Accelerating Business Growth

2007-09-23T00:12:00.001-07:00

What did you wear to the interview to get your job?

I’m pretty sure you wore a suit! I’m also fairly sure you will probably have at least one suit sitting in your wardrobe gathering dust.

Well how about donating this suit to someone who could truly benefit from it?

Birmingham Suit Amnesty – Friday 12th October 2007

On Friday 12th October 2007 we’re collecting suits from people across the business community at the ICC (Hall 6). These suits will then be distributed through our charity partners to people who will benefit from your suit. It may just help someone to make the right impression at a job interview.

Many companies across Birmingham are going to be arranging for suits to be collected throughout the week of the Amnesty (8th – 12th September) and these suits can then either be dropped off at the ICC from 07.30 – 15.00 - or we can arrange for the suits to be collected by our dry cleaning partner MailWash.

If you wish to locate your companies Champion or volunteer to act as a Champion for this initiative simply email: graham.nicoll@barclays.com.

Make sure you put any suits aside ready for the suit amnesty.

http://birminghamsuitamnesty.blogspot.com/

2007-09-11T23:21:00.000-07:00

Check out www.birminghamsuitamnesty.com to find out more about giving your old suits as part of a great initiative to help others get a step up in life.

Also take a look at http://birminghamsuitamnesty.blogspot.com/

2007-01-25T23:17:00.000-08:00

"How to run focused, structured, action packed meetings!"

One of my friends called me last week in a state of flux – it was their team meeting the very next day and they were in the middle of doing their planning and preparation.

Well I say planning and preparation as it was 5.30 in the evening! Perhaps lack of planning would be a more appropriate description.

They asked me for some ideas, which I was only too happy to help with – however what was apparent was they had no real structure to the session.

As it was the first meeting of January they also wanted to hit the ground running and really focus their team for 2007.

So, that kind of got me thinking and I shared with them a model which I have used for years. It creates structure, focus and guarantees you keep on track every time!

Now, like with all my ideas it’s really simple and is based on just 6 quality questions.

Where can you use this model?

At Pti we use it for team meetings, as the framework for consultancy days. We also use it for coaching sessions – both one on one and group. In fact as you review the questions I’m sure you’ll be able to see many practical applications of where you’ll be able to apply it.

So let me share with you the six questions:

Where are we now?
How did we get here?
Where are we going?
Why do we want to go there?
What are some of the possible obstacles?
What are we going to do next?

Let me give you my thoughts on each of these and why they are so important.

Where are we now?
The foundation, the starting point of the entire process. Whether this is where you want to be is another matter – however this is the ‘reality checker’, acting as the spring board to move to where you want to be.

How did we get here?
I’m not one for living in the past, however can learn so much great stuff though just by spending some time analysing the journey and the actions which have brought us to where we are now.

And I don’t just mean the negatives – in fact the most important part of this stage is analysing and catching the successes, the positives, the things that have gone well. Why? So we can replicate them and so we can make the ideas work for us moving forward – ‘fast tracking’ or accelerating our success!

Where are we going?
Focus is so important in this fast paced world that we live in. There’s so many distractions on our time it’s so easy to loose focus and be pulled off down different tracks and roads.

The great thing about this question is you set the timeline. If it’s a coaching session you might be looking at where you’re going today, for a team meeting the next month or if you’re reviewing your strategy for the year you might break it down into bite size chunks. At Pti when setting the strategy for the year we work on a 30/90 day and year end model.

Why do we want to go there?
For me, one of the most important questions: Why do we want to go there? In my experience we do not spend any where near enough time answering this question – if at all. And yet it is the critical part of the process on the premise motivation is an inside job. If we don’t find out the why for our people and the internal motivations aren’t in play then we’ll leave them behind on the journey of getting to where we want to be.

When looking at the why I mean looking at the why for the individuals? What’s the why for you? For the Customer or Client? The why for the stakeholders or sponsors? The team why? For our business partners? The list goes on!

I urge you to really think carefully about this question – making sure you build enough time into the process to truly answer this question in depth.

What are some of the possible obstacles?
Another great question! It is so easy in life, particularly business to become reactive. By ‘brainstorming’ in a pro active way some of the potential obstacles that could appear and throw you off track in delivering your goals and vision then perhaps we can avoid them before they even come into play.

What are we going to do next?
And finally the last and final question: What are you going to do next? Life is all about massive ACTION. What’s critical is knowing the right actions to take. By following through this model you’ll arrive at the actions which really will make the difference in short circuiting your journey to success.

Summary…

So, there you have it! A simple model for you to follow and use for reviewing your strategy, for team meetings, for coaching sessions etc.

Try it today!

2006-12-24T11:25:00.000-08:00

Successful or NOT!?

How has 2006 been for you? Have you achieved all the goals you wanted to achieve?

Are you happy with both your personal and businesses progress?

If so, then fantastic, give yourself a big pat on the back and keep up the great work!

If not, then why not? What has limited your progress in 2006? If you are anything like the majority of the population it is due to a lack of planning and due to a lack of action?!

Now this might seem a little harsh, but it is often the hard facts. So what I would encourage you to do is to take some time out over the festive break to ask yourself what you really want to achieve in 2007 and to start planning what you are going to do in order to achieve this.

Here are some questions you might like to ask yourself:

What do you want to achieve in 2007 - both personally and business wise?What increase in sales do you want to achieve?

What income do you want to achieve?

How much do you want your business to be worth by December 2007?

What do you want your colleagues / friends / family to be saying about you in 2007?

What net worth do you want to have by December 2007?

What actions do you know you need to do in order to achieve the success you and your business deserve?

What are you going to do each day, week and month to move yourself towards your goals for 2007?

These are just some of the questions you might like to ask yourself, but they are a great start. I can't encourage you enough to take some time out to plan, as every minute spent planning will pay dividends in 2007 in terms of results. The key is to take action!

Have a great Christmas and New Year and I look forward to working with your again in 2007.

All the best

Graham Nicoll
www.achievebusinessgrowth.com

2006-12-13T12:42:00.000-08:00

"Why Your ATTITUDE Will Always Determine Your ALTITUDE In Life!"

On this weeks ezine I want to share with you one of my favourite poems regarding the importance of Attitude – it’s by Charles Swindon.

I carry this around with me in a plastic wallet in the back of my daytimer. Every time I feel I need a gentle nudge (or perhaps a thump with a sledge hammer) regarding my Attitude I take 20 seconds to re focus using this poem.

I hope you enjoy it too!

Attitude

“The longer I live, the more I realise the impact of Attitude on life.

Attitude to me, is more important than education, than money,

than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than appearances,

giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company, church or home.

The remarkable thing is that we have a choice everyday regarding the

Attitude we will embrace for that day. We can not change our past.

We can not change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We

can not change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the

one string we have, and that is our Attitude. I am convinced that life

is 10% of what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is

with you. We are in charge of our Attitudes”

How does it make you feel when you meet someone with a positive ‘can-do’ attitude? Energised? Positive? Enthused?

You know the type of individuals I mean - their glass is always half full…not half empty.

They’re always looking for the “opportunity in the difficulty” instead of the "difficulty in the opportunity".

Their Attitude is infectious!

Your ATTITUDE will always determine your ALTITUDE in life - so make sure you catch yourself with the right attitude on a consistent basis and make sure you surround yourself with fellow like minded positive ‘can-do’ individuals.

Who else do you know who could also benefit from reading this? Perhaps you could forward it on to them?

2006-11-29T04:04:00.000-08:00

"How Good is YOUR Opening?"

We were running one of The Pti Training Academy boot camps last week and a key element of the 3 day workshop is all about having a powerful opening.

Part of the pre work the delegates have to do before the workshop is to write down the opening they currently use when opening the training workshops they run. For many this is a cathartic experience and the feedback normally goes something like this:

“I’ve never really thought about it before”

“I’ve never written it down”

“I don’t really have one; it’s just what comes out when I start”

“I kind of have a framework, but it depends on what happens on the day and how it comes out”

Interesting responses!

So, on the programme all the delegates deliver their openings – then we run through the WHY – the benefits of having a POWER Opening.

Now when I’m talking about a power opening I’m talking about a structured, grooved, well rehearsed opening which instantly builds creditability, captivates the audience and positions you as the professional you want to be.

Start Off Well And Momentum Builds…

Whenever I talk about the power opening I liken it to the athlete coming out of the blocks for the hundred metre sprint. You start off well and momentum builds. You start off slowly and boy is it difficult to catch up.

What other analogies apply?

How do you feel if you’ve ever overslept or lay in? Isn’t it amazing how you spend the rest of the day playing catch up! Or…

Monday morning comes around and you didn’t make time on Sunday to do the 2 hours of work you promised yourself you’d do. How does Monday go? Yes – always playing catch up!

Back to the Power Opening…

Now I’m not just talking here about the opening you use to open a training event – it can apply to so many other areas: Your monthly board meeting, a critical meeting with a Client, the opening for a sales meeting, a telesales call. There’s so many practical application.

I wish I had a pound for every time I’ve put a sales person on the spot on one of their sales programmes and asked them to say the opening they use when attending the most important sales appointment of the year.

Pti has a Client is Leicester – they’re in the labels business. We’d implemented a new sales process with them – a key element being the power opening.

The opening which they now use goes like this:

“Well Royston, thanks very much for agreeing to see me today. As I understand the purpose of the meeting today is to discuss three key things. Firstly to understand more about you and the business, secondly to understand more about your current and future label requirements and thirdly to ‘demonstrate’ why Label Apeel should be you partner of choice.

I’ve been thinking about our meeting and I’ve prepared an agenda, is there anything you’d like to add?”

What impression do you think this created in the mind of the potential Client?

Professional? Prepared? Different from the competition? – You bet!

And the sales person – how did they feel? Powerful? Confident? In control? Absolutely!

Summary…

So there you have it, my brief insights, key benefits and importance of having power openings for those critical meetings or presentations.

If you have a sales team what’s the opening there currently using? A telesales teams what are the first few words they utter and even the front of house or receptionist. How good is their opening on the telephone or for Clients walking into your offices?

I love this expression:

“In a world where the BIG things make little difference it’s the little things that make a BIG difference!”

Your power opening is a little thing which can make a BIG difference!

2006-11-17T01:36:00.000-08:00

"Making the First Sale…an Easy Sale!"

At Pti we have a simple philosophy when it comes to business development and it’s this:

Life is a boomerang and the first thing we’ve got to do is add value. Whenever we’re holding our internal marketing and sales meetings the focus of the discussions is always how far are we throwing the boomerang? – how many people are we touching? – how much value are we adding?

You see, I think there are two bowls in life – there’s the rewards bowl and there’s the contribution or service bowl. I know from my personal experience that too many times, people are staring into their rewards bowl wondering why its not full to the top – rationalising and coming up with explanations – when one of the key reasons is sat right along side.

They’re focused on the wrong bowl!

Add phenomenal value first – plant the seeds – nurture and develop the relationships – EARN the trust of your clients and you’ll never need to worry about the rewards bowl.

However – you can only do this by focusing on the service and contribution bowl – being relentless and consistent in the value you add.

Or in the analogy of throwing your boomerang often enough with the right messages and over the right area and all the rewards of your efforts will come back.

Part of this philosophy is centred on:

"Making the First Sale…an Easy Sale!"

And the easiest sale for me is something that’s FREE.

So, let me run this exercise with you as if I was sat in your office, face to face and we’re brainstorming some strategies of how to bring this idea to life.

I’d start with a:

Focused Question….

How can we make the first sale an easy sale?

