Serving is the New Selling

Serving is the New Selling

We all love to eat and drink and if you’re like me you may also love to observe certain trends in the marketplace I have noticed an increasing number of people who dine out and grab takeaway. Gone are the days where takeaway was for the Friday night people are eating out or doing the grab and go every minute of every single day.

So looking from a fly on the walls perspective, it would be common for one to make an assumption that the food and beverage is booming and is likely to be on the incline rather than the decline.  Is this an accurate reflection for this coming year? Some say yes and others say no. In fact, I was reading in a recent article where it was predicted that … there will be a slowdown of growth in the overall food and beverage market in this current year and therefore some challenges for the franchising sector will also be experienced.

Now I’m going to make a bold statement here, if we all built out businesses on predictions and the forecasts, the economy would be built on fear and most business owners would be closing the doors before they gave themselves a chance to shine.

So how do you shine? How do you maximize your potential?  How do you take control and steer your ship to where you want it to go regardless of the economy and regardless of all other outside influences?

Here’s some proven ways that will help you maximize your potential in your business providing of course, you do the right things, in the right order and, at the right time on a consistent basis.

Business gurus both present and past say there are many ways to grow a business and some ways are more complicated than others. Often times because of the conflicting messages out there it’s easy for any business owner to lose sight of what’s really going to help us produce short term results and long term benefit and gain.

Let’s explore the top 3 that will help you build momentum faster.

As obvious as they sound, I invite you to take some time to consider the below and see what changes you can make and what actions you can take as early as tomorrow to build a more solid foundation for increased profits and set your business on a more predictable path.

 Increase the number of customers.

Now this one sounds a little obvious and it’s what most business owners want more of every single day. What I would ask you to do however, is to consider what this really means.…

To increase the number of customers, you firstly need to increase the number of prospects coming into your business. We all know not everyone who walks into your business will buy, so your #1 aim is to ensure your business is welcoming and invites more people in and aims to provide a solution to your customers challenges, frustrations, concerns, wants or needs.

With the understanding that not all prospects will turn into a paying customer, it’s important to ensure you have a strategy and a process in place to ensure that the majority of prospects are converted into customers and the rest are nurtured so they eventually buy or perhaps recommend you to others.

There’s your business tip #1. Increase the number of customers in your business, and in order to do that you firstly have to increase the number of prospects interested in doing business with you, and then you must do whatever it takes to show value and benefit to that prospect so they naturally want to buy what it is you offer and sell and this is what we refer to as increasing your conversions.

There are other ways you can increase the number of customers and that’s through customer retention. Your aim in business should be to increase the number of customers coming through your doors every single day. It is however very expensive to build a business based on a new customer strategy only, so take some time to consider how you would go about retaining your current customers, in other words coming back to you over and over and also how you could reactivate past customers who haven’t purchased from you for a while.

 Increase the transaction value

McDonalds have been famous for this. Using the traditional “would you like fries with that” approach to getting your customers to buy more.  Many a business owner believes they must increase market share and set out to achieve what is often times a deflating activity. What if I told you that you can influence the success in your business faster just by focusing on increasing wallet share and not just market share.

So what is market share and how do we increase it? Imagine a woman has $20 in her wallet to spend on food and beverage items for the day. She may walk into her local café and purchase a takeaway coffee for $4.20. Its lunch time and she’s undecided as to what she would like, so chooses to take the coffee for now. Meanwhile she’s walked out of your business and past another. By the time she decides what she wants for lunch, she’s well and truly gone. Will she turn back?  Highly unlikely. She is more than likely going to walk into another store and buy what she feels like at the time. This is a very simple example of losing wallet share.   She had $20 to spend, $4.20 was spent in your shop and possibly another $10 was spent in another store.

The key point for you to consider is, how do you get the customer to spend more in your business without feeling like you are following a script and doing the “would you like fries with that strategy” or worse still feeling like you’re squeezing the last dollar out of someone’s pocket just to fill yours with classic upsell and cross sell strategies.

Here’s a simple solution that will make everyone happy…..

SERVE DON’T SELL.  If you change your mindset and how you look at “upsells” and “cross sells” and increasing the transaction value, how you can “serve” your customer more then increasing the average transaction will become top of mind and will allow your business and service to flow. In fact I believe you are doing your customers a dis-service by not offering another item with their original purchase. The worst case scenario is your customer will say no. It’s that simple.

 Increase the frequency of repurchase.

An effortless way of increasing sales in your business is increasing the frequency of re-purchase. The key is to be mindful of how you invite your customers back more often. If you’re a retail store think about some ways how you would get your customers to come in more often. Perhaps it’s getting them on a morning coffee run pick up, offer an SMS ordering system, or perhaps you could send an SMS blast out to your customer base offering lunch time specials or afternoon delights.

As a service based business look at how you can package up your offers and get your clients coming back for more and of course more often. Regular automated touch points via email and SMS and phone provides a way for a well-balanced customer nurturing strategy.

Increasing this area alone by 10% can impact revenues significantly. Imagine what you could do if you increased this by more than that?

 Time to Take Action….

Knowledge is all but useless unless it’s applied so it’s time to get moving and implement some of these tips into your business to ensure you build momentum faster.

