Unlocking Growth: The Importance of Customer Market Focus

Who are your customers & what do they want from you?

These are two simple questions which many businesses struggle to be able to define.

If you don’t know who your customer is, then it is impossible for you to maximise your business potential, because you won’t fully understand their needs and you could be leaving sales opportunities on the table.

Even worse, if you don’t understand your customer type, then you are oblivious to the fact that they may be on the path to extinction – which means….that your business may only be a few steps behind.… Read More

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Building a Referral Network: The Key to Sustainable Client Growth

There is a gold mine of new opportunity in your existing client base – you simply need to know where to look.

Business is very much about sustainability – the sustainability of new client opportunities/leads along with good sustained profit and cash flow. Drawing these together makes for a very profitable business operation in the short term, and fosters strong enterprise/business value over the longer term.

So, how do you tap into this sustainable flow of new opportunities?

One way, is via referrals from your existing client base. 

Referrals from people who already know and value what you do … Read More

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Designing for Success: Top 10 Elements of Effective Brochure Design

A well designed brochure will stack the “sales” deck in you favour and drive deeper profit returns. When you are selling, you want your prospect to see as much compelling and relevant information as possible, to both provide critical product/service information and to support your sales process.
Brochures come in many shapes and forms, with some aimed at marketing, some at selling and a number which are a hybrid and sit in between. Regardless of the use, there are 10 elements which need to be considered to make your brochure an effective profit making tool;

Purpose

Consider how

… Read More
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Elevate Sales Effectiveness: Harnessing Quality Collateral

Selling is about showing your customer in a convincing way, that your product (or service) is worth the value you are asking and….. that it meets their need or desire. Naturally, this point is not rocket science, albeit the way in which you show them or prove up the value of your product can have many layers of skill to it.

Over many years of working in a sales environment, we have noted that the vast majority of customers are visual in the way in which they assess the value of a product. What this means is that when … Read More

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Crafting Compelling Copy for Irresistible Sales

If someone said to you, “you’re going to want that Kidney..” – would you pay attention? I did. How about if someone said, “if left alone, it will continue to devour the cells around it” – do you think you would listen to what they said next? It got me.

Both examples are Compelling Copy.

I appreciate that both are medical based, however each show how compelling copy can entice or intrigue the audience into wanting to know more or to do something – which is typically the intent of any marketing.

Headline comments are perhaps … Read More

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Avoiding Web Mishaps: The Hidden Costs for Your Business

The web site of today is like the business card of 20 years ago – no serious business would be without one. It provides your name and contact number, but is also a window into the business, with your design, logo and flair. As with a business card, you can tell a lot about a business with even a quick look at their web site – but…as with business cards, not all web sites were born equal.

Regrettably, some of these sites have never successfully “drawn breath” and have either been a pure cost to the business, or have … Read More

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Navigating Business Sales Activity in Your Prospect Pipeline

Businesses with strong consistent sales, typically are the same ones who have a deep prospect pipeline. Regardless of the type of business or product, those who have the depth of opportunity in their sales pipeline, are also the ones who have less stress and typically better margins.

When you only have one or two prospects in your sales pipeline, there is the pressure to progress those opportunities quickly – perhaps with even a level of desperation. Whether these opportunities are ready or worthy – they are still progressed.

I have often used the analogy and comparison of a sales … Read More

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Enhancing Business Efficiency in Small Enterprises

Improvement in efficiency has been an age old quest in business, as it has enabled either more to be achieved with less effort, or for the same amount of effort, but faster with more profit.

For many reading this article, the phone or tablet you are using provides you with a more effective use of your time – as you can read this on the run. Five years ago, you would have needed to be at a computer, 10-15 years ago you would have needed to go and buy a magazine.

Increased efficiency has a variety of potential benefits, including; … Read More

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The Value of Continual Education in Business Success

At some point – and we have all done it, we get to a point of knowledge within our business or industry were we feel……. comfortable. It is at this very point; you can guarantee that you have just fallen BEHIND the game.

Business is ALWAYS evolving, whether it is directly such as with a new piece of equipment or product, or indirectly via innovation in a related industry such as cloud accounting or tablet invoicing. So by thinking that you have attained all of the required knowledge for your industry, it is more likely that you are … Read More

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Improving Business Margins: Enhancing Your Financial ‘Short Game’

Finance has shown me many things over time, but perhaps one of the more powerful concepts is “profit versus turnover”. For the golfers out there, I liken this to “driving for show VERSUS putting for dough“.

