Business Coaching

How To Increase Profits Quickly & Easily

Marketing guru Jay Abraham is famous for many ideas and innovations but one of the most powerful is his concept of stripping down the complexities of business growth into three components:

1. Increase the number of customers
    
2. Increase the value of each transaction
    
3. Increase the number of times an average customer buys per year

If sales turnover equals £840,000 per annum, it can be broken down into:

• 200 customers
• who spend  on average £700 per transaction
• and buy six times per year.

200 x 700 x 6 = £840,000

So simple but so powerful because it:

a) breaks the focus on increasing sales by attracting new customers. The idea of selling more to existing customers is opened up and the success of Jay Abraham and his followers has shown that most companies do not maximise their opportunity with existing customers.

b) the model creates exponential, geometric growth. Increasing each factor by 10% generates 33% total growth. Increasing the three drivers of growth by 20% each creates 72.8% growth.

Adapting The Model To Increase Profit

Often higher turnover translates directly into higher profit but because times are tough I want to adapt Jay Abraham's model to show you how you can increase profits quickly and easily.

My revised profit increase model is:

1. Increase the number of customers
    
   
2. Increase the average profit margin of each transaction
    
   
3. Increase the number of times the customers buy on average in the year
    
   
4. Reduce the overhead costs
   

So the first three when multiplied together create Total Margin which becomes Profit when Overhead costs are deducted.

Reducing Overhead Costs

The quickest wins and boost to profit can be to cut your overhead costs.

If your average margin is 25%, then to increase profit by £1,000 you can either increase your sales by £4,000 (to create an extra £1,000 margin) or reduce overheads directly by £1,000.

I discussed cost cutting in  considerable detail in my day 2 review of the 7 Day Business Turnaround Kit - see cost cutting in your business turnaround for more details

The essence is that you need to:

1. Cut any costs which exceed the value/benefit they create.
     
   
2. Review your other costs to make sure that you are getting as much "bank for your buck" as you should. This includes reviewing employees - their role may be necessary but you may have some under-performing in the role. See Difficult Decisions Made  Easier for details of Brian Tracy's technique called zero based think.
   

Increasing Your Margin

The Jay Abraham formula is simple and its implications for increasing profits quickly and easily is clear.

Focus on your existing customers and clients and implement techniques to persuade them to buy more and to buy more often. Then when your clients are receiving an outstanding service from you, tap them for referrals. This is the method that Jay Abraham has used to devastating success throughout his stellar career.

The problem is that Jay's techniques are deceptively simple and that has caused followers to struggle with his ideas. This is why I want to introduce you to Scott Hallman's Small Business Growth Club and in particular the Increase Profits work stream.

Scott Hallman & the Small Business Growth Club

Scott is a keen student of Jay Abraham and has been since 1992 when he attended a three day $5,000 course. Since then Scott Hallman has become a very successful entrepreneur and is now probably the leading business coach in the world who still works with clients charging $1,250 per hour. Scott has also presented on stage to Jay Abraham's clients and he is recognised at the master of implementation.

What Scott has done is take the Jay Abraham ideas and turn them into an easy-to-implement system. A step-by-step guide to increasing profits and the six modules I have worked through so far are brilliant in the way Scott explains the concepts, reveals the opportunities with a host of examples across a wide range of industries and then leads you by the nose through the implementation.

I just do not understand why the Small Business Growth Club is not famous throughout the world.

Increasing Margin With Scott Hallman

Here are the first six modules in the Small Business Growth Club - Increase Profit workstream:

1. How to Effortlessly Get Your Customers to Dramatically Increase their Average Purchase
   
   In this workshop Scott  gives you the detailed systems to increase the amount of up-selling and cross-selling you can do in your business, increasing the amount that customers spend.
    
   
2. Condition Your Customers to Purchase More Often
   
   Did you know that your customers may not buy as often as they want to from you. That's right they recognise that they benefit from buying from you but there busy lives and other distractions get in the way. As Scott Hallman explains, there are simple techniques to help your customers buy your products and services at their optimal purchase frequency.
    
   
3. 10 Ways to Increase Customers Retention by 50% or More
   
   There are two ways to increase the number of customers. The first is to attract more new customers, the second, which is often overlooked, is to reduce the number who stop buying from you. In the true style of a customer focused entrepreneur, the more you focus on making their buying experiences exceed their expectations and really deliver on the promised benefits, the more customers will want to keep buying.
    
   
4. How to Create "Active" Referral Systems to Double Your Referrals Effortlessly
   
   When you have introduced systems to stop or at least reduce the number of customers you lose, the next stage is to introduce active referral systems so that your happy customers are delighted to do both you and their family, friends and colleagues a favour by recommending your business.
    
   
5. Turn Your Customers in "Turbo-Customers"
   
   More advice on ways to persuade your current customers to buy more together with re-converting inactive customers and persistent follow up with unconverted prospects.
    
