Based on our experience supporting small business owners, in less than an hour, we are confident we can find a 10% improvement to Your bottom line.
What’s Our Secret Sauce?
We ask questions. We listen to Your answers on how and why Your business is not performing. We confirm Your answers with Your financials, and look at the key drivers of Profit:
- Cost Structure
- Pricing
- Lead Conversion
- Lead Generation
We Then Make Recommendations on How to Improve the Effectiveness of One or More of These Drivers.
Let’s Look at One as an Example – Lead Generation
A number of the business owners we talk to, when discussing profitability issues, they identify the requirement for more revenue (ie in their words 'more leads'), and then make the assumption that they need to go straight to initiating a digital campaign to identify new clients. Why? Because everybody else is doing it. Right? No, wrong.
While it is one strategy, there are other strategies available for Lead Generation which can be used individually or in combination, and include:
- Leverage your existing clients
- Leverage Intermediaries
- Walk the pavement
- Networking
- Digital Marketing
Critical to each of these strategies is knowing Your ideal client. Spending time understanding your target audience will influence how you create your content for marketing, structure your messaging, and importantly the way you need to connect with them.
Let’s Walk Through Each of These Strategies:
Strategy 1 – Leverage Your Existing Clients
The objective of this strategy is to nurture your existing key clients to increase their spend.
This strategy works well for more mature businesses, and is often neglected. Rather than focusing marketing and sales costs purely on generating new business, Your time and dollar investment should be balanced with ‘farming’ existing clients.
Example:
A Construction business wanting to grow its revenues and improve profitability …
- The business' key business development strategy was responding to tenders
- The business analysed its historical clients by revenue - providing the Top 10 Clients by revenue for last 3 Financial Years
- The Top 10 Clients provided on average 80% of the revenue for each year
- All the Clients had multiple annual projects that were being responded to reactively
- The business reviewed the existing Client list and categorised into A's and B's, assigning an 'account manager' from within the business to manage the A's
- Resulted in 'win rate' from tenders going from 30% to 50%, with minimal pressure on rates
- And ultimately, while maintaining revenues, increased profit by more than10%
This strategy also works well in hospitality, by building loyalty programs (eg: for coffee) or by upselling (eg: buy a sandwich and a drink as a ‘product’)
Strategy 2 – Leverage Intermediaries
The objective of this strategy is to partner with an organisation(s) who has a client list aligned to Your ideal target client.
Example:
A Suit Tailor wanting to grow its revenues…
- One of the ideal target clients for this business was someone wanting a suit to get married
- As we all know, there is a whole industry aligned to this target client
- The business identified providers within his geography and then formed partnerships with wedding planners, wedding venues and wedding providers (eg: jewellers, celebrants, caterers and florists)
- In some cases the partnerships were mutual referrals, in other cases there was revenue sharing
- These providers were generating an average of 1 sale per month
- Increasing revenues, and profit
This strategy can also be used in the form of a Joint Venture (JV). A JV involves two or more businesses who decide to form a partnership to share markets or endorse a specific product or service to their client base, usually under a revenue sharing arrangement.
Strategy 3 – Walk the Pavement
The objective of this strategy is to develop interest of potential new customers.
This is an old style lead generation strategy and it still works.
Example:
A Café wanting to start its business.…
- Café business was situated in a large regional centre
- Majority of customers were business people working within close proximity
- Developed flyers to introduce café and key offerings
- Handed out flyers to passer-bys at key locations including train station, outside commercial buildings, foot traffic outside café
- Increased number of customers per day and coupled with bundling of products was able to increase revenues and profit
Strategy 4 – Networking
The objective of this strategy is to develop referrals through a networking or business group, or by developing connections who can introduce you to potential clients.
The critical success factor here is knowing your target client and developing relationships with connections who can introduce you to your target.
Networking in particular can be very resource intensive, and its effectiveness may also be limited by the audience. Networking groups typically have an annual cost of membership, and importantly can have a huge impact on your time having to attend weekly forums. They also may not give you access to the type of clients you want.
Strategy 5 – Digital Marketing
The objective of this strategy is to develop potential conversations with target clients through digital channels.
First thing to note. There are many digital channels for your business to potentially leverage and include website, email, social media, and SEO.
While critical to all lead generation strategies, it is critical to understand your objectives, budget, target client and the channel(s) best suited to connect with them. It is also critical to have identified how your business will manage leads generated by these channels and how you will manage the lead conversion process.
Example:
A Recruitment business wanting to re-launch and grow its revenues…
- Business had a large database of 2500 previous candidates and clients
- Based on this database, developed an email campaign to both previous candidates and clients
- Using LinkedIn and a specific target customer profile, developed a marketing campaign to new prospective clients
- Grew business in 9 months to average 20 jobs per month
- Increasing revenues, and profit
Would it be worth a 1 hour chat to understand how to add at least 10% to your bottom line?
Contact us
Transcend is a team of experienced business coaches supporting You and Your business' growth. For more information refer to www.transcendhcs.com.au
Contact
Phone: (03) 8765 2472
Address: Ground Floor, 435 Nepean Highway, Frankston VIC 3199
Email: [email protected]u