Eli, Bill and Bill

October 31, 2013 by

eli-bill-billEli Goldratt, Bill Walsh and Bill James. The three men who have shown me a lot about thinking outside of conventional wisdom. Napoleon Hill’s principle of ‘accurate thinking’ applied to all three men. They looked for more accurate ways to think about their chosen fields. Goldratt, business. Walsh, football. James, baseball.

Goldratt showed an underlying form of business so elegant and simple that it became easy for me to visualise what is happening in a business.

It made decision making in my own business easy. Would the decision increase throughput (goods sold and produced)? Would it cut bottom line costs? Would it decrease the size of the asset base without reducing throughput?

Everything that didn’t do that was just ‘fancy pants’ number-manipulation with no value to the business.

Bill James The father of the term ‘Moneyball.’ No AFL panel show can go an hour now without mentioning the term and baseball was forever changed because of James’ ideas. James’ ability to see through the stats and why they were inaccurate was important. James’s fascination with baseball statistics was because he saw they had taken on the power of language – they could paint an image for him. Bill James fostered my love of accurate and relevant stats – helping me do well at fantasy football/rugby and makes growing businesses easier.

James and Goldrratt’s ability to build and understand systems is vitally important to growing businesses. Systems are usually inserted retroactively into businesses. So being able to understand and measure the results they actually create relative to their initial goals is vital to every part of business.

Bill Walsh was the real story behind The Blind Side. Michael Oher was ‘only’ the star of the story (ironically he no longer plays left tackle in the NFL). Bill was the story because he made people like Michael Oher (and me if I grew up on the other side of the Pacific) essential to NFL. Walsh’s system demanded it – it couldn’t function as effectively without them. Bill Walsh’s complete rethink of NFL offensive systems was so effective that today all football offences are effectively run based on Walsh’s original philosophy.

‘Paint Me A Word Picture’

is an all too common phrase heard in my social life. Usually in some role-playing game, one of the participants wants a clearer picture of what they are confronted with. They are reliant on the ‘Game Master’ to give them their reality.

A business is actually conceptual. You can either rely on the stories of staff, yourself and advisors or you can look at the picture painted by your metrics. Any systems you build require measurement – measurement to create a word and number picture so you can see what is going on. The word picture derived from the numbers is far more important, than anecdotal or

Filed Under: Blog

What To Do When You Don’t Have Enough Referrals?

September 4, 2013 by

I often hear comments like “we would like to get more referrals but we just don’t know how.”

But in the end it is a rather simple task to get more referrals.

There are three things you need to get more referrals:

An engaged client base.

You need your clients to be thinking of you all the time or “front of mind” presence otherwise they are never going to talk about you to potential new customers (their peers, friends and family). It’s that simple.

When you are “front of mind” they will talk about you when the opportunity arises. Your task is to build the relationship to remain front of mind.  It’s our business to help you do that. Then once you are front of mind you need to stay there.

It helps to have an outstanding product and deliver an amazing customer experience. But that only carries you so far. You’ll no doubt tell some of your friends and family about it but that is no guarantee that it will sustain client engagement for very long after the ‘event.’ You need to keep them engaged in order to get referrals out of them.

By Far the simplest, highest returning way to get and maintain client engagement is a printed monthly newsletter.

It Needs To Be Okay For Them To Refer

Quite frankly, you need to create a culture in your customer base that makes it at a minimum ‘okay for them to refer.’ If you don’t it’s like herding sheep. You are forever waiting for the first person to take action. Sheep naturally follow the leader – when you heard them, there is a waiting game while you gradually apply pressure so that the ‘first sheep’ gets the idea to do what you want. Then the rest follow.

This is understandable with referrals – your customers’ reputation is on the line when they refer someone to you. They want to know that you’ll not damage their existing relationship. Cos quite frankly if you stuff up, its not egg on your face it is egg on the referrers face. The best way to make it okay to refer is to demonstrate that everyone else refers clients to you.

They Need A Reason To Refer.

Most people like a little gratitude for their hard work. They have gone out and brought ‘fresh meat’ to you. So a little bribe to make their life a little richer won’t go astray. I recommend that you work out an acceptable cost per lead in your business and take that money to use it to buy gifts for people who refer. (Better if you can buy something with a higher retail value – say your Cost per lead is $20. Take your $20 and buy something that has a wholesale value of $20 and a retail value of $40…)

If you create a competition with a major prize where every referral is given an entry then there is another great incentive to for your clients to refer.