   
6. How to Double Your Sales Force Without Spending a Dime
   
   I don't know why but the next module I reviewed was out of order but this module on strategic alliances and third party endorsements is still very relevant to earning profits quickly from current customers and prospects because it gives you a quick way to increase your product offerings. Even more powerful is that it opens up the opportunity for you to be recommended to many of your target customers by people they already trust.
   

You can see how well these training modules fit in with Jay Abraham's three ways to grow a business model so as a big Jay fan, you can see why I am so impressed with how Scott Hallman has taken these ideas and each profit improvement strategy into a step by step guide.

The Master Of Implementation

Scott Hallman is known as the master of implementation because he makes things simple to do and he takes away the overwhelm factor.

If you have ever tried to implement a strategy like, for example the first one designed to increase purchase values. You may have read about the ideas of cross-selling and up-selling and hopefully you have paid attention to your own experiences as a buyer and seen how gently and beneficially people introduce opportunities to get more benefit for an increase in purchase value.

But then when you sit down to try to do it in your business, it is difficult to know where to start. You sell so many products and there are so many options.

The "do you want fries with that?" question is easy for the McDonald's kids to ask but what if you don't have the ubiquitous fries? What can you do?

And this is where problems set in.

As soon as you hit a doubt or difficulty, the impetus is lost. You put the cross-selling and up-selling idea to one side while you "think about it".

A week goes buy but there is no answer. Then a month. Then it's three months since you read about the ideas and you've either forgotten about it or you've decided that you don't have cross-selling or up-selling opportunities in your business.

What a Waste! It Doesn't Have To Be Like This.

If you allow this to happen you've wasted your time and effort and even more importantly, you've wasted the opportunity for easy extra profits that a well constructed up-selling and cross-selling strategy can provide.

But it doesn't have to be like that.

Scott Hallman teaches you the Power Of One™ which means that you don't make the common mistake of trying to do too much and failing. Instead you pick one attractive opportunity and focus your attention on making it work and only then, do you roll out the idea across multiple products. 

How To Increase Profits Quickly & Easily

Do you get the impression I like Scott Hallman's Small Business Growth Club?

If so you are wrong. I love it.

Manufacturing sector or service sector, distribution or retail trades, it is a great product and it is currently available at a great price. You see these techniques being used in Internet marketing but Scott doesn't really operate in the Internet world.

The Small Business Growth Club is for real businesses with real products and services who want to make some real money.

The only downside I have is the website - Small Business Growth Club.

I think that first time visitors find it difficult to navigate around and they become confused and lost. I have told Scott this and I hope it improves. Just head over to Take the tour and follow it through then join when you have seen enough.

If you do need or want to increase profits quickly and easily and you are prepared to put in the effort to learn and implement, then you can't go wrong with the Small Business Growth Club

It is available for a fantastic price that represents only a few minutes of Scott talking to you one-to-one. For less than a dollar a day, you can learn the secrets of success AND how to implement them.

Scott's coaches can provide help and assistance if you have any queries for a small fee and if you are in the UK, I would love to help you implement these ideas.

It's your move now, the website is Small Business Growth Club

To Your Success

Your Profit Coach

Paul Simister

Business coaching for customer focused entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurial Virus & Creativity by Scott Hallman

I am pleased to bring you another of Scott Hallman's Tuesday Profit Tips™ and this time Scott talks about improving your personal productivity by controlling what Scott calls the Entrepreneurial Virus but which I think of as the interruption virus. It shows that modern technology designed to improve our personal productivity may be destroying our powers of creativity.

Over to Scott and listen to him introduce this topic (open in a new tab and press play)

Entrepreneurial Virus

The "Productivity Enhancers"
That May Be Killing Your Business

Hi, this is Scott Hallman and welcome to this week's Tuesday Profit Tip™ that is focused on the "Manage" your business section of what we teach.

Technology has provided us with some incredible ways to increase productivity. But is it possible to get too much of a good thing? Well, when it comes to our personal availability - anywhere, anytime, in an instant, the answer is absolutely yes.

Now don't get me wrong, 24/7 access can be a great thing, but it needs to be controlled and balanced to avoid contracting a 'Entrepreneurial Productivity Killer Virus' that will weaken your ability to maximize your business potential.

If you are like many of our clients, you may have tremendous difficulty staying focused and therefore struggle with getting important tasks completed - even ones that can have a measurable improvement on your profits, lifestyle and competitiveness of your business. You may also have a habit of putting off planning "until you have time".

If that describes you, even a little, then I think you will get a ton of value out of what I am going the share with you here.

It took a week in the extreme wilderness to get me to realize the problem

I just got back from the remote area in Canada, where one of our lake houses is located. It is remote to say the least. In fact, we are 40 minutes from a grocery store and there are only 19 homes and a few fishing lodges on this 10,000 acre lake!

There is not a lot to do up there except relax….something I have yet to learn to do well. And, the cell phone does not work here at all and there is no Internet access!

What I noticed while I was there was an incredible burst in my creativity. In fact, I could hardly write the thoughts down as fast as they came to me. I even finished two chapters of my book, which I have put off for two years. My ability to focus was unbelievable.

