MAKE
MORE
MONEY
FOR YOUR BUSINESS
by
Ross Wrigley
Dedication
To Freyja :
This book is for my daughter, Freyja
Mary Wrigley who is the most wonderful
daughter any father could have. She is
caring, intelligent, beautiful and loves
life.
I know she will read it, learn and
understand something that will help her
in her life.
Freyja, you mean so much to me. I
treasure you so much and always will.
Daddy will always be there for you. You
are the diamond in my life.
Lots of love forever,
Daddy
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the following people for their guidance and inspiration in
writing the book and in my life.
Yin Lu and her family for caring for me and providing the best support anyone
could give.
Julia Zhu for being there and getting me motivated on starting this book and
getting it completed.
Cara Wrigley for all her help with the diagrams, her enthusiasm, and inspiration.
Stephanie, Kay, Tony & Simon Jagusch, my supporters for such a long time.
Sarah Andrews for her courage and patience.
Steve Roder Senior partner & Marketing Manager at KPMG China, for always
believing in me.
Anson Bailey, Marketing Director of KPMG Hong Kong for his help on the
journey when the weather got rough.
Joerg Uwe Leach, Allianz China & Graham Norris, Allianz Hong Kong CEO for
taking leaps of faith in their businesses when others will not value based
innovation.
Martin Thomas for his philosophy and strength of character given to him by his
father.
Maggie Eyre for her understanding and assistance with writing this book and her
lovely manner.
My family, The Wrigley’s & the Hagues Arnold, Mary, Jack, Peter, Shirley, Carol,
Annie, Steven, Billy and Jim who never have left my side and have given me so
much support.
My Aunty Vera & Uncle George for taking our family to Australia and giving us all
the opportunities we have had.
Bob Linton & Miles Opie Fletchers Group for their wisdom and empathy with my
style.
Ed & Noni Plunkett always giving a guiding hand when it was needed.
Dr Richard Fisher to acknowledge for his help and support delivering Freyja.
Dr Ji, Dr Rob Blinn, Dr Jim O’Keefe, Dr Ivan & Dr Richard Pishen Connell for
their professionalism and for providing me with the best treatment in the world in
my times of need and urging me to be strong and live.
Anthony & Sarah Boswell, the happiest couple I know in the world and a role
model for all of us to aspire to.
All my nieces & nephews, for always being beside me.
Doug Poole, Stevan & Jo Coleman, Gary Boland & Stephen Lindsay for being
my best mates.
Also to all the other supporters who are too numerous to mention but I know and
they know who they are that have stayed with me through the good and the bad.
Thanks God for protecting me and guiding me so far in this life.
Contents
Foreword ……………………………………………………………………………… 7
Chapter 1 Introduction 13
The 4 P’s of Success …………………………………...……………………..…… 13
Chapter 2 The 3M’s Overview of Business & Life 17
2.1 Motivation …………………………………………………………….………… 17
2.2 Management ……………………………………………………….….…...…... 20
2.3 Mistakes ………………………………………………….…………….……….. 24
Guide 1 Business Hints for People Who Hate Managing
Business’s but Who Have Started One,
Owned One or Managed One ………..........………..….…. 30
Guide 2 See the Bigger Picture, Know the Enemy
May Be Yourself ……………………………………………... 33
Guide 3 Spend Marketing Is an Investment …………...………..….. 38
Guide 4 The Number One Success Story : Take Action
(Any is Usually Better than None, But Be Careful) ……..... 41
Guide 5 Stop Yourself from Stopping Yourself ……….…..……..….. 43
Chapter 3 Building the Foundations 47
Guide 6 Fears 1. Barrier to Open Thinking - I Hate Selling
Care for Your Customers …………………..…. 47
Guide 7 Fears 2. How Do I Know It Will Really Work?
(You Have to Believe It Will) …….………..….. 48
Guide 8 Fears 3. Add Value and the Cost Does Not Matter ..…. 50
Guide 9 Fears 4. I Am Not Worthy …….……………………….... 55
Guide 10 How Not to Fail –Guaranteed …………..………………….. 57
Chapter 4 Analyze your Business and Plan the Future 59
Guide 11 Assessments/Analyze Where Are You? ………..…………..
59
Guide 12 Assessment Part 2 - Health Check of Your Business ….... 60
Guide 13 Get Smarter. It Is Not About Working Harder ………….…. 64
Guide 14 Create a Plan …………………………………………….….. 65
Guide 15 Urgency versus Importance ………………….....…………. 67
Guide 16 Understand Your Competitors ……………………………... 68
Guide 17 Break It Down – Understand ……………………..………… 70
Guide 18 Treat the Problem ………………………………………..….. 70
Chapter 5 Review the Results and
Adjust to Achieve Success 72
Guide 19 Reassess Your Actions – Continually …………………..…. 72
Guide 20 Adjust & Move Forward …………………...……………...… 72
Guide 21 Three Ways to Increase Your Profits
KISS : Keep It Simple Stupid ………………………….…… 73
Guide 22 The Numbers Do Not Lie ………………………………...…. 74
Guide 23 Measuring the Results of the Business, Marketing,
Promotions and Risk/Reward Schemes …………..……… 75
Chapter 6 Pick the Right Markets, Customers
and then the Right Products to Match Them 79
Guide 24 Lifetime Customer Value ……………………………..…….. 79
Guide 25 Double Your Sales
(This Linked to Guide 21 But Is Focused on Sales) ……... 81
Guide 26 Understand Your Customers Dislikes
More Than Their Likes …………………………………..….. 82
Guide 27 The Exceptional Experience …………………………..…… 85
Guide 28 Create a One Minute Message and Repeat ………..…….. 87
Guide 29 An Easy Way to Increase Your Income By 60% ………..... 87
Guide 30 Introductory Letter or Email - Let Them Know
They Are Special and Show Them that You Care ……….. 89
Guide 31 The 4 M’s of Marketing …………………………………..…. 90
Guide 32 Don’t Let Your Customers Choose You ………………..…. 91
Guide 33 Focus Your Attention …………………………………..……. 93
14 Golden Rules of Successful Advertising 95
Foreword
At the front and at the back of the book there is a list of companies I have
worked with over the 20 years of my consulting business life.
I would like to thank them all for being proactive to make them become more
successful businesses. It took their courage and wisdom for their actions.
If with a simple list of things I have learnt. I have put together some
quotations that I remember from people I have worked with. These stay in my
mind and I reflect on different ones in different ways depending on the business
and situation I am faced with.
I have also added some statistics that I have researched and found useful. I
hope you do as well.
A Summary of the Book with Some Quotes and Facts
”Life is not a dress rehearsal, you only have one life. Try to remember to
balance both your life and work, smell the roses of the daily successes you have
achieved?”
