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.

I am currently in the process of formulating and finalising the two different membership types on my website (still can’t reveal the website yet). Basically I will be offering a monthly subscription service, but I don’t want people to sign up for one month and then get all of the data and leave, so I have been trying to work out ways to get people to sign up for a full year at a time.

I am going to employ what I call the three legged walker sales close. Odd name for a sales close but let me explain.

I work at a Chemist, and we also sell aged care products such as incontinence pads, beds, chairs and walkers. When you come in to choose your walker most people don’t want to spend a lot of money so they will look at the base model. The base model is a three legged walker with no seat. It is $189 and you have to buy the basket separately. The next model up from that is the base model four legged walker. This has a seat and a basket included and costs only $169. So why would anyone buy the three legged base model?

The answer is: They wouldn’t!

When someone comes in to buy a walker for their parents, or themselves, they are likely not going to want to spend a lot of money. To come to them and say this 4 legged walker costs $169 they could be shell shocked and refuse to pay $169 for a walker. But instead they come in and are first introduced to the three legged walker, without a seat or basket for $189. This seems expensive but then when you look at the 4 legged walker with a seat and a basket for only $169, all of a sudden this seems like a great deal.

You get all these added extras, that would be extremely helpful to that person’s life, and you are saving $20! So now, instead of simply focusing on the $169 and how much that costs, the customer is thinking about the added extras they will get and the $20 (or more) they will save if they buy the 4 legged walker.

I have not yet seen one 3 legged walker sold, nor have I even seen an elderly person walking around with a 3 legged walker. Elderly people who need a walker to get around want a seat, and they want a basket and they love the discount. I think the walker company would be shell shocked if someone ordered the 3 legged walker. They probably don’t even stock any because they know they will never sell them.

The 3 legged walker is not there to be sold, it is there merely to sell the 4 legged walker. It is to make the 4 legged walker look good in comparison to something else.

I am going to use this technique on my website (I think). Instead of only offering a yearly subscription fee and everything you get with that I will offer two options. I will first introduce them to the more expensive monthly fee, without any extras, and then I will introduce them to the cheaper one year alternative which has a whole bunch of added extras. The monthly subscription is not there to be sold, it is there to sell the yearly subscription.

Some may say that this is a nasty trick, but I don’t think it is. The yearly subscription is already great value, underpriced and will be an incredible asset to the customers’ lives. It is already worth every penny they would spend on it. But people freak out when they see big numbers and avoid making a decision that will benefit their lives. So you put something overpriced in there to ease the customers mind about spending money on the original product. You are, through an interesting method, helping the customer have a satisfying purchasing experience.

Let’s face it, old people need walkers so they would buy them anyway. But what is better for the customer? Them walking out angry and frustrated and depressed that they had to spend $169 on a walker, or walking out happy and overjoyed that they saved $20 AND got a bunch of bonus extras for only $169. One sales method adds to the customers life by giving them a good experience, one takes away from their live by giving them a bad experience. They end up with the same product, but different experiences.

So that is the Three Legged Walked Sales Close. I am almost certainly going to use this in my business.