Well, you say, "That is because you were in paradise." Perhaps, but my contention is that this had only a small part to do with it.

Let me continue with the story.

As we re-entered the US, via car, I instantly began getting calls, texts, emails - over 200 of them, and was back in the fast, constant interruption state of mind….you know, that state where it is almost impossible to stay focused on anything and where you feel this ludicrous need to answer every email, call and text immediately.

What occurred to me is that one of the major problems with Personal Productivity is these interruptions that are part of our 24/7 communication world …regardless of whether we are at dinner with your family, at a ball game, driving, sleeping, or working on an important project. We simply have little uninterrupted time these days and this can destroy our ability to stay focused and get things done.

Think about a time that you wrote a plan or thought through a complex problem or developed sales copy or a script, or designed a compensation plan, or any other activity that requires concentration. Now, how long did it take you to get in the "creative zone" - fifteen minutes, thirty minutes or even an hour? And if you were interrupted, how long did it take you to get back in the "creative zone"? Well, if you are like me, a one hour task can take four to five times longer with just a few interruptions.

Amazingly, as I am writing these very words my wife just came in and massively interrupted me with a non-urgent issue (my view anyway). And it totally interrupted my "creative zone".

Where was I, oh yes…

It took the past to understand what we need in the future

When I built my first national company, I developed 90% of it while driving in the car, BEFORE there were affordable cell phones. I was in the car several hours a day and it was during that "quiet" time that I did my creative thinking and planning. I would leave a prospect's or client's office and instantly start creating solutions to the problems or improvement to our service.

My friend, Jay Abraham, once told me that when he writes copy he often puts it aside and does something relaxing until the inspiration hits and his creative juices go nuts…sometimes this takes him a week or more.

Give Yourself the Gift of Being Disconnected

So let me ask you a question. Do you give yourself permission to turn off the phones, email and interruptions to focus on important projects?

If not, my challenge to you is to carve out dedicated times each week where you allow yourself the chance to get into the"Creative Zone" by getting totally disconnected and working on important tasks and projects.

A couple important keys to doing this effectively:

• It is critical that you give yourself time to unwind and get into state. This may take 30-60 minutes so don't get frustrated.
   
  
• Go somewhere where any signs of work and electronic communication gadgets are no where around. I have several areas I work in depending on what I am doing. My creative place is by my pool and pond.
   
• Work on only ONE project or key task at a time.
   
• Enjoy the feeling of creativity. It is an energy like no other and the rewards of getting things done are awesome.

Go for it and ProfitNOW™.

To your Success,

Scott Hallman

Small Business Growth Club
(Everything you need to Build-Grow-Manage-Profit from your business for less than $1 a day!)

Thanks Scott.

Effective use of your time lies at the very centre of any great achievement and while it is easy for me and other business coaches to talk about time blocking, I do realise just how difficult it can be to achieve. Not answering your telephone or ignoring your emails flouts the desire to be very responsive to customers and clients.

But checking your email for potential customer contacts opens you up to all those people who are competing for your time, attention and money.

Even the obvious spam takes up valuable seconds and I even feel obliged to check my spam filters from time to time to make sure that an important message hasn't been routed in there by accident.

Can you find a compromise?

Must you always be at the beck and call of anyone who wants you?

I don't think so.

You can train yourself to be disciplined and even share your system with your clients. Suppose you scheduled in three times per day to check your emails and respond to questions and you stuck to it.

By being ultra responsive, you can be training people to abuse your time. If you respond quickly, they don't need to think ahead and plan what they need so they won't.

It is a difficult issue but you owe it to yourself to decide your priorities and then have the self discipline to live by your rules.

I know I urge you to focused on your customers and what they need and want but remember, responding to queries from a customer or prospect is likely to be interfering with the quality or timeliness of work you are doing for another customer.

Your Profit Coach
Paul Simister
Business coaching for customer focused entrepreneurs.

Business Growth Coaching - Scott Hallman

This is the first of a series of reviews which will introduce you to the business growth coaching concepts included in Scott Hallman's Small Business Growth Club.

Scott Hallman is one of my ten Business Growth Superstars and if you are a regular reader of my blog, you will have read some of his excellent Tuesday Profit Tips which are re-published in my Business Coaching blog. (just click on the Scott Hallman link)

If you are not familiar with Scott Hallman and his background, I have written a "Who Is Scott Hallman?" blog posting which includes testimonials from Jay Abraham, Chet Holmes and Jay Conrad Levinson.

Just seeing that list and then adding in Scott's commitment to systemisation a la Michael Gerber and the E Myth means that you will understand why his ideas strike such a strong chord with me.

The Small Business Growth Club

The Small Business Growth Club is the membership site which I wish I had created but Scott beat me to it. (see my guide to finding your way around the website further down the article)

The Small Business Growth Club is full of high quality materials organised in flexible learning channels and with the emphasis on practical implementation to generate measurable results.

Have you noticed that most of the time when you buy a business book or audio/video program you are told what to do but not how to do it?

This makes the jump from knowledge to purposeful action difficult and is one of the reasons why too many programs are bought as intellectual entertainment but don't translate into the promised extra profit.