Diagram 1
“Life is like a Flowing River.”
Your life changes as all companies do. Don’t try to stop the river but you
have to swim in the right direction. Even though you may not always know where
that may be taking you when you first start, be aware of the current of the people
around you. You may not want to go in that same direction as them.
There is always the risk of the iron fist in the velvet glove. Sometimes all is
not as it seems to be.
“Believe in the guidance of a higher being - someone is guiding us all,” Bob
Linton & Myles Opie.
“The average life of a company is only 11.2 years unless you can adapt with
continuous change,” Ed Plunkett.
“Caring, sharing and daring,” said Barbara Feeney, copywriter at Metro
Newspaper, London.
If you put time into your company, reflect, live, learn and nurture it. It will
outlive & outperform your competitors.
As Stephen Lee, the Lead Risk Management Partner for KPMG China has
said, “A key part to learning how to manage your business includes managing
your risk. If you do this well you will sleep easier at night.”
The best CEOs I have worked with also continue to grow in their thoughts,
their behaviour and in turn their businesses, through their people.
You have to take the leap of faith to beat your competitors. Believe it will
work.
Nothing is certain in business until it is proven.
Try, if you fail, try again. Eventually you will succeed.
”Never, never, never surrender,” said Winston Churchill.
Guess what Colonel Sanders had to do to get KFC operating? He of course
was the founder of KFC. He spent 2 years driving across America in an old
wreaked car. He was 60 years old and he drove to 1000 potential partners
before one said “Yes.”
The rest is history. Perseverance is the key to success.
The CEOs that care are the greatest ones. They get the full support of their
teams and they feel the greatest satisfaction from their achievements and lives.
My father helped me so much by getting me to work at the Coal Face at his
mine in Australia when I was 14 years old. He put me to work with an
experienced Yugoslavian miner who was very strong and worked me to my limits
and I started to learn what “Bloody Hard Work.”
Is what it is all about?
To get good results is not easy but it is very rewarding when they are
achieved. Do not give up even if you think you have analyzed and logical
scenarios. Even then there is a solution.
This is not a management fade book. It is perpetual in motion. Good
principles never go out of fashion. There is no quick fix. Sweat & perseverance
pay the bills.
As we move further into the world of advancing technology with the internet,
we need to change continually. This is not different from the past but the rate of
change is faster and ever increasing. To stay ahead of your competitors you
have to move faster.
Adapt and survive or stay the same, and die as you will, at some point, go
bankrupt.
Before you start reading more, let me try to explain my style and skills. I am
not a novelist or profess to be a good writer. As you would have already realized,
I am a mining engineer from a poor small town in Australia (Rosewood in
Queensland with approximately 3000 people population). I have been a
management consultant working a range of types of industry and mixture in size
of small, medium and large. I worked for “Big Five” accounting and consulting
firm.
I have been lucky enough to have worked with over 270 companies in my
career, helping them to “Make More Money”. Many of them are in the Global
Fortune 500 List.
The book is not meant to have precision but I know it has accuracy and has
numerous examples where it shows excellence in the company’s results.
Precision takes 80 % of your time to achieve, while accuracy takes only 20
% of your time. You can take action from it, improve and change quickly.
Precision is for dart players not for business people, unless you are a surgeon.
Although, even the best dart players in the world do not go for the bull’s eye.
”Driving is for show and putting is for dough,” as Tiger Woods describes the
game of golf.
This is the same in business as it is in darts. Smart dart players go for the
triple 20 because there is less risk if they miss. They will likely still get at least a
single 20. While if they go for the bull’s eye, they may miss and hit 1 or 5 or any
number and lose.
Diagram 2
Try to relate to its conception and its purpose and then it will make much
more sense.
Manage your risk and consider where the best area is for you to spend your
time and money. Then set your quality customer service standards to a level that
beats your competitors or have more innovative ideas and you will be successful.
”Give to Receive”
I hope you enjoy reading the stories of 25 years of working with great
companies and people. You all have your own stories and I would welcome you
to forward them on to me. This way I can pass them on to help other people
learn and they can make their businesses more successful and their life easier.
Please send them to me at this email address: ross@worldview-consulting.com
or website : www.worldview-consulting.com or call WorldView office. I thank you
for any of your contributions. I will reply to them with my thoughts and any
guidance I can give to you, if I have any.
We are all on a journey in life and I believe in giving as much as I can where I
can. I also know I only know what I know. There are a lot of smarter people in the
world than myself but I do have a yearning for learning. While being very
satisfying can be a problem in itself if you let it be.
As taught by Martin Thomas, ex- CEO of Tower Life, “Time is a key
commodity in all our lives.” We all do the things we believe are the most
important to us. The only issue is to take the time to think what is the most
important to you. If anyone says they are too busy, then they do not understand
the importance of the activity.
You always go to the same home at night because it is important, the same
as business. If you don’t do something, then they don’t understand the value of
it.
Diagrams
“A picture can paint a thousand words.” Some stories are easier to
understand in pictures. I have included these in the book. If you want a copy of
any of them, just email me at ross@worldview-consulting.com. I will happily
send them to you.
Brief Structure of Book
This book is structured in 3 parts:
1. A Chinese version.
2. An English version.
3. Diagrams to explain pictorial management concepts and make it easy to
scan or photocopy.
Diagram 3
Chapter 1
Introduction
(How to use the book to achieve the best results)
If you are too busy to read this entire book today, may I suggest you just take
your time to read the next 4 pages? Then you can use the book at your leisure.
There is an index at the back of the book to help you easily find the subject
or the ideas you may be thinking about.
Write notes in the book for your future reference. It is your book. Use it as
you want to and how it best suits your style. There is no right or wrong way.
The 4Ps of Success
There are 4 Ps of successful businesses that I have found while working with
approximately 270 global medium and small companies.
They are People, Process, Principles and Pride.
I will start with what I have found over my twenty-five-year career to be the
most important one and then I will explain about my experiences with the other
three in this book.
People
“People are our number one asset.” Everyone says this but few truly show
it; even though it is so easy to do. The selection of the right people is what I have
found to be the most important “P” for success. I have written some stories in this
book to try to help illustrate this.
Story
The New Zealand yachting team who won the America’s Cup in 2000 spent
at least 200 hours on the selection of each person who was going to be part of
the crew. They had a belief that when you get the right person, everything else
will follow and ensure success.
They were right.
It is better to get it right the first time than to try to retrain and deal with the
problem at a later date. Don’t let it become a problem. Just choose the person
well and the rest will come together. Selection is the key.
People - Who to deal with and who not to deal with?
I know as sure as you know, we come to learn there are only two types of
people that you will meet in your life.
Givers and Takers
It pays to give your time to the first group of people and run away as fast as
you can from the second. You won’t have the time to focus on the right people if
you give it to the takers.