Let me give you a couple of examples of how we do it at Pti:

Example 1: The Pti ezine….

Every two weeks 18,553 people receive the Pti ezine. It takes just over 20 minutes to send out from our server. I’m sure you’d agree the content is focused, value adding and there are ideas which you can instantly apply in your business and life. On average, every time the ezine goes out we have 50 plus new sign ups just from the current subscribers forwarding their copy onto friends and business contacts.

So not only are we adding value to our existing Clients, we’re also driving our brand awareness and attracting quality prospects into our potential sales funnel – all through one simple strategy – our Pti ezine.

Example 2: Special Reports and Booklets….

This is another great strategy for making the first sale an easy sale. I have a business contact that created a series of guides for their business. They are in the interior fit out business – high end – large value contracts. A very competitive market.

The titles were really sparky:

+ 23 Workplace Strategies to Boost Your Bottom Line Without Firing Anyone
+ The Ultimate Guide to Office Fit-Out
+ 51 Steps to a Successful Office Relocation
+ The Office Occupier’s Guide to Selecting A Fit Out Specialist

Not only did this strategy allow the business to throw their boomerang far and wide – adding real value, it also ramped up sales dramatically (Over £1 million in extra profit in just 2 years – now that’s business growth!)

We use Special Reports at Pti - you’ve probably seen the latest one I’ve created all about Training ReDefined

How to create a Five Dimensional (5-D) Learning Experience through sight, sound, touch, smell and taste.

We also have one centred on Client retention (details at the end of this ezine)

Some more examples…

Here’s just a couple more examples of ideas we’ve used with our Clients and for ourselves:

+ Low cost or free seminars
+ Teleconferences
+ Speaking at conferences, networking events, breakfast meetings
+ Blind bonuses
+ Case studies of similar businesses
+ A free business consultation – one of our Clients offers a Free 27 Minute Print Consultation for potential new Clients. This is a real WIN/WIN/WIN as it opens doors for them – they add real tangible value, earn the trust and on the back of it develop the relationship and secure quality business
+ And so many more – however I’m sure that’s enough to stimulate your thought processes

Summary…

So there you have it. My suggestion is that you block out some quiet time for yourself or with your team and spend some time personalising and answering that focused question for your business:

How can we make the first sale an easy sale?

Written by Royston Guest - Pti International Ltd.

2006-10-19T14:13:00.000-07:00

"How often do you MAKE time to STOP and just think?"

Today I’ve decided to share with you probably one of the most powerful personal development stories I've ever heard.

The Mexican Boatman…

An American investment banker was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellow-fin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.The Mexican replied, "Only a little while."The American then asked why didn't he stay out longer and catch more fish?The Mexican said he had enough to support his family's immediate needs.The American then asked, "But what do you do with the rest of your time?"The Mexican fisherman said, "I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take a siesta with my wife Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos – I have a full and busy life."The American scoffed, "I’m a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat. With the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats.

Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery.

You would control the product, processing and distribution.

You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually NYC where you will run your expanding enterprise."The Mexican fisherman asked, "But, how long will this all take?"To which the American replied, "15-20 years.""But what then?"The American laughed and said that's the best part. "When the time is right you would announce an IPO (Initial Purchase Offer) and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions.""Millions. Then what?"The American said, "Then you would retire, move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take a siesta with your wife Maria, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos."

How I used the idea…

When I first read this story the light bulb came on!

It’s so easy to get caught up in the pace of life, becoming so busy, rushing around from one activity to the next, spinning multiple plates and not making the time to stop, sit back and think.

This story made me examine my goals and really think about the goals I’d set for myself and most importantly…why I wanted to achieve them.

Still today when I catch myself rushing from one place to the next and feel I’m loosing the balance in my life - a 30 second re focus, by reading this story helps me to put everything into perspective, and re address the scales of balance.

My suggestion…

Re read this story a few times. Take some 'quiet time' and examine your goals – some you might have already achieved, some you might decide are not worthy of your time and effort and those you decide to pursue will be the ones which you know will really make the difference and allow you to achieve precisely what you want out of life - both personally and professionally.

2006-10-08T11:38:00.000-07:00

“1 in 3 Customers (33%) do not buy your complete range of products and services simply because they do not know you do them!”

Are you and your business unknowingly part of this statistic?

A thought provoking questions isn’t it!

And as for the statistics – well, some sources say it’s even worse than this – probably more like 2 in 3. Now if you only have one product or service then it’s probably different. However to put it into context, one well known media company we worked with had just 4 products and services. Their penetration rate of all 4 products into their client base was just 0.13%.

Now it wasn’t as bad as it seems, because when you profiled the client base only 10% were prime for all 4 products and services. However, that’s still only a penetration rate of 1.27%. More on this case study below and the impact that this strategy which I’m about to share with you had on their business growth.

Let’s bring this idea to life…

If I was with you and your team debating this question, one of the first exercises I’d ask you to do is to write down on a piece of paper, in 5 seconds, a number which equates to the total number of products & services your customers/clients can buy from you.

In 7 years of doing this exercise personally, and from the consulting and training teams at Pti, the feedback 99.9% of the time is the same.

We’ve yet to find an organisation with more than 20 people in the business, and a product and service offering of 10 plus, where every one in the business can articulate by a single number their total offering.

Now, if all your team in your business cannot quantify the precise number – who else can’t?

Yes – of course your customers and clients!

This, in fact is the number 1 reason why most people do not buy ALL of the products and services from you they could - simply because they do not know that you sell them!

Could this be the case in your business?

A couple of questions for you to bring this idea to life:

+ Have you ever come away from a customer meeting and thought, “I should have asked about …”?

+ Have you ever had a customer tell you that they’ve bought a product/service from someone else that they could have bought from you? How frustrating is this???

+ Are you missing sales (and cross-selling opportunities) of products/services to current customers?

+ Do you have a systematised process to educate and up sell customers and clients on your full compliment of products and services available for them? – A subject very close to my heart!

If you answered yes to any of the first 3 questions and a resounding no to the 4th then this concept I’m about to share with you might just be of interest. It’s called…

The Magic Matrix…

We need a tool, a process, a success formula in order to guarantee we consistently educate our Clients on the full range of Products & Services they can buy from us and there is such a tool. It’s called the Magic Matrix.

This is so simple to put into practice and yet few companies or individuals have realised the power of the information already available to them from their own records.

This is how it works:

Imagine a grid, a chess board...

Down the left hand side are listed all your customers/clients and along the top are all your products & services.

All you do is colour in the meeting square where the customer or client currently buys your product or service.

What are left are your windows of opportunity – and through a simple process called Told/Sold you can educate the customers on those open windows. We use a traffic light system in our business to do the Told/Sold process. I know our consultants run the same system with a lot of our clients as well.

The education can be done either through face to face contact, email marketing, direct mail, telesales to name just a few. The key point is the education process never stops.

You consistently have to educate your customers and clients in a systematic way in order to keep your company brand fresh in their minds, and most importantly the individual products & services which they can buy from you.

The journey and process never stops!

Think about this ezine for a moment. It’s a great way of ‘adding value’ to you by sharing proven time tested and leading edge strategies which will grow your business and develop your people.

However the point being, it’s systematised and happens every two weeks. This is just one of the strategies in the marketing mix of the ongoing Pti contact strategy for both existing and potential new clients.

This is probably the fastest explanation of the Magic Matrix I’ve ever given – however I’m sure you have the framework. And this is only one use of the Magic Matrix – we have 33 in total!

Penetration Rates…

We haven’t got time to go into it today, however it’s fascinating when you start to measure the penetration rates of your products & services – particularly if you do it by sales person!

All sales people have favourite products. This is a great way of identifying skills gaps in knowledge and ability and sharing success formulas of which people are best at selling which products.

With one client recently we actually worked out the value of the opening windows where their clients were not currently buying. It came to over 1 million – and that was just from the existing ‘live’ clients.

You can probably tell I’m passionate about this subject!

The Benefits…

+ The Magic Matrix will focus on 3 of the 4 key questions of business growth

+ A proven system for tracking penetration rates – overall, vertical and horizontal.

+ Block competition.

+ Identify strategic alliances.

+ Capitalise on the sales, marketing and development spending that’s already taken place.

What impact does it have on business growth?

What if I told you one business grew from 2.6 million to over 9 million in just 2 years and a key part of their strategy was the Magic Matrix.

Or…

A major Media Company with 500,000 plus customers and just 4 products and services who increased sales to existing customers by 227% on one product line and 183% on another in just 8 weeks!

Or…

A well known IT company who said the matrix was responsible for year on year double digit growth.

I could list 100’s more examples here of the success stories and case studies of the impact the matrix can have on business growth.

Just imagine what impact potentially it could have on the growth of your business?

Take Action: Achieve More

Here’s some thoughts on some actions and how you can personalise this idea for you and your business:

+ Identify your complete list of customers/clients.
+ Perhaps even have a separate matrix for new business, dormant and prospect customers.
+ Create your Matrix either in excel or linked into a software/CRM system.
+ Identify who has already bought what by shading in the boxes. Perhaps use the traffic colour coding system like we do at Pti.
+ Create your told and sold process and…
+ Keep great records of the increase in penetration rates, turnover and profits.

2006-09-25T14:03:00.000-07:00

“Are you catching your team and yourself doing it RIGHT or doing it wrong?”

A thought provoking question isn’t it!

Are you catching your team, yourself and the people close to you doing it right or are you catching them doing it wrong?

When I’m speaking at conferences or running a Pti workshop I use the following example in order to demonstrate this point:

I turn to one of the delegates who I know has a sales team – and say the following:

“Imagine it’s Monday and one of your team phones you up at 4.30 in the afternoon. As you answer the phone you can sense the excitement in their voice – you know the voice – the one which comes out when they have good news for you.

With enthusiasm they launch into telling you how they’ve been to two meetings today and have landed two new customers. A great result – particularly considering they’ve not converted any new clients for over a month!

What do you say?

The delegate looks at me and says, “Well I’d probably congratulate them and say well done, or something to that affect!”

“Ok” is my response. “Now let’s imagine its Thursday that week. The same sales person has been on two new appointments. It’s 5.00 and you’ve not heard from them, so you decide to give them a call. The phone rings a few times – they pick up and you hear their tones – definitely not the same enthusiastic voice as on Monday! You ask how their day has gone.”

“They reply, Well alright I guess”.

“You follow with How were the two appointments today?”

“Well, (it’s a great word well isn’t it!) they weren’t very good.”

“What do you say?”

“Well I would ask them why not?”

“The first one was not interested and the second one only gave me 10 minutes with them”

“What do you say next?”

“I’d ask them why they were not interested.”

“How do they know?”

“How far into the meeting did they detect that?”

“What did they do about it?”

I’m sure you’re picking up the thread of where I’m going with this.

Are you catching your people doing it right or doing it wrong?

On the Monday after converting two new clients they’re given a token well done, and on the Thursday when they’ve not converted any new clients the post mortem begins!

Are you catching your people doing it right or doing it wrong?

Let’s run a different scenario on the Monday call.

The sales person has just told you about their success. You congratulate them, and then start to ask some thought provoking questions:

“So, tell me why do you think it went so well?”

“What can you learn from today which you can build into your personal success formula?”

“How are you going to replicate this next time?”

“Tell me how are you feeling right now?”

All the time praising and giving words of encouragement as they answer your questions – future pacing their success and encouraging them to think what a difference it will would make if they could replicate their successes today - again. Anchoring and wiring their successes so it becomes consistently who they are!

Catch them doing it right!