Scott Hallman noticed this problem and has developed a solution by developing training lessons  to lead you through the process step by step and then tell you to monitor your improved results.

The Small Business Growth Club Is Not Perfect

I joined the Small Business Growth Club back in September 2007 with the intention of "spying on a competitor" to see what I could pick up and learn.

I was blown away by what I found and it has caused me to re-think my approach to business growth coaching because of the quality of program that Scott Hallman is providing for less than a dollar a day.

But the Small Business Growth Club does have some flaws, one of which has held back my progress through the materials and reduced the recommendations I have given it.

1. The audio lessons cannot be downloaded and have to be played while you sit at the PC.
   
   I am a big believer in audio learning but the two times I listen to most of the programs are a) in my car when I am driving on my own and b) when I am walking my dog or just generally out and about.
   
   Soon after I subscribed to the Small Business Growth Club, Scott contacted me to ask me what I thought. Great customer care but I took up this issue with him and Scott explained that he didn't allow downloads because of the intellectual property issue.
   
   More recent communications have been much more positive and Scott has assured me that download facilities will be included in the Small Business Growth Club soon which from my perspective has opened it up to making much more positive recommendations. As of 10th June 2008, we are not there yet.
    
   
2. I find the Small Business Growth website confusing to navigate around and find myself going around in circles unsure whether I have found everything. A site map would definitely help or an updated contents list which you could mark off what you've gone through. I haven't found the Members Forum yet!
    
   
3. I also found that the membership site would log me out unexpectedly and until recently I have been using Internet Explorer which didn't seem to want to hold the password cookies so I struggled to log back on. Now I've switched to Firefox things are much easier but the Small Business Growth Club does log you out after a time period and I am not convinced that all the paths are cleared for members as I find myself unexpectedly back in the public site.
   

These last two are minor gripes compared to the quality of the business growth training materials and the incredibly low price of the Small Business Growth Club.

The confusing website design in point two is partly caused by one of the big advantages I see in the Small Business Growth Club and that is the flexibility of approaches into the materials. It may be a case that I can't have my cake and eat it.

Let me explain.

At the heart of the Small Business Growth Club are a series of 99% standalone modules and instead of just listing them in order, Scott has put them into work streams so a key module will occur in a number of different work streams which take you progressively through a business development course.

I think this is a great idea turning the Small Business Growth Club into a structured business training program, whatever your business needs.

The Three Main Business Growth Coaching Work Streams

Scott has identified three main work streams through the material

1. Generate New Business - this is designed to turn your business into a systematic marketing machine and produce a continuous stream of new customers.
    
   
2. Implement / Manage - this work stream teaches you to implement new systems and procedures, overcome barriers to change and improve the control over your business.
    
   
3. Optimise Profits - this works stream contains a series of modules mainly aimed around increasing the profit you make from your existing customers.
   

It is the last of these three work streams, Optimise Profits which I will be reviewing first because I firmly believe that many businesses are sitting on a fortune of hidden opportunities and assets, just waiting for someone to turn into profit. (You can tell that I have been indoctrinated by Jay Abraham's ideas).

The Alternative Routes In The Small Business Growth Club

It may be that you would prefer to tackle the Small Business Growth Club by function rather than effectively by management process.

This isn't a problem as Scott Hallman has built this flexibility into the program so you have the option to work through the modules organised into sections from the Business Success Cycle:

1. Marketing
    
   
2. Sales
    
   
3. Management
    
   
4. Profits
    
   
5. Success Mindset
    
   
6. Health

You can also tackle the modules on a free form basis so if you decide that you want to improve your referrals, you do the referrals module.

Focus on Implementation

What makes Scott Hallman stand out is his focus on implementation.

He knows that as an entrepreneur, you are busy. In fact it's impossible to get everything you want done.

So Scott makes implementation simple with a step by step procedure and only wants you to focus on ONE introducing one idea at a time. Each program takes you through the process with lots of examples, ideas and recommendations but Scott encourages you to narrow down your options and pick one thing.

Then you try it, test it, improve it and then build it into your standard procedures and then you move on to the next idea. That way you move up the staircase of performance gradually, effectively but persistently.

A compound 1% improvement every week means over 50% improvement in a 12 month period all from taking one step, making it work in your business and then moving on.

Reviewing The Small Business Growth Club

I will be reviewing the work streams and individual modules but if you want to have a look at the Small Business Growth Club before I have reported back, can I suggest the easiest way through the site.

Click on the Small Business Growth Club  and do you see the "Not A Member Yet Take A Guided Tour" banner advertisement which is flashing on the left hand side. Click on that and open it up in another window. This takes you to a gentle sales letter but before you read it I'd like you to have a little look around by clicking on the different streams.

That way you can see what's included, then return back to the Home page and take a look at the testimonials. Then come back to the sales letter page when you have a much better idea of what's included.

For less than a dollar a day I recommend that you sign up, begin your business growth coaching and start working ON your business. 

If you are not yet convinced you can wait for my reviews on the contents of the club.