You know them! Think about the people you know and the people that work
in your company.
Diagram 4
Look for the people that matter, believe me, smart as you may be and try to
be. You may lose the key people that will help you to succeed and the ones who
should be looked after.
“That dog doesn’t hunt.” It only takes 60 minutes to find out “who is who” but
more time will bring further questions and doubts. You may have made a mistake.
One doesn’t want to be looked on by others as if they have made a bad decision.
Shoot it when you first see it.
You will see it in the first hour. Let your first impressions guide you and trust
your intuition. Don’t be tempted to reconsider. If during 90 % of your time are
right, the other 10 % doesn’t matter. “Such is life,” as Ned Kelly, the Australian
bushranger said just before he was hanged.
Life is too short to carry others. There are people don’t want help or can’t see
or appreciate your help.
Why don’t you try this exercise which helps? Place your people on a
quadrant. It will help you get a better insight into the abilities, needs and attitude
of some team and your own. Your team will also get so much out of this gap
analysis. (Do it for yourself and then get them to do it about you)
This exercise helps to understand the characteristics of your people by doing
the following:
Take a piece of A4 paper and draw a quadrant graph perpendicular like
Diagram 5. Write these words on each end of an axis :
- Will / Won’t Do Attitude along the vertical axis
- Can Do / Can’t Do Aptitude along the horizontal axis
Place your people into one of these four quadrants on this graph.
e.g. Peter (positive) - Will Do, Can’t Do quadrant
Willem (negative) - Won’t Do but Can do quadrant
Attitude/Aptitude is all that it is about.
There are only 4 possible things you can do, once you have done this:
1. Can Do / Will Do - Encourage them and help them to develop
2. Can’t Do / Will Do - Develop their skills through training
3. Can Do / Won’t Do - Help them to get motivated
4. Can’t Do / Won’t Do - Fire them. Get rid of them.
For “Can Do / Will Do” people, make sure you look after this key quadrant.
They are your gems.
Fire the ones in the “Can’t Do / Won’t Do.”
Don’t spend too much time on the ones in the “Can Do / Won’t Do” as they
are usually too hard but you maybe able to fix one to two out of 10. Just
understand the cost to do this to you and your business, though the reward is
great if you succeed. Set a timeframe to achieve this in a target for how to
measure their improvements in their attitude and stick to it.
With the “Can’t Do / Will Do”, you conduct training. And if you think they are
not suitable to the work position they were employed to do, after a period of time
you may choose to move them to another area. Try this only once. Keep this
thinking in your mind for future reference. Don’t employ that type of person again
for that role.
Set up a trial period for all new employees. This is good for both of you.
Learn how to select and hire/employ the right people. Spend your time in
understanding their values through talking to them before you decide to employ
them.
Diagram 5
Chapter 2
The 3M’s Overview of Business & Life
2.1 Motivation
Look for self starters.
Story
I once was on a train that was carrying 100,000 tonnes of Iron Ore in
Western Australia. It was 1 kilometre long and we were heading to the west
coast at Port Hedland. The driver told me you have to believe in yourself and
have the right people around you if you want to succeed. ”You can’t be a good
captain without a good team and you won’t be a good team without a good
captain.”
I didn’t understand. But I recalled a story, an old English story that was told in
my first year at school. The story is called “I think I can, I know I can” and it goes
like this...
A train started to climb a mountain. It started to slow down. Everyone was
worried & scared. They thought they couldn’t make it over the top.
The train driver said, “I think I can, I think I can get over the mountain.”
The train was starting to go slower and slower. The train driver and the team
talked and set a revised plan to fix this power problem.
They took action, dropped off some fuel. They changed gears to get more
power to the wheels.
The train started to go faster. They all cheered.
The train was nearly at the top of the mountain but the mountain was getting
steeper and so it started to slow down again.
The train driver and his team had to do something. They decided to take
more action or they knew they would fail.
They put more fuel in. They let three more wagons go and decided to
remove some people from the team who were slowing them down. They were
being “sapped” their energy by these people who had no belief that they could
do it, people that were not “zapped” with inspiration and passion. They decided
on who were the “right” people needed for success.
The train driver kept motivating them. Telling them they could do it.
While they were sad with the actions, they had to take. They had to look at
the bigger picture and how it may succeed to save the train and the remaining
people aboard it.
Gradually the train started to gain speed. The top of the mountain was just
ahead of them. Before they got to the top, they started singing “I know we can, I
know we can.”
They then got over the peak of the mountain and celebrated the team which
got them to succeed, while they were still sad for the people and things they had
to leave behind. The important thing was that they were successful.
The others will move on. Don’t dwell too much on them.
That’s Life.
Diagram 6
Lessons Learnt
Belief
“If you think you can or if you think you can’t you are always right.”
The All Blacks, New Zealand’s World Class Rugby Union Team indoctrinate
this thinking.
“You can score the try if you believe you can and you really want to.”
Diagram 7
The 3 A’s
Action - Just do it, however scared you may be.
Adopt - Look and see and implement new innovative ideas your company
has developed and those from other successful companies.
Adapt - Change when it is required. Do it quickly after getting 80 % of the
information. Don’t wait until it is too late. Always think of the value you are
adding.
“Procrastination is the thief of time.”
Celebrate the successes in your life and your business. “Smell the Roses.”
Don’t move to the next battle too quickly without reflecting on what you have
learnt and the assumptions you take forward in making your next decisions.
Go back to the first step and repeat the process.
Diagram 8
2.2 Management
Story
This is a simple story that I have learnt in life that helps ensure you have a
successful business.
About 400 years ago there once were two chicken farmers in the country
side of China. One was very rich and successful while the other was very poor
and unhappy. There is another story here about what is the meaning of “success
in life” but we won’t go into it now.
They were talking one day and the poor farmer said, “I have as many
chickens as you do but I am so poor and you are so rich. Why is God against
me?”
The rich, caring farmer said, “God is not against you. You may be against
yourself. Let’s see, I have some questions that may help.”
He started to ask some questions, to see how he could best help his friend.
“I have 5 questions for you. What are five things that chickens need to lay
eggs?”
The poor farmer said, “I don’t know.”
The rich farmer said, “Think!”
After some time the poor farmer said, “Food.”
“Very good, what else?”
“Water.”
“Very good”, said the rich farmer.
“What else?”
“Heat.”
“Excellent, what else?”
“Light.”
“You are exactly right. You are very smart. That is all I know as well.”
“What else?”
“Love through caring.”
“That is a key point, well done.”
“How many eggs can your chickens lay in an eight hour day?”
The poor farmer said, “One per hour or eight eggs a day in eight hours.” This
is the best they can do without them working too hard, hurting them. They won’t
be able to produce them consistently.”