Take some time to consider how you will

  • Increase the number prospects into your business. Some ideas could include increase referrals, carry out consistent marketing, social media, running special events, special offers, promotions etc
  • Increase the average transaction value. Consider companion selling, what else will complement the original purchase. Is there an upgrade to what you are selling?
  • Increase the frequency of purchase. Take some time to think of ways you can invite your customers back sooner. Think about your offers and ongoing promotions.

Some say achieving business success is easy. I have to agree. The key to achieving momentum and maximising your potential is doing the right things in the right order and at the right time and more importantly on a consistent basis.

If you would like to learn more about how you can maximise your potential in business. Tania Allen is offering all readers of Business Franchise a Complimentary Road Map Strategy Session.

What Makes A Good Leader?

If you command wisely, you will be obeyed cheerfully. That used to be how leadership was defined as.

A good leader is less concerned with who is right than what is right. Leaders exist to make sensible exceptions to general rules.

A good leader takes a little more than his/her share of the blame and a little less than his/ her share of the credit.

The difference between promising ideas and productive results is a good leader.

So What Motivates Us?
At certain times in our business lives, each of us will fall into one of the following four growth levels.Understanding these levels may lead to a better understanding of the type of motivation you may require at any given time, or may help you guide and motivate your employees more effectively.

1. Enthusiastic beginners are already excited about trying something new and don’t usually need motivation. But they do need specific instructions and direction. Be prepared to answer lots of questions to keep them on track.

2. Disillusioned learners may become frustrated as the excitement wanes and certain parts of their job prove more difficult than expected. At this part of their growth they may have little to show for their efforts. Give them lots of specific and timely feedback about their progress. Face-to face praise works the best.

3. Capable but cautious contributors are those who have done the right job once, but they don’t have the self-confidence that
comes with repeat successes.

They need clear, positive recognition for achieving goals, plus encouragement to repeat their winning performance. Set aside time to listen to their concerns and to brainstorm new ideas.

4. Self-reliant achievers can manage themselves, but they also need recognition to avoid feeling taken advantage of. Sincere thanks are in order, but other incentives may work better i.e. allow them to train others, pick their assignments or become involved in decisions that will make them more visible in the organisation.

How to Get Others Referring to You

Vision Alliance | How To Get Others Referring To YOu

How would you like to get twice as many new customers for 1/3 the cost of anything you’ve ever done before – or even for FREE? If that sounds like pie in the sky, please find a quiet spot and read this article very carefully. You are about to learn one of the most effective ways to get new customers, extra sales and leads for your business. In today’s economic climate, in fact in any economic climate, people are very cautious about dealing with strangers. This means, that no matter how good your product or service, you have to overcome 2 major hurdles.

1. You have to convince the purchaser that your product or service is what they really need and want.
2. You have to assure them that your company will deliver as you promise. In other words,that they can trust you

To some extent you may overcome these hurdles with a money-back guarantee or some sort of a free trial. However, you’ll do far, far better if you…STOP TRYING TO DO BUSINESS WITH STRANGERS. Let’s face it. It’s hard. It’s expensive, and it can be draining on you and your staffs’ energies. After all, to win the trust of a person who doesn’t know you takes time and effort. And at the end of it all, you still can’t be sure if you’ll get their business or not.

However, having the trust of a person is crucial if they are going to buy from you. That’s why the easiest sales are to people who have already bought from you, or referral business.

When you get introduced to a prospective client from someone who is known by the prospect the other person is more likely to listen to you and give you a chance to sell yourself and what you have to offer. You may wonder, “Why would another business want to introduce me and what I’m selling?” There are a number of reasons why someone may want to recommend you.

  1. They may recommend you if you have given them value far and beyond what they expected and they like you and your product.
  2. Maybe they’ll do it because they want you to introduce them to your customers.
  3. Maybe they’ll do it because if their customers buy your product, they’ll then need more of their product as a result. This is especially true if you show your customers how to grow their business and get more customers. As they grow, you get more business from them.
  4. They may do it because you pay them to introduce you or you offer them a ‘bribe’.
  5. Or they may do it because they know their customers will want your product or service and that they’ll get goodwill and thanks from their customers for letting them know about it.

Let me share a very important fact with you… Every single person you want to reach, is already someone else’s customer. Which means they are buying products and services similar to what you offer. Providing that the business they are buying from is doing a good job, these customers will trust a recommendation from that business.

Getting someone else to refer to you is not as easy to put into practice as it sounds.You see,the business owners who may want to introduce you are very busy people. Introducing your business is never going to be as important for them, as it is for you. So what you have to do is to make it so easy for them that they can’t possibly refuse you. How do you do that? To make the introduction easy for them and effective for you, you are going to have to provide the email or letter and the promotional collateral (brochure etc) for them to send. All they have to do is put copy and paste the letter into their email, attach your information and press send.

There are also programs out there such as affiliate and referral partner programs that can also track your referral partner activity. This is not necessary however a great idea especially if your volume of referrals start to increase rapidly and if you are selling products regularly that way referral fees can be easily and effortlessly calculated.

next time you want someone to start referring to you, try thinking about how you can make it easy for them. Write the intro letter for them, collate your introduction information / presentation pack that’s brief and displays the benefits of why someone would want to do business with you and then of course be sure you have a great offer for the new prospective customer to “try you out”.

Would you like some help with this in your business?  Why not book a Complimentary Business Growth Session with one of our Coaches?  Connect with us here.