By TATENDA ALEXIS MUSKWE | MANAGEMENT CONSULTANT AND INVESTMENT BANKER
When I talk about the ‘5 Ways ,` I am saying that there are only five ways to truly grow your business: getting more leads, converting those leads into customers to make bigger purchases at higher price points ,getting them to buy often ,and getting more sales at higher profit margins.
If you increase all of those factors by just 10%, you can give your bottom line a massive boost .But how can you do this simply and cost-effectively?
BOOST YOUR BOTTOM LINE
In general, you want to focus on the ‘lowest-hanging fruit ` in your business. That means you can work the ‘5 Ways backwards and start with your profit margins first.
In most cases, this means you focus on the lead generation, since it is the most costly way to leverage your efforts. Unless the other number are in place, you could end up wasting your efforts and resources.
I want to share five simple, proven (and low-cost) strategies you can use immediately to get those increase to start feeding more profit to your bottom line .The best part? Most of them involve resources you probably already have in your business, or little `tweets’ to strategies you may be using or have used in the past.
INCREASE YOUR PROFIT MARGINS
- FIND YOUR BESTSELLING PRODUCT AND INCREASE THE PRICE BY 10%.
If you don`t know what your strongest product is (or what it could), now is the time to find out. Once you figure out .Once you figure it out, boost the price on that item or service by 10% .It`s an increase so small ,most people won`t even notice. If someone does notice and gets irate, you probably don’t want them as a customer anymore.
INCREASE YOUR AVERAGE SALE
- CREATE SALES SCRIPTS FOR YOU (AND YOUR SALES PEOPLE)
Sales scripts help to frame your sales process, especially if you don’t consider yourself a natural ‘salesperson `. The sales script should also help initiate and build rapport, which leads to higher sales.
INCREASE YOUR AVERAGE NUMBER OF TRANSACTIONS.
- CREATE LOYALTY AND REFERRAL PROGRAMMES.
While a lot of companies use this strategy, many don`t use it correctly, or lose out on the opportunity to create additional value from these programs.
To get the most out of a reward programs, it should be targeted at your highest –yield customers – those truly loyal customers who don`t haggle on price. This involves some due diligence on your part for segmenting your customers-those truly loyal customers who don`t haggle on price. This involves some due diligence on your part for segmenting your customers. Done properly, it can create both rewards programme and referral programme that is profitable vs one simply to discounts and giveaways.
INCREASE YOUR CONVERSION RATES
- CREATE A GUARNTEED, ESPECIALLY IF NONE OF YOUR COMPETITORS HAVE ONE.
Guarantees are a great ways to convert customers and establish long term customer relationships. This is especially true in categories where guarantees are hard to ‘guarantee’, or in industries that don’t offer any. For example: An IT company worked for more than a year to develop a guarantee of service and performance they could back up and honour. The result is that they are the only company in the city that can advertise and claim a guarantee. Not only has this boosted their referral rate among current clients, but this has also helped increase the company`s number of qualified leads.
INCREASE YOUR NUMBER OF LEADS.
- TEST AND MEASURE LOW-COST WAYS FIRST, THEN MOVE TO PAID ADVERTISING.
As I said before, lead generation is actually the most costly of profit boosting strategies, so start with low-cost ways you can track for results before you start spending thousands of dollars on advertising and PR campaign .What’s low cost? These days, it could be as simple as a direct – direct response ad in a newsletter or trade publication .Online is also a great way for low –or – no cost lead generation.
The key is to make sure you are on the target with your media and your audience, you have a compelling offer, and your copy is both sales-and response oriented.
Remember, you are looking for incremental increases from the start to begin to see results in your bottom line. A 10% increase in each of these areas will make a significant impact on your profits as long as you keep your cost in check.
Tatenda Alexis Muskwe | is the Founder and Managing Partner for TeskDom Investments a Management Consulting and Investment Banking Firm | for bookings engage his Administration team on: WhatsApp & Calls: +263 78 363 3562
