Archives for March 2012

Making Use Of Google

March 14, 2012 by Zac Nelles 2

The Internet is a very big place. Anyone who wishes to use the Internet in an effective manner needs to be familiar with search engines. Google has become the primary choice for millions of users, although there are some others.

One of the main reasons for Google’s popularity and general reputation as being the best of the search engines is that they keep on coming up with new methods for surfing the Internet. For instance, if you wish to look up a news story or current event, then http://news.google.com allows you to instantly have access to news stories that are literally just a couple of minutes old. Anyone who is looking for a picture of just about anything is almost sure to find it at http://images.google.com, which is quite possibly the largest image search engine in the whole world. Google also has specific search engines for books, maps, videos and even stock market developments.

Filed Under: ezine

Effective Delegation

March 14, 2012 by Zac Nelles 2

Delegation needs to be carefully managed to avoid employees feeling as though they are just being dumped on with extra work. The delegation of work needs to be handled to ensure that one employee is not being handed all the mundane and boring jobs.

One of the tricks to management is to attempt to build an environment in which employee involvement and employee empowerment are fostered so that all of your team members will be in the right frame of mind to deliver their very best effort.

If possible when delegating work, make sure that the employee understands precisely what is expected and share your idea of what the successful outcome of the delegated task will be. Tell the person also if and when you will require feedback on progress with the task. Be aware in advance of how you intend to thank and reward the employee for completion of the delegated work.

Filed Under: ezine

Small Business Owner Michael McLean Deploys his Secret Weapon For Customer Retention:

March 13, 2012 by Zac Nelles 2

And as a Result Grows The Family Business from 3 Million to 10 Million dollars a year in just 36 Months.

In 2002 after selling his own professional hockey team Michael McLean agreed to help his father in the family insurance business. Michael’s father was 65. A fantastic salesman and entrepreneur in his own right but was burnt out after many long years working on parts of the business that weren’t his strength. If Michael chose not to step in his father was going to sell the business and retire.

Putting an End to Being “Just Another Insurance Agency”

When Michael stepped in the business he realised that he needed to be able to retain the existing clients of McLean Insurance – Michael concedes that their retention rate was ‘abysmal’ in the early years of the business. A 1% increase in retention represents 100,000’s of dollars in revenue. Finding a low cost low, involvement strategy to retain existing customers was very important.

They also needed to move existing clients who had purchased a single policy to holding multiple policies. Often times many customers didn’t realise that McLean Insurance was a ‘one stop shop’ for property and casualty insurance – it was common for customers to have policies with other insurers they could have had with McLean Insurance.

Finally they needed to increase their referral rates. Referrals had not being a great source of new business traditionally for McLean Insurance.

Michael realised the increasing necessity of driving up referral rates as many traditional forms of advertising became more expensive and the leads generated weren’t converting as well into customers. Michael set the goal to make McLean insurance a referral driven business.

Implementing Just Two Ideas Triples The Size of The Business in 36 months

During the first year in the business Michael worked in every part of the business from the ‘front door to the back door.’ In his spare time he worked on improving the marketing of McLean Insurance.

From his days running his own hockey team Michael knew that a personal relationship with your customers and excellent customer service were the keys to keeping customers for the long term.

So he worked hard at making sure the team in the office at McLean insurance were the best he could get and then focused on two critical strategies that could grow McLean Insurance from within.

Handwritten ‘thank you’ notes
A printed customer newsletter that is mailed to every customer 12 times a year every year until they ask to be no longer receive the newsletter

The handwritten thank you notes provided a point of difference that was greatly appreciated by new customers and existing customers that renewed their policies with McLean Insurance. Setting the customer relationship off on the right foot and reinforcing it each year. (Who doesn’t want to feel important enough that the insurance agent took time out to hand write a note specifically for them).

Michael says implementing their customer newsletter has become the bedrock of McLean insurance’s business – Easily their best return on investment. The newsletter brings in between 2:1 and 7:1 R.O.I.

Michael happily boasts “the newsletter contains almost nothing on insurance.” The general feeling at McLean Insurance is that if you can’t afford to send your customers 12 printed newsletters a year it is time to target a better calibre of customer.