“Very good. That is what my chickens lay every day. That is all you need to
be rich.”
“I have one more question,” said the rich man.
“When and how often do you look in on them each day?”
“In the morning and at night,” said the poor farmer.
“What if something stops one of those five things being provided for them
after 5 minutes into the laying day, e.g. the light goes out 5 minutes after you look
at them in the morning and you don’t look again until that night?” said the rich
farmer.
The poor farmer said, “I get no eggs.”
“That’s right. And can you then change that at the end of the day?”
“No.”
“That’s because you haven’t looked at them again during the day. If you had
looked every hour you are likely to get at least 6 eggs a day regularly.”
Diagram 9
The rich farmer thought and then spoke, “Well the only thing I do differently
from you is to look in on my chickens every hour to make sure they have all their
needs satisfied which results in me getting 8 eggs a day per chicken.”
The poor farmer said, “But that is so simple. It costs you no more money
while I get on average 3 eggs per chicken which doesn’t make me a lot of money.
You get 7-8 eggs.”
The rich farmer said, “It costs some of my time but I like the chickens and
they provide me with the money I need for the life I want to live.”
Lessons Learnt
Only if you ensure your people have everything they need to complete the
work that is required, the work can be done. It is like the chickens. It is not that
they don’t want to produce. It is the manager not “managing”.
The manager is at fault. “Good management means no surprises.” Be
proactive and you will get no surprises and increase productivity by up to 30 %
very quickly.
Diagram 10
How to do it?
1. Set a plan number to be achieved daily and then break that down into an
hourly target .Ensure that it is realistic and be prepared to change the
planned time as the process changes and improves.
Don’t base this target on the past results you have achieved.
2. Set a standard. Talk to the key members of the team to get guidance from
them. Never set the standard without their involvement. You may think it is
easier but in the long run it is not.
Base on the number of those people who are not the best but are in the top
20% of performing employees and ask their advice on the standard. Is it too
high or low? They know the number and will come up to it if they are involved
in setting it.
3. Alternately, observe the activity and set a standard. This is not “Taylorism” or
“time and motion.” It is very important to be reasonable and set the standard
so you know that this standard can be achieved all day, every day.
4. Then give them incentives for good quality work to achieve that standard
with time, quality & cost considered. Understand what the trade-offs between
them are.
5. Look for the barriers to the success of achieving the set standards and help
to remove them and fix them permanently.
Review the performance of your people in short appropriate timeframes and
the plan will be achieved.
Encourage your people to tell you when they have no “food”. Motivate them
with the carrot not the stick.
6. Look for innovative ways and products that add value to your potential
customer base. The customers and markets will probably be different from
what you have now.
2.3 Mistakes
Action after thoughtful planning is better than any word. It gets things done &
you can measure the results.
Story 1
I worked in a company that wanted to know all the answers before they
would take action.
It went bankrupt.
They had a competitor who had a very smart managing director who made
decisions early after getting the appropriate information. He made mistakes but
also made a lot of money for the company.
As Colonel Powell said, as the leader of the first gulf war, “If I make a
decision before I have 20 % of the information my people will be killed but if I
wait for more than 80 % of the information they will get killed.”
Time is the key issue.
Diagram 11
We all make mistakes. You don’t have to beat yourself up for making one or
two every week. That is all part of life. Learning is the key. Try to think about it
the next time when a similar situation arises and do it differently by recalling the
assumptions of the past and change. Measure the improvements and the results
achieved.
Mistakes are not bad unless you learn nothing from them.
Encourage them in your people but remember selection is the key. Attitude
versus Aptitude. Nurture versus Nature.
Diagram 12
Story 2
When I first went to KPMG Hong Kong as a director in the managing
consulting group, I asked my team, who were mainly Chinese, a question.
How many mistakes they had made in the last week? They looked at each
other and thought I was joking.
They said, “None, Ross.”
I said, “OK, but if you don’t make three mistakes during the next week, I will
fire you.”
Then they really thought I was very crazy. I was just trying to make a point to
get them to change and broaden their thinking.
Do you know what? They all came up with 2 or 3 mistakes in the next week’s
meeting. While it was hard for them to do, they came to not to be afraid of failure
as times passes.
The business took on a new culture which resulted in better results for the
department.
They started to lose their fear of having to always be right or perfect.
Lessons Learnt
1. Think.
2. Plan.
3. Action - Take the leap of faith. You will get to the other side of the valley.
4. Change and adapt.
5. Make the next step.
6. Go back to point 1. Never stop repeating the cycle.
Always move forward.
Each step helps you to learn, as a baby does when they try to walk. They
never give in. They want to walk. Why should you stop knowing that you can go
further?
Shoot for the stars and you will at least hit the moon.
We have started with some of the key issues in business.
I am sure we all have been faced with at least one of them. I will now try to
give some guiding points of what I have learnt over the years at a tactical,
operational and practical level to help you “Make More Money”.
“It takes a few pains for a lot gains.”
Change your Business with these first 35 of the 102 guiding principles I know
of.
Use them and watch your business and profits grow, quickly with your well
thought through decisions.
Where do I go from here?
“Take over the world and be successful,” as Doctor Evil from Austin Powers
would say.
Let’s keep going with some practical examples.
So far there has been too much preamble by me but I was trying to set the
stage for the type of the book.
This is the first book in a trilogy. It has 35 guides for you. If they can add to
your knowledge and are applied well, they will help you and your business to
“Make More Money”. I promise.
If you have any questions just email me at ross@worldview-consulting.com
and I will try my best to help to give you advice according to some of my
experiences. I have a good network of people globally that I can draw on in the
areas where I have less experience or no experience. I am a humble person and
I know my weaknesses or think. I know most of them.
Understand the guides that appeal to you most and use them. Also
understand what you don’t know and think about those things. Don’t try
practicing them all today or even this month. That is too hard and you will fail. Do
it gradually and you will succeed.
What does your business need … today, next month, one year, five years?
Being seventeen years old was only like yesterday in my mind. You need to
keep moving forward.
Diagram 13
Comfort Zone Syndrome
Some people will never succeed because they live in a “Comfort Zone
Syndrome“. They are too scared to move. They let the cheese get stale and
don’t even see it until it is too late, to quote “Who Moved my Cheese”, the author
Dr. Spencer Johnson.
If you have purchased this book you won’t be one of these people. I will try to
give you some hints to get the courage to continue. I hope this helps you.
Diagram 14
Other syndromes which may stop you moving and getting things to happen
is inertia.
1. I know it all
2. It won’t work for me
3. Not now because blah, blah, blah (excuses)
Diagram 15
I will repeat the AAA’s. The 3 As of success:
1. Apply
2. Adapt
3. Adopt
1. Apply - Action gets results.
2. Adapt - The shadows of the nights might scare you but “adapt or die” as
Darwin used to lecture.