Perhaps the Thursday call could have ran the course of a coaching session – anchoring back to successes experienced earlier in the week – exploring possibilities of what was different to the positive outcomes achieved on Monday. What could they do next time to make sure their next two appointments are more like the Monday experience than the Thursday?

Catch them doing it right!

And the same principle applies to us. We get so caught up working ‘in’ our busy lives, thinking about all the things we still have to do as opposed to the great things you’ve achieved during the course of the day. Catch yourself doing it right as well!

Sometimes if I catch myself running negative thoughts or programmes at the end of a day, I simply write a heading on the top of the right hand page in my daytimer saying:

“Today’s Achievements”

I then make a list of all the days’ achievements. Somehow my ‘To Do List’ never seems quite so bad once I’ve done this.

Perhaps you can try it some time!

Catch your team and yourself doing it right. Life is so much more fun when we’re in a positive zone and… your people will thank you for it!

2006-09-11T06:58:00.000-07:00

“Are Your Customers/Clients Relational or Transactional?”

I was talking with one of my clients last week and they were frustrated having spent the entire day dealing with customer complaints. As we ventured deeper into conversation it lead me down a track of debating his profile of customers.

After 15 minutes of discussion my client said “Royston that’s one of the most insightful discussions we’ve ever had” We then proceeded to create a strategy for what we we’re going to do to make sure he had far more rewarding days in the future.

Why am I telling you this? Well it sparked me into thinking about the content of this week’s post and I new I had to share this information with you.

So the question I posed at the header of the ezine:

“Are Your Customers/Clients Relational or Transactional?”

There are two kinds of customers:

- The Transactional Customer
- The Relational Customer

Now as consumers we can be both of these at different times - we are transactional in some buying situations and relational in others.

For example when I’m buying petrol my buying decision is purely based on when the needle is moving further towards the red! – I’m 100% transactional in my petrol purchase.

Yet when it comes to shopping I always go to Tesco. I just love their business model. So in my shopping habits I’m geared to being a relational customer.

I’m sure you have your favorite restaurant. I bet you go to the same hair salon or have your favorite shop for clothes. Or go to the same gym or are a member of a golf club - you have the point.

So with these two kinds of clients in our minds perhaps it would be worth taking a moment to explore some of the ingredients or traits which make up these different profiles:

A transactional customer is…

+ Thinking short term
+ Focused on getting the most benefit for the least money
+ Enjoys the process of research and negotiating and comparison shopping
+ Not looking for an expert. They plan on being their own expert and they’re enjoying the process.
+ Committed to buying from whoever is willing to accept the lowest profit
+ Doesn’t want to hear about service after the sale or how many years you’ve been in business
+ Wants to know ‘what have you done for me today?’

A relational customer is…

+ Looking for an expert – someone they can trust
+ Someone who will talk straight and just solve the problem
+ Someone who tells us directly what it is they need
+ Someone who considers the time spent shopping to be part of the purchase price… And are willing to spend more money to save time.

Pti as a business specialises in how to attract the relational customer – because that is the customer who will be your customer for life!

Your ‘Ideal’ Client Profile…

So – which type of clients do you currently have in your client portfolio?

+ The transactional
+ The relational or…
+ Perhaps a mix?

Which is it you want to attract – both now and in the future? I’m sure you’re already thinking of other criteria you might want to include in your ‘ideal’ profile of client.

Perhaps take some time to write a focused question – brainstorming further ideas to personalise this idea for your business.

Once you’ve established your ‘ideal’ profile of client – and engaged in a number of client retention strategies to keep them – you can then tailor your sales and marketing efforts to attract quality clients through the front door of your business – the number 1 strategy for this being a Systematised Referral Process.

If you’ve not read my ideas on how to create a Systematised Referral Process for your business you can go to www.pti-worldwide.com and click through to the ezine. In the archive click on ezine 5 which will give you all the details you need.

Summary…

There you have it – a fascinating idea which perhaps will make you think about your business and future strategy from a different prospective.

Written by Royston Guest, Sales and Marketing Director of Pti International.

2006-08-29T01:18:00.000-07:00

“How effective are you at leveraging the Principle of Authority?”

Today I want to share with you a fascinating principle of influence called Authority.

This is another concept taken from a book called Influence Science and Practice by Professor Robert Cialdini. As always I’ve added my personalisation to it on how you can apply it for yourself in your business.

This is how it works!

Who were Authority figures when you were a child?

Your parents, teachers, friends’ parents, grandparents, policeman -perhaps just a few which spring to mind!

And when you enter adult life – again the same question: Who are Authority figures?

Your boss, still your parents, police, professionals: solicitors, lawyers, doctors, people in uniforms? One person on one of my seminars recently said their partner!

Well – within Authority figures there are 3 factors which can help influence the levels with which people perceive your authority.

Those factors are:

+ Title
+ Trappings and…
+ Clothing

Let’s look at each of these in turn and how you can use this principle for yourself and also in your business.

Titles…

I’ve never been a great fan of titles as I think you earn respect – no one has a god given right to it. That aside however, your title does make a difference in terms of how you are perceived at the first interaction with a person.

For example when I’m speaking at conferences I’ve tested just saying “Good morning my names Royston Guest from Pti International” and I’ve also tested “Good morning my names Royston Guest, Sales & Marketing Director of Pti International”

Which do you think has greater impact in creating Authority? The second one and you can feel the different atmosphere and how effective my opening is just by using these two different approaches.

Another example: I have a contact who is an Area Manager for a bank. He was in one of his branches a few months ago and a prospective customer walked in. He just happened to be walking across the banking hall and the customer stopped him and said:

“Excuse me can you please help me. I’m looking to change banks for my business. I’m not happy with my current bank and I’ve just been into one of your competitors up the road and I did not like the person I spoke with. Can you help?”

My contact had been on one of my workshops and decided to do something different this time. Instead of just introducing himself by his name he said “My name is John Smith (yes a made up name) and I’m Area Manager for this region looking after 14 Local Business Managers”

He called me that very afternoon saying it was amazing how just by using his full name and title how it increased the perceived authority in that initial interaction with the customer.

So perhaps the first question today and subsequent action is this. Do you and your team have the appropriate titles in order to build your position of authority in the minds of your customers, suppliers and contacts and… do you use your full name and title and even the name of your business (particularly if it is a well known and respected brand) in order to build your authority?

Trappings…

We live in a visual and status driven world and whether we like it or not we are judged on the trappings we have. So what do I mean by trappings? Well, your car, briefcase, day timer, quality of your business card, the thickness of the card, your business stationary and marketing literature. People form snap shot judgments about you based upon these trappings.

I always use this example. Imagine a sales person going into sign up the biggest deal they’ve ever done. They arrive at the point of completing the paperwork and go to their briefcase and pull out the contract. Passing it over to the prospective new client they’re wiping off the jam and bread crumbs from the breakfast table this morning and peeling back one of the corners which has turned over in their full briefcase. They then go to their pocket and pull out their half chewed bic pen and hand it across to the client to sign.

Creating the right impression?

I think not! I’m sure you have the point?

This is not about being flash – it’s about having the appropriate trappings to position your personal brand correctly in the minds of your customers. So perhaps the second action today is to answer the focused question for yourself and your team:

Do you have the appropriate trappings?

And finally…

Clothing…

Well dressed is appropriately dressed! Today it’s not essential to be fully suited and booted all the time. It’s about toning your clothing up or down depending on the person with who you’re meeting and also the environment in which the meeting is taking place.

You can look smart and professional without having to wear a tie!

I’m sure you’ve heard the expression “You have to be heard to be believed!”

Well I actually think that is the wrong way around. “You have to be believed to be heard!”

The believability comes first. And your clothing is a key factor in guaranteeing you personally create believability in that first interaction.

So, perhaps the third key action driven from this focused question.

Do you and your team have the believability factor? Driven by your clothing – well dressed is appropriately dressed!

Summary…

There you have it – another fascinating principle of influence which you can instantly apply and use for yourself and with your team.

Post written by Royston Guest - www.pti-worldwide.com.

2006-08-12T01:02:00.000-07:00

“We all have a desire to be consistent as human beings!”

Our ability to be able to influence and persuade others is critical in all areas of our lives – so today I want to share with you a fascinating principle of influence called Consistency.

This concept is taken from a book called Influence Science and Practice by Professor Robert Cialdini. I urge you to read it – it’s probably the best book I’ve ever read on the subject of influencing and persuasion.

As always I’ve added my personalisation to it on how you can apply it for yourself in your business.

This is how it works!

We have the desire to be consistent and appear as consistent human beings – this can work against us and for us.

“As human beings we take actions that are consistent with previous actions”

And… perhaps most importantly:

“We take action based on previously expressed beliefs!”

Everyone uses shortcut decision-making processes in so many different areas of their lives.

For Example…

Let me share with you some fascinating information from Cialdini's book.

Some researchers, in America, went to people's houses and asked them to agree to put a large billboard in their front gardens regarding road safety.

The billboard was ugly and badly designed.

As you might expect 83% refused and only 17% agreed.

Though from the way in which Cialdini describes the billboard I'm surprised that even 17% agreed.

So the researchers tested a different strategy.

They went to another set of houses and asked the owners if they would be prepared to put in their front windows a 3-inch square sign, which said:

‘Be a safe driver!’ As you can imagine most said:

“Yes.”

Then, a couple of weeks later, the researchers went back and asked the people who had previously agreed to the three inch sign, if they would be prepared to have the ugly billboard in their front gardens and amazingly or perhaps not so – 76% said:

“Yes.”

Not only, is this fascinating information the fact that 76% said yes, but you and I can use this idea, with integrity, to increase sales conversion rates and thereby increase turnover and profits.

The key lies in this expression:

"People will never consistently do who they aren't”

Or in other words:

Who we are is our beliefs and values, and what we do is invariably consistent with those beliefs and values.

Now, if we reverse the expression we get:

“People will consistently do who they are.”

And so linking back to the billboard and the increase in compliance rates: people will consistently do whom they have publicly expressed they are!

“People will consistently do who they have
publicly expressed they are.”

So when you and I or for that matter anyone else publicly announces - often accompanied by action, a set of beliefs and values and are asked to take further actions, that are totally in alignment, with those previously expressed beliefs, we will use shortcut decision-making processes and take congruent action.

So how do you and I use this knowledge?

Well, during the fact finding or information gathering with both current and prospect customers and clients, we need to find out their beliefs and values regarding the product or service we are selling.

Then…provided that we are asking our customers or clients to take action or actions that are in alignment with those beliefs and values - their publicly expressed beliefs and values, they are far more likely to say:

“Yes!”

What questions, can you ask that will have the customer telling you – who they are?

Let me give you an example of how I use this in my business:

Example 1 - Selling training services:

When talking with prospect clients and understanding in detail their business – current position and future goals one of the key pieces of information I want to discover is their beliefs and values centered on training.

So here’s some of the questions I would use:

Have you done any training with your people before? (if they answer ‘Yes’ then I know fundamentally they believe in the concept of training)
So you do believe in an ongoing programme of training and development then? (Note the words ongoing programme)
And how important are your people in delivering your overall vision for the business? Most Leaders have their people in the top 2 success factors
So arming them with key skills to raise their personal bars and most importantly build the new skills into their daily activity is high on your personal agenda then

The ‘Yes’ answer to this final question leads me into ‘demonstrating’ phase of WHY they should choose Pti and why we are different.

Example 2 - Life insurance:

“Do you have any life insurance?”

The ‘yes’ – indicates that the customer already believes in the concept.

