The 8020 Blog

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What makes a business a salable business as opposed to a collection of people who work together and bring in some money but that is worthless when it comes to selling ?

Well for starters buyers will be looking for processes that reliably and predictably bring in new clients, convert them to customers (repeat clients) and keep them for as long as humanly possible.

Astute buyers will also be looking for evidence that the effective running of those processes is not significantly dependent on one person, be that the owner or another key player.

I think it was the great Peter Drucker who said that regardless of whether or not you want to sell your business you should aim to have it in such a condition that it is ready to sell at any time.

The key is to break both the marketing and product/service/value delivery down into a series of teachable steps. When you do that and prove that it works by bringing in significant amounts of cash then your business will be worth millions. Literally.

Worth thinking about?

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The majority of businesses can’t be expanded beyond the capacity of the owner’s time for three reasons.

The first is the lack of proven marketing systems that generate quality leads coming into the business on a regular, predictable basis.

The second is the lack of a documented, teachable sales process that converts the leads into clients.

The third is the lack of a documented, teachable value delivery process that fulfills client expectation (and more) and turns them into returning customers.

These last two have the power to take the owner out of the sales and delivery cycle and frees him/her up to do more marketing and more product/service innovation.

The lack of these three items not only stop the business from expanding, they also prevent the business from being saleable.

So to free up your time, to drive growth and to make your business worth (potentially) millions, focus on those three things.

If you want more on this the register for my zero-cost training coming up next week … you can click here to find out more.

Customer Service should not be regarded as something that we do after successful Marketing.

Customer Service needs to be seen as a part of our Marketing.

Case in point: the bank officer who neatly filed my new merchant facility application while she went on holiday for a month, with no “out of office” email message and no voice mail message to tell customers she was away, no colleagues checking her desk etc, apparently does not understand that her actions currently contribute to the Bank’s “Customer-Prevention Division”.

That, along with two other experiences of bank employees “I-get-my-paycheck-regardless-so-I-don’t-care” attitude, has me looking for another bank - as usual, my gripe is not with the local branch, it’s with the evil “Head Office” (anyone know a bank whose leaders actually walk the customer service talk?”).

By contrast, take Motor Cycle Accessories Supermarket in Sydney www.mcas.com.au. Unbelievably outstanding service including: a proactive phone call to let me know that the color of motorcycle jacket I requested would be with me in 3 days and to ask if I would prefer a different color which I could have overnight, another call to confirm my delivery address and delivery timing and yet a third call to make sure that the new jacket had arrived OK. Thank you Ryan - impressive stuff.

That “wow” customer experience has now built iron bars around me as a customer - I ain’t going anywhere else. I feel so confident that Ryan and MSAS will take care of my needs that my future orders are going to them - and I live 1,100 kilometers away from their store.

Your Customer Service Division should report to the V.P. of Marketing, even if there is only one of you in the business …  the intent is the same: always treat the opportunity to over-deliver to customers as the best marketing investment you can make, bar none.

The title of this post sums up pretty well what my business is all about: helping business owners get more clients, make more money and have more fun.

I mean, did you have something else in mind for your business?

When you think about it, “more clients, more money and more fun” is a pretty good plan.

And yet if you looked at how many business owners spend their time it would be understandable if you thought they wanted less clients, less money and less fun.

The reason I say that is that many, if not most, business owners spend their time working on anything but marketing and in the process get less clients than they want, make less money than they need and create more stress (less fun) doing it.

In discussion with a client today I mooted my decades old theory, yet to be disproved, that any business owner who invested 3 out of 5 days a week in marketing activity (i.e. “let’s get some new clients”) would create a massive income-explosion even if they did the marketing badly!!!

Now, before you think”oh yes that’s OK for you but I could never invest 3 days a week into marketing, I’m just far too busy” (oops, too late, you’ve already thought it) … busy doing what exactly? Is there anything more important to the lifeblood of your business and the financial success of you and your family than getting new clients? I doubt it.

There are several barriers to income explosion. But the first and by far the biggest, is the belief that you can not devote time to marketing, that you are too busy with clients/suppliers/staff/emails/meetings/planning/reading/driving/whatever …

The day you choose to find a way to commit - to start with - even one day a week for marketing your business, is the day you will take a giant leap toward the income, business and lifestyle you really want.

I was in Atlanta, Georgia (the USA gets more bizarre every time I visit) last week and heard George Foreman speak. Those of you who have gray hair like me may remember George as the two time world heavyweight boxing champion of the world. He won his second title at age 40 - impressive guy. George had a big motivating advantage over his opponent: he was flat broke.

However George has more recently made a name for himself by selling 80 million “George Foreman Grills”. The product is pretty much the same as dozens of others and is made by Salton Inc which struggled to sell the things until George came along.