3. Adopt - Take on board the ones that appeal to you most and change
them to fit your style. Everyone will work when you use your own style
when applying them.
Here are 3 guides that I have learned during my career which when applied
with understanding will help your business.
Guide 1
Business Hints for People Who Hate Managing Business
but Who have Started One, Owned One or Managed One
Story 1
This first story is about a refrigeration design and manufacturing company
where I once worked with, the managing director who knew how to do the work
but wanted and needed help with his processes and the company management
systems. Together we set up Customer Service Level Agreements to ISO 9001
standards. He also wanted help to set up his management and operational
processes which we did.
This helped to set his business up for the future and he is now very
successful. Well done Rob.
Lessons Learnt
There is managing and doing. When you establish a business, make sure
you put enough time in to managing it. You have a lot of work to do but take time
to think and manage.
Henry Ford used to say, “Put in 100 hours of planning before one hour of
action.”
Story 2
This is an old Chinese story from 500 years ago. It is of a farmer’s son who
was dreaming of the idea of a tractor and how it would make his life easier to
work on the farm. He told his father of the dream. His father told him, “With these
oxen we must plough.”
This tractor you talk about is not invented and not likely to be for 400-500
years. So you have to work with what have if you want to have food and live. So
they took the oxen, ploughed the field and fed their family.
Diagram 16
Lessons Learnt
You usually have to do the job with the tools at hand.
You have to sow the field before you can plough the field, tractor or not you
need to eat. The other Chinese version of this is “plant then you eat”.
You need to use what you have to achieve results. Technology 90 % of the
time is not the main solution but most people think it is. I will give an example of
this.
Diagram 17
Story 3
Think of the immigration line when you enter a country. The processing of
your passport takes 40 seconds approximately but you wait in immigration
queue for 15 minutes before that. Good management through scheduling is the
key, not new technology.
When you are at the bank what takes most of the time, talking with the bank
teller or waiting for the teller to talk to you, because of the queue.
Technology helps but it is not the main solution typically.
Good proactive management is the key to good customer experience.
Lessons Learnt
1. You are not born with the skills to be a manager or entrepreneur. It takes
hard work, training and patience.
2. Companies have seen results quickly, when they act wisely after getting
advice.
i. These are simple strategies. They are not rocket science, just common
sense solutions.
ii. Be practical with theory to guide you but don’t get paralysis through
analysis. Don’t think out the issue.
iii. Dreams are great but you have to do what you can with what you have
to move forward.
Diagram 18
Guide 2
See the bigger picture. Know the enemy may be yourself
You have started. Well done. Keep the leap of faith.
Here I have written three stories. The first story is about being honest about
yourself. The second and third stories are about walking in the other persons’
shoes and understand what is driving them.
Story 1
As asked in the story tale of Sleeping Beauty in Snow White by her
stepmother
“Mirror, mirror on the wall who is the fairest of them all,” asked the
stepmother, let it tell her the truth.
The mirror said, “Well you may be fair and beautiful but a competitor has
taken your place.”
I repeat … Look in the mirror and understand the enemy may be yourself
and the mirror doesn’t lie.
It is not only beauty but your capabilities you need to look at. You may have
the best brand but you still need to deliver.
Be honest and assess your limitations as a business and a person and plan
to work to improve them.
Once you have prioritized them, then just change one thing daily and watch
the improvements you make in managing your business, your life and “Make
More Money”.
Diagram 19
Story 2
I once worked for the largest home retailer in New Zealand, similar to IKEA
but not on the same scale.
The owner of the company had a lot of knowledge, knew a great deal and
loved marketing but he wanted to retire in two years. So he employed a
Managing Director. His role, of course, was to increase the company profit and
provide for the owners’ or shareholders’ future. The two men were from very
different cultures, age bracket and worked against each other from the start. The
managing director was looking at innovation and value creation for their
customers.
They were sending different messages to the people in their company. The
managing director ended up with having to leave after trying very hard to move
the company forward. In time it proved he was right but not before he left. Two
years later he was proved right.
The list below is a mix of the beliefs of each of them. The trouble was they
couldn’t combine them and work together to see the strengths of both of them.
One had to win. That had to be the owner.
Diagram 20
Story 3
I once was sitting at a table and asked by a Chinese philosopher, “How do
you see the table?” I answered, “The same as you do, brown and square.”
He asked, “What is the surface like?”
I said, “Flat.”
“Well the table doesn’t look the same way to me as to an ant.”
“I didn’t understand.”
He was very patient. He said, “The table looks different to every one
depending on the angle, light on that angle and how they thought.”
“To an ant, it is very rough because it has it in a magnified view.”
I said, “I see. What may seem obvious is not always obvious and others
have different views of it and the danger is we only see it our way.”
He said, “Now you start to understand life.”
Lessons Learnt
See the bigger picture for the good of the company not the individual. Do
both if it doesn’t compromise the results of the business. This doesn’t mean you
don’t care but a single person or a small group of people are not as important as
the company as a whole.
1. One team
2. Communicate
3. Understand everyone sees things differently
4. Leave if you can’t see point 3 and except it
5. Never say no to someone else’s idea
Everyone has to be on the same team.
One team and everyone on that team are equal and need to be treated with
dignity and respect.
Sometimes you have to get out of your own way.
If you can’t be a part of the team, leave. If it is someone else on the team, the
solution is getting rid of them.
It is for the greater good.
Guarantee your companies “Success” by being a part of its vision.
Understand what the key numbers are that tell you your strategies are
working and measure them. Understand the appropriate timeframes that are
needed to help you “Make More Money”. Some are daily, some weekly and
some monthly.
As part of the big picture, set your strategy so you choose the customers you
want, not the other way round.
“Who makes you the money?”
Build your reputation through “word of mouth”. Let people know the value of
your services and/or products and this will help ensure your success.
Ensure that your services and products guarantee your customers success
and satisfaction and help them to make reference to get more customers for
both of you.
As a key part of your wholly view of the business vision, could be
“Customers for Life”. You may want to use it. With the right services and
products and care, they will stay with you.
Plan to cross sell and up sell to help your customers pay you more for value
added products/services. Don’t be too pushy though. There is no bigger turnoff
than a hard sell.
Diagram 21
Guide 3
Spend on Marketing is an Investment
Story 1
I worked with a company who never wanted to spend money on marketing
as they always thought it was an unjustifiable cost. They believed that it was an
area where they could save money by spending less.
This set up the death spiral and spiritual death of the company. This stopped
the business from operating.
All marketing is not good but choosing the right one for your company is
essential to stay alive.
Time after time, I have seen a perfectly good business’s ideas or advertising
being discarded because someone close to someone in the company or
relatives said, “Oh, I would never read that” or “This would never make me buy
anything” or “That idea takes too much risk.”