But why wait. I am certain that you will be delighted with the contents of the business growth coaching / training program and the price is tiny compared to the value. I should be advising Scott to put the price up (I would be charging much more) but I know that he wants to have a major effect on entrepreneurs and small businesses around the world.

Your Profit Coach

Paul Simister

Business coaching for customer focused entrepreneurs.

The Ultimate Open Rate™ by Scott Hallman

I am delighted that after a few technical issues I have been having, I can now bring you more of Scott Hallman's Tuesday Profit Tips™ on my blog. Scott is one of the Business Development Superstars who I pay most attention to and it is an honour to have his permission to re-publish his Tuesday Profit Tips™

The Ultimate Open Rate™

How To SYSTEMATICALLY Increase
Your Internet Driven Sales by 20-40% of the Same Exact Leads You Have Now

Listen To Scott Hallman

A Lesson From Victoria's Secret®

Hi, this is Scott Hallman and welcome to this week's Tuesday Profit Tip™ on The Ultimate Open Rate™. What the heck is this? Let me explain because it can easily add 20% or more to your sales conversion rate.

In working with so many clients that are now utilizing the Internet to generate sales from their (and Strategic Partner's) list, what I find is that they are "singularly" focused on using the Internet exclusively to convert these leads to sales …and this guarantees that they will miss out on 20-40% of the potential revenue potential from these same prospects.

Let use a typical scenario to illustrate how most entrepreneurs market to their prospects. In this case we will profile ABC Retail Company. Here is the process:

• An email lead is received in response to someone visiting their website - perhaps to sign up for a newsletter or get a free gift or a trial offer of some kind.
   
• They build a list of these "leads".
   
• They then either send this list periodic emails or use an autoresponder system to send out a series of emails to try to convert the prospect into a purchaser.
   
• If they are more progressive, they send them drip via email forever or until they opt out. The end result is a certain "conversion rate" from leads to sales. In Figure 1 we assumed that 10% actually opened the email to see the offer and of those 2% purchased the $1,000 item.

ABC Retail               Figure 1

Mktg. Method	List Size	*Email Open Rate	% That Buy	Sales	Avg. Sale $$	Revenue
Email #1	5,000	10.0%	2.0%	10	$1000	$10,000

Hey, sounds pretty good!

But We Know That Repetition Produces Results

What if many people on my list did not see the first email? No worries. ABC is a smart online marketer and so they send several emails to promote each product they launch so that they maximize the number of people that see or hear their offer.

Because of this, they tripled the number of people that on their list that actually see and open the email to learn about their incredible offer (see in Figure 2). And this tripled their revenue!

Any many entrepreneurs do this follow up routinely. So we will call the $30,000 in revenue the "baseline revenue" for which The Ultimate Open Rate is challenged to improve.

ABC Retail               Figure 2

Mktg. Method	List Size	*Email Open Rate	% That Buy	Sales	Avg. Sale $$	Revenue
Email #1	5,000	10.0%	2.0%	10	$1000	$10,000
Email 1-10	5,000	20%	2.0%	20	$1,000	$20,000

Again, pretty good...but far from The Ultimate.

If You Rely Exclusively on Email to Convert Internet Leads You Are Literally Leaving 10's or Even 100's of Thousands of Dollars of Profit on the Table.

One big mistake so many business owners make is to assume that all prospects respond to the same medium in which they originally used to reach them.

Victoria's Secret® understands this pretty well. Let me use a personal example to illustrate …no not me…it is about my wife. She has placed orders from Victoria's Secret website. So, like a good marketer, they put her on their list and start regularly mailing her. But my wife never opens those emails because she prefers to browse the physical catalog until she sees some clothes she likes for her or my daughters.

Victoria's Secret mails a catalog, via snail mail, or a regular basis. In order words, they use more than just email to reach their prospects and customers. And since they have been doing this for years and send tons of these catalogs out, my guess is it is pretty lucrative, to say the least.

Victoria's Secret System is Good…But it is Still Not The Ultimate

The Ultimate Open Rate™ refers to the total number of prospects that ever see (or hear) your message. It is obvious that if they never see it, they will never buy, right? So the goal is to achieve the Ultimate Open Rate, which is getting the most people to see or hear your message and offer...make sense?

In the ABC example above they have likely exhausted the number of people on their list that will open and see their emails on this particular campaign. In their case, this is 30% of the list or 1,500 people. But what about the other 70% or 3,500 people that never have seen or heard the offer yet?

Well, many may be uninterested based on the subject line and therefore never buy, even if they did read the email or web page. But a bunch of these 3,500 will be interested. It is just that they never read the email due to email overload or it going into junk mail.

They Will Buy If Given Half a Chance

If you can reach the remaining people with your message and offer, can you convert them at a similar rate to the people that read the email or web page?

YES! You say but even if I sent several other emails they may not see them and I will annoy the rest of my list!

I agree. So this takes us to Step 2 of the Ultimate Open Rate Formula, reaching them with a 2nd form of marketing. We will use a phone call for this example.