The next question could be:

“Why?” - a simple ‘Why?’ would probably be too blunt – but, the answer to this ‘why’ type question – would have the customer telling you their, beliefs and values about the idea of life insurance – then you can capitalise on that statement about, who they are!

I'm certain that you have the idea.

This is one of the most powerful ideas I can share with you... I urge you to take this thought, work with it and create a series of questions that will enable you to find out the beliefs and values of your potential customers -so you can correctly align any actions you wish the customer to take with their stated position.

It’s far easier for a customer to make a series of small decisions, rather than one BIG decision at the end of a conversation, as each question, confirms their beliefs and values, both generally and specifically to the ideas you’re putting forward.

2006-07-30T23:24:00.000-07:00

How good are you at creating focus?

In today’s fast paced world it’s so easy to loose focus – not just on a monthly or weekly basis – on a daily basis.

Our ability to truly focus on the things that really make the difference in our lives can be the difference between hitting our goals and being massively off track.
What if we had a simple tool which we could use to capture all the important things we needed to do. A tool which would take only minutes to review on a daily basis – however would keep us absolutely focused and on track with where we want to be. A tool which looks at the behaviours we need to demonstrate daily. Not just what we need to stop and start doing – but also look at what we might want to minimise, do more of or perhaps most importantly maintain or keep doing. After all the goal in life is to catch ourselves and others doing it right… not catch ourselves doing it wrong!

Well that tool is called the Focused Five.

The Focused Five…

It’s been said that the quality of our lives is determined by the quality of the questions we ask ourselves.

The Focused Five is based on 5 quality questions.

They are:

What will I stop doing? (Stop)
What will I do less of? (Minimise)
What will I keep doing? (Maintain)
What will I do more of? (More)
What will I start doing? (Start)

Let me give you a framework for these questions. You and I are certainly busy people. People whose lives have many facets. Work, home, family, friends, colleagues, partner and perhaps children as well! So many calls on our time. And over the years, no doubt, some activities have crept in, almost unnoticed, that use up that precious time.

I’m sure the same is true for your team members.

Perhaps - now is the time to step back and take a fresh look at what you and your team do and how you spend your lives.

These five questions can definitely help.

This is how I use the Focused Five firstly for myself and also secondly how I run an exercise with my team using the tool to focus specifically on the business.

The Template…

The Focused Five template is just one page – turned landscape. Imagine 5 columns with a maximum of 6 boxes in each column. The first column is headed STOP then moving left to right MINIMISE, MAINTAIN, MORE and START.
You can either create this for yourself or alternatively if you want a copy of my template just drop me an email action@pti-worldwide.com and I’ll send it to you.

This is how to run the exercise with your team:

Accelerator Exercise 1…

With your team ask the questions and immediately ask them to write down whatever their minds tell them are the answers. Then of course – having considered the consequences and their beliefs and values about the answers – help them to agree on the actions they need to take.

Accelerator Exercise 2…

One month later organise with your team to share the contents of their Focused Five template with each other and to answer the following question – What, if anything would they add to each other’s Focused Five?

Also keep your personal Focused Five up to date – ask your team to provide feedback on the actions they feel you could add.

This exercise will bring out numerous strategies to improve everyone’s overall performance – sometimes the way colleagues see each other is a powerful motivational tool. We use this at Pti within the Director team and have found it to be an invaluable personal development method.

Accelerator Exercise 3…

Use the Focused Five to capture all the key actions from your team meetings. This will then create your team action plan.

Accelerator Exercise 4…

The Focused Five is also a great coaching tool to use on field visits - identifying key actions that the team member needs to take in each of the five key headings.

Summary…

Use the Focused Five template weekly or whenever you feel you or your team are losing their way, getting tied down with detail and avoiding the tasks that will really drive the business forward. A simple and very effective team and self-management tool that takes only minutes to complete – creating laser beam focus.

2006-07-22T06:43:00.000-07:00

“How the 80/20 principle applies to your team!”

One of the questions I’m often asked when speaking at Leadership events, seminars or during consultancy days is:

What’s my take on the amount of time that should be spent with top performers in my team versus the underperformers? Or…

What’s my view on differential performance and how do you manage it?

Both are great questions - questions that we could spend hours debating.

However, I’ll give you my thoughts on this from my own experiences and also the practical experiences from the hundreds, if not thousands of managers and leaders with whom I’ve interacted over the years.

Before I do, here’s a brief overview of where the 80/20 rule came from. If you don’t want the history then you can skip on a few paragraphs to the heading:

How the 80/20 Rule Can Help You…

The History…

In 1906, Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto created a mathematical formula to describe the unequal distribution of wealth in his country, observing that twenty percent of the people owned eighty percent of the wealth. In the late 1940s, Dr. Joseph M. Juran inaccurately attributed the 80/20 Rule to Pareto, calling it Pareto's Principle.

Where It Came From…

After Pareto made his observation and created his formula, many others observed similar phenomena in their own areas of expertise. Quality Management pioneer, Dr. Joseph Juran, working in the US in the 1930s and 40s recognized a universal principle he called the "vital few and trivial many" and reduced it to writing. In an early work, a lack of precision on Juran's part made it appear that he was applying Pareto's observations about economics to a broader body of work. The name Pareto's Principle stuck, probably because it sounded better than Juran's Principle.

As a result, Dr. Juran's observation of the "vital few and trivial many", the principle that 20 percent of something always are responsible for 80 percent of the results, became known as Pareto's Principle or the 80/20 Rule.

What It Means…

The 80/20 Rule means that in anything a few (20 percent) are vital and many (80 percent) are trivial. In Pareto's case it meant 20 percent of the people owned 80 percent of the wealth. In Juran's initial work he identified 20 percent of the defects causing 80 percent of the problems. Project Managers know that 20 percent of the work (the first 10 percent and the last 10 percent) consume 80 percent of your time and resources. You can apply the 80/20 Rule to almost anything, from the science of management to the physical world.

You know 20 percent of you stock takes up 80 percent of your warehouse space and that 80 percent of your stock comes from 20 percent of your suppliers. Also 80 percent of your sales will come from 20 percent of your sales staff. 20 percent of your staff will cause 80 percent of your problems, but another 20 percent of your staff will provide 80 percent of your production. It works both ways.

How the 80/20 Rule Can Help You…

So back to the focused questions:

What’s my take on the amount of time that should be spent with top performers in my team versus the underperformers? Or…

What’s my view on differential performance and how do you manage it?

Actually my immediate response to both questions from a Leadership and Management prospective is that the 80/20 principle needs to be broken down further. Managers need to assess their people and separate them into 3 categories in terms of performance.

Let’s imagine you have a team of 10 sales people. This is how I dissect the team based on the 80/20 principle:

It’s more like:

20% are your top performers
70% are the hearts and souls of your team and…
10% are the disruptors

The toughest part for Managers is then acting on the distinctions and adjusting their style accordingly.

I was with a team of Managers just last week we were talking about this very subject. Once I’d run through the above breakdown I posed the following question:

As a Manager where do you spend most of your time?

The responses were mixed – however the majority were unanimous in concluding most of their time and effort was focused on the 10% disruptors or underperformers.

After a heated debate about how HR and the business procedures made it necessary to invest vast quantities of time in this area we stepped back and analysed the 80/20 principle further.

Because actually the 70% can be broken down as follows:

20% are the future top performers
40% are the hearts and souls and…
10% are the potential disruptors

This is how I summarized it for the team.

The top 20%...

The top 20% are probably the team members who year on year deliver consistently. They need little management – you set the goals point them in the right direction and they’re off. They have a great attitude, are self motivated and know precisely what they need to do in order to exceed their targets and goals.
If you need quick wins or to squeeze more results from the team these are the people who’ll rise to the challenge.

Contact with your top 20% is key – not focusing on the specifics of what they are doing – just to communicate with them – keep them updated and informed and most importantly giving them the praise and recognition they desire.
There is no mistaking the stars at a company that differentiates. They are the best and are therefore treated that way.

Next the 70%...

The hearts and souls of your team and enormously valuable to your business. 20% of these have the potential to be your future Superstars. What are you doing to firstly identify them and secondly nurture and develop this talent pool?
40% are the hearts and souls – they will deliver the results. They need managing more closely, training, regular contact, focus and tactful goal setting – but they’ll either hit or get close to their targets.

A word of caution. You need to keep your eye on this group to prevent them from becoming sliders. During the course of the year you might see differential performance in this group as they’re motivation levels fluctuate or external distractions dilute their focus and drive.

Spotting this is the key as a Manager and coach and knowing when you need to invest quality time to make sure you can re focus them and get them back on track.

10% are the potential future disruptors –. The people who do just enough. You question their attitude, commitment and values. Do they really want to be here?

Do they really want to be part of a team?

Managing the 70% is about identifying people with potential to move up, and cultivating them. Everyone in the middle 70% needs to be motivated and made to feel that they truly belong.

The 70% is where the majority of your time and effort should be spent and where you’ll see the greatest returns.

And finally the 10%...

The disruptors – There’s no sugar coating this – most of the time the people who fall into this category are just not right for your business. If you have a business with clear performance expectations and a systematic review process – then the people in the bottom 10% know who they are.

When you tell them, they usually leave before they’re asked. One of the best things about a business where you manage through differentiation is that people in this bottom 10% usually go on to successful careers at other companies. You’re actually doing them a favour!

Summary…

So, there you have it – the 80/20 principle related to team dynamics and managing through differentiation - a simple model and effective way of thinking about your people.

Do you currently have the right people on your team? Who are the stars? What’s the make up of the 70% - who are the hearts and souls and who are the future stars who need nurturing? And finally who are the current and future disruptors? Be bold and deal with them now. Don’t let it fester. You’ll feel better and will actually be doing them a favour.

2006-07-20T12:36:00.000-07:00

"People respond to a genuine/perceived scarcity which exists in the market place"

You know – one of the things which has always fascinated me is the Principle of Scarcity…

“People respond to a genuine/perceived scarcity which exists in the market place!”

Let me give you a couple of examples:

Tonight on the news the presenter announces there’s going to be a sugar shortage. What do most people do? Yes - go immediately to their local store, corner shop or supermarket and stock up on their supplies of sugar!
What’s happened to petrol prices over the last couple of years? They've gone through the roof haven't they – Mostly created by the perceived shortage of oil resulting from wars and natural disasters – for example the hurricanes.
Are you a member of a wine club?...

…Picture the following scenario:

A mailer lands on your door step – printed on the envelope are the following:

Strictly Limited Stocks…
…By Invitation Only

Limited Release Offer

Your Personal Invitation – Open Today!

A Dozen French Favourites…Special Price

PLUS Order Early And Receive A State Of The Art Corkscrew! (worth £19.99)

Look familiar?

The mailer inside reads as follows (précised of course)…

“We’ve scoured the world and managed to find this tiny little vineyard in the southern corner of France. Immediately on hearing about it we sent our leading specialist there to sample the wine.

We have some fantastic news for you.

We’ve managed to secure the only 200 cases of wine to come out of the vineyard this year – and guess what they’re available for you exclusively as a member of the Sunday Times Wine Club.

But wait – we haven’t opened this offer yet to all our members what we’ve done is identify our platinum grade members and I’m pleased to inform you that you qualify for this category.

However, in order to secure your case/s of wine please make sure you respond within the next 7 days as we only have 200 cases and orders will be processed on a first come first served basis.”

What's that all about? – MASSIVE SCARCITY!

Scarcity is all around us in the market place and companies are using it all the time to persuade their customers… with integrity of course to buy more from them – more easily and… more often!