One well known story tells of an advertisement which originally cost US$550
to run in a local paper. The sales generated from it were US$88,780.
Diagram 22
Lessons Learnt
Don’t listen to advice from well meaning friends, family and business
associates. Because it is free, they have no commitment to it.
Don’t listen to anyone who can’t prove to you that they can sell better than
you can.
Test by piloting a small sample group yourself instead. You will make a lot
more money that way and then when you get it.
Adapting a process doesn’t mean you got it wrong. You had to start
somewhere.
It follows the editorial format.
It has a good headline.
It gives a good comparison of the savings you’ll make by coming and buying
or not buying.
If you want I will send you a copy of this advertisement. Just email me at
www.worldview-consulting.com . You are welcome to send it to all your
customers.
You can also use it and email or mail out to your old customers and potential
prospects as well. This will show you are committed to the “success through
partnership” concept.
This advertisement appeared in 1909.
This advertisement was written nearly one hundred years ago.
It has some common features. I recommend that you use to guarantee your
company’s success.
Key features:
1. A headline.
2. Free trial offer or free analysis of their business
3. Lots of reasons about what makes your services/products unique. What
are your USP (Unique Selling Proposition) and your competitive edge?
Why should your customers use you and your services/products rather
than the competitors? Time, quality, and cost, they are the only things
that matter.
4. Innovation and value creation. Position yourself away from your
competitors.
Keep looking for the “Blue Ocean Strategy” as written by W. Chan Kim
and Renee Mauborgne.
Summary
As you can see, some principles never change.
Diagram 23
Story 2
A beauty company I once worked in spent a lot of money on advertising.
They tried using the radio, the side of buses, letter drops, emails, and friends but
achieved poor results. The managing director was scared because the
marketing was not getting the response like she assumed it would do. So she
continued, to look at what she needed to do to make a difference. She worked
out how to measure the results, changed her strategy segmenting the market by
needs, changed her product offering, sold some non-profitable equipment,
changed her physical clinic location and changed some employees. This
resulted in a significant positive change in the company’s profitability.
Lessons Learnt
1. Businesses should think of marketing as not an expense but an investment.
2. Think of this a key pace to your business’s success.
3. New businesses should spend 20 % of sales on marketing initially & then
continually spend 10 % annually.
4. Commit to invest. “Be serious”.
5. Invest money to make money. “Speculate to accumulate,” my father used to
tell me.
6. Existing customers cost only 20 % of what it costs to get new customers.
7. Referrals and references from existing customers are your best return.
8. Invest time and energy into marketing your business, explaining what you
have to offer.
9. Spend a minimum of 30 minutes but preferably 1 hour a day planning before
you take action and you will be building your business quickly. Believe me.
10. Set a specific start and stop time for your planning time. Just think. Don’t
make any calls or use the email or take interruptions for at least 30 minutes
each day in your planning time.
Do it at the time that suits you and is most productive for you. This is usually
the first thing in the morning but choose whenever it suits the type of you and
your business.
Guide 4
The Number One Success Story: Take Action
(Any is usually better than none, but be careful)
Story
I once worked with one of the world’s largest fruit juice manufacturer and
distributor in Hong Kong and China.
At the commencement of the project, I asked them how much business they
were losing through providing poor customer service through inadequate
delivery to the supermarkets and the lack of their products on the shelves for the
customers to buy.
They said they didn’t know.
So we worked out a simple way of taking action to measure this while they
said we couldn’t do it.
We visited a number of different supermarkets at different days and at
different times and we physically counted the amount of stock they had. Hard
work but taking the actions gave us information we needed. (We could have
waited for technology to give us the information. Sometimes the hardest way is
the best way and maybe also the only way.)
We worked out they were losing 30 % of sales because they had no product
to sell and we worked out a way to easily measure and change the stock levels
to the optimal ones. We improved sales in 3 weeks by 20%.
Lessons Learnt
1. Take action.
2. Measure.
3. Success comes through taking risk balanced actions.
4. Change to become a habit as an automatic reflex like the Pavlov’s dog
experiment. Ringing the bell and it knew there was food and it would salivate
before it saw the food.
5. Don’t procrastinate. With the worst case scenarios, don’t fret or be afraid
about things that will never happen. It is a fact that only 10 % of bad thoughts
actually happen.
6. You may feel uncomfortable at first but you will get better. Relax and grow
trust in yourself and your abilities.
7. Just do “something”, take some action. Any action is better than no action.
Just make sure it is well thought through and tested initially on a pilot basis.
8. Action does get more sales. Just make one follow up call on each of your
major customers the day after they purchase for the first time. One thank you
phone call, email or note, ask your key customers what you or as a company
do well. Also ask what they would like to see you do better to get them to
become life time customers.
9. Listen to them and act depending on their response and your team’s views.
Guide 5
Stop Yourself from Stopping Yourself
Story
I once worked with a company that was losing money. They were stopping
themselves from changing. They were like a kangaroo in a spot light. It won’t
move and waits for the bullet.
They had the courage to bring us in as consultants, to look at the business
from an outsider’s point of view.
The managing director didn’t know whether he had done the right thing or
the wrong thing. His people were always complaining about change. They were
asking him how an outside company could understand their business better than
his own employees.
“Don’t you trust us,” they asked.
He had to give very well thought through answers. He cared and didn’t want
to demotivate them but they couldn’t see their own weaknesses.
He persevered and turned the company around to be the most successful
company in the largest corporations in New Zealand within 8 months.
Lessons Learnt
Unsuccessful people have limiting beliefs.
Positive, useful thoughts take us forward.
Don’t wait for all the answers.
We sometimes get worried thinking we are serving our own interests while
we are really thinking in the interest of the people in the company and the
customers of the company.
Remain open to new ways of thinking and innovation as the key.
If you think like in the past, the past will be the future. Be careful of your mind
set.
The assumptions that you have may be wrong.
Once you succeed, be careful while once you repeat the same thinking and
expect it will just work the next time. It typically takes 3 times of doing something
new and the experiences learnt to get it 80 % right. It will never be perfect.
(Please don’t confuse this number with an acceptable quality standard.)
Diagram 24
Diagram 25
In the second and third time, be careful of the mistakes you may have made
the first time. Adapt and learn from them. Challenge your assumptions and
yourself.
This is very key in mergers and acquisitions. If the same person is involved
with them, they usually make more mistakes during the second and third ones
than the first. The good news is after that it gets easier and they get better.
This is very key in mergers and acquisitions. If the same person is involved
with them, they usually make more mistakes during the second and third ones
than the first. The good news is after that it gets easier and they get better.
After World War 1, the same thinking was taken to World War 2 and then on
to Vietnam.