Bottom line: Getting referrals can be easy. Do a monthly newsletter print newsletter to get them engaged. Wok to create a culture where referrals are normal and finally, give your clients a reason to refer.

 

 

Filed Under: Blog, Referrals, Relationship Marketing

The Magic Of The Sales Grid

September 4, 2013 by

I was doing a newsletter suitability audit for a client a while back. I was talking to them about cross selling and the cross selling grid. Selling products and services that you already provide to clients who haven’t bought those products from you yet.

You’ve probably seen it before. But for those of you who have no idea what I mean, here is an example:

Client Name Product A Product B Service C Service D
Client 1 Y X O Y
Client 2 Y O Y O
Client 3 O Y X O
The Rest of your clients…        

 Key:
Y- Bought it
X – No need/opportunity to buy it
O – There is an opportunity for them to buy it.

Firstly, just by completing this exercise you have a fighting chance to sell as much as you humanly can to each and every client.

Secondly, it also informs a lot of your newsletter content plan. If the above grid is indicative of their client list as a whole then you can start to make some conclusions about what you should include in your newsletter – advertorials about ‘Service D.’ 66% of their clients have an opportunity to use service D. I’d be educating my clients about the benefits of service D more than the other offerings just because there is more opportunity there.

You Have Got To Be Ruthless About Targeting Opportunity.

Targeting the largest, most numerous and most profitable opportunities in your list/database is the single best way to boost your profits without adding products and services.

So there is no point targeting a $20,000 opportunity when you could be targeting a $50,000 opportunity.

There is no degree of difficulty bonuses when it comes to making money.

So be sure you are targeting the best opportunities.

The cross-selling grid determines where the opportunities exist in your existing customer base. Go after them with a plan rather than leaving your existing customers victims of ‘random acts of marketing.’

Filed Under: Blog

The Time My Horse Nearly Killed Me And How It Has Helped Me In Newsletter Marketing Systems

September 4, 2013 by

Growing up, my sister Matilda always wanted to ride horses. Through persistence and hard work she convinced our parents to get her lessons.

Then she convinced them to buy land so she could own her own horse. Then came pony club. Then she got more horses, and then the family moved again and we had a more land for more horses.

Anyways – my parents decided at some point that horses could be a family activity – I was perfectly happy being excluded initially. So I ended up with a horse too. Comical because I was already close to six foot when I got my first one. I kept growing; my ‘new’ horses kept getting bigger. I had gotten into Eventing – seriously large animals needed to carry me through a one day event.

The Horse’s Revenge

I had a horse, an ex-racing thoroughbred; it had beaten by a previous owner. It didn’t like being caught. His name was Taxi cos ‘you could never catch him when you wanted to.’ The parental collective had decided that Taxi was a good horse for me because I would learn patience working with him and more importantly he was a bloody good eventer.

I was on a holiday horse-camp and we’d gone for a trail ride. This part of the ‘trail’ was a narrow laneway with barbwire fences down both sides. Taxi had decided that he was going to show everyone what he could do. And he took off flat stick GALLOP up the laneway to everyone’s surprise. To this day I swear he had this planned as a square up for some crime he’d decided I was guilty of. He might have been malicious enough to want to kill me.

In this situation the best thing to do is to turn the horse in a circle. For some reason I didn’t panic, until then when faced with this type of situation, panic is the first thing I would do. I was almost dead calm – but I couldn’t get him around without going through the barb wire fences. So we meandered across the laneway. Taxi charging on at his mission and me at my mission of stopping his mission.

Eventually, I he slowed down enough so that I could get him turned around and circling. We survived and I trotted him back to the group. Then I started shaking. I realised how close I had come to putting the horse or myself through the barbed wire fences – doing serious injury to both of us.

I forgave Taxi – it’s really hard to stay angry at a horse. The same applies to people too.

Focus on What’s Important

Being able to focus on a single task to completion has served me well. That was the day I mastered it. Being able to block out distraction (and panic) so that the vital few tasks are accomplished that can be relied upon to make money. Newsletters written. Ad copy written. Clients called and spoken too.

Valuable lesson from a horse that was trying to prove a point, get revenge or kill me.

Filed Under: Blog

The 80-20 Rule of Newsletters

September 4, 2013 by

80% of your results come from 20% of your customers. 80% of your sales will come from 20% of your sales funnel…

It’s funny how this natural phenomenon works.

It applies to Newsletters Too

The big problem we all face with the 80-20 rule is that we often don’t know what the under-performing 80% is while at the same time we don’t know what the hard working 20% will be.