Underlying profitability and the associated free cash available for debt servicing are focal points for a Banker with any finance proposal – as this shows whether there is the expected ability to repay the loan within the proposed terms. The simple “revenue line” however, whilst interesting for trend and margin analysis, by itself – does little to prove debt servicing ability.

This … Read More

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Clear Business Process + Strong Execution = Great Savings

Regardless of whether you are selling burgers to a young family with three tired kids or producing “O” rings for the space program – there is always a cost when your process fails – it’s just the magnitude that varies.

For a minute, let’s consider the more trivial of these two examples and look at the world through the lens of a parent with three children under 10. It is a warm day, the kids have been running wild all morning and at 2pm, it’s going to be a late lunch.

You place your order at the local fast food … Read More

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The ‘One More Thing’ for Achieving Business Success

Whether it be in sport or business, the difference between success and failure can often be simply doing one more thing than the competition. The extra phone call, one more prototype, another sales approach, an additional quality check, a larger focus group, an extra tier of service etc etc…..any of these can be the secret ingredient to business success.

A few qualifiers;

– know your competition as this will provide some form of benchmark. This is not to say that your competition is setting the right pace, but as a minimum it provides a starting point.

– work from … Read More

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Is Your Business Viable? A Comprehensive Evaluation Guide

Is my business viable?

This question comes in various forms from concerned business owners – but for me, it’s not so much a case of whether the business is viable – but more of whether the product/service they are selling is viable.

So the better question is really; is my product or service viable?

Running a successful business is all about having a number of business elements all working together to provide a solid outcome or profit. If any of these elements are not correct or are out of alignment, then performance suffers – which is around the time the … Read More

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Strategic Marketing for Small Business Success

90% of businesses want more sales….. and for the vast majority of these businesses – this is exactly what they need. Many businesses can make a better margin out of their existing sales, but overall a greater level of sales is what is required to allow a meaningful increase to the bottom line.

Effective marketing is the ultimate answer for increased sales opportunity, with many different marketing methods available, BUT….. a critical aspect which is frequently overlooked in the assessment of marketing effectiveness is the time and cost of the activity.

If left unchecked, not only could the … Read More

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The Cost of Tolerance in Business: Understanding the Impact

Business owners tolerate a lot, whether it is poor performing staff, process problems, cash flow, IT and the like. In doing this, the level of stress or pressure on the owner (and in many cases – the business) rises in direct proportion.

The two questions I pose are why…….and…..what is the cost?

In general terms, things are tolerated because of either a perceived lack of alternative or an inability to implement change. History shows me that there is always an alternative, albeit it may be painful, costly or difficult – but there is always a choice. The implementation of a … Read More

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“Determining the Worth of Your Product or Service”

Pricing… pricing… pricing… it’s all about the getting the price right – so that your price point is not only accepted by the market…. but also delivers sufficient profit to your bottom line.

So what is the right price, who determines this and how is it calculated?

To answer these questions I normally discuss two concepts – “Cost” and “Value”.

Cost – is the cost of delivery of a product or service for sale, so this is your cost of goods sold, your fixed and variable overheads at a product or service item level. It is important to … Read More

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Shark vs. Anemone: Decoding Strategies in Business Marketing

At the heart of any successful sales program are a heathy number of leads generated by a well formulated marketing program. Equally, where sales or revenue levels are not hitting the mark – then generally there is no effective marketing plan in place.

Few businesses have the volume of sales or revenue that they want, with a sizeable group hovering below what they actually need to have a sustainable and viable business. 

Common within most of these is the absence of a defined marketing strategy, instead having a collection of marketing activities with little or no congruity, measurement or … Read More

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3 Strategies to Energize Your Business’s Bottom Line

There are three key strategies available to energise your bottom line, with then an infinite number of tactics which can be used to support them – customised to your business and its current situation.

The three key strategies are;
•    Revenue – increase
•    Direct costs – control
•    Operating costs – reduce

Each of these strategies has relevance for every business, and can be used either in isolation or combined depending on where the business is currently positioned. But, before jumping onto any change program, it is essential to understand where your business is presently at; what is working … Read More

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