money on attracting and convincing. These No-cost referrals have the same lifetime time values. 

 

When you begin to understand the magnitude of this way of thinking, you can easily grasp just how plausible it is to double your business in 12 short months.

I’ve just given you a tiny snapshot of the value of Key Performance Indicators. Knowing these metrics can make the difference between getting rich and going broke and, with your Key Performance Indicators in hand, you might discover that a certain kind of customer is far more valuable and profitable to you.

Go Back to the 80/20 Principle we discussed yesterday.

So you can gear your marketing efforts toward capturing those high value, high profit clients.

With the right information you can massively increase the profits in your business and multiply the power of all your business and marketing efforts.

Calculating the Key Performance Indicators of your business is not that difficult. For the motivated business owner who wants to DOMINATE his or her market, it is critical to know what they are to track consistently.

Imagine being able to make decisions in your business on advertising, marketing, promotion, merchandising, displays etc…with the hard-core data you need right at your fingertips.

The bad news is if you don’t have that data it IS costing you real money every day.

The good news is you can have access to the information you need simply and easily.

Principle Centered Marketing encompasses your whole business from the Inside-Out.

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The 80/20 Principle

Just like the 80/20 principle itself, I can almost guarantee that a very small portion of your current clients are providing you with the majority of your profits.

Start with Asking Smart Questions and focus on the 80/20 Principle.

Albert Einstein once remarked that if he were about to be killed and had only 1 hour to figure out how to save his life, he would devote the first 55 minutes of that hour searching for the “right question”.

Once he had that question, Einstein said, finding the answer would take only about 5 minutes.

Get help to find the answers to these questions and you will DOMINATE your market:

Who are the 20% of your clients that produce 80% of your revenue?

Do you have a clear understanding of what they “look like”, demographically and psychographically, so that you can target more of the same type of clients?

Think: Birds of a feather flock together.
What are you doing to solicit referrals from this target group?

How do you stay in constant and consistent contact with them?

How often do you communicate with them?

How do you reward them as a way of showing your appreciation?

Have you given them the opportunity to become a PREFERRED client?

What do you do to show you value their patronage?

What is the Lifetime Value of each of these client?

Keep it Simple.

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson were on a camping trip. After a good meal and a bottle of wine they lay down for the night and went to sleep.

Some hours later, Holmes woke up and nudged his friend.
“Watson, look up and tell me what you see.”

Watson replied “I see millions and millions of stars.”

“What does that tell you?” asked Sherlock.

Watson pondered for a moment, “Astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies with potentially billions of planets.

Astrologically, I observe that Saturn is in Leo.

Horologically, I deduce that the time is approximately a quarter past three.

Theologically, I can see that the universe is magnificent and that we are small and insignificant.

Meterologically, I suspect that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow.
What does it tell you?”

Holmes was silent for a moment then said, “Watson, you idiot.
Someone has stolen our tent.”

When you try to over think something and make it complicated, it almost always fails.

Effective marketing is easy and simple when based on Principles.

Highly effective marketing begins with the right questions and focuses on the 20% that generates 80% of the profits.

 

We educate on and implement the Principles of Marketing
and we want to invest in our relationship with you.

We understand somebody has to make the first move, so we are providing this marketing audio program free of charge to you, not as something with low value, in fact we believe you’ve never heard anything quite like it.

We’re doing this to provide an investment in you and hopefully you will begin to understand some of the things we can help you with in your business growth.

Listen to Our Total Dominance audio program that teaches you a marketing plan that will make you the #1 company in your industry AND Totally Dominate your industry.
1. Learn the 2 Common Mistakes Plaguing Most Businesses Marketing
2. Learn a Simple 5 Step Formula for Every Marketing Piece You Ever Create
3. How to Stay Ahead of Your Competition-No Matter What Industry

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