Extraordinary People

Measure the Results of Your Business System

Last time we talked about the importance of having a system and putting the system in writing in the 
article Run Your Business Like Clockwork.

Now let’s explore the value and importance of evaluating the success of your business system. Defining and documenting your business system takes hard work and dedication; but the work doesn’t end there.  You need to ensure that the system is effectively working for your business.  The best way to do this is to measure the results.

Would you spend £5,000 on a direct mail advertising campaign and then not measure its effectiveness?

• Did the phone ring?
• Did it drive traffic?
• Did it convert shoppers into buyers?
• Did it bring new people to your business that wouldn’t have known of you otherwise?
• Did the cost of advertising pay for itself with incremental sales?
• Did it further your brand awareness?
• What was the return on investment? (ROI)

Once your system is defined, documented and in place – it is time to evaluate the effectiveness.

Evaluating Systems

Systems should be dynamic. When you notice that you aren't getting the results that you expect from a particular system, you might be tempted to jump to an innovation phase, to step in and immediately implement changes you think will help. Resist this temptation! Don't even think about it until you've taken a good hard look at what's really going on.

When you document your systems, you must have clearly defined and quantifiable results so that you know how to evaluate your efforts.

It's the only way to truly determine if you're systems are effective.

Real Life Example of the Value of Evaluating Your Systems BEFORE Making Changes:

One of my clients owns a conference centre. After great deliberation, she and her key staff developed a system that was supposed to be producing a lot of new leads. They documented the system, they trained everyone to use it and they rolled it out with a lot of fanfare — after all — the intended result was to increase leads in a big way — this was going to have a huge impact on their business.

After rolling out the "new and improved" system, sure enough, they did attract some new leads. But during one of our coaching calls we took a good hard look at the data — we quantified the results and realized that although it felt like the systems were working, in actuality, they weren't getting any more leads than they were before. Even though they had spent time, energy and financial resources aimed at producing a better result, the bottom line was that it just wasn't working. If we hadn't taken the time to evaluate the system, they wouldn't have been aware of the problem and they wouldn't have been able to go through the process of innovation to fix it.

Systems evaluation is an essential (but often forgotten) step in understanding your business better. By taking a good hard look at your systems and their intended results, you can determine where innovation (or possibly elimination) needs to occur.

Stop back, because next time we’ll build on this idea of having a business system and continually measuring and evaluating by talking about how to know when change is necessary.

In the meantime, here are a few additional articles on evaluating your business system that you may find of interest.

Daniel Kehrer offers tips and techniques for giving your business an Annual Check-up in an article of the same name.

Looking to measure the financial success of your business?  Carter McBride offers Five Tips for Measuring Your Business Success.

John Jantsch offers 4 Metrics for Measuring Your Business Success as it relates to your brand awareness.

If You Build It, They Will Come!

Great movie… but not so great for business.  It’s amazing how many businesses are still operating under this principle.  Worse yet, many business owners will tell me how they aren’t sitting back and waiting for business to come to them, but their actions tell me something different.  And, it’s really hard to fix something that you don’t realize is broken!

You Don’t Like to Be Sold To, So Why Hard Sell Your Own Clients?

Selling has changed a lot since the days of Willy Loman.  Consumers are much more knowledgeable and sophisticated and they can see a sales pitch coming from a mile away.  And consumers aren’t only the prospects and clients you’re trying to sell to, they’re you too!  You’re a consumer, so you should ask yourself, “How would I feel if someone was making this sales pitch to me?” 

What exactly is the difference between traditional sales and attraction marketing? 

Traditional Sales

• You’re in control.  You decide who you approach, who you pitch, and what you offer.  However, the prospects usually aren’t interested at first so you have to start the sale by building interest before you can try to sell.

• ABC – Always Be Closing.  The goal is to make the sale; get the prospect to say, “Yes.”  Then move on the next sale. 
• You’ll get a lot of “no’s.”  However, numbers are always on your side.  As long as you keep finding prospects – no matter how ideal – and keep asking, you’ll get enough “yes’s” to be successful. You just have to be strong enough to withstand it.

Attraction Marketing

• You can only control the message and materials you send out.  For the most part, prospects will self select themselves and come to you.  The great part is that you know they’re interested before you start.
• Establish yourself as an expert.  When you are seen as the expert in your field, prospects close themselves because they want to work with the best. 
• Relationships are everything and good client service is crucial.  The worst thing that can happen is that clients and prospects openly speak negatively about you.  The damage to your credibility as the expert can be enormous and you may not recover. 

The biggest difference is that one is positive and the other negative.  The approach you choose to take affects how you feel as a person and a business. 

With traditional selling, you deal with “no” every day and you spend your time convincing people to buy something in which they may have not been interested or even needed.  The result is that you’ll get customers with buyer’s remorse who aren’t happy and want refunds.  Will you be happy spending your time in this manner?  At the end of the day, can you easily recover from being beaten down and rejected?

With attraction marketing, you’re working with people who want to work with you.  You’re also improving prospects lives – even if they don’t become clients – by educating them on important topics and issues that can help them.

It’s easier and quicker and you’re much more likely to make money right away using traditional selling techniques.  The question is which is more important to you – making money or being happy?  There’s no right or wrong, and if you’re getting started you may have to utilize some traditional selling to get money coming in.  Just be careful that you don’t damage the long term goal of establishing yourself as that expert.