Since 1,500 have opened your emails, you only need to call the 3,500 that have not opened at least one email. So the cost is relatively small (we will assume they are consumers and therefore we can call them with a broadcast system at a cost of $.05 each).

Let's assume that you were able to get 10% of the 3,500 potentially interested people to either call you or visit your web page, after making 2 calls to them. And that 2% of them purchased. That would generate an increase of $7,000 or 35% in revenue (See Figure 3)

 

ABC Retail               Figure 3

Mktg. Method	List Size	Open Rate	# Opened	Total Opened	Total Open Rate*	% That Buy	# of Sales	Avg. Sale $$	Revenue
Email 1	5,000	10%	500	500	10.0%	2.0%	10	$1,000	$10,000
Email 2-10	5,000	10%	500	1,000	20.0%	2.0%	20	$1,000	$20,000
Calls 1-2	3,500	10%	350	1,350	27.0%	2.0%	27	$1,000	$27,000

* Of the 5,000 on the total list

That's a 35% Increase in Revenue!

By using just one other form of communication to reach the prospects with their message, ABC was able to scientifically increase sales by 35%.

If we continued with this example, using other forms of communication, we could likely increase the baseline revenue results by another 10% or more (and with little risk if you use the scientific testing we teach you which will eliminate the risk before chunking down this money).

As with last week's topic, for most of you this simple process can produce $10,000-$100,000 a year in added profit. So go for it and ProfitNOW™.

To your Success,

Scott Hallman

PS If you are a member or are interested in accessing the step by step process for fully implementing this and other business growth strategies, go to the Small Business Growth Club. (Everything you need to Build-Grow-Manage-Profit from your business for less than $1 a day!)

Thanks Scott. This is a great tip and builds on two important issues:

1. Measuring the effects of your marketing - when you measure, you can test and see what makes sense economically and what doesn't.
    
2. Using multiple sources of lead generation and conversion. Jay Abraham recommends that you build a Power Parthenon of different marketing techniques to escape the dependency created by relying on just one main method. Jay Conrad Levinson (Guerrilla Marketing) has identified over 200 marketing weapons which you could use.

Nightingale Conant, the audio learning company is another example of a business which combines regular email campaigns with a direct mail operation. As always look at the way large and successful companies market to you as a potential buyer. If they do something regularly, you can be sure that it works and if it works for them, then you may be able to adapt the idea for your business.

I have said to Scott that I will be writing a series of reviews on his Small Business Growth Club but to give you a quick taster, it is exactly the type of membership account I would like to create myself but Scott a) got there first, b) secured a great name and c) as well as Scott's own great ideas he persuaded Chet Holmes to share many of his business building lessons as well.

If you like what Scott has written, I do recommend that you click over to his Small Business Growth Club, have a quick look at all the items on the home page and then click on the link that says "Click here to get started" which will take you into the sales letter explanation of the club.

Your Profit Coach

Paul Simister

Business coaching for customer focused entrepreneurs

Scott Hallman - Conversion Is King

I am pleased to bring you another of Scott Hallman's TUESDAY PROFIT TIPS™ and this week Scott focuses on improving your lead conversion rates to drive forward sales. I recommend that you take a good look at Scott's Small Business Growth Club and then click on the audio message below.

Conversion is King

How Sweating the "Small" Stuff Can Transform Your Business Without Spending a Dime

Click This Link To Hear Audio Message

With the economy showing signs of a potential recession, what can businesses do to increase sales and improve profitability?

Spending risky advertising and marketing dollars might work for you but there is a way better way. I call it "Conversion Driver Technology™". Ok, not a great marketing idea. But that is because it really is an operations system...a way of optimizing your results, and your profits.

The "Drivers" I am talking about are the steps in your sales process that "drive" your ultimate conversion rate. Most companies are so focused upon getting more leads that they fail to understand they can transform their business by converting more of the leads that they already are getting.

$120,000 a year ... or $1.5 Million?

Nuco, Inc is a home service that has revenue of $500,000. They are cash flow strapped and are afraid to spend more on advertising and direct mail. Sound familiar?

So how can they increase sales and profits? The answer is simple, once you understand "Conversion Driver Technology". In fact, if you apply this in a "systematic" process (like our Leverage Your Success System), you can methodically double, triple or quadruple your sales without spending a dime more on advertising or marketing!

As you can notice from the chart below, the improvements or changes are small, but the combined effect is huge.

Download conversion_is_king.pdf

Unfortunately, in working with thousands of companies, I have only encountered a handful that have a systematic approach to optimizing conversion before we teach them how.

So HOW can you improve sales conversion rates (on and offline) by focusing one or more "drivers" or levers in the conversion process?

3 Simple Steps to Get Started Now

First, make a list of each of the drivers and then identify ones where you can make improvements to that will produce measurable results.

Second, test 2-3 versions and track the results.

Third, move on to the next "driver" and repeat step 2.

For most of you this simple process will produce $10,000-$100,000 a year in added profit. So go for it and ProfitNOW™.

To your Success,

Scott Hallman

Join Scott Hallman's Small Business Growth Club.