By making $150 million promoting a product that he did not own and did not create, both he and Lou Salton make an important point: there are ways to differentiate a commodity product - in this case through celebrity endorsement. There are a bunch of other ways as well but for now consider this …

You can probably use the power of celebrity status to boost the marketing your product/service as well. Worth thinking about…

Every solopreneur and small business owner that I know who has gone from 6 to 7 figure earnings have at least 10 characteristics in common - I’ll put a program together on them soon.

In the meantime here’s one of them … they shift from SPENDING the majority of their time on product delivery to INVESTING the majority of their time on marketing.

Now of course in order to do that you have to get whatever it is that people pay you money for out of your skin and into a product that can be sold independent of your time - it’s not as hard as you might think.

But if you will do that ONE thing - at least 3 full days every week into marketing - even if you do it badly - your earnings will explode.

Best, Tom

I seem to be getting grumpier and less tolerant as I get older. I just don’t care so much  about treading on certain people’s toes. Anyhow, a good toe stomping might help them wake up. I’ll share with you my latest head-shaking stimulus.

I sometimes offer selected organizations the opportunity to use one of my services for zero fee. This particular service adds enormous value to that organization’s client base and often brings in new clients.

It’s really a “you’d-have-to-be-brain-dead-to-say-no” value proposition.

The smart ones grab the chance (I never offer it twice) and strengthen their relationship with grateful clients and attract new ones who pay them lots of lovely money. Everyone’s happy.

But in stunning display of extraordinary stupidity I also get a range of reasons why, in a recession, attracting new clients and adding value to existing clients is apparently not such a good idea.

By way of exampe there was one genius who was (and I do hope that I am using the past tense correctly here) in charge of marketing for a Chamber of Commerce who told me that “now was not a good time to get new members because we are re-doing our web page”.

Two points: we should all be ALWAYS be “re-doing our web page” and secondly there is NEVER “not a good time” to get new clients! Make it work you idiot!

There are a bunch of people out there (Branson, Gates and a whole lot of others you’ve never heard of) who do NOT allow themselves or their team to find reasons NOT to do marketing and sales. They make things happen even in the face of adversity and pressure. They operate multiple marketing and product expansion programs simultaneously and they constantly and energetically seek out and create opporutnities for growth.

These are the aggressive, growth orientated business athletes - the future belongs to them and the recovery of our economy heavily is dependent on them.

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.” Charles Darwin.

“It is not the biggest business that survives, nor the most well-connected. It is the one that adapts products to meet changing client needs the fastest” Tom Poland (with apologies to the good Doctor Darwin)

I had a conversation with a switched-on business accountant this morning. His partners are worried about the natural attrition of clients and the fact that they are not replacing them fast enough. He said his partners are also sitting behind their desks staring at computer screens all day.

Not surprisingly, the partners do zero Marketing Activity (e.g. gathering referrals, approaching and engaging new clients etc) each week.

The reason that the partners don’t engage in Marketing Activity is two-fold:

1. They still think of themselves as “accountants” rather than “marketers of accountancy services”

2. They have not developed a clear and compelling approach that when executed has their prospects:
a. financially salivating and being very grateful that the accountant made contact
b. eagerly requesting more information
c. wanting to know the price
d. hoping like heck that they can afford it

That’s the work of Marketing Development and once you have created a clear and compelling approach then you can re-purpose it and use it face to face, on the phone, in your brochure, on the back of your business card, in articles, editorials, advertisements, on your web site etc etc etc until you have so many clients you create a problem of supply  – which is a better quality problem than not having enough clients and sitting at your desk worrying about it.

I had some response to my post on Marketing Activity where I pointed out the not-so-strange correlation in my surveys between the lack of new clients and the lack of marketing activity.

The question I was asked after that post was “What’s the difference between Activity and Development?”

The answer is also the clue as to why otherwise smart people don’t engage in Marketing Activity but still worry about getting new clients: it’s because they have not done the hard work of Marketing Development.

The latter is a term that I use to cover all of the processes that need to be developed in order to seamlessly and smoothly take a product to market in a relatively stress-free manner. That includes processes for prospect identification, an approach process (whether on-line or off-line), early and easy engagement of that prospect, a nurture process, an up-sell process and so on.

For example, if you knew that your product proposition was so clear and so compelling that your ideal client would eagerly ask for more information (e.g. the price and how they can buy!) how much more comfortable would you be about approaching new clients?

My hat goes off to the good people at www.notyourdaughtersjeans.com whose proposition is “Look younger and feel a size smaller”. That’s one example of a business that has done some of the hard strategy work in coming up with both a product and value propositon that is clear and compelling.