What to Do When You Hate Contacting New Prospects

Prospecting…not most peoples’ favorite part of the sales cycle.  Although, every once in a blue moon I run into one of those rare – and somewhat twisted – people who actually likes to cold call.  Most of us don’t like to cold call.  Heck, most of us don’t even enjoy making warm calls after meeting someone new at a networking meeting.  So, we avoid it until too much time has passed and then decide not to bother.  The result…many missed opportunities.

If you’re one of those people who is uncomfortable making those sales calls where you’re not certain if the person will remember meeting you or would be open to hearing from you, then I have the solution to your problem.  Send them a personal card first!  It will make the call much friendlier because you’ll be less anxious and the prospect has received a nice note and knows that you’ll be calling.

In today’s world of digital communications and junk mail, personal, handwritten notes in stamped envelopes get noticed and read.  They are remembered and stand out every time!  So, sending such a card shortly after meeting a new prospect is the perfect way to ensure that your call will be welcome.

Appreciation Marketing – Be the Trigger that Makes Your Clients Stop and Enjoy the Holidays!

‘Tis the season of good cheer, joy, peace, love and giving.  ‘Tis also the season of hectic shopping, fighting to get the last of the hottest toys off the shelf, tons of cooking, decorating and working yourself to the bone at work and home to have the amazing holiday you’re not even certain you’ll be able to enjoy.  Want to know a secret?  Your clients feel the same way too.

It’s Almost Here...Are You Ready to Make a Change? What Are Your Business New Year’s Resolutions?

No, I’m not talking about Christmas – though it is almost here too.  I’m talking about New Year’s Day.  The time for change!  The time for optimism!  The time when you can wipe away what you’ve been doing wrong and start anew!  Have you made your New Year’s resolutions for your business yet?

It is said, that the concept of the New Year’s resolution has been around for approximately 4,000 years – since the times of the Babylonians.  Of course, New Year’s resolutions are also known for failure because significant change is very difficult for human beings.  Failure of New Year’s resolutions also frequently occurs because we tend to try and change things that we feel we should change, but aren’t 100% committed to.  Further, we also tend to jump in feet first with no major plan and unnaturally high expectations of what we will be able to accomplish in a short period of time.

Attraction and Appreciation Marketing – Magnets and Glue to Hold Your Business Together

Unless you’ve been in a coma, you’ve likely noticed that marketing and advertising have drastically changed over the past 2 to 3 years.  A major paradigm shift has occurred that has leveled the playing field between big and small business.

(Almost) gone are the days of expensive, slick, mass market advertising campaigns.  Those techniques are like shotguns blasting outward in a general direction only capable of hitting broad targets.  They are impersonal, one way communications.  Their effectiveness has been trending downward.The name of the game today is attraction and appreciation marketing.  In contrast, these methods are personal, laser-like, two way communications that are usually much less expensive and much friendlier to small business than big business.

Working Your Client Retention Strategy with Your CRM Software

 
If you’re a small business/enterprise, you likely don’t have huge amounts of capital and resources to throw at finding new clients.  It costs a lot more money to find a new client than to keep an existing client.  When used correctly and effectively, CRM software is an amazing tool that drastically reduces the already lower cost of keeping clients.  However, the key words are using the software “correctly” and “effectively.”  Information is power, but data doesn’t become “information” until it is organised in a format that tells us something meaningful.

So, how do you correctly and effectively use this amazing tool? 

Business Process Analysis

The first step is to conduct a thorough business analysis to ensure that you understand all processes and systems that have an impact on client service (which we talked about in the last blog post).  You need to document all of the envisioned (or existing) company procedures. Preferably do this by using a workflow diagram or flowchart. Be careful to design all processes to be as ‘client facing’ as possible (beneficial to the client from their point of view) – after all, the vital rationale for the entire exercise is to ensure that service delivery matches your clients’ expectations.

CRM – Client Relationships and Computers

One of the hardest parts of acquiring new clients and building strong client relationships is managing the follow-up process and keeping track of what had been previously said, done and promised.  In the days of yore – before there was a personal computer on every desk – this was often accomplished with elaborate card filing systems.  To say that those systems were a bit cumbersome is putting it lightly – and that’s not even mentioning that if you lost one of your precious cards, the entire client/prospect history was gone!

Thankfully, we now have fire, the wheel and CRM software!  CRM stands for Client/Customer Relationship Management and it is software that helps you track, manage and plan your client communications and activity.  And, it is 10 times more important in today’s market.

Performance Standard #7 – Don’t Sell Your Customers Magic Beans...Tell the Truth

Have you ever had a “little white lie” turn into a “tall tale”?  Unfortunately, most of us have had those experiences.  You start out with a small fib because it is more convenient and may even be more kind to the person hearing it than the truth.  Then, a question comes back that requires you to build on the lie.  And then, it starts to snowball as we have to tell more lies to support the original lie and before we know it, we’re climbing up a beanstalk! 

Now comes the hard part...you have to remember the lie so that if someone else asks about it, you’re consistent.  You may even have to pull other people in and make them accomplices.  You’re guilt-ridden and full of anxiety – definitely not the poster child of someone working in a happy business!