Ryan McLean : Slightly Unconventional

Sometimes my head gets so full that I just need to get all my thoughts out onto paper. Sometimes my drawers and desks fill up with so many notes that I just need to read them, summarise them and write them down. That is what this is.

Recently I went to a business conference with my friend. I wrote a lot of notes and now they are cluttering up my life, so it is time to go through them, get them onto paper and share them with the world. There was some really great stuff said at this conference, that is why I don’t want to forget it.

Business Formula For Success

The goal in any business is profit. So how can you achieve that? Here is the formula I learned for achieving success

Leads x Conversion Rates = Number of Customers

Number of Customers x Average Dollar Sale x Frequency of Transaction = Turnover

Turnover x Margin = Profit

If you are starting a business from scratch then you want to focus on your conversion rates, average cost of sale and frequency of transaction and improve those things. Many people focus on getting more and more leads/customers, but instead you should focus on taking your current customers and getting the most from them.

How To Get The Most From Your Customers

1. Keep Regular Contact – 7 touches leads to a sale, so keep the contact going
2. Have Some Sort of Loyalty Program – You want customers to stay for the long term, so give them long term incentives
3. Create and Keep A Database – I do this by building up email subscribers through Aweber
4. Inform Your Customers of Your Entire Range – If they trust you enough to buy one thing off you, they might buy another thing off you. I have just started doing this and I had 5.5% of customers from my property newsletter covert to a free course on how to generate a passive income online

How To Improve Your Average Dollar Sale

• First learn what your average dollar sale is
• Cross sell, but make sure you have the big sale first
• Scarcity sells! It always has and always will. Make your product scarce. I have done this with CashFlow Investor by limiting the service to 100 members
• Have the courage and guts to increase your prices. Create value so people won’t be focused on price.

The market is never hard to get into. It is only hard if your products don’t meet the market

– Murray Priestly

Old Media and New Media

People these days are getting ad resistant. The average consumer is exposed to over 3,000 ads per day…no wonder they are numb to advertising. The world is changing, and the old media form of advertising (bombarding people with one way ads) doesn’t work as well anymore.

Did you know that 96% of Gen Y’s have joined a social network? That tells you something about the way things are changing.

Many people treat new media like old media by bombarding people with advertising. Instead of putting an ad on facebook how can you make people fell connected? You need to create ideas that people can gather around.

Weaknesses and Strenths

Did you know your weaknesses can be your strengths? Your weaknesses can be what set you apart from your competitors. Your weakness could be your Unique Selling Proposition (USP).

Leading In Business

1. Take A Leadership on Price – Sometimes cheap is good, sometime you need to be expensive to stand out. Take leadership and make the right decision on price. Don’t be swayed by your competitors pricing.
2. Offer Quality, and An Image of Quality – People want to buy quality and they want to think they are buying quality. They get enjoyment out of buying quality. So make sure you present an image of quality.
3. Create Mass Appeal – Make your product fun and accessible to everyone
4. Focus – Focus on what makes you stand out from the crowd and do that well.

Income Producing Activities

There are only some things you do each day that actually produce income. I need to focus my time on the income producing activities that PUT MONEY IN THE BANK.

Until you are making $1,000,000 with your business then 80% of your time needs to be focused on sales and marketing.

Focus

In order to break through the wall of success it is important to focus your efforts. There are 3 ways to successful focus

1. Message/Product – Focus your product for a niche
2. Market – Focus into a niche market
3. Method – Focus on the method you use to market and get your product to your people

There you have it. A bit jumbled up, but as I said I just needed to get it written down so it can stop clogging up my life.