Now, you can create scarcity around 3 things:

Time
Resources
Products and services

So let’s look at these 3 areas relating to the example of the wine club – both the copy on the envelope and also the précised copy from the mailer inside.

You’ll see I’ve highlighted in bold all the key words which impact this principle of scarcity.

Time…

Your Personal Invitation – Open Today!
PLUS Order Early And Receive
To come out of the vineyard this year
Respond within the next 7 days

Resources…

Immediately on hearing about it we sent our leading specialist there to sample the wine.

In most businesses I always think of Resources as being human capital – one of the most important assets within any business.

I’m sure you’d agree finding and retaining the best people in the market place can be a challenge. Once we find them we need to use this to our advantage. Positioning our resource as being scarce is a key way of differentiating ourselves in the eyes of customers and clients.

Products & Services…

Strictly Limited Stocks… Only have 200 cases PLUS Order Early And Receive A State Of The Art Corkscrew!How many of those corkscrews have you got in your draw at home? I think I must have a dozen by now!!!

Summary…

I’m sure you’re already thinking of ways you can use this powerful technique to gain the edge in your business and market place.

2006-07-13T23:52:00.000-07:00

“Discovering the inside track on how motivation really works!”

There’s been a great deal written regarding the subject of motivation – so today I wanted to give you the inside track on how it really works.

You and I both know you can’t motivate anyone – sometimes we have enough trouble motivating ourselves.

We’ve all been there on that cold winters morning, sticking that toe out of bed only to find the heating has broken or… the alarm clock has gone off and you proceed to hit the snooze button for the next half hour – why – because…

“Motivation is a personal choice – people do things for their own reasons not your reasons!”

You can’t motivate someone to do something they don’t want to do.

All we can do as effective communicators is understand what are the motivational triggers we can press in order for somebody to become…self-motivated. After all it’s all about the WIFM factor – what’s in it for me?

In order to ‘demonstrate’ my thoughts and how it works I’ve created a model called the WHY Triangle. You can imagine a picture of a triangle in your mind - The WHY being at the base – the WHAT on the left side and the HOW on the right.

Feedback from clients and my personal experiences tell me we tend to spend most of our time in the WHAT and the HOW. Here’s a couple of examples of this idea in action in the commercial world.

Example 1…

You’re working with your sales team and running a series of one on one sessions at the start of the year – perhaps to go through the sales targets - (in the why triangle model) the what…and most of the time that’s where the discussion stops – in some instances we might move on and explore some ideas on how they can do it – however most of the time it stops at the what.

A key thought for you…

How much time do you spend in the why? – The why being the foundation the platform the base of the entire process.

Now who’s great at asking why questions – children of course. Go and tidy your room – Why? Go and put your jacket on as we are going to the supermarket – why? Children are so intuitive – always asking the why questions – why this why that.

I believe one of the challenges when we get into adult life – is life conditions us to stop asking the why questions of ourselves why we do what we do and of others. We loose that child like instinct. Perhaps now is the time to get that back by asking more why questions.

Back to the example…

What if at the start of the process when coaching with the sales person we started with what are your personal goals for the year?

What is it you want to achieve?

Why do you want to achieve it?

How can I help you achieve those goals?

What financially do you want to earn?

Why do you want to earn it?

Now we start to understand the why from the individuals prospective. I think one of the keys for creating a motivational atmosphere or environment for our people is to understand clearly their personal goals and how work can be one of the vehicles in order to help them deliver those goals.

The moment we help create the bridge in their mind - the link between their personal goals and business goals - then self-motivation kicks in.

One of my client was so excited by this idea he went and sat down on a one to one base with all his people to understand what they wanted to achieve and why and how through working with him he could help them do just that.

One of the team wanted to earn a £10,000 bonus in order to go take his wife and two children to Disney world. Here’s the important part, it’s not the money that is the critical factor – it’s what that money allows them to do in their lives.

Once the manager knew the why he then could talk about the what and most importantly the how - what high performing weeks need to look like in order to get to Disney world.

He then bought a mini Mickey Mouse and positioned it on the corner of the guy’s desk. When he was doing well and on his game he would go over and point to the Mickey Mouse and say well done – you’re another week closer to Mickey and Disney world. When he was not performing he would go over and point to Mickey and say our activity needs to improve if your going to get to Disney world and then proceed to run a coaching session with him on what needed to happen (the what and the how).

The Mickey Mouse became the anchor – the hook – the motivational trigger

Example 2…

You’ve been out with your PARTNER over the weekend and happened to call in at a new housing development and you’ve fallen in love with your dream house.

On Monday morning you call your bank manager excited and bubbling with enthusiasm – and proceed to tell him the story and ask him for a mortgage (the what).

The normal scenario…

The manager then launches into his usual scripted patter about fixed rate and variable rate mortgages and interest only or repayment (the How).

However when he starts with the WHY the conversation takes on a whole new meaning at a far deeper level in the communication process

“Tell me what the mortgage is for?”

“Well I was out with my PARTNER at the weekend and we called into a new housing development and we’ve found our dream house”.

“Tell me what’s great about the house?”

“Well our children are getting bigger and need somewhere to play and our current house is on a main road and we’re worried about them playing on the street”. Motivational trigger 1

“Anything else?”

“I’ve always wanted a conservatory and this new house has one on the back”.

“Fantastic I bet you can’t wait to sit in your conservatory reading your paper whilst your kids are laughing and playing in the garden”. Motivational trigger 2

"Anything else?"

"well I’m working from home much more and this new house has its own study". Motivational trigger number 3

You can see how you can build the picture for the customer – engaging with them at a deeper level than ever before in the communication process – really understanding the why from their prospective – knowing you have the triggers to press every time you need into ignite their self motivation.

Now a couple of key points…

1. It’s not the money which is the important part it’s what that money will allow the customer to do – recognising we’re all in the business of benefits. (this is a subject we’ll be talking about in more detail on a future business accelerator ezine)

2. The key is engaging with the clients at an emotional level in the communication process – not just a logical level.

Emotion V Logic…

Back to the picture of the triangle in your mind. Imagine adding a horizontal line two thirds of the way up your triangle with the word logic above the line and… the word emotion below the line.

In all buying decisions emotion is far more important than logic.

In fact it is my firm view that all decisions are made emotionally... not logically.
And if someone believes that they are making a logical decision it is only that they have far more emotion about that logic.

Therefore it is essential, when we are selling, that we appeal to the emotions of the buyer.

I like to think of it as a pendulum swinging from side to side.

Logic one side and emotion on the other.

And when explaining a particular point to use both facts and figures - the logic, and then tell a story or paint a picture using emotion.

Sometimes you can use the process in reverse... tell a story and then explain the logic or facts and figures.

“It’s the emotion that creates the motion - moving the client to action!”

So what are the Actions you can take away from this session?

Perhaps it’s to ask yourself the question;

Do you really know the WHY for your customers and prospects and are you appealing to both the logical and emotional sides of their brain in all of your communications?

For all future interactions with customers whether on the telephone or face to face - as part of your planning make sure you ask yourself these focused questions…

1. What is the WHY for my customer?
2. What are we talking about doing?
3. How is it going to work?
4. How do I appeal to the logical left-brain in my communication?
5. How do I appeal to the right brain emotion knowing this is the REAL catalyst for action?

And personally – find out the ‘why’ for the key people in your life – knowing someone’s WHY and helping them get there creates relationships that last a lifetime.

2006-05-19T08:34:00.000-07:00

"How to Create Alliance Partnerships & Strategic Alliances"

I was with a Client last week talking through a number of sales and marketing strategies for their business. It was one of those sessions where you enter the ‘white room’ and completely forget about all the activities they’re currently doing. Almost like having a blank piece of paper and starting from scratch.

I’ve been working with this client for a while so I also wanted to come at their business with a fresh pair of eyes.

The Scenario…

So, we created the scenario and imagined that this was our first day in the business and our focus was on lead generation. Together we wrote a quality focused question:

What are the various strategies we can engage in, in order to attract quality, relational clients through the front door of the business?

…And then we set about coming up with the answers.

3 hours later and 113 ideas on the flip chart, Phil turned to me and said:

“Royston if you had to pick your top 2 ideas what would they be?”

I replied “That’s easy. The first has to be referrals from your existing clients”

“The second one is easy also I replied – Creating Alliance Partnerships or Strategic Alliances.”

Alliance Partnerships…

My focus in business development and sales is always on quality and not quantity. I want both my sales team, and the teams of the businesses we work with to be truly effective in their activities. That process starts by having quality leads and opportunities to work with.

With the focus on quality at the forefront of my mind I can then set about creating the strategies which are going to deliver the quality leads to the business.

And the second key strategy after client referrals has to be Alliance Partnerships.

You know my passion for simple, quality focused questions. Identifying your potential Alliance Partnerships is based on another quality question. It’s this:

Who has a target market of customers or clients who fit the profile of clients you want to attract to your business?

You might want to read that question again slowly and really digest each component part as it really is a powerful question.

Let me give you an example in order to bring this to life for you:

Pti is in the business of helping businesses to grow.

So, when answering the above question wearing my Pti hat, the first one that springs to mind is Accountants.

A reasonable sized accountant will have hundreds of clients and customers they’re working with. They are having detailed discussions with those business owners about their plans on a regular basis and are ideally positioned to identify the ones which are in growth mode and also the ones which have the potentiality for future growth.

Where the expertise to realise the growth does not exist in the business, the accountant brings in Pti. The client benefits because they can now tap into our expertise. The accountant is delighted because as we help their client to grow, their fees increase – a Win/Win/Win for all parties.

We have Alliance Partnerships with Accountants, Banks, IFA’s, Solicitors, Brokers, Venture Capitalists to name just a few.

These Alliance Partners are a continuous source of quality leads and the conversion rates are 500% higher than on other lead generation activities.

So, how can you use this idea?

Firstly, either individually or with some of your key team members run a focused question exercise using this question:

Who has a target market of customers or clients who fit the profile of clients I want to attract to my business?

Capture as many ideas as you can. Think about existing business contacts you have, friends, suppliers etc.

Then simply priortise the list for FBI (Fastest Best Impact!)

You’ll be amazed at the number of opportunities you create!

Written by Royston Guest - Pti International Ltd www.pti-worldwide.com

2006-03-22T13:09:00.000-08:00

“The Fourth Way to Grow Your/Any Business?”

This is fourth in a series of four posts I’m going to share with you centred on the 4 Key Questions of Business Growth…

You’ll recall the first three key questions are:

How do you/we increase the number of Customers?
How do you/we increase the average order value?
How do you/we increase the average order frequency?

Well now we’re going to look at the final question:

How do you/we increase the retention of customers?

“Are Your Customers Slipping Silently Out the Back Door of Your Business?”

Client retention… or most importantly lack of it - is costing businesses worldwide millions in lost turnover and profits each and every year.

The worldwide market place is now bigger than ever - however as the market grows – so does the competition.

New companies moving into new markets!
Old companies moving into new markets!
New companies moving into old markets!

The competition is on the march!

Your customers and clients are constantly UNDER ATTACK from rival organisations attempting to steal them from your business.

In many businesses and organisations as fast as customers are persuaded in through the front door – they are silently slipping out the back.

Now you and I both know that we do need to bring in new customers.

· No matter how good our retention strategies!
· No matter how good we are at developing relationships!
· No matter how good our products and services!

We’re going to lose some customers/clients – FACT!

WHAT IF - through increased focus – through a well thought out Customer Retention Strategy and through effective implementation of that strategy - we could just reduce the attrition rate of your customer base by small percentage points?

This, coupled with effective front-end new business activity is how many successful businesses now attack the market – and by so doing achieve exponential growth instead of linear growth.