The same assumptions were used and that cost a lot of lives.
Adapt & don’t assume anything.
Diagram 26
In the Cuba missile crisis, the old way of thinking took the world to the brink
of nuclear war except for the wisdom of JFK & Robert Kennedy who resisted the
actions they were being told to take by the generals. Things had changed but the
thinking didn’t change. Communication, though not direct, was the saving grace
which hadn’t happened at that level before.
Live at your own peril with assumptions built on the past.
“They can become the false crutch of the future and life.”
Previous sales of products/services, even if it is selling well, look for the
motive behind any sale or action. What makes them buy your things?
These are true in business and life.
The six motives of others that you need to look for to stop yourself.
1. Money
2. Power
3. Love
4. Envy
5. Scorn
6. Spiritual belief
There are only six I know of (if you know of others, please email me).Work
out which one it is or the combination of them which drives you.
The only person other than your closest family who should trust is the pilot
flying you to any destination. He/She only wants one thing and that is to land
safely and so do you. It may seem hard but trust me everyone else wants
somebody, sometimes and something. (I sound a little bit like Dean Martin.)
It doesn’t mean you don’t have to trust people but understand what is driving
them and what they want.
They may not have the ethics that you have and that can lead you into
trouble.
Chapter 3
Building the foundations
Guide 6
Fears 1 : Barrier to Open Thinking …..
I Hate Selling Care for My Customers
Story
I worked for a company that was so risky to selling that the people in the
sales department were scared to go and call on a customer to make a sale. They
had a huge potential sales force of about 1000 people but they were scared of
selling. They didn’t have the faith in the services and products that their company
provided and also didn’t know all the benefits of the services and products. They
lost a lot of business that was available to them.
Their competitors took it away from them. They eventually closed the
department because they couldn’t understand that the services they were
providing were different from other parts of the business and didn’t know how to
make them profitable.
“Stick to your knitting.”
Questions and doubts you may have:
You may think you are too pushy.
You may think: “They’ll just come back.”
“Am I too aggressive?”
“I will let my customers decide what’s best.”
“I am thinking that I will be forcing them too hard to buy.”
Lessons Learnt
You have to do sales. It is a prerequisite to make money and stay in
business.
Every one in the company, from the receptionist to the CEO, needs to sell. It
is at different levels but needs to happen.
You don’t question your doctor on the treatment he prescribes as he knows
better than you. Why question? Why your own advice and judgement in the
areas that you know best is not good advice?
You have an ethical obligation to make them buy.
You need to make them understand what is available in a compelling way for
a sale.
It’s because you care to meet their needs and get the best results for them.
Don’t worry about the money.
It will just come.
If your customers need something and you’re providing the solution for their
needs, they are happy you care.
Don’t stay awake at night fretting or worrying.
Be careful and test the assumptions that fill your mind with negative thoughts.
Guide 7
Fears 2 : How do I know it will really work?
(You have to believe it will)
Story
We once worked with a company where they were losing money and they
were desperate to improve, increase margin, save costs and improve customer
service. One of the ways we suggested was to centralize the distribution network
of their products from eight locations to one central warehouse.
Their natural conclusion was to build a new warehouse to hold all the stock.
This would have cost millions of dollars (100 million RMB).They thought that was
the only answer. Everyone was planning and looking at the layout and costs
required in doing this.
We convinced them to wait until we did an analysis of the logistical
requirements for the business to be successful :
- Some Key Requirements
- Stock Holding
- Delivery Frequency
- Customer Service Levels
- Lead Times
- Standard Operating Procedures
- Partnerships
- Distributors
- Manufacturers
Once we analyzed the actual and inventory requirements, we worked out
they only needed half of the original space of the old warehouse, after they
centralized the distribution process.
Everyone initially said this was impossible.
The costs were dramatically reduced by 40 % and customer service
improved by 30%.
Lessons Learnt
Failures in life always want a guarantee.
They want to be sure before they take action.
There are no guarantees in life except death and taxes. One you can cover,
the other you can’t.
Successful people never ask for a guarantee.
Failure is essential if you want to be success.
We should see failure as part of being successful.
Be concerned with learning, not with the rewards and punishments
associated with it.
Diagram 27
There are two kinds of thinking about success in business: Luck or Managed
Risk through Intelligence.
1. Luck - Lotto, printing campaign, hope, dreams and good luck.
2. Managed Intelligence - With Probability through Managed Intelligence.
Understand the market and your customers’ need. Give special offers to
existing key customers, such as birthday, Christmas, New Year, and other
festivals specials.
What does it take to create a change in behaviour to get more money in the
business?
Give to receive but understand their thought process. What will make them
buy today and at your price?
For example, a company that used to install gas connections to houses and
apartments set up a strategy where they gave a discount to their customers if
they agreed to do it in the summer while the ground was dry. This was much
better for both the gas company and the customer compared to doing it in winter
when it was wet but the customers need more.
By taking this strategy of “giving”, they evened out their customer service
demands during the year. This made it easier to achieve customer service levels
and resulted in them to “Make More Money”.
Be proactive. Think what drives your customer.
Commit to learn lessons.
Be humble if it doesn’t work, who cares, as long as you try and learn.
Guide 8
Fears 3 : Add Value and the Cost Does Not Matter
Story 1
I worked with an insurance company who wanted to list on the New York
Stock Exchange. To do this, they had to change their accounting standards
which created the need for them to implement US GAAP standards for financial
reporting.
While the cost to them was high, the payback was more than 10 times what
it cost for the services provided.
Diagram 28
Story 2
One company I worked with, had a very futuristic thinking General Manager.
His managers always said they need to discount more to keep the business from
their competitors. He thought long and hard about this and in the end he was
very strong and said he didn’t believe this was the answer,
He said, “Why don’t we offer some other type of benefit that the customer
needs but the competitors don’t give or have?” He was speaking about
innovation and value added.
He introduced a concept called “Success through Partnership”. The concept
with this was for his loyal customers. He provided free consultancy service to
analyze the customer’s business and then paid us for as consultants to deliver
the results we had identified.
The customers couldn’t believe this idea and initially were sceptical but once
the first few customers actually achieved the results the message was passed
through the industry. Everyone wanted this service but it was only provided to
the chosen few.
(Point to note: The customer had to pay back the money when the results
were achieved.)
He truly knew he had implemented a great concept when one of his
customers was approached by a competitor, offering a discount on his product
and the customer said, “No, thanks. I have a relationship with another company
and I only deal with them.”
Value and innovation leave the competitors behind.
Diagram 29
Story 3
I once worked in a coal mine that employed approximately 1500 miners.
They had great incomes of $70,000 per year ($350,000 RMB in 1986).They had
easy lives if all the safety regulations were adhered to.
