You must, without exception, spend most of your time marketing your business. That’s a fact that will never change. Most companies and even successful executives don’t get this. If you spend most of your day attracting people to purchase your product, the other aspects of running your business are a cakewalk. Your goal of a 30% increase in profits within 90 days becomes entirely reachable when you spend about 80% of your time marketing. In fact, you’re likely to blow by that 30% in 90 day goal really fast if you follow only this advice and spend 80% of your time marketing.
When I coach people, this is the first and most fundamental challenge, beyond anything else I’m faced with. Intellectually, everyone understands that if you don’t develop strong relationships with your customers and prospects, someone else will. If others do, you’ll soon find yourself out of business. There are staggering numbers of people and companies looking for the same customers you are. You have to be on top of the game when competing for their business. As I said earlier – intellectually, everyone I talk with about this “gets it” and agrees – yet almost nobody devotes that kind of energy to it.
Imagine that you have a business that has $500,000 of revenue and $75,000 of profit before tax. Most people with a business like this spend 5% of their time on marketing. Maybe 10%. If the owner of that business seriously steps up to devoting 80% of their time and their company’s sales and marketing function’s time to marketing, revenue would increase from $500.000 to $2 million or more. The overall profit percentage may decline from 15% of revenue to 13%, but 13% of $2 million in revenue is $260,000 of profit before tax. That’s quite an increase!
Why is there a decline in the profit percentage, from 15% to 13%, in this example? The primary reason is, when the owner decides to spend 80% of her or his time on marketing as a percentage of revenue may go up, simply because leveraging the work of other people frees that 80% of his or her time and this additional help costs more. The principle here is that an owner/leader should focus their time and attention where they provide the most value and that value is in marketing. Spending a bit more, lowering the overall percentage of profit a bit, is well worth the additional returns in the profits from additional sales.
Develop and Implement an Effective Follow-Up System
Once you understand who wants what you offer and is willing to pay for it, implement a communication strategy to catch their attention. If you speak with a voice that communicates directly to your customers and specifically to what they want, they’ll pay attention.
The good news is that some of the best marketing methods have no incremental cost. These include: social media marketing, email marketing and follow-up telephone calls. The key is to have a follow-up timetable, based on your evaluation of the prospect as being an A, B or C. A’s are likely to warrant personal meetings and B and C are progressively less likely.
Whatever it takes to convert a prospect to a customer is what you need to do. Furthermore, no matter how long it takes you, keep doing it. I know some business owners who never drop a person from their contact management system once the information is captured. I know of instances where a prospect becomes a customer after seeing 20 or more messages. We simply don’t know how long it will take to develop that relationship that then turns into a sale.
The Best Way to Attract New Customers:
Happy customers refer others. Continually evaluate ways that you can increase customer satisfaction and then offer your customers incentives for referring others. In summary, satisfy your existing customers – exceed their expectations, then offer rewards when they refer their friends who will also purchase your product.
There are Only Three Ways to Increase Sales
It might not sound possible. Jay Abraham, the famous author, speaker and deal-maker, was first to teach me there are only three ways to increase sales – and he’s right. They are:
- Find more customers.
- Increase the average sale per customer (raise prices).
- Increase the average number of items purchased per customer.
For optimum leverage, you want to do all three. In the service industry, I always look for ways to offer an up-sale or add-on purchase. For example, this book is an entry-level low-priced product. It may be developed into a DVD training program and certainly is encouragement for people to invest in my coaching. My coaching program has multiple levels, depending on the client’s needs and what they can afford.
Regarding affordability, I have creative ways to help people who are committed to doing the work easily pay for my coaching. Call me, Steve Pohlit, at 727-587-7871 for details.
Effective Marketing Requires Little or No Cash: Check Out These examples:
Your Online Brand
The Internet is critical for any business in our day. A Website is the foundation for your brand. You’re most likely reading this book thanks to the Internet. You search for things you want or need via the Internet and you’re far from alone. The fact is you have almost no credibility today without a Website.
Blogging is also a major resource for speaking directly to your customers. You have to have a voice that online customers can hear, seek out and follow and blogging is a major way to do this. Fortunately, Websites and blogs can be set up very inexpensively these days. You can learn to do this yourself. However, I recommend outsourcing the task. Most of the sites my clients set up are completed in less than a week for less than $500 when they outsource the work.
Once your site is set up you’ll need to invest some time communicating, using articles, email marketing and phone calls. Much of this can also be outsourced.
Your potential customers right now, all over the world, are typing key words into their Internet browsers and searching for things you might sell. You need to make sure you show up when they do. Brand recognition and being able to speak directly to your customers, conveying to them what they want and that you have it right now, is powerful.
Notice the title of this book: Build Business Profits Fast. Now, type buildbusinessprofitsfast.com in your browser. I chose the title of this book based because the matching domain name was available. You should select the name of your business, if you’re just starting, based on the availability of the .com domain name. This is important and it’s the foundation for building your brand today. Once you have your brand, then you need to have your site built in the format to best serve your target customers.
I chose to focus on the landing page or squeeze page for this book and put it in a separate directory on my site. I’m using the main site to offer information about the book and to encourage all who discover the home page to click and register for the first chapter free. I’m also using the main site for key articles that promote the book. My plan is to further support this material with select videos.
My preferred setup for all the sites I have is to have a full site support account for each domain with my hosting solutions company, Host Gator. A full support site is one where there is what’s called C-Panel access. Once registered, I then click the Fantastico icon in C-Panel to load WordPress. WordPress is the technology I prefer for blogging and sites of all kinds, because of its flexibility for creating pages that look similar to graphic sites and the ease of blogging it brings to the table.
