Grow My Successful Business from SuccessTrack

Despite what you see, hear and read, people are still buying and people are still setting up new companies. Look back in history and you’ll discover that many hugely successful companies were actually started during times of economic slowdown. This is a time of great opportunity – although there are plenty of doomsday merchants who will try to convince you otherwise. However, it is also a time for all companies to become more flexible and adaptable. This is not the time to ponder or mull over what’s happening in your market. You need to be quick on your feet – to be aware of what your customers REALLY want and to be able to provide it.

Yes, your customers may become more discerning but if you can demonstrate that you can deliver great value, they will still buy from you.

Worse Thing You Can Do Now

The most dangerous thing you can do at a time of economic slowdown is to take no action. Doing nothing is not an option. This is not a ‘business as usual’ time… it’s most definitely not the time to sit on your hands and wait. It’s a time to take stock of where you are and to do something about the areas you aren’t confident about … areas like sales and marketing which are so crucial to your business survival. If you’re not 100% confident about your sales and marketing ability, do something about it today. (Come and learn everything you need to know at our SuccessTrack Business Bootcamp seminar…)

If you’re like the majority of business owners, you’re probably busy looking for ways to survive the economic downturn. You’re probably thinking of ways to cut costs… you may have already laid off some of your staff (or you’re considering it). Perhaps you’re tightening up credit procedures to ensure the company gets paid on time every time. You might have begun to reduce your prices or offer substantial discounts to your existing and new customers. And like many business owners, you may have made drastic cuts to your sales and marketing budget (if you have one – too many companies don’t and therefore never get to reap the enormous benefits that a targeted sales and marketing campaign brings). What every successful business owner knows is that sales and marketing is what will help you to survive and thrive in a recession – it will help you to attract new and repeat business. Successful business owners know you cannot survive in business without it.

I promised it, so here it is: on Saturday and Sunday 11th and 12th October we are running two one-day free marketing seminars.

So far the line-up includes:

Peter Thomson, leading author and business strategist

Guy Levine, internet marketing expert

Bev James, persuasion and motivation expert

Myself!

I’m just tying up two further speakers, too.

What’s the catch..why is it free?  It’s to tempt you to try out a two-month free trial (worth £198) on the new Ultimate Business Advantage Mentoring Programme. It’s all free apart from £7.97 for the postage to get it to you (£19.99 out of UK) .

What a bargain! Grab your place on the day of your choice here: www.successtrackuk.com

Join hundreds (135 booked so far for Saturday) of like-minded business owners at the Business Breakthrough Day - and it’s free!

We’ll be covering most of the questions raised on this blog, too, and giving you some great answers.

See you there!

JJ

Your ad must have these five elements:  offer, bonus, guarantee, response mechanisms, and urgency. They work together to literally propel a consumer out of his/her chair to place an order. To do this, you’ll use:

·                     Your Headline — The Meat of Your Offer

This should be the primary benefit that you want the reader to realise from your product. You may also include sub-headlines. 

·                     Your Benefit-Laden Copy — The Added Values of Bonus and Guarantee

After the headline you want good copy that is short with easy-to-read sentences, and short paragraphs with subheads. This should then help the reader move smoothly through your article and ad.

·                     Your Call to Action — How To Do It

At the conclusion of the copy be certain to direct the reader as to what action to take. Tell the reader to call the phone number to get more information, or cut off the coupon and redeem it for credit. You can tell the reader to mention the ad in the paper to get a certain discount.

·                     Urgency — Why Do It Now

You’ll also want to include urgency. That is, tell the reader that the ad or promotion is good through this Saturday or until the end of the month. Offer a bonus or an additional discount to up-sell or increase the average size of your sell.

A strategic alliance is an easy way to explore new market opportunities, to find new leads, attract new customers and really turbo-boost your sales but careful planning is imperative before you sign on any dotted line. Strategic alliances don’t involve upfront costs, but they do involve time, resources and energy so you want to be sure you find the right match.

Why form a strategic alliance? They allow your business to gain a competitive edge through access to a partner’s resources – whether they are markets, technologies, capital or people. With a strategic alliance, you increase your resources and capabilities which in turn boosts your company’s growth and expansion. You may gain access to more established channels of distribution, marketing or branding.

So, how can you form a successful strategic alliance?

1)      Think creatively about possible relationships and try not to limit who you consider partnering with. Find the right partner and you might suddenly open up an entirely new customer base for your product or service.

2)      Define your outcome. Decide what you want from the relationship. Are you hoping to gain access to a particular market, gain new customers, or find ways to retain your existing customers? However appealing a business partner may seem, it’s pointless to take the relationship any further if your goals don’t match.

