I'm constantly amazed at people who are looking for ideas on how to grow their business with social media and don't bother ask the most fundamentally important questions, about "What they want to achieve?" and "Who they're trying to engage with?" 3 from B-Reel & B-Reel Films on Vimeo.
Five ways to grow your business by John Logar, looks at how you get a big increase in profit by making a few small changes on the key turnover drivers of your business. By focusing on increasing your leads, improving your conversion, increasing the average dollar spend of your customers and then by nurturing and retaining them to buy more often you can blow your sales targets out of the water. Watch the video and see for yourself.
The most successful businesses today are constantly empowering, encouraging and nurturing their employees. Here are some tips on how to motivate and energise your team:
1. Survey your team membersAsk people from different levels in your business what they would change and how they would change it. This is a great way of picking up fresh ideas and makes your team realise you value their opinion and their contribution to improving the company.
2. Share the visionShow your team the sales figures, projections and your vision for the future of the company. Communicate constantly. This lets your team know where you’re heading and the role they play in getting there.
3. Encourage your team to improve your systemsEmpower your team to constantly improve processes and systems. This gives them ownership of the concept and builds confidence in developing solutions.
4. Provide continuous trainingEncourage your team to improve their skills. Train them in communication, people skills, selling, management etc. Have regular reviews and get staff to make a commitment to implementing new ideas or strategies.
5. Find solutions from your teamAsk your team how they might solve some of the frustrations and challenges in your business. You’ll be surprised how quickly and easily you solve your challenges with a collective input.
6. Improve productivityGet your people to set uninterrupted time aside to focus on high priority tasks. Blocking out time zones like this increases productivity and helps your team to prioritise more effectively.
7. Reward constantlyAcknowledge successes and achievements, provide incentives and set performance standards. When your employees perform, thank them… make them feel special.
John Logar
Professional Speaker and Consultant
Many business owners think that the answer to increasing their profitability is generating more work. Sometimes that is true. In many cases though there are better ways. For example, I sat down with a gentleman whose sole purpose was to find out how to get more inquiries. After a series of questions, it became apparent that his problem wasn’t the number of enquiries; it was that his conversion ratio was only 7%.
When looking at any business to increase profitability, it’s usually best to start with what is already happening in the business i.e. enquiries as a result of previous marketing. Considering that you’ve already spent a good deal of time, effort and money to get the phones ringing, it makes a whole lot more sense to turn those leads into sales instead of focusing on generating more leads.
A commercial painter in Melbourne was quoting twenty jobs per week. Out of that, he might win one or two jobs. The trouble was the jobs he won were won on price so they had very little profit in them. He was up until all hours of the night developing the quotes and then up early to get to the jobs that paid almost nothing. He commented that kids working at McDonalds were making more money than he was.
What a situation to be in. You might as well go broke playing golf rather than working for nothing.
If you’re in a situation where you quote regularly and only win around 10-20% of those, you’ll know how frustrating it can be spending all that time running around for nothing, particularly if the quotes you are winning are won on price along. This means of course, that there’s usually little profit in the job.
Here’s a simple way to win more quotes at higher prices…
Many people look upon quotes as simply writing down the specifications of the product or job and submitting that together with a price to the client. This is suicide. Quoting is much more – it’s an entire process. It starts with attracting the right type of customers, moves on to how you deal with those enquiries at the first point of contact, preparing and delivering your proposal and lastly, the follow up.
Let’s assume through your advertising and marketing that you’re targeting the right customers and you’re receiving a steady flow of enquiries. The key ingredient is the preparation and delivery of your proposal.
Ban the word ‘quote’
Here’s a scenario – you need to get some repair work done on your car so you call three panel beaters and get three quotes for the work. Now, what’s the first thing you do when you look at all three quotes together? That’s right, you look at the bottom line…at the price. The way most quotes are written make us focus on the price and therefore, in the majority of cases, the lowest price usually gets the job. If your customers are only buying you because you’ve got the cheapest price, then you’re painting yourself into a small corner because there is always someone out there who will be cheaper.
The word ‘quote’ has psychologically conditioned us to compare the price. Avoid use of the word ‘quote’. Instead, change it to ‘action plan’, ‘proposal’ or a ‘statement’. For example, a kitchen renovator might start his quote with ‘Recommendations for building your new kitchen’.
Warning: I’ve watched people change the name of their ‘quotes’ to ‘proposal’ and think that’s where it ends. Nothing could be further from the truth. A rose by any other name is still a rose. Using the same old quotes you’ve always done and changing only the title to ‘proposal’ will do nothing for your conversion.
Changing the name does nothing unless you change the entire presentation of your proposal. This means the opening statement, the selling copy, the supporting evidence in testimonials, reversing the risk through the use of a guarantee and perhaps an offer – all things that will make your proposal stand out from your competitors. Make your quote as professional as possible.
The elements of a winning proposal:
Your opening statement should cover the major objectives of the proposal – what the people you are writing to will achieve (in broad terms) when they accept your proposal.
*Provide some background information. Remember that people other than those you’ve spoken to may be reading your proposal too. Talk briefly about who you’ve had meetings with as well as highlight key points that came from your discussions.
*Meeting their needs. This is one of the more critical areas of your proposal. Use it to tell them what they told you. This section is really where the selling is done. It shows you’ve listened and that you’re on track with what the organization wants to achieve. Ideally you should bring out here emotional as well as factual areas.
