Deals come in two forms: either the buyer hands over all the money at once to the seller, or the buyer pays in installments, a little at a time. In the first case, once the deal is done, the two parties go their separate ways. In the second case, the two parties form a relationship. Looked after properly, that relationship gives the seller plenty of opportunities to make more deals.
Planning for any future financial needs like college funding, retirement, etc. brings a regular set of monthly deadlines and challenges. You can create a kind of club for which the client pays a membership fee of between $19 to $39 each month. Some of the benefits of your monthly club membership" could include financial newsletters, reminder notices, workshop invitations, personal phone calls, and one-on-one bonding and anything else that you could think of to add more value to your monthly club membership." Its these extras that really make people value being a member of the club.
You want to give your clients a VIP membership that shows them how much you appreciate their business. You can send a personal welcome note with a small gift. You can invite them to appreciation dinners. The only charge for admission is that they bring a friend. You can organize tele-seminars and local meetings. All of these things show that you're prepared to go the extra mile and that you're with them for the long-haul.
Building this sort of relationship can certainly take effort, but it is well worth it to both you and your clients...
Tactic # 3 - Create Joint Ventures!
For example, if you are an advisor, who also provides college funding services, as a high school student gets closer and closer to graduation, he or she is going to meet with and receive advice from all sorts of professionals. They might see officials at college prep classes or SAT courses. Community leaders recruit teens into their sports teams and events. Career advisors meet students all the time. All of these people have your market on their mailing list, and all can be viewed as friends of the people that you're trying to sell to. If they recommend your services, that referral is more powerful than any advertising leaflet you can produce.
You could ask one of these professionals to mail a letter on your behalf to their students (making it look as though the letter is coming from their office) which suggests that people contact you. In return, you could offer a commission on each sale. Or you could ask them to just include your letter with their next mailing or give you access to their mailing list itself. You could then write a letter that said something like, Joe Smith at the SAT Study Center suggested that I talk to you about college funding... Joint ventures like these can be very powerful and should certainly form part of your marketing arsenal...
Tactic # 4 -Create A Client A List And Give Them Special Treatment!
Every business has a small group of top clients: the 20% who generate 80% of your revenue. These are the people who buy all your products, take all your advice and enjoy working with you. These customers deserve to receive special treatment; after all, they're the backbone of your business.
You could install a special VIP phone line to make sure that they can always get through. You could put on exclusive workshops for them and their friends, send them holiday gifts, birthday gifts, or offer any sort of special perk that shows that you appreciate their business and want to keep working with them.
Your average client should always feel that they're getting more than they expect. But you're 'A' list clients should believe that they're getting twice as much from you as any other client. Give these 'A' list clients special treatment and they'll tell their friends who often have the exact same spending and investing patterns, and the same need of your help...
Tactic # 5 -Recruit Good Employees And Let Them Share Your Success!
I've already spoken about the importance of creating a membership plan and of pampering your best clients. Clearly, all this takes time. Try to do it all yourself, and you'll reduce the amount of time that you have to bring in new clients and expand your business. This is where great staff are very useful. When you recruit employees, you should screen them carefully and offer them a high enough income to ensure that they remain loyal you want them to enjoy working with you. And your team should always be the best possible, even if that means replacing someone you currently have with someone better, or paying more for the right person. The better your team, the better your business.
Once you've built your team, show them that you appreciate their help. Have a employee appreciation dinner, give them bonuses and offer a percentage of the company's growth figures (something like 10% of the total net growth shared out between the employees).
Your employees will determine the success of your company. Treat them well and give them the recognition they deserve...
Tactic # 6 -Raise Your Fees Every Year!
Raising your fees isn't really a tactic; its a necessity! Every year, you spend more money on rent, on supplies, on salaries and on your own standard of living. If you don't increase your fees by 5-10%, you're actually shrinking your business by the rate of inflation.
And when you do raise your fees, you'll find something surprising: when your clients pay you more, they value you more.
In fact, some people actively seek out the most expensive services in the belief that these are the best. If you're undercutting your competitors, no one is going to notice the quality of your service; they're only going to look at your price. Its like buying a car: a luxury product might only cost $50 more to make than a regular product but people still pay thousands extra so that they can boast about buying the best. If your service is the best, your clients will be prepared to pay for it...
Tactic # 7 -Spend More Time Doing The Things That Earn The Most!
This is another reason to make sure that you employ great staff. You probably find that you're doing a great deal of work that doesn't bring in revenue: sealing envelopes, balancing the books, writing reports, answering the phone, etc.