Thanks Scott. I like the use of the audio message and it's a great proof of the value of the Small Business Growth Club.

I can't emphasise enough how important it is to break down your drivers and look at how you can optimise each through testing and measuring.

Sorry for the delay. This is from last week so hopefully there should be another tip appearing tomorrow.

To Your Success

Your Profit Coach

Paul Simister

Business coaching for customer focused entrepreneurs

How to Systematically Work on Your Best Profit Opportunities

I am pleased to bring you another of Scott Hallman's TUESDAY PROFIT TIPS™ and this week Scott focuses on helping you to systematically identify your best opportunities for increased profit.

The Power of "The ProfitMap™" How to Systematically Work on Your Best Profit Opportunities and Never Miss a Thing

After a brief break, I am back to share the latest Tuesday Profit Tip™.

If you are like me, you may use the end of the year to reflect on your business and set some goals for the coming year. And since you are obviously a "learning" oriented person, you have no shortage of "good ideas". If fact, the list is probably overwhelming.

So how do you get your arms around all of these "good ideas" and organize them so that you are working on your most important ideas first, and at the same time not lose track of the ones you really want to get to sometime this year?

Tons of Great Ideas, But Where to Start?

Well, I created a workshop called the Hierarchy of Opportunities™ to achieve just that. And at several 2, 3, and 4 day seminars, I have guided participants through this process to help them prioritize all the great ideas they just digested in 30-40 jammed packed hours.

In summary, you rank your opportunities (projects) A, B, C and then prioritize the "A's",1, 2, 3 etc., using you own set of criteria (i.e. Cost to implement, risk etc.).

But How Can I Immediately Recall My Best Ideas?

As I created my Hierarchy list, it got me thinking about how I could organize these opportunities to ensure that we stayed on track and focused on the things that we had deemed as priorities, as well as realistically implementable. Plus, I did not want to forget about several ideas that I just had no time to get to in the near future. This led me to create this simple but incredibly powerful tool, The ProfitMap™.

The ProfitMap™ is a graphic display of your business opportunities - all on one single page. Personally I like to create one for each of the three primary business areas.

1. Maximizing the Transactional Value of Every Customer/Client/Patient
    
2. Developing a SYSTEMATIC New Client Acquisition Process
    
3. Management - Mastering Implementation & Execution

To create your ProfitMap, you simply make a circle on the center of a page and then draw a branch for each "opportunity" off the circle. I use a MindMap by www.mindjet.com to create my maps.

Click here to see a simple sample of a ProfitMap Download Profit_Map.pdf.

Then you make a few branches off each of these primary branches (like a tree) to capture any keys thoughts about that opportunity. And then you label the priority i.e. A-1. I like to put the expected profit impact there as well.

So create your ProfitMap now and you'll never lose your great ideas again!

To your Success,

Scott

If you are a member of the Small Business Growth Club then you can listen, and participate in the entire workshop of ProfitMaping, complete with examples from real companies like yours.

It's ALL about implementation™! So focus on effectively implementing this procedure this week and watch your performance improve.

© 2008 Business Growth Dynamics, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Thanks Scott.

This is a great idea and I am a big fan of mindmaps.

Anything that helps you to record great ideas (and remember they can come from you, copying or adapting your competitors ideas and from other industries) is greatly appreciated.

To Your Success

Your Profit Coach

Paul Simister

Business coaching for customer focused entrepreneurs

Take a "Success Inventory" To Discover Hidden Profits In Your Business

With the very kind permission of Scott Hallman, I am delighted to bring you my fourth posting of his Tuesday Profit Tips™ to help you Build-Grow-Manage-Profit™.

  Taking a "Success Inventory" To Discover Hidden Profits In Your Business 

The Valuable Lesson

Today I am going to share with you the first step in dramatically improving the results of everything you ALREADY do well - marketing campaigns, sales processes, lead generation techniques, upsells, referrals, collections, inventory management and so on.

I am talking about adding 5%, 10% or even 20% improvements to things like increasing your sales conversion rates by 20% or shaving 10% off the time it takes to perform key tasks.

Perhaps the best part is that none of these incredible added streams of profit will cost you a dime to implement, and you will meet little or no resistance from your staff, and only praise from your customers.

Often I see businesses get so focused on fixing things or scrambling for new business that they make the painful mistake of ignoring the procedures and systems that are the key to their success. But the fact is that these very systems are the easiest to improve and see instantaneous, measurable results.

Finding EASY Profits

The first step of the four part series we call "Leveraging Your Success" is to take a "Success Inventory".

This involves taking an inventory of everything that is working well in your company – marketing campaigns, sales processes, lead generation techniques, upsells, referrals, collections, inventory management and so on. Then evaluating your current procedures (whether in writing or not) to spot opportunities for improvement:

WOW! Scott that is a real revelation….well, yes. It is. And you will be amazed what simple breakthroughs you will make by spending just a few minutes on this process.

In working with thousands of companies, less than 2% have done this process (and only 4 have done all four steps of the Leverage Your Success System).