This phenomena applies to newsletters – every once in a while we create some content that really strikes a nerve for our clients. We get a disproportionate response.

Part of the magic of our system for newsletters is that it helps our clients to take advantage of this natural phenomenon. We help you by creating for you the less essential 80% of your newsletter. That for us is the easy part. It’s the hard part for our customers.

We can help them come up with the hard working 20% – the part of the content that actually sells their products and services. But most of the time our clients know why they buy from us.

Then we take care of the most essential 4% of the newsletter (20% of the 20%). Getting the darn thing in the post for you at the same time every month.

It’s a complex thing to schedule and co-ordinate month after month. And it is the single most vital element of a newsletter’s success.

It changes your newsletters positioning in the mind of your clients from advertising to information. When a newsletter is seen as informative then it is read without advertising defences or sales resistance.

This is why you need to write your selling articles as advertorials – solving client problems rather than as blatant sales pitches for products and services.

Then your selling will be seen as informative too and that will persuade more of your clients to do what you are asking them to do.

Making your 20% work harder for you.

The temptation of the 80-20 rule is to focus on the unproductive 80, when you should be focusing on improving results from the productive 20%. It’s learned behaviour. You don’t see that sort of logic in people still living in traditional settings.

They inherently understand the laws of nature. You hunt the weak 20% not the strongest 80%. Nobody cares when you are back in camp eating dinner if it was tough or weak. Stay focused on the 20% and what you can get from them.

Filed Under: Blog

Why Ben Puts Himself Through EXPRESSive Exhaustion

September 4, 2013 by

It was 1:30am on a Thursday morning and my head finally hit the pillow! I’d just finished spending 7 hours hand addressing and packing 65 x 3kg express post envelopes with our guide ‘Getting More Repeat Business & Referrals’. I was completely exhausted.

The following days saw us Express post over 150 guides in less than a week! (This is more than 5 times our previous BEST week). You see, we have recently had some breakthroughs while tweaking our Facebook ads and Fax campaigns which have resulted in some massive successes and a tidal wave of new leads.

You might be thinking… 3kg Express Post? – Isn’t that that’s like $14.95 each!

Or maybe you are like the precious little cashier at the post office who kept trying to sell me 15 instead of 50 because she couldn’t comprehend why anyone would want to spend over $700 on express post bags in a single transaction.

But… Yes, a $14.95 3kg Express Post Envelope is pricey compared to sending a standard regular $1.20 C4 envelope?

So why do we do it?

1.)    Urgency – If we treat our information with urgency, then it is much more likely that the recipient will as well. They will read it quicker and take action on it quicker. Simply by sending it in an express post envelope, we have had a 300% increase in the number of people contacting us within 5 days of receiving the pack. We also find that when we make follow-up calls that a larger portion have read the information (previously the majority procrastinated and hadn’t gotten around to it yet.)

2.)    Importance – People ONLY express post things that are important. So by express posting our guide, the recipients immediately assign importance to it (deservedly so I might add!).

3.)    More Room = More Stuff – By using 3kg bags it allows us the room to include more than just the guide. Lately we have been testing the use of a bag of microwave popcorn, a bottle of Gatorade and a chocolate as some bonus goodies for our recipients to snack on whilst digesting our information. These extra’s cost less than $3 total, yet have a massive WOW factor when received.

4.)    Results – Zac and I are pretty pedantic about measuring results and ultimately we use the express post bags and pay the extra because the numbers say we should… We get more leads converting to consultation and they convert quicker, which means more new clients doing newsletters sooner!

If you want to see what all the fuss is about, and you’re keen to see this urgently, important information on how you can get more repeat business and referrals, feel free to request a copy of our guide by visiting: www.morebusinessandreferrals.com.au or calling 1300 689 449 and leave your details. (Enjoy the snacks!)

Filed Under: Blog, Customer Retention, Newsletter

An Ode To Julia – My Hairdresser for the Last 20 Years.

September 4, 2013 by

In a piece of sad news, my hairdresser Julia has just retired. She didn’t tell me; not even 50 and retired – good on her. I was told by her apprentice when I went in for my regularly scheduled haircut and the apprentice cut my hair. I am in mourning, I never got to  say ‘goodbye’ I’ve dreamed of riding silently into the sunset but now I couldn’t do it to my customers –there will have to be a farewell party.

I’ve been going to Julia since I was 11 or 12. And in a moment of ‘what am I going to do now?’ I am kind of lost.