Think of it like this: Would you rather spend year after year bringing in new customers just to stand still or…

By focusing on a number of multiple strategies really drive your business to levels of growth that previously you’d only dreamed possible.

Why Retain Customers?

Pti were consulting with one of our regular clients recently.

The consultant led the client through 50 key ways to attract new customers to their business. The client was obviously delighted with the results - and could not wait to get started implementing the ideas - attracting new and exciting customers to their front door.

Until that is - the consultant took them on a very scary journey – he asked about the numbers of customers lost each year?

Using our clients’ data the consultant projected that over the next five years they would need to invest £3,790,000 to re-acquire the customers, (based on current data) they were losing each year.

Together they also calculated that it could cost them a further £10,000,000 in lost business of standard orders placed - not including extra sales of new products over the period – a very sobering thought.

I’m so passionate about Client Retention I’ve written a 59 page Special Report dedicated to this very subject. You can download your copy by going to www.pti-worldwide.com - however today let me share with you just 3 of the 17 Key Customer retention strategies detailed in the report;

1. Building Your ‘Ideal’ Profile of Client:

+ What does the ideal profile of customer look like for your business?
+ What is the demographic/psychographic profile? (Who buys/why do they buy?)
+ Are they transactional or relational?
+ What are the key factors and ingredients in the make up of your ‘Ideal’ profile customer?

Page 17 of the report explains in depth how to build your ideal profile client.

2. ‘Satisfied’ or ‘Very Satisfied’

Customers who rate the service from a supplier as "satisfactory" have a retention rate of 65%.

However - those customers who rate the service they receive as "Very Satisfactory" have a loyalty rate of 95%.

Yes – a 50% uplift in retention or loyalty - from 65% to 95% - just by an increase in perception of service - from ‘satisfied’ - to ‘very satisfied’.

Where would you say your customers would rate their satisfaction on your business satisfaction meter? Which of these strategies are you going to implement first to move the needle on your satisfaction meter to the ‘Very Satisfied’ end? (More details on page 24 of the Special Report).

3. Speed Stuns!

You’ve heard the expression under promise and over deliver. Well here’s another take:

“Over promise and… over over deliver!”

+ Your customer places up with that urgent order – you guarantee delivery for the day after tomorrow – however it arrives next morning – Speed Stuns!
+ The proposal the client needs by the end of the week – it’s on their email within 24 hours – Speed Stuns!
+ You go to an important meeting – next morning the customer receives a hand written card from you thanking them for the meeting – Speed Stuns!

I know you have the point. What a great expression and what a brilliantly simple strategy to build loyalty. I’m sure you’re already thinking of ways to use this in your business.

Summary…

So there we have it – the final question of the 4 Key Questions of Business Growth. This series of four ezines contains so many powerful ideas to accelerate the growth of your business. I urge you to block out some quality time to personalise and apply the ideas – after all action is the Key to success.

The post has been made by Royston Guest from Pti International.

2006-03-13T07:18:00.000-08:00

The Third Key Questions Of Business Growth...

This is the third in a series of four articles. We've already looked at the first two questions of the 4 Key Questions of Business Growth. You'll recall they are:

How do you/we increase the number of customers? And...
How do you/we increase the average order value?

The focus for today is the third key question of business growth:

How do you/we increase the average order frequency?

So, we've already attracted the new customer through the front door of our business - we maximised the average order value at the front end - now is the time to leverage the average order frequency - or in other words programme the customer to buy more and…More often!

Whenever I consult with new clients - particularly those setting up a new business there are a number of questions I always ask as we start to explore this third key question of business growth.

And these questions are centred on what the potential lifetime value of a customer is worth to your business – something I call the LTV.

So lets make this real for a moment and take a simple example that you and I will easily relate to. Lets imagine for a moment you’ve always shopped at Sainsbury’s, however one of your friends is raving about Tesco and how good they are, so you decide to test them out yourself. You go along to your local Tesco with your list of 40 items and 30 minutes later your at the checkout packing all the items into bags – all 80 of them!

Yes we’ve all been there haven’t we – a trolley full of stuff which resembles nothing like the list you went in with, why does that always happen! And…your now £100 lighter in the pocket.

However the experience was great – you agree with your friends raving endorsement and your now a convert – Tesco’s is definitely for you.

Here’s where the LTV (lifetime value) kicks in. How many times do you go to the supermarket in a year?

Well for a family with 2 children probably once a week.

And how much do they spend? An average order value of £100

They’re the first two questions of business growth taken care of.

Here comes the third question:

What is the average order frequency?

Well for our family, taking out 2 weeks for the annual holidays the average order frequency is 50 times per year.

Tesco’s are delighted! New customer – average order value £100 – 50 times a year – That’s £5000.

Now that’s lifetime value, and here were just talking about year one. How long have you been going to your current supermarket for?

I bet if you’ve been a customers for a while and you actually sat down and calculated your worth to them over that period it would be huge!

So lets spin this into a focused question, which can relate and apply to your business;

What is a customer worth to your business? – Not just year one but over their lifetime? Their LTV?

And I suggest you don’t just calculate the turnover figure, what are they worth in terms of profitability? After all you and I know that’s the real measure.

Turnover is vanity
Profit is sanity and…
Cash is reality.

Its amazing when you calculate the REAL lifetime value of a customer or client how it changes your focus within the business.

You can then calculate what your prepared to spend in marketing sales to attract new customers at the front end and…

Once you’ve got them in, what is going to be your contact strategy in order to educate them on all the products and services they can buy from you – after all;

Frequency of contact = Frequency of order

Summary…

So, there you have it, the third of four key questions of business growth:

How do you/we increase the average order frequency?

Action really is the key to success – so here’s my summary of the suggested actions you can do from this ezine:

+ Calculate the lifetime value of your customer and clients and…
+ Perhaps do a focused question exercise, what are the various strategies I can implement in my business in order to increase the average order frequency

2006-03-03T07:09:00.000-08:00

This is the second in a series of four posts that I’m going to share with you. Practical ideas on how you can create a number of positive outcomes for yourself, for your organisation and for your customers.

The 4 Key Questions of Business Growth…

The ideas are related to the 4 Key Questions of Business Growth. You’ll perhaps recall in a recent posting, I covered the first of the four questions;

How do you/we increase the number of Customers?

And we came up with 3 key strategies in answers to this question – Your Systematised Referral Process, Alliance Partnerships and Special Events.

I also suggested an exercise you could run, either on your own or with your team, in order to get those creative juices flowing.

(If you’ve not seen the previous ezine you can download a copy from http://www.pti-worldwide.com/ – it would be great to read it in conjunction with this edition)

Well now we’re going to look at the second of the four key questions;

How do you/we increase the average order value?

Here are three ideas for you – I know you’ll be able to come up with many more.

Accelerator 1…

The first idea is to increase your prices – an instant quick win!

“I can’t do that” I hear you say! “It’s a competitive market!”

When was the last time you had a price increase in your business?

Do you think your market place could handle just a 1%, 2%, or even 3% increase? More, depending on the nature of your business of course?

Do you have a differential pricing policy?

This could be a dedicated subject itself – however you have the point. Perhaps just take a moment to re read and answer those three questions I’ve just posed!

Accelerator 2…

The second idea is increasing the number of products and services your customers buy from you and your business.

In my experience, and feedback from our consulting and training teams (we’ve interacted with over 10,000 businesses now) most people do not buy ALL the products and services they could from you, simply because they do not know everything that you sell.

Could this be the case in your business?

Do you have a systematised process to educate and up sell customers and clients on your full compliment of products and services available to them? – a subject very close to my heart!

You’ve already invested the time in acquiring the new customer – you’ve already invested the money - now is the time to capitalise on all the effort you’ve invested to date.

I have another spin on this related to delivering the exceptional customer experience – however we’ll save that for another day.

And finally my third idea for you;

Accelerator 3…

Can you parcel or bundle products and services together?

Let’s go through the numbers first so I can explain the idea.

Let’s say that we have a product that sells for £100 and we can make it or buy it for £50, then the profit on a single sale of that product would be £50.

Sales Price - 100
Cost - 50
Profit - 50
Increase in Profit

However if there was a second product that we also normally sell at £100, which we buy at £50, then we could bundle these two products together to increase the average order value and more importantly the average order profit.

Let me show you.

Sale Price - 100 170
Cost - 50 100
Profit - 50 70
Increase in Profit 40%

As you can see we’ve bundled the products together and sold them at combined price of £170 a discount of £30 or 15% and yet the profit on this sale has increased from £50 to £70 an increase of 40%.

Naturally if we believe that customers would normally buy both products at normal price, this wouldn’t be a strategy to employ – however if the discounted price prompts additional sales then an increase in 40% profit would be very welcome I’m sure.

Summary…

So there you have it – the second of the 4 Key Questions of Business Growth and…three key accelerators you can instantly implement and personalise for your business.

Perhaps you can take some quiet time and brainstorm either on your own, or with your team, further ideas on the various ways to increase the average order value. My list now stands at 38 ideas!

Guest Article by Royston Guest

2006-03-02T01:06:00.000-08:00

“10 Little Known Business Growth Secrets Uncovered”

There are 10 little known business growth secrets that are costing businesses millions of pounds each and every year...Ignore them at your peril!

Why is this so when the fundamentals of growing a business are pretty basic? I’d go as far as to say they’re simple. Yet, isn’t it so true the most simple and basic things in life are the things so often overlooked!

To this end, over the coming weeks I’d like to share with you the 10 closely guarded secrets of business growth. Once learned you’d better take action with them as these nuggets of information provide you with the keys to unlock the door of exponential business growth.

When I say exponential I don’t mean 3 or 4% per year, as after all this is barely better than inflation. By exponential I mean 10, 20, 50 or even 100% or more growth year on year. Now the actual growth you’ll achieve will depend on a number of things, namely:

+ How well you take on board these ideas
+ How committed you are in taking action with these ideas
+ The industry you’re in
+ The quality of your offering
+ And many more factors.

To go into each of these ideas in great detail is not the remit of this article, I’ll save the details for future articles. For now, let’s uncover the 10 closely guarded secrets, so you’re able to benefit from a greater understanding of these ideas. The first one is...

1. Understanding the 4 Key Questions of business growth – which are, how do we:
+ Increase the number of customers? – (This is the area most companies spend their entire time.)
+ Increase the average order value?
+ Increase the average order frequency?
+ Increase our retention of customers?

To find out more about these questions see Royston's contribution below, where he goes into more detail about Q1 - How to increase the number of customers?

He'll also be writing more on the other four questions over the coming week, so watch this space!

2006-02-17T14:56:00.000-08:00

“There are Only Four Ways to Grow Any Business?”

Here I’m going to share with you some practical ideas on how you can create a number of positive outcomes for yourself, for your organisation and for your customers.

The 4 Key Questions of Business Growth…

The ideas are related to the 4 Key Questions of Business Growth – and yes, despite what so many people say there are only four ways to grow any business! There are a number of answers to each of the questions – a number of multiple strategies which you can implement in your business – however when you peel back the layers you’ll always arrive at these 4 Key Questions.

Now, a number of people have said to me “Ah Royston, but what about reducing costs – that will increase my profits?”

And – Yes they are right. However - I’m talking about the untapped, upside potentiality of unlimited growth. Reducing costs has a finite ceiling which you’ll hit – you can only ever cut back so far, where as business growth – unleashing the hidden windfall profits lying in your business - focusing on the upside potentiality - has no boundaries.

So what are the 4 key Questions of Business Growth? Well today I’m going to focus on the first question for you.