3)      Decide who you want to partner with. What type of company will be most beneficial for your purpose? The ideal partner in a strategic alliance is one that has resources, skills and assets that complement your own. The strategic alliance has to work contractually, but there should also be a good fit between the cultures of the two organisations. One of the biggest reasons for failure in strategic alliances is an incompatibility between company cultures.

4)      There are many places to find strategic alliance partners: your existing customers or suppliers, your competitors, your industry’s professional or trade associations, trade shows, joint venture brokers, business networks, networking events, etc. Wherever you look, ask yourself the following: how well does their company perform? How do they feel about working in partnership? Will they share your level of motivation and commitment? Are they trustworthy? Is there a good match between the two companies’ values?

5)      Take time to check out the reliability of your potential partner. Is the company financially secure? Does it have any current or previous credit problems? Does it already have strategic alliance partnerships with any other company and if so, how will it impact on yours?

6)      Define the basics of how the strategic alliance will operate. Once you’ve clarified how the partnership will work for you, you’ll know which company and which kind of offer will be best. Look to work with companies that see as much of a benefit as you do in the partnership. Work only with partners that are as motivated as you are to make it work.

7)      Ensure that the relationship works financially for both you and your partner. Unless you both gain from the partnership, one of you will lack motivation and feel resentful and the relationship will crumble.

      Don’t tie the deal up with so many clauses that neither of you has room to move. Obviously an agreement is necessary but do try to keep things as streamlined as possible. Identify the results that will cause the strategic alliance to be most beneficial for your business and define the structure and operating issues that need to be addressed to achieve these results.

Conclusion

Strategic alliance partnerships may take time and energy to set up and run but they can also make a huge difference to your company’s bottom line.

This weekend dozens of business owners discovered new ways of making their business more profitable, growing their customer base and marketing efffectively on a budget. A total of 405 busines owners applied for a place but we couldn’t fit them in….so, on Saturday 11th October at The Shaw Theatre, Euston, we’re running a special one-day Business Breakthrough event for SUCCESSTRACK MEMBERS ONLY that will answer the most pressing questions posed by business owners today - including the answers to the questions you have asked in previous postings on this blog.

If you received a copy of my ‘Marketing Secrets’ book you will be sent an invitation to join SuccessTrack (free trial) and come along on the 11th October.  The venue seats 446, so we expect to fill all the seats within days of releasing the details.

You will receive details in the next ten days - so watch out for a letter from us.

Below are some of the comments from SuccessTrack memeber on the Business Bootcamp this weekend

Jonathan

Hi…if you are a business owner and you want to make your business more successful and more profitable, keep Saturday 11th October free in your diary.

SuccessTrack are running a one-day FREE introductory seminar for business owners on fast strategies for business success.  We’re focusing on internet marketing and marketing on a tight budget - you’ll learn practical, usable strategies that are proven to work.

We’ll release the details over the next couple of weeks and tell you how to get tickets.  YOU MUST BE A BUSINESS OWNER TO ATTEND.  The Business Builder Bootcamp happening this weekend sold out a month ago and there are 255 people on the waiting list, so don’t miss out on this FREE day on October 11th. Tell us what you would like to learn that would make YOUR business more successful by typing your comments below:

A few days ago, two readers of this blog posted their ‘biggest business challenge’.  In both cases the challenge was about  getting more click throughs to the company website and get more sign ups on the site.

Here are their question:

Chris Says:
 Click through. Getting people to understand that there is lots of great stuff here, so stay a while and ask for more. All this is on the site but people aren’t doing what we’d like. The average time on our site is in excess of 4 minutes!
We’re looking to grow the relationship between us and the customer online but we’re missing something.
Frustration: fix this and we’d be happy chaps!

Graeme Says:
Ultimately very simple. Two things - make them come and make them buy!But on a more detailed level, I am trying to build an email list. How do I get them to sign up? Not enough do…

Here’s the brief answer i gave them:

Sometimes problems can seem bigger when you are close to them.

When you talk of ‘click through’ Chris, I’m assuming you mean online ads, like Google Adwords. Even if you don’t, the same rules apply: if you want to get more people clicking on your ad you have to change what the ad is saying to hit the hot buttons of your target audience.  Remember that it’s not just about increasing the number of people who click on your ad, it’s getting the RIGHT people to click on your ad.

One company I know very well is obsessed with getting sales leads, believing that the more leads they have, the more sales they will get.  Now, there may be a grain of truth in there, but the real focus should be on getting better qualified prospects, people who already want (or need) what you have to offer.

Now, i don’t know what you do Chris and what type of business you’re in, but the same rule applies.  Work out who is your perfect prospect (that’s the easy part), then work out their biggest problem, create a solution (presumably your product/service) and the craft your ad to address that solution - with the answer on your website.

That will increase your click through of better prospects. Now, once you have them on your website, you want them to do one thing - give you permission to send them something.  It might be a free download/report or a free audio file or a free video file. The media isn’t important - what is important is the file contains the answer to their biggest problems.

