By Michael Carrigan

It’s amazing…. how much we depend on email these days.  How many times a day are we at our computers or Blackberry’s answering someone’s request for something?

As a communication specialist I find it fascinating how in our sophisticated society we are so unsophisticated when it comes to using email.  Most of us would never intentionally upset a potential client or customer.  Would we?  In fact we go out of our way to make them feel comfortable don’t we?

What if you discovered, that for years you had unknowingly been pushing potential customers away simply because of the way you email them.  Would you want to correct that?  Would you do something about it?    Many of us learned our basic communication skills in the sandbox.  We quickly learned that throwing sand into someone’s face was not a good way to establish rapport and make friends.  Over the years we learned the value of developing good relationships.

First impressions matter when developing new business relationships.   But how do we create the best first impression when all we have to use is email?  Unfortunately, when it comes to email most people are right back in the sandbox!  Kicking sand into people’s faces without knowing it.  How good is that for business?

Fortunately, the people at Don’t Hit Send™, a leading virtual communication company, have developed a simple method that assures your emails will be received in the best possible light.  If it is important that potential customers like you… this program is for you!

Don’t Hit Send™ is a quick 3 hour training program that teaches you how to develop relationships using just email.   Once learning this method you have a choice every time you send an email…  your choice is to build a relationship… or not!  The choice is yours.  Get out of the sandbox!

Don’t Hit Send was developed by Dr. Marvin Sadovsky for the purpose of assisting professionals in acquiring new business and developing stronger relationships through email.  His technique is being taught around the globe.  Headquartered in Dallas, Texas there are affiliate offices in Houston, Santa Fe, Ohio and France with new regions opening throughout the US, Canada and Australia.  Participants leave this short 3 hour training with skills and tools never before taught.  This program is so unique that clients comment “Fantastic!  This course has opened a new perception of building relationships via email”, “This would have been great to know when I worked in corporate. I will use this immediately.  Thanks”, “What an eye—opening course”.  Sign up for a course in your city by contacting www.donthitsend.com.  Presenters and sales personnel welcome.

An eight-year-old boy approached an old man in front

of a wishing well, looked up into his eyes, and asked:

“I understand you’re a very wise man.  I’d like to

know the secret of life.”

The old man looked down at the youngster and replied:

“I’ve thought a lot in my lifetime, and the secret

can be summed up in four words:

The first is think.  Think about the values you wish

to live your life by.

The second is believe.  Believe in yourself based

on the thinking you’ve done about the values you’re

going to live your life by.

The third is dream.  Dream about the things that can

be, based on your belief in yourself and the values

you’re going to live by.

The last is dare.  Dare to make your dreams become

reality, based on your belief in yourself and

your values. “

And with that, Walt Disney said to the little boy,

“Think, Believe, Dream, and Dare.”

- Source Unknown

The BS Story of the week brought to you by: Bryan Sirak

One day the old German Shepherd starts chasing rabbits and before long, discovers that he’s lost.

Wandering about, he notices a leopard heading rapidly in his direction with the intention of having lunch.

 The old German Shepherd thinks, ‘Oh, no! I’m in deep doo-doo now!’ Noticing some bones on the ground close by, he immediately settles down to chew on the bones with his back to the approaching cat.

 Just as the leopard is about to leap, the old German Shepherd exclaims loudly, ‘Boy, that was one delicious leopard! I wonder, if there are any more around here?’
 

Hearing this, the young leopard halts his attack in mid-strike, a look of terror comes over him and he slinks away into the trees.

‘Whew!’ says the leopard, ‘That was close! That old German Shepherd nearly had me!’

Meanwhile, a monkey who had been watching the whole scene from a nearby tree, figures he can put this knowledge to good use and trade it for protection from the leopard.

So, off he goes, but the old German Shepherd sees him heading after the leopard with great speed, and figures that something must be up.

The monkey soon catches up with the leopard, spills the beans and strikes a deal for himself with the leopard.

The young leopard is furious at being made a fool of and says, ‘Here, monkey, hop on my back and see what’s going to happen to that conniving canine!

Now, the old German Shepherd sees the leopard coming with the monkey on his back and thinks, ‘What am I going to do now?’, but instead of running, the dog sits down with his back to his attackers, pretending he hasn’t seen them yet, and just when they get close enough to hear, the old German Shepherd says…

“Where’s that monkey? I sent him off an hour ago to bring me another leopard!”