The Benefits…

Specifically by using the ideas we’ll go through in this ezine and the subsequent 3 ezines covering the other 3 questions you’ll be able to:

· Increase your turnover

· Increase your Profits

· Increase your customer retention

· Increase your penetration rates

· Increase your market share and…

· Make easier sales - than ever before!

The change in mindset you’ll go through, as I did, when you learn The 4 Key Questions of Business Growth and of course, the answers to those questions – will amaze you!

You’ll start to see opportunities in so many different places.

So let’s look at the first question;

How do you/we increase the number of Customers?

This is where most businesses tend to spend their time – in attaining new customers through the front door of their businesses.

So my question for you is this;

What are the various strategies you’re currently using in order to attract people to your business?

I’ll share a couple of my key accelerators with you and then suggest an exercise you can do either on your own or with your team if appropriate.

Accelerator 1…

The first and number 1 Low/Cost no cost strategy for increasing the number of customers is of course referrals – a subject that I dedicated Business Accelerator Ezine number 5 to (if you’ve not seen it you can download a copy from www.pti-worldwide.com - just go to the ezine archive)

86% of our business in Pti now comes from referrals – was it always the case – of course not however for the past 18 months we’ve been focused on building a referral only business. Could you do the same? What percentage of your business comes through referrals today? What could it be in the future with an increased focus in this area?

Accelerator 2…

Alliance Partnerships or sometimes referred to as Strategic Alliances. Who has a target market of customers who fit the profile of customer you want to attract to your business? And…
How can you form an Alliance Partnership together to cross refer business? We could spend days and days talking about this strategy however I’ve seen some of our clients achieve double digit growth just by leveraging the power of this one idea!

Accelerator 3…

The third accelerator could be running special events.

One of my clients runs evenings for current and potential customers and holds wine learning evenings. Not just wine tasting but wine learning. Evenings where a wine specialist comes along and teaches the customers and potential customers how to recognise good wines.

These events are extremely popular and the conversion rate of new customers is over 90%.

What special events could you hold for your potential customers?

· A daytime event - where you could showcase your products

· An evening event

· A special day at the office or factory

· Special promotions to go with those events

The list is endless - but I’m sure you can personalise this method and come up with a number of ideas that could be tested at little cost.

Suggested Exercise…

So, this is what I suggest you do - either on your own or with your team.

Write this focused question on the top of the page;

How can I/We increase the number of customers?

Set yourself/your team a target of coming up with 50 plus ideas each and then share collectively on a flip chart. You’ll be amazed just how many ideas you’ll come up with. I now have a list of over 133!

One of my clients has 4 flip charts in his monthly sales meeting, each containing one of the questions from the 4 Key Questions of Business Growth.

2 hours of every sales meeting is dedicated to these four questions. No wonder he is the fastest growing business unit in his company!

Have fun doing this process for yourself. Next time we’ll look at the second key question and I’ll share some ideas on how to personalise it for you and your business. Until then Enjoy Your Business Success!

Guest Article by Royston Guest

2006-02-17T14:49:00.000-08:00

How much is the Life Time Value (LTV) of your customer?

For that matter what is Life Time Value (LTV) and why is it so important?

Well, the lifetime value of your average customer is the income you expect to generate from the customer for the duration of time they do business with you. Let’s look at an example – imagine you run a Hair Salon with the following situation:

+ The average cost for a haircut is £20
+ Each client has a haircut on average every 6-7 weeks, therefore on average 8 times per year
+ Each client stay with you for an average of 4 years

Therefore your LTV for your average customer is:

£20 x 8 (no. time per year) x 4 (no. years) = £640 Average LTV per person!

Now this gives a very different perspective to the value of your customers. If we see them as merely being worth the value of each individual transaction then how can we establish how much we’re willing to spend to attract a new client in the first place?

I leave that with you as food for thought!

2006-02-03T02:01:00.000-08:00

“How to Prioritise the Potentiality of Your Existing and Future Clients!”

In the last post I covered a strategy for maximising and realising the true potentiality of your Clients and Customers - allowing you to harvest the windfall profits lying dormant in your business -

Oh yes - and of course I shared…

The three accelerator questions I always ask at the start of all new consultancy engagements to start the process;

1. How many Customers do you have?
2. What do those Customers spend with you in total? And…
3. How much could they spend with you based on your current product and service offering? Or phrased a different way how many of your Clients or Customers are multi sourcing or simply buying elsewhere products and services they could be buying from you?

Once you’ve determined the answers to these three questions related to your Clients and Customers, then the next strategy is to prioritise the potentiality.

This is how you do it.

Firstly create a banding system. I usually base this on turnover annualised over the year – for example;

Bronze might be a spend of up to £4999
Silver - £5000 - £9999
Gold - £10,000 – £19,999
Platinum - £20,000 plus
You can also do this exercise related to profitability.

The goal is to have an even spread of Clients and Customers who fall into the various categories. For example make sure you set the platinum band at a realistic level so your team will definitely have Clients who fall into this band or…have the potentiality to migrate to the level of spend over time.

Once you’ve created the bands categorise all your existing Clients by their current spend. Then - and here is the real power – having answered question 3;

How much could they spend with you based on your current product and service offering?

Categorise your existing Clients and Customers by their Potentiality!

Now this has a number of benefits and poses some key questions.

+ Are you and your team focusing your time and effort on the Clients who have the most potentiality?
+ How much more pro active will this allow you to be once you have this information?
+ How much more focus do you think it might create?

Some of my other Clients even run quarterly competitions – focusing on turning bronze Clients into silver - silver into gold - and of course gold into platinum.

I’m sure you’re already thinking of a number of other benefits.

Such a simple yet powerful strategy – creating laser beam focus - allowing you to realise the true potentiality of your existing Clients and Customers.

Perhaps now is the time to create your strategy for implementing this idea in your business – after all action really is the key to success!

Written by Royston Guest, Sales and Marketing Director of Pti International, the UK's leading persoanl and business growth organisation.

2006-01-20T02:38:00.000-08:00

“Unlocking the Potentiality Lying in Your Existing Client Base!”

Today I want to share one secret with you of how to unlock the REAL potentiality of your clients and customers – allowing you to harvest the windfall profits lying dormant in your business. And the idea is based on this focused question;

Are you maximising and realising the true potentiality of your clients and customers?

Whenever I start with a new client on a coaching or consultancy engagement I have three accelerator questions I always ask.

The first is how many customers do you have? And of course with a bit of digging into records most businesses can give me this information.

The second question is what do those customers spend with you in total? – and to keep the exercise simple I base this on an annualised spend. Again with some research we can identify this figure.

And the third and most important question; How much could they spend with you based on your current product and service offering? Or phrased a different way how many of your clients or customers are multi sourcing or simply buying elsewhere products and services they could be buying from you?

Most clients don’t know the answer to this question so we set a project plan for the customer service or sales people to go and speak with all their customers – making sure they educate them on the full range of products and service they can buy from them and ascertaining their real potentiality through some well thought out and structured questions that we prepare together.

You can imagine how excited the sales and customer teams are once they’ve done this exercise and the typical responses which come back from the customers. “I didn’t know you did that”, or “I’d never thought about coming to you for that product”, being just two of the typical responses.

And yet we’ve already invested the time and effort to develop the relationships with those customers – they’ve already bought from your business – they’re already bought into your brand – to you and your team – now is the time to realise their true potentiality and worth to you and your business.

Having done this exercise with hundreds of businesses I’ve yet to work with any business where the potentiality v the current spend hasn’t been at least double – yes double and sometimes the potentiality of the existing customers has been as much as 10 fold the current spend.

Perhaps it would be worthwhile running a session with your team and answering those three focused questions

I wonder what this figure would be for your business?

Written by Royston Guest, Sales and Marketing Director of Pti International, the UK's leading personal and business growth organisation.

2006-01-15T11:45:00.000-08:00

Are You Dealing With The RIGHT Customers / Clients?

You also need to consider, are you actually targeting and dealing with the right type of customers. There have been numerous studies carried out over the years into customer profitability within business and here is a snippet from a study carried out by KPMG:

“KPMG studies have found that rather than 80%, more like 140% to 170% of your profits come from 20% of your customers. Another interesting twist – 20% of your customers typically generate 80% of your losses while the majority of your customers, approximately 60%, range from mildly profitable to breakeven to unprofitable.”
Source: Customer, Vol 4, 1999, p19

If this is true, and I have no reason to believe that it is not then it raises serious questions about whether we actually want to work with all the clients that we currently have?

In my experience of working with many companies over the years this appears to be correct. In fact my colleagues and myself have done some work with one of the major banks and they themselves carried out an evaluation and established that over 80% of the contribution to their business did in fact come from 20% of their customers.

Maybe you would like to evaluate your own client base to establish how profitable they really are to you.

If you don't understand the profitability of your customers it is difficuelt to truly plan profitable business growth with any certainty.

2006-01-03T05:50:00.000-08:00

Guest Article

Strategic Internet Marketing - 5 Basic Keys to Online Business Success
By Gley Yahya

If you don't know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else. Laurence J. Peter US educator & writer (1919 - 1988)...

When you think about starting your online business, success depends on the value of your strategic Internet marketing plan. It acts like a roadmap to guide you from one milestone to the next along your business journey.

What's Strategic Internet Marketing Plan?

There's an old saying that goes like that, "Success depends on planning your work, and then working your plan."

In the most successful business, the strategic Internet marketing plan is a fundamental written document which crafts a business idea in terms of goals, objectives, time lines, financial declarations, marketing consequences, competitive positions, directorial factors and goes on to show how the business owner will realize those goals, including a detailed marketing strategy. A complete business plan also contains a formal break-even analysis and a profit-and-loss projection analysis designed to give you an idea about the business's profitability, growth and cash flow.

Your plan must clearly define each step in the process. Be accurate and honest. Identify time lags and non-value-adding steps. Identify responsibility for each step. Brainstorm For problems in the process. Each step should illustrate an action in specific, clear and measurable terms. Keep your business plan flexible and simple so that you can quickly make changes as necessary. More importantly, your employees need to read and understand your company's goals, the activities required to achieve them, the timetable for accomplishing assigned tasks and each individual's responsibilities as part of the team.

The people most successful are those who have clear, specific goals and a timeframe; and they have an internal mechanism for monitoring the progress of business. They have been passionate about their business and eager to find ways to improve their own performance continuously in the search for excellence.

These people dedicate themselves to learning everything they need to know about the business to achieve their dreams. They have exceptional knowledge of creating, managing, marketing and running their business with integrity and responsibility. And they pursue their dreams with persistence, passion and a continual confidence that they will succeed at any cost.

Is the importance of creating a personal plan before starting a business sounds dull? Miss this step and you'll almost certainly fail in whatever you try and accomplish. If you still doubt why I stress the importance of planning, go throw the web and ask any one you come across and you will learn in practical terms what happened to most of them in the creation of any project.

The reason behind the MOST online failures is that people believe in the hype they heard from unethical marketers. They believe in “give me your money seat back doing no thing and you will start making $12.000.00 by the next month scheme”. If it’s that ease why they need your money!

If all people understand there is no sweet thing without hard work, we would be seeing many more online success stories and fewer online failures.

Remember, you need 5 basic keys to be successful:

1 - You need a strategic Internet marketing plan (even if you are starting small business and you are not going to lean money).

2 - The need skills to run manage and market your business.

3 - You need the right tools to crate a system that works on autopilot.

4 - You need to invest time and money (investing time is a must but investing money is up to you).

5 - You need to be passionate and self disciplined.