This also solves your problem Graeme of getting people to give you their email address.

Suddenly you have been transformed from a stranger into an advisor or an expert. You have their contact details so that you can keep in touch and over the weeks you can build a relationship.  If you can demonstrate that what you do has value - that person will become a client.

Chris, you are concerned that the average time on your site if 4 minutes. Now, if that four minutes is used by the prospect to complete a form requesting the information you offer, then that’s four minutes used very well.  On www.freemarketingbook.com, the only thing a prospect can do is complete their name and email address, so the average time on that page is less than one minute - but that’s fine because 70% of visitors fill in their details.

Your goal should be to build a prospect data base - see my post about date bases- and your website should assist you in doing that.  Be single minded and don’t offer too many options.  Your lead generation website should offer just one thing and in exchange for that one thing you get their permission to contact them.  Don’t ty and get married on the first date - build the relationship over time and prove that your company can perform.

Your comments please….

Jonathan

Since she bought out her former boss and took over his bespoke furniture company Emscote Furniture www.emscotefurniture.co.uk, Debbie Heath has done well but now, following last night’s special SuccessTrack Company Makeover, she is confident her sales results are about to explode… Why? Because during our consultation, I was able to identify the mistakes that Debbie was making… the sort of mistakes that so many companies make when it comes to marketing, advertising, pricing… AND more importantly give Debbie the precise steps she must take now to transform her company’s performance.

Debbie Heath is an entrepreneur who turned from employee to business owner when the opportunity came to buy the company she worked for from her boss. Debbie’s company makes exceptional bespoke kitchen, bedroom and study furniture (she told me about all the client testimonials she has). The company produces high quality furniture to measure in about the same amount of time it takes some furniture companies to give you their quote! What’s more the company sells direct to customers.

During our consultation, I quizzed Debbie on the operation and how it works.

First, Emscote furniture is keenly priced – almost too keenly.  The company supplies at trade prices but provides High Street customer service which means that instead of building kitchens and loading them up on a van and sending them to a company that then sells them to you, they come to your house to fit them and provide an aftercare service. Being someone who has recently bought a new kitchen I know that Debbie could put her prices up a bit and still be cheaper than her competitors. Pricing is key: people judge you by your prices and being the cheapest isn’t always the best – in fact, it quite often is detrimental to your business. Read my thoughts on pricing elsewhere on this blog.

Second, when I asked Debbie why you and I should do business with her, her answers were typical: it’s a family business; we look after our clients; our prices are fair, etc.  Digging deeper she revealed that they are unique in that they make and supply the furniture QUICKLY – sometimes within days.  Like I said, I bought a new kitchen earlier in the year and have waited months for it to be delivered so I know all too well just how unique Emscote Furniture’s fast delivery policy is. (If I had used Debbie’s company it would have been with me within a week or so). It became obvious that Debbie has always taken the company’s speedy production and delivery for granted… that is until last night’s special SuccessTrack Company Makeover; she now realises how unique that service is. As a result of the consultation this will be her USP – her Unique Selling Proposition – and will help her stand out from the crowd of furniture manufacturers out there. Her advertising will now focus on her speed, which has far more benefit for me, her customer, than the fact that she runs the company with her husband.

Debbie said that her furniture is better made than most and definitely less costly; despite this she still gets people who want it to be cheaper. The problem here is positioning – her website says ‘quality’ but her local newspaper ads say ‘bargain’.  She needs to reposition herself at the top end of the market, with medium prices and high quality and value.  Local papers may not be the way to go.

Internet Advertising

Debbie has tried using Google Adwords, without success.  Advertising on Google has major advantages – you can turn it on and turn it off and you only pay when someone clicks on your ads to find out more.  A quick look at her Google campaign showed she was limiting her budget to such a low level, the ads were appearing so low down, that her click through rates were negligible. This is a common mistake – I often hear people say that Google can get pricy if you don’t keep an eye on it.  This is the wrong way of thinking – if you give me a pound and I give you £10 in return, you’ll give me pound coins all day long ; Google do their bit, getting people interested in what you do to click your ad, now it’s up to your website to get the conversions.  Debbie’s website www.emscotefurniture.co.uk is smartly done but probably doesn’t get the reader involved as much as it could.  My advice – increase the spend on Google (you are billed on a credit card so have time to get business in before you pay your credit card bill) and make sure the ads focus on the new USP of the business – speed.

Debbie and I would love to hear your thoughts and advice.  What do you think?

And if you are in the market for some bespoke furniture, email Debbie through her website.

Please post your comments below.

What keeps you awake at night?

If you could solve this problem, would it make your business more successful?

If you could wave the magic wand, what challenge would melt away?

Post your biggest business challenges below and let’s try and solve them!

Jonathan