The BS story of the week brought to you by: Bryan Sirak

Steps to a great Referral:  Part 2

1. Reward your customers with a special price if they give you a certain number of ‘qualified’ referrals.  Work out how much you want to spend on every new customer and also your conversion rate….then you’ll know how much discount you can give.
2. Offer your customers a gift, gift certificate or even a free service for each referral.  Make sure they are a low hard cost but a high perceived value.
3. Let your customers give their associates, family and friends a gift from you.  When your customers get the credit for giving the gift, they’ll want to sell for you.
4. You can afford to give simples gifts both ways, and possible double the effectiveness of your strategy.  Make sure to test the gifts you give, some will get a much bigger list of referrals than others.
5. Post out a referral card with all your orders or just drop one in each shopping bag. . 
6. Put a sign or sticker on all of your products and make people and offer.
7. Present a seminar or information night for our current and past customers and have them bring their friends.  At a seminar you can teach people how to buy, what they should buy and the reasons why they should buy if from you.
8. Encourage your past customers to buy gift vouchers to introduce their friends.  You can use the same gift voucher as an introductory offer for dozens of potential new life-time customers.
9. Introduce yourself to a whole new market, with a bring a friend sale.
10. Throw a party to celebrate your customers’ purchases and invite their friends along.

The BS Business Tip of the week brought to you by: Bryan Sirak

Steps to a great Referral:  Part 1

1. You need to decide who your ideal customer is, and who you actually want referred to your business.
2. Time to go through your current customer list with your ideal customer criteria.  You need to train everybody to be an A class customer, so let them know the rules.
3. Work out “how much” each and every one of your current customers has cost you.  You need to bring a customer back 2 and 3 times before you make a profit.
4. Decide how much you are willing to invest to “BUY” your new customers.  How much is our customer worth over their life-time of buying from you?
5. Be sure to keep in touch with your customers at least every three months.  If you aren’t touching your customer every 90 Days then they are not your customer.
6. Teach your customers why it’s good for them to give you referrals.  Educating your customers about referring people to you is simple and ultimately profitable.
7. Give Awesome service that creates “delighted advocates” instead of satisfied customers.
8. Make sure you ‘Thank’ your customers, and ask them to tell their friends about you. 
9. Just be daring, ask people when they buy from you or even the people who don’t buy from you.  When people buy their emotions are high and they’ll be happy to refer if you ask them the right questions.
10. Let your customers know you’ll be asking for referrals later on.  Your customers will start thinking about who they will refer to you after they have made a purchase.
11. Make giving you a few referrals a condition of people doing business with you.  If you get one new customer from every customer you deal with you’ll regularly double in size.

The BS Business Tip of the Week Brought to you by: Bryan Sirak

This Weeks Tip:

You know there are very few companies who don’t want more customers.  In fact, most of us would love nothing more than to keep a steady flow of them on tap day in and day out.

Well, here’s how …

Let’s use Leverage, divide to multiply that is …

Break the task down, you need more leads and you need better conversion rates.

Today we are going to look at your conversion rates.  No use getting more leads when you are not converting enough of the ones you’re already getting.

Here’s the top 6 ways to boost your conversion rates this week …

1.  Measure it … that’s right work out what it is, exactly, not just a gut feel.  In fact, if you want to get serious you can measure the results every step of the sales process, measure it by every sales person and my every marketing medium … measuring it gives real growth …

2.  Work out what you’re spending … when you know what it costs you to buy your leads (ie. $1000 ad  that got 20 leads cost you $50 a lead) you’ll get very serious very quickly at turning them into real sales.

3.  Follow Up … if you think of every lead as money already spent, money already invested in buying the leads, then you will work out ways to continue to follow up with your leads, reasons to either call, write, email and ask for the sale again and again.

4. Make Offers and Ask for the Sale …having trained many in sales the biggest thing I see is sales people who don’t ever really ask for the sale, how many ways can and do you ask for the sale, remember, never ask a yes/no question, use a detail question like ‘what day do you want it delivered?’ as your close.

5.  Use more questions … stop chatting, and selling and start asking questions.  Questions let your prospect talk, it let’s them show you why they feel they want to buy … less sell more questions that will sell for you …

6.  Training, training and more training … every profession and sales is one of them, needs professional development.  Doctors, lawyers, accountants all have to train for a set number of hours each year to stay relevant, sales is the same.  Find and attend the best courses, read the best books, watch the best video’s and so on.