Sure, these things have to be done but they don't have to be done by you! If you can focus your attention on the activities that raise the most money and leave the small stuff to your staff you'll quickly find that your business generates a higher income.
The right assistant who can provide real help and free you up for more important tasks will more than cover their salary...
Tactic # 8 - ... And Delegate Everything Else!
You should delegate everything that doesn't bring in money!
This can be pretty tough for entrepreneurs. Most self-made men and women are proud of both their ability to save money and the fact that they're prepared to get their hands dirty. They do their own maintenance, paint the office walls, make their own coffee and even vacuum their own office carpet.
What a waste of time! There's only so much that you can do in a day. Any time that you spend doing things that don't bring in money cuts the amount of money you earn. It might cost you $50 or $100 to pay someone to paint your office walls for you, but you're paying a lot more than that by giving up doing another workshop or meeting with a client.
Make sure that you pass on all the small jobs to other people and institute a company policy that you only do the work that brings in money. Drop everything else. Surfing the financial news on the Web for an hour each morning for example, may seem like a professional thing to do but if it doesn't bring in money, its costing you money. Exactly the same is true for all those office meetings that do nothing but show who's the boss. Take a look at your schedule and make sure that you're only doing the things that earn revenue and make sure that other people are doing everything else...
Tactic # 9 -Steer Clear Of Distractions!
Entrepreneurs are generally very creative people who like a challenge. And as soon as they've beaten a challenge, they start looking for a new one. Its that feeling of creating something for nothing that gives many entrepreneurs the motivation to keep driving forward.
In many cases though, its also a drive that can create problems. As soon as an entrepreneur has found a formula that works, there's a danger that hell get bored and distracted by the next challenge. Hell shift focus from the business strategies that he knows works and start looking at a brand new program that's supposed to be able bring in retirees or some other group that's got little to do with the core business. That's a big mistake.
If your system works, keep doing it.
Don't let yourself get pulled off course by other programs and other types of business. For example, I've seen far too many people start making a lot of money with the College Funding Program then get bored with the simplicity of the system and lose money looking for a harder method. Once you've identified a market that's lining up for the services you provide, look for ways to improve the way you deliver them and keep your clients happy.
Sure, you want a challenge. But even within our program, there are plenty of opportunities to keep you stretched...
Tactic # 10 -Always Improve Your Clients, Your Suppliers And Your Staff!
You should always be looking for ways to make your business better. Its just too easy to fall into the trap of thinking that what worked before will keep on working. If you're lucky, that just means you wont fall behind.
In fact, success is a process. You should be getting better at what you do each year. The services you provide next year should give your customers even more satisfaction than the ones you provide now. And as an entrepreneur you should be making sure that your business is always growing in efficiency and effectiveness.
That means that any aspect of your business that doesn't keep up should be left behind.
If you have clients who are barely bringing you a dime, you can drop them or refer them to someone else. You can increase your fees, raise your criteria and cut loose anyone who doesn't make the grade. If a vendor doesn't meet the standard that you and your clients demand, swap them for ones that will. And if a company stops you from promising your clients that you can deliver the services they want at the speed and quality they deserve, find new ones.
And finally, don't hold back from changing your staff either. You don't have to be mean about this, but there's no reason why you should be carrying dead weight. When you have a staff member who's slacking, it puts more pressure on everyone else and creates greater tension in the whole company. Let that person go and the entire business will benefit...
Tactic # 11 - Beat Challenges With Elegant Solutions!
There's often a temptation in business to throw every resource into overcoming problems. Its a psychological thing: the more complicated the solution, the more important the problem must be and the more important the person using the solution.
The best example of this was during the space race, when astronauts found that their pens wouldn't work in zero gravity. NASA put their best minds to work, spent millions developing a new ink formula and eventually they beat the challenge. They created the Space Pen, a writing tool that could work in any condition. The Russians, on the other hand, simply gave their cosmonauts pencils. That was a far more elegant solution.
As you build your business, you should always be looking for elegant solutions. They might not be the most creative or the most challenging, but they're the ones that work and they make money.
Every business should be looking for ways to become more efficient, smoother, more elegant. The simplest solution is almost always the best. For example, when IBM was looking for a way to cool down their computers, they spent a fortune playing around with Freon gas and a water-cooling system. It took a non-engineer to buy a small fan from a local hardware store and clamp it to the inside of the computer to solve the problem. An elegant, simple solution that we've all been using ever since.
The world is changing now faster than ever, and your business will change with it. But some business principles never change. Keep your focus on efficiency, integrity and honesty, and you can be sure that your business will keep growing and your profits will keep soaring...
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