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American Business Brokers & Advisor Founder & President PROFESSIONAL INTERMEDIARY & MARKET MAKER FOR PRIVATELY HELD COMPANIES Advisor • Consultant • Speaker Market Valuations Involved in Closing 500+Business Transactions & Over $500 Million Author of “The Art of Buying and Selling a Convenience Store”
JUNE 2019
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Raising the Bar W hen was the last time somebody asked you for your business? When someone, a salesman or a business representative, puts in the effort to follow up with you, they are asking for your business. They are making an effort to keep you interested. When you express interest in someone’s business and they don’t reciprocate, it can be very frustrating. However, it’s becoming an all too common occurrence. Now, when was the last time you asked someone for their business? What are you doing as a business owner to reverse this trend? Last year, I bought three new vehicles: a new Ford truck, a new Nissan SUV, and a new Jeep Cherokee. I had a different experience with each sales representative. The Nissan sales rep reached out to me and followed up throughout the
“When you express interest in someone’s business and they don’t reciprocate, it can be very frustrating. However, it’s becoming an all too common occurrence. ”
The Importance of Asking for Your Customer’s Business
to do so can be detrimental to your bottom line. Asking people for their business is a must, but maximizing the earning potential of that ask can be much harder. In 1977, one study found that one word influenced how people respond to “asks.” Known as the Copy Machine Study, it worked like this: A researcher would see someone waiting in line to use the copy machine at a library and ask them if they could cut in front of them in a few different ways. Long story short, what researchers found was that when they used the word “because,” regardless of whether the reason that followed that word was a good one, people would acquiesce to their request much more often. Just that word, “because,” could be the key to making those follow-up asks for business worth it. Of course, when you follow up with clients or customers, you should still give them good reasons to do business with you. But understanding how important asking them for their business is — and how to make the most of those asks — can lead to greater success in your business. The bar for intentional follow-up and asking for a person’s business is at an all-time low. If you don’t believe me, try and get in touch with your local cable or internet provider for timely service. Just by following up with your customers or clients, and giving them good reason to keep doing business with you, you can set yourself apart from the crowd.
entire sales process. I had to initiate the follow-up process with the Jeep sales rep twice before they returned my call. The Ford sales rep never returned my call at all. I ended up buying from a different Ford dealership, even though I had previously bought four cars from that dealership. These vehicles were big purchases. By not following up with me, the Ford Dealership lost out on a $50,000 sale. Asking for someone’s business is instrumental in making those big sales, and neglecting
—Terry Monroe
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Make a Positive Impact
3 Strategies for Genuine Community Involvement Even if most of your clients are located in other parts of the globe, the place your business calls home is a huge part of your identity. When a company makes a point to get involved locally, it’s doing more than making new connections and getting its brand out there — it’s also making a positive impact on the place it calls home.
a gala that raises money for a children’s hospital. Supporting charities demonstrates your values and attracts the kinds of customers who share them. Join a Parade This sounds unconventional, but sometimes it pays to think outside the box. Most towns put on a Fourth of July parade in the summer, so why not join in? Building a float could be a great team-building exercise, and a lot of people will turn up and see your mobile advertisement in the parade. Being in the parade shows that you’re part of the community, and when you top it all off by tossing candy to the kids, you’ll really make an impact. Work With Local Schools Your company could donate school supplies or even sponsor a program. Art and music programs are often the first to suffer from budget cuts, so support from a local business could make a huge difference. Donate art supplies to the classroom, sponsor high school theater productions, or offer scholarships to help young musicians pay for new instruments. Keep the arts alive by helping the kids in your community do what they love. These suggestions require time and resources to pull off, but making the effort can transform your company from just another business in a sea of many to a pillar in your community.
Most companies experience a slowdown in the summer. Here are some strategies to take advantage of that lull and create a plan for your business to get involved in the community and be a good neighbor. Support a Local Charity Every town boasts its share of charities and nonprofits looking to make a difference. Find a cause you believe in, then help out. This could mean donating a portion of your revenue to a local women’s shelter, volunteering as a company at the soup kitchen, or sponsoring
Are You Chasing the Wrong Customer?