If your online marketing plan consists only of a Website, you are not using all the channels the Internet has to offer. Strategic Internet Marketing plan opens multiple channels and exponentially more opportunities to help you achieve your business and marketing objectives.

Here you will discover exactly how to draw up a highly potent action plan that will focus your mind and help you achieve your goals in a reasonable time.

Why Strategic Internet Marketing Plan Is a MUST?

As a small business owner, you do not have infinite resources to compete with the big guys. You need to prioritize how you spend your money to build and market your business during tough time. By following the step-by-step strategic Internet marketing plan, you can create your very own home-based Internet business and position it in the right place at the right time and with less risk.

Your strategic Internet marketing plan must uncovers the following:

- Get the needed skills to build your business.

- Search your market well before you decide you are ready. Find out what your targeted market wants and needs. Analyze your competitor’s strength and weakness.

- Find a product to sell: Create your product, buy reseller rights of hot product, find an affiliate program, use Google ad sense.... etc - Select the most effective, low cost marketing tools and strategies that fit your business needs and budget.

- Analyze information before; during and after you implement the Strategic Internet Marketing plan.

- Continuously revise your plan as you learn what works and what doesn’t.
Errors are part of the process. Don't try to avoid them. When a strategy fails, view it as part of trial-and-error that you can learn from.

If you are truly passionate about your business success, build your business with your customers in mind. In other words you must think about:

- How to attract targeted visitors to your website.

- How to entice them to take action (Either they buy your product or they subscribe to your email list)

- How to make them enthusiastic about the quality of your product and/ or service

- How to build relationship to convert them to loyal customers - How to bring them back to your website.

- How to continuously add fresh subscribers to your list.

Conclusion: To make good money online you need an opt in email list. To build an opt in email list you need to build your business with your customers in mind. After you build your list then and only then look for ways on how to make money from your list. Once you find the combination that works for you the sky is your limit.

Here's your chance to 'short-cut' the learning faze and follow a step-by-step blueprint to success by going through these steps.

Gley Yahya owns the Strategic Internet marketing, designed to help small business owners build their opt in email lists by following a proven to work procedure, that leads online people to their websites, and take them through the process from position to position, to convert them to loyal customers. If you need information and assistance with your online growth, we can help. You can learn more by visiting http://www.email-list-builder.com. You can reach him at: gley_yahya@email-list-builder.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Gley_Yahya

2005-12-29T01:11:00.000-08:00

Leaving a great taste in the mouth of your customers!

I’m a big believer in WOWING customers. On the same note I believe you must ensure that if you WOW them you can do so consistently. As there is nothing worse than WOWING the customer today, for them to return in a few days or weeks time only to be OWED as the level of service you gave them the first time suddenly becomes the norm – the way they expect it to be. Therefore by not delivering to the same level you can actually hurt the relationship.

I’ve recently had a great experience here in sunny Tenerife where I have been spending the festive break.

My brother and his girlfriend took our family to a great restaurant called ‘Antonia Café’. We had a great meal with a wonderful selection of food, fine wine and deserts to die for. After diner we were shown through to the relaxing lounge area and we ordered some after diner spirits.

The waiter brought us some pretty hefty sized drinks, had a short conversation with us and as he was leaving he casually mentioned that the drinks we just had were on the house as they were his way of saying thanks for using his restaurant. Now that is a WOW!

Does he do this for all his customers? Probably!

But you know what, it doesn’t matter as it was a genuine demonstration, what we call a tangible demonstration, that he appreciated our custom.

On this occasion we all had a fantastic meal and this final element to the evening was merely the icing on the cake. But it begs a question – How can you WOW your customer with a simple – tangible – demonstration of your gratitude for their business?

Delivering an exceptional customer experience and WOWING your customers is one of the key elements of successful and sustained business growth.

I will leave this thought with you as we progress into 2006 and beyond. Have a great New Year!

2005-12-04T13:07:00.000-08:00

Understanding Who Your Clients Actually Are?

Do you know what your clients actually look like?

Is there a specific profile of business or person that you are trying to target?

If you don’t currently have a clear picture of a typical client / customer (I use these two words interchangeably) then how do you know the best form of marketing activities to target people or businesses most likely to buy your products or services?

The most important first step in developing you Business Growth Strategy is to establish exactly what your current clients looks like.

Some business try to define their ideal client before clearly understanding what their current profile client, and these can be very different.

Maybe take some time out of your busy schedule to evaluate your current client base and to establish whether you current clients are actually the profile you want to be working with long term.

In a lot of businesses over 80% of the profit is generated by approximately 20% of the customers.

Is this the same for your company?

2005-11-27T12:34:00.000-08:00

Clearly understanding the business objectives

Where is your business going?

Have you created a formal business plan for the business, which clearly sets out the sales targets and profits that your business is going to achieve? I’m not talking about one of those business plans that people often create when starting a business, which is put on the shelf never to see the light of day again. I’m talking about a useful working document, which you have created to clearly map out where the business is going. One that shows the growth of the business over the coming months and years ahead and one that paints a picture of exactly how the business should look in terms of turnover, staffing numbers, premises, sales per sales person, and so on.

As it’s only by clearly laying out a business plan to this level of detail that you’ll be able to establish how far along your journey you are at any stage, and whether in fact you are on course or not.

If you are serious about business growth, and are looking for some guidance and support in putting your ideas into practice then maybe the www.achievebusinessgrowth.com is just what you are looking for - the site is designed to help you make More Profit – More Easily - More Often!

2005-11-05T04:20:00.000-08:00

Understanding your Personal Goals is Essential to Your Business Success

What is it you want out of life? Do you really know? Have you taken the moment or two out of your busy schedule to devote some time to truly understanding what it is that you personally want to achieve in your lifetime?

This Part of the Process is Essential!

Understanding what it is that drives you is the first step towards achieving success in your life. I recently read the book “The Strangest Secret” by the great Earl Nightingale – arguably the greatest personal development mind that has graced mother earth. He sums up the key to success as being “We become what we think about!”. Simply, eh?

Well, it might appear to be so simple, yet I encourage you not to be blinded by the simplicity of this idea. It really is the key to success as by focusing you mind on exactly what it is you want to achieve, you programme your mind to identify all possible opportunities that will assist you in you quest to achieve your goals.

Once you understand your personal goals you are ready to take a good look at your business goals. I'll be going into more detail on this over the coming days.

2005-10-25T12:08:00.000-07:00

Strategic Alliances

What a great idea! Have you ever thought about setting up some form of strategic alliances for your business?

I am staying in a Travelodge hotel this evening and on checking in, I asked if the receptionist if he could recommend a local pub where I could have diner. He said "Of course sir, here is a card for the pub and it has a map on the back so that you can find it. I have also blown the map up here (as he gave me an enlarged map) as it makes it a bit clearer that on the back of the card!" WOW, I was impressed.

I asked the receptionist if they had some for of arrangement with the pub where either he or the hotel made a commission from referring people to the pub. He said, there was no such arrangement in place; it was merely due to the fact that the landlord of the pub had dropped into the hotel one day and asked them if they could recommend his pub to their guests!

Such a simple idea and a stroke of genius on the part of the pub landlord, and dare I say it a missed opportunity on the part of the hotel, as I am sure they could have made a small, although not insignificant income from an introducer fee or commission from the pub.

How could you set up some kind of relationship with another local business whose customers may be able to benefit from the services that you have to offer and vica versa?

Happy hunting for your strategic partners.

2005-09-23T03:53:00.000-07:00

Turning a Marketing Investment of £2 into £30,000 – A Dream or Reality?

It may seem like a marketing impossibility to be able to turn a marketing investment of £2 into a return of £30,000, well let me tell you a true story of how this occurred. This really is a great demonstration of how simple networking can help you achieve your business growth ambitions.

It was a sunny morning in September 2001 and I was running a training course at the Warwickshire Golf Club, just outside Warwick, England. As I had allowed plenty of time to get to the venue, and as the traffic was pretty light, I had set up the training room with about 1 ½ hours to spare.

I had forward planned and packed my golf clubs on the off chance that I might get the time to hit a few balls on the driving range. Not one to miss an opportunity I got in the car and drove over to the driving range.

I took some tokens out of the glove box, took my clubs out of the boot of my car and wandered over to the golf ball machine.

As I stood in front of the machine I put the two tokens into the machine and was a little confused when it simply spat the tokens back out at me.

I tried this a few times and then looked at the tokens and was surprised to see the writing “Valomatic” on the side of the token. This rang a few bells in my mind and I realised that the tokens were actually for the vacuum at my local garage, and not for the golf ball machine at the driving range.

A little disappointed I walked back to my car to see if I could find any money, as the machine also took 2 x £1 coins. I couldn’t find any change so I came to the conclusion that I would have to forgo the driving range and head back over to the training room.

I was in the process of putting the clubs back into the boot, when a rather smart Jaguar car pulled up alongside me. As the guy got out of the car he asked if the driving range was closed. I told him about my rather daft mistake and he chuckled a little and then offered me £2 to enable me to enjoy hitting a few golf balls.

As I hit a few balls I got chatting to the guy who had given me the £2, his name was Nick Abell. It transpired that he was a partner is a local firm of Solicitors, Wright Hassall. We talked a bit about our respective businesses, and then after hitting my 50 balls I left and thought nothing more about our conversation.

About 2 weeks later I was speaking to my solicitor about a time sensitive piece of work he was looking after for me, or so I thought.

I had called him 24 hours before the deadline to get an update and he told me he had not yet started the piece of work, and was going to look at it later that day.

This was a blatant example of him telling me the complete opposite of what I wanted and needed to hear. As you’ll imagine I was more than a little annoyed.

As I put the phone down I recalled the conversation that I had with the guy at the golf club. I picked up the phone and called Nick, at Wright Hassall to find out if they were able to help. He put me onto the relevant partner within their firm, he asked me to send across the relevant paperwork and he would get his guys on the case straight away.

I called my existing solicitor, sacked him there and then, and took my business to Wright Hassall.

They achieved the deadline and their level of service was great and instantly I became a loyal customer.

Within 3 years I have spent at least £30,000 with their company, and am a loyal customer.

Now, I can’t guarantee that I would never have used this company’s services had Nick not given me that £2. However, through his generosity, he created an instant impression with me, which led to me contacting him when I was in need of his company’s services.

What can we learn from this example?

This is a demonstration of the power of networking, and of creating the right first impression with potential customers. As they say “you only get one chance to make a first impression”.

This example is a great demonstration of the Boomerang Principle – what you put out always comes back to you, often in far greater quantities!

By giving me £2, Nick actually created a sense of reciprocity with me, which meant I felt a small obligation to consider him and his company, should I ever need legal assistance.

Reciprocity of a very powerful influencing principle, and I will go into more detail about this in future postings.

Some Possible Actions…

1. Ask yourself a focused question – “Where can I go to network with the target profile of clients I want to work with?”

2. Be honest with yourself and evaluate how good you currently are at networking when the opportunity arises. Do you struggle to approach and talk to strangers at networking events? What are you going to do to improve your networking ability?

3. Make sure that you have a clear and concise intro, should you ever get the chance to introduce yourself. This is often called an Elevator Pitch. I’ll talk about this in more details in future postings.

4. Plan to visit a series of business seminars, networking events, conferences, etc on a regular basis, where you will have the opportunity to network with potential clients.

5. Make sure that you take every opportunity to network, by identifying the needs of potential clients, and then informing them of how you can solve their needs – sitting on the train is one of my most successful networking venues. It is amazing how much people tell you when sitting on a train on a long journey.