*The investment in your services comes next. Many businesses submit proposals with pages and pages of how good their product or service is and then they have a section at the end of the proposal called ‘cost justification’. Please don’t do that. Instead, deal with pricing or investment right after the fulfilling their needs. When you get it out early, give the total figure first and then break it down as appropriate.
*Describe your product or service and how it meets their needs. The language that you will use is WIIFM – what’s in it for me. Make sure you focus on the client’s outcomes using your product or service.
*The implementation schedule is the last thing your reader will see. This is where you leave him or her with actions that should be taken so that all the benefits you’ve mentioned can start to flow.
*Follow up, follow up, follow up. Over 60% of quotes and proposals are never followed up. If you do this one thing consistently and persistently, you’ll dramatically improve your conversion rate.
The word here is action. That’s the purpose of your proposal – to get the reader to take action and give you the job.
There’s your formula. Follow it, adapt it and you’ll win more quotes.
Some of the comments I’ve heard when talking to people in membership based organisations are “We don’t sign up as many members as we’d like”; “We get a lot of enquiries for membership but they don’t seem to sign up”; “There’s a lot of competition around, there’s just too many choices for potential members” and “Potential members just don’t understand why they should join us.” In most cases, these organisations take a reactive rather than proactive approach to membership sales.
How would your organisation answer these questions?
*Do you have a defined process for handling membership enquiries and sales?
*Have you appointed a membership co-ordinator that is dedicated to administering and selling memberships?
*Do you provide sales and communication skills training to your staff?
*Do you set budgets and targets for membership registrations?
*Do you measure the performance of staff in terms of their conversion of enquiries to sales?
*Do you have a process in place to follow up enquiries, for example, when providing membership information kits?
In my experience, many organisations answer no to most of these questions. Some have appointed a membership co-ordinator or allocate an administrative staff member the task of handling membership enquiries and administration. Generally this person has been given very little direction, clear instruction, processes or expectations with regard to their role and the importance they play in the growth of the organisation. They often are order takers instead of sales makers. Due to a lack of skills, training and knowledge, up to tens of thousands of dollars in membership registrations are lost.
An association I worked with was averaging 40 membership enquires per week. They would convert about 6 of these enquires to memberships. Extending this result out over the course of a year with a membership fee of $395, this organisation missed out on 1,768 membership opportunities or $698,360 in membership sales.
Here are some strategies that improve membership sales:
1. Clearly define the role of the membership co-ordinator. The primary objective for the co-ordinator is to handle membership enquiries professionally and to help prospective members with the decision to invest in joining the organisation. This position is a sales role. It is important that the person in the role has sales experience and receives training in sales and communication skills.
2. Develop a sales process plan that details each step required to help a potential membership enquiry into a sale. By having a road map to follow when handling enquiries, it allows you to walk your prospect through the process and make it easier to convert. The best way to develop a sales process plan is to start at the end of a sale and work backwards to the beginning at the enquiry stage. This will highlight all the steps that must happen in generating a sale.
For example:
Step 6. Induct the member by explaining how they will receive notification of membership and the details of what to expect as a new member. You may need to articulate the induction process to them.
Step 5. The customer has agreed to join and gives you their details and credit card for processing.
Step 4. Explain the details of what is involved with the membership that they are interested in investing in.
Step 3. Share the benefits of joining. Answer questions that they may have. Give them reasons to join.
Step 2. Ask questions, get some details and find out more information about them and their interest in the organisation.
Step 1. Answer the enquiry professionally.
Your sales plan may have a few more detailed steps through it so use the above steps as a guide. Once you’ve set out a plan of what must happen at each stage of the selling process, you’re better equipped to guide your future prospects into a sale.
3. Start measuring the number of enquiries and the number of sales made. This will give you a conversion rate. What you measure you can manage; what you don’t you can’t. By measuring just your conversion rate, you’ll see a percentage increase in sales purely because you are focussing on it.
4. Measuring goes hand in hand with setting targets and budgets. Sales targets should be set on both a weekly and quarterly basis. The saying “If you aim at nothing, you hit it with amazing accuracy” applies here. The reason for setting weekly and quarterly targets is to monitor your performance over a short period of time and make regular adjustments. If you find yourself hitting your targets comfortably over a 3-week period, then apart from celebrating, you should also increase your targets. I worked with an association that monitored their sales closely and in one quarter their membership increased by 28 %, compared to the previous year where they didn’t monitor their results and achieved only an 11% increase for the entire year.
5.The key to increasing your conversion and the reason why up to 80% of membership sales are lost is because the prospect wasn’t asked to buy. By following the principle of gaining confirmation and commitment to action, your conversion rate will dramatically increase. The membership coordinator should incorporate questions such as “Does this make sense to you so far?” or “Is this what you had in mind in joining our organisation?” By asking these questions at the end, you are making sure that everything is ok with the prospect and they are aware of what they are about to invest in. Once you receive confirmation, ask if they have any additional questions or concerns. If they say no, follow through with “Great! If you like what you’ve heard, is it ok if we go ahead and organise your membership?” You’ll be amazed at the number of people that can’t think of a good reason not to go ahead immediately.
So to recap:
1. Remember when handling membership enquiries, you are a sales person first and foremost so start asking questions and help people to join your organisation.
2. Develop a sales process plan.
3. Start measuring your enquiry to sale conversion ratio.
4. Set targets and budgets; and
5. Ask for the sale every time by asking closing questions.
By taking action on any one of the areas you’ll see your membership sales increase.
