Barbara Zuleger,
ActionCoach MetroNorth::
763.444.9812
www.actioncoach.com
Dig deeper to boost
profits, revenue
by Beth Ewen
“HOW MANY OF YOU want more customers?” asks Barbara Zuleger, ActionCoach MetroNorth, of the group of business owners gathered to hear her. “Bigger revenue? More profits?”
Of course most hands go up each time, at a breakout session at the Women in Networking’s Destined to Win in 2010 Conference in January.
“You cannot directly make any of those things happen,” she continues. Rather, Zuleger urges business owners to focus on the steps that come BEFORE those results, make small improvements in each area, and ultimately see a big impact on the bottom line.
To explain: The number of leads you get X the conversion rate = the number of customers. So to boost the number of customers, first start with your number of leads.
How can you increase it? “Referrals, pay-per-click advertising, direct mail, networking, buying lists,” the audience shouts out.
“I use a 10X10 marketing system,” she says, drawing a grid on the whiteboard.
“My goal is to start with 10 ways to market. Draw a grid with each marketing technique in a square, that I can keep going at all times. Who is my target? What’s my message? What’s my call to action? What’s my goal?
“You can’t start with 10. Start with two or three. Get them all up and running and systemized,” she advises. That’s to avoid the common small-business boom and bust cycle, when business owners do marketing, marketing, marketing and then stop, and then start working, working, working until they’re finished with all the new jobs.
She acknowledges that generating more leads is the most expensive of the five areas she covers. “In this economy, people are dropping marketing. I encourage people to increase marketing budgets” by a bit, because when others stop you stand out more.
She moves on to conversion rates. “How can you increase your conversion rate?
Just measuring your conversion rate tends to increase it,” she says. “Most people say their conversion rate is 80 to 90 percent, but when they actually measure it’s around 30 to 35 percent. I’d rather see a 30 percent conversion rate than an 80 percent, because then we don’t have to go get more leads.”
She believes in writing scripts to help people increase their conversion rate.
Examine the scripts your company uses, or write down what your best salesperson says if you don’t have scripts already. “What’s missing? Am I not showing the value? If every time you talk to someone it’s different you can’t tell what works.
“If you’ve got a rock star, find out what they’re saying, what’s their mindset. If you know what works you can tell someone else what works,” she says.
Follow-up is another way to improve conversion rates. “We use a step approach. People need to see your name seven to nine times before they sign up.”
She moves on to the next step, how to increase the number of transactions.
“Suggest other products,” someone shouts out, and Zuleger agrees. “Do they know everything you do?” she says. In many cases, customers don’t.
She cites a builder who built a huge development, and most people were satisfied with their homes. Five years later many of those homeowners had added garages or rooms or even a guest house in one case, but the builder hadn’t gotten any of the work because he didn’t keep in touch.
Meanwhile, a real estate agent who had sold a home for one person who bought in the development had gotten loads of referrals from that one buyer. The reason? Every month he sent a note to that first customer.
“Wherever you’re at it can happen, by making small changes consistently,” Zuleger says.