I’m pretty sure my hair will get cut again. It’s more the sense of loss I felt at no longer being one of Julia’s. The last time she changed salons, she called me and told me and I followed her right out the door. I think she’s worked at three or four I followed her out the door each time.

I know a lot of salons have retention problems when a stylist leaves – they take your customers with them. And I can finally empathise, there was a part of me that cringed at the idea of not getting Julia to cut my hair. During the writing last sentence I entertained the thought that getting Julia’s home number and making her cut my hair might be a good move.

The Power of Relationship

I am by no means a valuable customer for any hairdresser. I get a basic haircut 5 times a year – probably 1 out 10 on the hairdresser interest scale and degree of difficulty. Almost no money in me – no one would bat an eyelid if I left.

I will show up like clockwork until I have a reason not to. In fact the last time Julia took an extended leave form haircuts, I shaved my head, bought a set of clippers and self administered head shavings until my mum mentioned that Julia was back.

Why I kept going to Julia was because for the 20 or so minutes I was there we could talk all sorts of ‘weird rubbish’ – my idea of paradise. It was the experience of getting my haircut with her. Not the haircut, that kept me coming back. It was the fun. I was entertained and she was entertained. It worked.

If there is a risk of your customers following a staff member out the door you need to be counteracting that by building a relationship with them too. But this article is about my feelings not marketing advice.

Julia was the one who tended my lovely long locks to fully grown twice now. (every hairdresser I’ve ever seen has said they would kill for my hair). My hair has two lengths where it is good. Shaved and so long it can be tied back. Anything in between and it is a ‘choose your own adventure in styling.’ There is no product short of super glue that can keep it styled for longer than an hour.

The first time I grew my hair long in high school, Julia coaxed me to turn it into a style lab for her to keep it interesting for her. Starting with blond highlights, it progressed to every imaginable colour under the sun, midnight blue, red, orange, black.

For the last day of school everyone expected I would finally shave my head – I rocked up with red hair and a spiral perm, one of Julia’s ideas. My friends said I looked like Slash from Guns and Roses (I was mortified – I hate 80’s music barring Operation Ivy and about 5 other bands known as 90s bands that actually formed in the 80s. ).

Julia was there when I did finally cut my hair short when I was at Uni. Because of a man crush on Danny Glass the drummer from the Royal Crown Revue (the band in The Mask). Julia was back cutting hair again when I decided to grow my hair long again. I had gotten sick of short hair and working for myself I finally felt okay with not looking like ‘Da Man.’

Good bye Juila where ever you are.

Filed Under: Blog, Customer Loyalty, Customer Retention

Why Roger Federer Amazes Me. (A massive talent realised)

September 4, 2013 by

As I am writing this, the French Open is in full swing. The one tournament that Roger Federer struggles at. I mean comparatively anyway.

He’s only managed to win one. And he didn’t need to beat Nadal to do it. Nadal has beaten Federer to win Wimbledon. Which in my mind makes Nadal the better head to head player – just.

Nadal succeeds more through determination and hard work applied to a good talent base. The physical toll he exerts on his body is incredible and the damage is evident now – and it will get heaps worse that the initial damage has been done.

Why Federer amazes me is the fact his tennis is effortless – its very rare to see that much talent in one person, and that much talent capitalised on.

He hasn’t exacted the same toll on his body. He wins with grace, skill, power and just well, being better than everyone. The guy never sweats… Its almost effortless when he plays tennis. To me, this effortlessness is what we should all be striving for. Roger has it on the tennis court.

Before the Rise of Federer.

Federer had a far more devious opponent he had to defeat in order to become a great. He had to master himself. If he didn’t then he would have been a ‘never was.’ This was evident in his early days when he struggled with his temper and every set back turned from mole hill into mountain infront of his eyes, despite his talent.

At this stage all of his talent mattered for nought. He was easy to beat.

We know now that The Fed overcame those demons and has gone on to achieve what he has.

Personally I probably empathise more with Roger than Rapha. I have struggled far more with problems between my ears than I ever have learning new skills or doing most things, but I haven’t tried gymnastics either… I am generally pretty determined to succeed at what is important to me but at this stage I still battle with the enemy within more than anything else.

Self mastery is required in all of us to truly reveal all of our talents and the skills we develop. Most things in life are a function of hard work and persistence more than a ‘talent base.’  Most talents are actually highly developed skills – so even talent can be obtained with hard work.

Self mastery is as much about knowing what we are good at as what we are bad at. If we are bad at an essential skill, then we either need to get someone to do it for us or else master the skill. This applies in business as much as it does anywhere in life.