Referral Rates Surge – 10X Increase in 7 years

McLean Insurance’s referral rates skyrocketed on the back of their newsletter. Until they implemented that newsletter none of the customers knew that there was even a referral program. Using the month newsletter Michael educated customers about the referral program and his customers have referred new business to McLean Insurance en masse.

In the first year they started their newsletter McLean Insurance was getting at most, a handful of referrals per month. But their referral rate has risen steadily each year. Now in its seventh year the referral program has generated 57 referrals in a single month (a company record). And those referrals have the highest close rate of any source of new business.

Industry defying Customer Retention Rates

In the insurance industry the typical life of a policy holder is between two and three years depending on a couple of variables. Year on year they retain 91% of their customers, up from 85% when Michael started in the business. McLean Insurance retains its customers an average 9.5 years and is closing in on ten years. Between three and five times the Industry average.

The reason for losing customers is generally circumstances beyond their control, such as a death in the family or sale of a vehicle and not purchasing a new one.

Michael believes the reason for the high retention rate is the strong emotional bond that publishing a monthly newsletter has created in his customers and that has stopped them from looking around for a different insurance agent.

A Happy Ending For This Family Business

McLean Insurance has discovered the bedrock to building a sustainable long term business is its printed customer newsletter. With Industry defying retention rates and high referral rates McLean insurance is more profitable than most insurance agencies and is able to invest more heavily in customer acquisition because each account is far more valuable.

Michael’s Father remains active in the business to this day (even though he is now 75) doing what he loves, looking after the most important accounts in the business.

Featured Quote:

“The first thing I would do in a new business I am working in and I first thing get all of my Coaching clients to do regardless of where they are at in their business is to start a Printed Monthly Customer Newsletter.”

Michael McLean, McLean Insurance and Creator of the Ultimate Millionaire Agent Program. www.UltimateMillionaireAgent.com

Could You Do The Same?

Find out if you can achieve similar results to Michael McLean in your business with a 30 minute no obligation newsletter suitability audit – Get Started Today

Filed Under: Case Study

Marketing Lessons From The Banking Industry:

March 8, 2012 by Zac Nelles 2

How to build a flaky customer base that will leave you at the drop of a hat.

To be honest, the low interest balance transfer credit card was one of greatest customer acquisition ideas ever. The way it was implemented meant that it has become one of the most costly ideas to long term business stability.

We all know that every bank has a low interest option for credit transfers. Like 1% or 2% for 6 months. The typical credit card has an interest rate of say 17%. And the banks won’t give the balance transfer rate to their existing customers. Makes sense – they ruin their profitability.

So say I have a credit card balance with ‘bank A’ paying the 17% interest. I ask my bank for the balance transfer rate. They are going to say something like ‘that rate is for new customers only’

How do I feel? Really underappreciated – how stupid does my bank think I am?

If I’m smart, I go to another bank offering low interest on credit card balance transfers, then switch to another bank once the interest rate resets. There are lots of banks, building societies and credit unions out there. We can play this game for a long time before I run out of ‘new’ low interest credit cards.

By the way, I did a wealth creation course a few years ago now and this is exactly what we were told to do in order to manage our credit card debt while we paid it off. It’s almost like the banks don’t want anyone paying 17% interest of their credit cards ever again.

Here is the problem for the banks. They are losing their existing long term customers to other banks low interest credit cards, their new customers are 1/9^th as valuable to them and they only stay for 6 months. The average credit card balance is $3,100. If you were a bank would you want 17% interest or 2% on that balance?

The banks are going to be financially better off focusing on keeping their customers they have paying 17% interest rather than going out and trying to get new customers who pay 2% interest for 6 months and then move their debt to another bank and another low interest credit card.

This is what happens if you neglect your existing customers while trying to get new ones with crazy discounts. You lose your proverbial goose that lays the golden eggs.

The easiest way to keep your loyal, long-term customers is to implement the 12-24X contact systems. 12 to 24 sales free contacts a year. Almost every business can implement this exact system with their existing customers using a printed monthly customer newsletter. To see if this is the right strategy for you, request a newsletter suitability audit by going to www.newslettermarketingsystems.com.au/get-started or else call 1300 120 106

Filed Under: Blog