All the details of how this is done are beyond the scope of this book. However, there is a free course I developed several years ago, named Blogging for Profits, that will walk you though the steps required to set up and get rolling with your own WordPress blogs and Websites.
Social Media
The most efficient way to drive traffic to your blog and Website is through the effective use of social media. This includes Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn. Stay up-to-date with what your target audience is following and discussing, then target your communication to address their problems.
Social media is one of the most powerful ways to reach your customers. Customer trends and conversations are important to keep track of and social media takes the guesswork out of doing this. However, the next couple of steps are very important, since social media connections alone likely won’t prove effective for converting connections to customers.
Relationships
You want to build and maintain relationships with people interested in you and in your products and services. Keeping up communication at this point is essential; you want your audience to go from following your social media posts to getting on your own list, where you can develop more direct communications, including sales messages.
Make it clear in all your communications with your customers that what they need is provided by your business. Tell them how following you and accepting your free advice will enhance their lives. Also tell them they’ll enhance their lives when they tell their friends to join your list. The good news: no “hard-sell” is required in these communications.
A Proven Approach to Increase Revenues Quickly
See the power of this approach? This is a simple and inexpensive communication process that will result in loyalty to you and what you publish. Their loyalty, to what you stand for and to the value you bring to the table, is the benchmark for your success you should focus on. The more value you deliver, the greater the loyalty and the greater your success.
This strategy has been instrumental to my own success.
I have several businesses that produced cash profits quickly as a result of the networks I built on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube. This work has been the foundation of my strategy to have a large base of people interested in what I offer. Possibly more interesting is the fact that I’m now launching a new business unrelated to anything I’ve offered in the past, and my entire contact list needs what this business will offer.
When you subscribe to my list at http://buildingbusinessprofitsfast.com you’ll receive updates on the latest actions that are working and those that appear to have changed. You’ll also be able to share your stories and questions related to your experience implementing the action steps in this book.
Once people connect to you and trust you, they’ll pay attention to your recommendations. At that point, you have the opportunity to market affiliate products, co-branded products and services, test joint venture ideas and more.
The new business I’m launching with services everyone needs is a perfect example. It has nothing to do with real estate investment, real estate investment consulting, business turnaround consulting or any of the other ventures that people associate with me. However, I’m confident my list will be ravenous buyers of the services offered.
The value is in the list. It’s honestly the most valuable asset in your business. Build your list as a database. Everyone that buys from you should be designated as a customer. All communication with customers as well as buying history should be retained an accessible for when you communicate with those customers or when there is a customer inquiry or complaint. This database can mean the difference between success and failure.
Here is one example: I have previously mentioned my Manifest Mastermind membership business and free course. I expanded my network on Facebook and Twitter in 2008 and then used that network to launch Manifest Mastermind in January, 2009. It was profitable month one. I launched it all for less than $1,000.
Do I recommend following this example? Yes, but I would also find ways to leverage my time better. As a reminder, register for my free course at http://manifestmastermind.com.
Bonus: I just recorded an interview with a person whose life was turned around and whose business is skyrocketing and he attributes the tipping point to my Manifest Mastermind. You must be a member of my list to receive this bonus. How much does it cost to become a member of my list? $0.00.
Are you seeing the whole picture…the overall strategy and the ease of attaining the success you set out to achieve when you picked up this book? Once the first idea flows, it’s like an avalanche of possibilities. Once you get what I’m teaching you here, you can create your future without limits.
Profiling for Profit
When creating your profile for each of the social networks you’re using, it’s important to use keyword descriptions that will attract your target audience. Notice one of my professional descriptions is “International Real Estate Investment and Business Turnaround Coach.” That’s considerably more powerful than simply writing something like, “Author.” However, I’m modifying my profiles to include the newest information, which includes, “Author: Building Business Profits Fast and Managing Partner – The Guys In Pink.”
Look at that last phrase again: “Managing Partner – The Guys In Pink.” Alone, it doesn’t speak to any target audience, or maybe to a group that I’m not personally interested in attracting. But, when I add something like, “Delivering Outstanding Satisfaction to Homeowners Wanting Lawncare, Pool Service and More,” along with the Website URL, not only will people “get it,” there are important keywords in that description to help them find it from search.
Social media helps solidify relationship capital. The greatest thing about it is that it’s a constant, ever-changing, living, breathing entity. Relationship capital provides us with a new dimension to relationships, available at our fingertips. That can be very positive for the goal of strengthening our professional and personal relationships.
The opposite can be true. One personal example was my experience on Facebook during the 2012 presidential campaign. I was very vocal and visible during the months leading up to the election, in support of the person I felt had the best platform to lead our country. I had hundreds of people unfriend me on Facebook who were not in alignment with my views. I was ok with that because I’m a person who is very clear as to what I stand for and I’m not going to make everyone happy.
Action Steps
- Begin tracking your time. Use the accelerated accountability worksheet that you will find in the bonus section of this book. Commit to spending 80% of your time marketing, including following up with current, past and prospective customers. Note: if you’re in the professional services industry, like I am, even for just part of your business, then you must leverage your marketing tasks to others who will help you, because a majority of your professional time will often be devoted to working with clients.
- Use the power of social media to leverage your marketing time and use social media to attract your target audience to your list using landing pages and auto-responders. Here’s one example of a landing page for this book: http://buildingbusinessprofitsfast.com/FreeChapter/register.html
- Create or edit your social media profiles to appeal to your ideal customers.
- Regularly engage your social media connections with status updates, new blog posts or videos and comment on what they’re publishing online. By “regularly,” I mean set up a schedule that you follow. A good portion of this action step can be leveraged to others (outsourced).