Do yourself a favour. Don’t spend all that hard work developing skills that you can pay for while you let your natural talents go to waste.

Filed Under: Blog

The Entrepreneur’s Nightmare: Where is the next sale coming from?

September 4, 2013 by

The worst feeling in business is where you don’t know where the next sale is coming from. I know, I’ve felt it. Nowadays the panic sets in from time to time, but usually it is irrational.

But I remember what it is like when it was real and I had every right to be panicked – from days selling roof restorations. Lying awake staring at ceiling. Panic creeping in from the darkest recesses of your sub conscious. Wondering what would happen if I got sick and couldn’t work for a week. You feel like you’ve got nobody to turn to. You know tomorrow you’ve got to put it all aside, go and knock on doors and beg for work until you’ve gotten your 3 appointments booked…

I don’t know which is worse, knowing that if you want to stay in the game, you need to be out there knocking on doors. Or actual knocking on doors, hour after hour, wondering which one would be the one that finally relented and gave me that last appointment so I could go home.

Back then I operated in a very limited way. You knocked on doors, sold a roof restoration, then knocked on some more doors. Rinse and Repeat until death – I couldn’t see a way to get rich doing this.

Most of us live some form of this nightmare at some point. And breaking the cycle should be a priority for every entrepreneur. Lead generation systems are one of the ways to do it. But there is a better one.

What I didn’t know then that I understand better now is that existing customers are also a source of sales. If you set your business up correctly then you’ve got a second avenue to generate your next sale.

It is far easier to get an existing customer to buy something from you than to get a new customer to make a first purchase with you. You can thank Bain and Company for that factoid. It is vital to understand that distinction because if you are wondering where your next sale is coming from I can guarantee you that most people think in terms of new customers and that sales from existing customers are ignored.

What opportunities can you think of to get your next sale from an existing customer? I’ve come up with a short list of ideas from my existing customers.

 

Filed Under: Blog, Cross Selling, Customer Loyalty, Customer Retention

Newsletters Don’t Work

September 4, 2013 by

Amazing! I run a company called Newsletter Marketing Systems and I am telling you that newsletters don’t work.

Well, it is true there are instances that they don’t work. The first is when there is lack of scope of opportunity within a customer base to mean that retaining those customers is worthwhile.

No point sending a newsletter to someone who has brought once and will never buy again from you – cosmetic dentistry for example – no point trying to sell them another ‘full oral rehabilitation’ package, you need to be out there looking for a new customer.

Many other examples of this are in fact the limitations of the business owner’s beliefs rather than the limitations of the business. It is largely definitional. For example, when I was out selling roof restorations I had the same problem. They didn’t need another roof restoration for 15 years. The average home owner stays in their home for 7 years. So the odds of the repeat sale are slim.

Since I was in the roof restorations business and I sold roof restorations newsletters weren’t going to work for me.

That said, putting on my marketers hat, those same customers could have been induced to buy new guttering, water tanks, water saving devices, candidates for a gardening service, best of all, they could have been induced to refer new roof restorations clients to me.

But because I was stubbornly in the roof restorations business that sort of entrepreneurial/marketing think was beyond what I could do at the time.

newsletters-dont-workThe second reason Newsletters don’t work is because YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG. Newsletters need to be read to have an impact. I’ve seen people with some horrid looking newsletters get some great results because the content was interesting to the market.

Common Causes Of Doing A Newsletter Wrong:

  1. 1.       Thinking that your customers care as much about your product or service as you do. We have a very specific content formula which we advise our clients to use, to prevent this exact problem. Nobody wants to read a blatant pitch from you every month. Give up doing that. Engage them in other ways – after all, they already know your products are good. They are a customer already.
  2. 2.       Not being willing to send a customer newsletter monthly. Jerry Jones famously says “its monthly or don’t bother.” Our customers that have had the best results with their newsletter send it monthly. No question about it. Quarterly doesn’t work anywhere near as well. You need to earn engagement from your customers, giving you the opportunity to profit from your existing customers. That warrants the investment in a monthly newsletter.

So you want to argue that newsletters don’t work? You may be right. Usually, it is because of circumstances almost always of your choosing that prevent them from working. I tell potential customers that for what we charge to write, design and mail your newsletter for you, the relative investment is minor, compared to the costs of losing that customer. And if you say you “can’t afford it,” then all I can say is I don’t know why you’d want them as a customer in the first place.

Filed Under: Blog, Newsletter
« Previous Page
Next Page »