So, get to work, measure it, and then make the changes to boost your conversion rate and thus your bottom line …

The BS Business Tip of the Week brought to you by: Bryan Sirak

THIS WEEK’S TIP:

If you want to improve what you are doing it is best to get complete understanding of what you are doing currently. An excellent way to understand your business is to document or map your processes.

A work process is made up of a series of steps, tasks, activities and has a beginning and an end. The terms steps, tasks and activities are terms used interchangeably. In business everything is a process, hiring process, order taking process, product or service delivery process. They all have a beginning and an end.   They start with input, materials or information and by a series of steps you produce a product or a service.

First, understand, before you change:

If you want to improve your business you must first understand the existing process. Bring together the people who know exactly what the steps are and document the steps. One neat way to do this is to use Post IT Notes ™ on the wall or a board. Move the sheets around until you are satisfied that you have documented the current steps. Then you could draw it up or you could use software programs like Visio. The advantage of using Post IT Notes ™ is that you can move them around until you are satisfied that you have the correct answer.

Now you have a complete understanding of the “As Is” you can brainstorm with you group on how and what can be changed. Before you work on the “Should Be” do not skip the first step.

The BS Business Tip of the Week Brought to You by: Bryan Sirak

The three most important parts of your advertising:

Target – Who you actually reach can have a massive effect on your results - the target person whom the advertisement is aimed at– Which publication or medium, location in publication, etc

v   Headline is most important part of your ad. Make it 20 – 25% of the ad.  Longer generally is better.  Make it easy to understand.  Open a loop – make people have to read on.  Good headlines qualify the reader.  Good starters are:                             

o   “7 reasons why”

o   “Here’s how” or “Here’s why” or “How to” or “How you can”

o   “You”

o   “Free”

o   “Now”

o   “At last” or “Announcing”

o   “Don’t”

Offer - The offer needs to inspire people to take Action.  It must be rather generous, have a time limit, have limited quantities, or better yet, a specific number available.  The offer should appear very generous, but have a low dollar cost to the provider.  If you offer a service, make it a product.  Be specific rather than general.  Give people what they want!

v   Include a guarantee to remove fear from the people

v   Remove a frustration.

Copy – Needs to get people excited.  Need to build dissatisfaction with their current state.  Create an urge to change.  Give a vision of what a change would be like.  Show the benefits of reading the ad and taking action.  Write as you speak – put emotion into it.  Make it enthusiastic.  Keep it in the present tense (less boring).  Remember WIIFM – think like you are the prospect.  Remember KISS.  Add credibility – ie instead of “34 years of experience”, tell a short story of the experience. Use testimonials. Anticipate questions.

v   Tell a story – people like stories

v   Use an advertorial – i.e. make your ad look like an editorial – people believe what journalists write as fact

                                                   Converting more prospects into clients

                                                Or more simply put your Conversion Rate.

Conversion Rate:  The percentage of people who bought from you as compared to those who could have bought from you.  For example, if you had ten people call you up today and you ultimately only sold to 3 of them, you’d have a conversion rate of 3 out of 10, or 30%.  This is typically a tremendous opportunity in most businesses.  Most business owners well over-estimate their conversion rates – this is great news!  Think about the opportunity here!  Imagine if you’re currently only getting 20 – 30% conversion rates, if you double your conversion rate to 40 – 60%, you’ve just doubled your revenue.

·         How many of you currently know and measure your conversion rates?

o   Do these rates differ based on product line/service offerings?

o   Differ based on lead source?

o   How many people have Sales people that work for them?  Telemarketers?  Do you track conversion rates by Sales person/telemarketer?

·         What strategies do you currently use to improve your conversion rates?

·         When was the last time you (or your sales people) attended any Sales Training?

·         How many use customer testimonials (in print, on websites, etc.)?

·         Anyone using scripts?  How’s that going?

Below is a list of 83 different strategies for increasing your conversion rate, now not all 83 will apply to your business or sales process however implementing 3 to 5 over the 90 days will have a large impact in your sales and business. Get together with you team and brain storm on what ones will work best for you.

The BS Business Tip of the week brought to you by Bryan Sirak.   

83 Conversion Rate Strategies