Let me use a real-life example to illustrate the power of this simple process.

A Physical Therapy client produces thousands of dollars in profit every month by cross-selling a medical device to their patients. Basically the process involved asking the patient, at the conclusion of treatment, if they wanted to purchase the piece of equipment that required a medical necessity and prescription from the patient's attending physician, and a pre-approval from the insurance company.

We revisited the undocumented "success best practice" and broke down the process. As we did this, we identified several simple ways to dramatically improved results – pre-approval was done day one. We streamlined the process and increased conversion rates by 27%. The important distinction here is that there was tons of improvement potential on something that was all ready super successful.

There are two areas to quickly spot improvements:

1) Systemization

This is where you have a process that works well but it is not being done consistently - essentially because you do not have written procedures to follow or a mechanism to measure and monitor outcomes.

Systemization also includes techniques or procedures that are being left to individuals to do "their own way" instead of modeling the best way. In these cases, you will experience tremendous variance in performance – as was the case between Negotiator A and B.

2) Process Improvement

Process improvements include procedures that are relatively systematic but where there is clearly an opportunity to improve certain elements or steps in the process that will make a measurable difference. This is often the fastest way to increase profits. After all, you have a documented procedure. Your staff follows the procedure and is getting results. Therefore, you can easily make changes (test) that often produce profound results.

ASSIGNMENT

What are some successful procedures where you can improve one or more elements that will incrementally improve results? Write down 2-3 tasks and then evaluate the process to spot easy improvements… then write me back with what profits you expect to gain from this simple exercise

To your success,

Scott D Hallman
CEO
Business Growth Dynamics, Inc.

PS The other three steps in the Leverage Your Success System can be found at the Small Business Growth Club.

Part 1 -Create A Success Inventory of What You Do Well Already
Part 2 - Document the Success Formula's You Use to Achieve Your Results
Part 3 -Optimize the Performance of Each Step in The Success Formula
Part 4 -Cement in The Improvements For Life By Creating Measurement Systems

Thanks Scott.

I have always believed that there are big gains available from a careful review of systems and processes. It sounds boring but when you can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of a process, your rewards for your efforts can be extremely high.

If you would like to know more about Scott's Small Business Growth Club then just follow this link.

To Your Success

Your Profit Coach

Paul Simister

Business coaching for customer focused entrepreneurs

Do You Have A “Compelling Competitive Advantage™”?

With the very kind permission of Scott Hallman, I am delighted to bring you my third posting of his Tuesday Profit Tips™ to help you Build-Grow-Manage-Profit™.

  Do You Have A “Compelling Competitive Advantage™” Over Your Competitors?   You'd Better to Survive (and Thrive) In A Wal-Mart Dominated World

With Wal-Mart, Costco and several national chains now getting into traditional small business services, the need to create a strong competitive niche is greater than ever.

And I am not just talking about a new business that wants to decide how they should be positioned to effectively compete. EVERY business must continuously modify their positioning to remain competitive in this turbo-rapidly changing business environment.

In coaching clients in over 200 industries around the world, here are the six situations I find companies in on a regular basis…which defines you best?

1. Leverage Off Current Compelling Advantages -- these are successful businesses that are going slower than desired and/or facing pricing pressures and have an opportunity to greatly increase their business, and potentially own their industry, with the proper repositioning based on what benefits they already provide to clients.
      
2. Max'd Out -- these are businesses that are primarily one-person shows that must step back and determine how they take their business to the next level. If the success of the business relies just on their talents, they are going to have a tough road to pave.
      
3. Need to Reinvent the Business -- these are businesses that either are in an industry where profits have eroded or worse, their product or service has become obsolete. Did I hear “China”? or yes, Wal-Mart?
      
4. No Established Industry Need -- these are businesses that are struggling to sell to an industry that doesn't perceive the need for, and therefore the value, of the product or service. One could say “ethanol (corn fuel) was there before the rise in oil and the big push to become “green”. "
      
5. Commodity Business -- these are businesses that are in commodity type industries where everybody appears the same and price becomes the main competing method. Unfortunately, there is always some “ignorant” competitor that sells at non-sustainable margins…until they go under (often taking good companies with them).
      
6. Communicating Your Message -- these are companies with strong products or services that are unique but the message needs to be repackaged so the target audience perceives the value.

Each of these requires that the business first reevaluate their positioning in the market and then build a systematic marketing/sales process to communicate this message effectively, and a supporting business structure to ensure that they can deliver on the new promise.

Know where your business is perceived to be in the market. If you are struggling with selling your product or service, finding your Compelling Competitive Advantage™ is the first place to start.

If you become a member of the Small Business Growth Club then you can participate in a two-part audio workshop that guides you step by step to crystallizing your unique market positioning, ensuring you can deliver on your promise, and then effectively communicating your message to your target market. Plus, you can hear Scott guide six entrepreneurs through the process!

It’s ALL about implementation™! So focus on your Compelling Competitive Advantages this week and prosper.

To your success,

Scott D Hallman
CEO
Business Growth Dynamics, Inc