THE MOST PROFITABLE TYPE OF CUSTOMER
When a business spends money on marketing or advertising, they want to ensure they are getting their money’s worth. It would be great if we could track every marketing and advertising dollar we spend to make sure we get a good return on our investment — but it doesn’t always work that way. What I have found out over the years is many businesses spend too much money chasing the wrong customer. There are three types of customers: past customers, who we used to do business with; present customers, who we do business with now; and future customers, with whom we have not yet done business. It’s easy to think attracting new customers is the best way to make a profit when really the opposite is true. A business’ most profitable customers are their present customers. They’re already spending money at your business, and you don’t need to spend a lot of marketing and advertising money on them. You just need to ask them what you can do for them, and what they would like to buy.
maybe reintroduce them to new products or services that have become available since they left. This is not a particularly hard sell — it’s just a matter of reaching out and asking. The most expensive customer is the new customer. We have to find them and then convince them to do business with us. People don’t like to change, which makes it hard to convince new customers to do business with us. We may have to offer discounts, or some other compelling bonus, to get their attention. Don’t fall into the trap of chasing the wrong customer. Instead, invest your time and money where you can get the biggest bang for your buck: customers who make your business profitable today.
The next best customers to market to are past customers. We don’t have to spend a lot of money and effort educating them, except to
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Take a Break!
Using Psychology to Gain New Customers 3 IMPORTANT PSYCHOLOGICAL TRIGGERS
WORD SEARCH
While marketing to potential customers can be costly, it is still a necessary element of growing your business. So what’s the best way to get them through your door? There are thousands of ways to attract new business, all generating various degrees of success. The key to maximizing that success is understanding your audience’s psychological triggers. Every audience has a number of these triggers, and these are three that you can look out for in your customer base. Gaining Pleasure and Avoiding Pain Human behavior can be interpreted as one long practice in gaining pleasure and avoiding pain. Even though people constantly do activities, like running marathons or public speaking, that have obviously painful qualities, it might be because they value the pleasure of physical accomplishment or leadership more than the pain. Do you know what your target audience finds pleasurable or comfortable? Which of your products or services are most associated with those qualities? Novelty Our brains love new things. Studies have shown that new and unfamiliar things and experiences increase dopamine production in our brains. One way marketers have leveraged this phenomenon is by constantly re-releasing or rebranding existing products. Sure, there are new aspects of the latest smartphone or the latest car that improve the product, but by and large the reason for the constant outflow of new products is because humans crave novelty. How could you update or change your product or service, even minimally, to take advantage of this? Storytelling Stories make people feel like they are transported somewhere besides their current reality. This experience triggers the emotional subconscious, which holds more sway over our choices as consumers than most people realize. If you associate your products or brands with a story, you can set yourself apart from your competitors and draw new customers through your door.
CAMPING FLIPFLOPS HAMBURGER JUNE
LEMONADE PICNIC POOL SMORES
SUNSCREEN SUNSHINE SWIMMING VACATION
SUDOKU (SOLUTION ON PG. 4)
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INSIDE P.O. Box 810 Effingham, IL 62401 1 The Magic Word That Could Make Following Up With Customers Worth It
Sudoku Solution
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Become a Pillar in Your Community
Marketing to Three Types of Customers
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3 Ways to Attract New Customers
Take A Break!
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3 Ways to Keep Up Productivity During the Summer
J une 21 marks the official beginning of or conference room meetings to the outside world. A weekend of fresh air, sunshine, and cool evenings on the back porch infiltrate your mind. Your productivity is sapped, but you’ve still got work to do. So, what can you do? Here are a few ways to combat the summer slump. Relax the Work Hours If you’re in a management position, consider tweaking the standard 9-to-5, Monday through Friday schedule a little bit. Some businesses will implement a 9/80 schedule, meaning employees work 80 hours in nine days instead of 10, so they can get every other Friday off. Some businesses will let employees work half days on Fridays during the summer, and others will let employees work remotely on certain days. Get Moving summer and the productivity slump most businesses experience. The sun’s tantalizing rays draw your eyes from computer screens
but during the summer, there’s an easy way to remedy it: getting a little exercise. Since the sun is shining, why not take advantage of it while you work? Try scheduling a “walking meeting” outside, or implement exercise breaks every couple of hours. Moving around boosts productivity, and doing it outside can be a great change of scenery. Dress Down If shirts and ties are the norm at your business, you might want to consider embracing the laid- back vibe of summer by relaxing the dress code a bit. It’s a small way to ensure employees don’t feel like they’re missing out on all the perks of summertime without losing productivity. Plus, who wants to wear a suit in July? It’s tough to compete with the allure of a warm summer day, but sometimes those days can work to your advantage if you make a few simple swaps in your everyday work routine.
Defeating the Summer Slump
3 Ways to Keep Up Productivity During the Summer
Sitting at a desk for eight continuous hours can stagnate productivity at any point during the year,
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