Their overseas competitors came into the industry and market. The local
miners knew this was happening but didn’t want to acknowledge or believe this.
(Who moved my cheese?)
They wouldn’t change and in the end the mine was closed. They were able
to add value to make their products at a competitive price but they were not
concerned about managing the cost through improving productivity.
Lessons Learnt
Owners and employees don’t need to be enemies.
Businesses need to make money to survive. They need to spend money to
grow and they can do this more easily by showing their added value services.
Some people have difficulties charging for the services and products they
sell or deliver.
Look at the value equation. As long as you give more than you get in their
mind, then it is OK. We used a story where for every dollar you spent you got
three in return. Hard investment to say no to.
The more successful examples I have been involved with do the following:
- Keep an open mind to innovative ideas
- Think of other ways to deliver value to fit the eye on from only the cost to the
customer.
- Give money back guarantee.
Diagram 30
If you are not completely “happy or satisfied”, we guarantee a full refund. We
practice this at WORLDView and you can email or call me to see how it can
work for your business.
Have a set product and service rack rate. Display it and encourage your
employees including management to say no to discounting.
These are the prices e.g. $500 ($2500RMB) for this product or $300
($1500RMB) per hour for this service. Don’t be afraid.
Establish a culture through good management reporting processes that
reinforces this behaviour. Use the carrot not the stick.
Set up exception reporting which helps your managers to identify variances
to the plan easily.
Train your people what they should do when a variance occurs which helps
the profitability of the company.
Discount when appropriate but only when it is required for a long term valued
customer or for future references to other sales, or as “loss leaders”.
Look and think before you leap but also leap before you drown. Email me
and I will tell you how I survived the tsunami in Phuket. I would have been dead if
I hadn’t leaped when I needed to.
Don’t give up a thing without getting something in return. Otherwise it will
show you don’t believe in your true value.
The customer will also think there is less value if you do or you are marking
up the margin too much.
Keep your customer out of emotional debt. Let them know you are delivering
and providing value.
Customers really do want to pay if you give and show them the value they
need and want.
You should invest where you get the best return on your energy.
It’s important that the customer know the value of your products/services and
you want them to get the results from the purchase of that product. Your
products have much more value for money than your competitor do.
They value what they pay for.
When they know it is worth, they will pay for it.
In the past when I gave services for free, I had more problems than they
were worth.
For good results, customers have to believe in your services and they have
to value them.
Charge a price that meets the market for your services/products using quality,
time & cost as your strategic advantage.
“Make More Money.”
Price is not the best way to get a good partnership.
Value added services are the key.
Be and feel positive about what you sell and how you add value.
Wait until you are able to raise your prices when the market can believe in
your “added value” creation.
When demand increases, then you can increase the price.
Everything is a balance between supply and demand.
If you have any other ideas which I’m sure you do, can you email them to me?
I love new ideas to develop myself and help other companies.
Guide 9
Fears 4 : I Am Not Worthy
Story
One company I worked for was worried about the cost of its services and
products. Their culture was that they thought they should serve all customers
and they all should be made happy. They set up sales training to reinforce this.
Wrong. You don’t need all the customers in the world. Only 50% -60% are good.
Analyze them and put them into A, B, C & G categories. For category G, send
them to the competitor.
Have you ever noticed who your worst customers are?
I’ll bet you know who they are. They are the ones, who always want the
cheapest price.
They ask a million questions, but can’t make a decision. After they buy your
product, they always find:
Something is wrong with it?
And you know what the worst part is?
They are the ones you often spend the most of your time with. They can take
up all your time and make you lose money in doing so.
They are the takers in life I have written about earlier.
Well, don’t feel too bad because I have seen this so much over the last 25
years, in so many companies that worry and care too much about these people.
These customers are the ones who call your free call number, spend 30
minutes of your time and money.
When they buy a product for $159 ($800 RMB), then they use it, and after
that bring it straight back and ask for a refund.
Now, I ask you, how successful do you think those people are likely to be?
Not very successful at all. That’s why you should never let them affect the way
you do business.
The way you should deal with customers that don’t appreciate what you do
or don’t like your services/products is simple. Get them to walk away.
Think to yourself. “Too bad for them” because they always need the
products/services more than you need their money.
Promptly let them walk to your competitor and let them lose money.
Remember this…
Life is too short to spend on people who don’t want what you are selling.
So, don’t do it. Don’t let them ruin your life.
Don’t waste your time on customers that don’t appreciate what you do.
Send them to your competitors instead and let them deal with them!
Some customers are just too hard. Right!
What you should do is to focus on dealing with your best customers.
These are pure gold. Work on the diamond ones but leave the “coal” ones.
They could take 2000 years to become a diamond.
You know who they are, as well. They are the ones that come in or call you,
order your best products or services and never even ask the price. Or, if they do
ask the price, never flinch at paying it and then pay promptly within agreed
terms.
They are your dreamy customers.
They are the ones that know you care and want to help them.
“Make More Money.”
The ones you usually forget about, until they come in and buy from you
again.
So why am I telling you this?
I know why I started talking about the different types of customers.
It was to help you understand this is how to increase profits and shareholder
value easily.
Don’t have a feeling of doubt that you are not worthy of your value?
Transferring your enthusiasm is a key part to the success of your business.
Guide 10
How Not to Fail? Guaranteed!
Story
I once worked with a company who developed a website but no one could
find it, except if they knew the companies exact name. They hadn’t designed it
well and unless you knew their exact company name, they didn’t come up on the
internet in the top 50 list. They changed, enhanced the web content and set up
search engine optimization so they could be found if any word relating to the
business came up globally.
They changed their thinking from local to global aspirations with
manufacturing in emerging markets.
Their business grew 30 % in 3 months.
Web sites can be like trying to find your wife or husband in the world. If you
don’t know where to find them, you may pick the wrong one. Wouldn’t it be easy
if you were directed to the right one? This may sound a bit simplistic but many
people would like to have the guidance to find the right person without kissing all
the frogs of the world!
Lessons Learnt
Typically customers don’t know how to find you on the web. Usually they
need to know your company name.
Income is inconsistent and the worry of it keeps you awake at night.
This approach lacks strategy.
There is no overall plan.
To be successful as with any customers, you need to assess, plan,
implement & reassess your business.
It’s a self correcting process.
It’s impossible to fail.
Your successes directly relate to understanding this strategic model and
then applying it to your business.
Take time to think.
A business should be treated exactly like a customer. Analyze and adapt to
improve profits.
Diagram 31
Chapter 4
Analyze Your Business and Plan the Future
Guide 11
Assessment Part 1 - Analyze Where Are You?
Story
A grocery company I worked with in New Zealand while it was owned and
managed through Hong Kong. They believed that they were doing the very best
they could do. When we reviewed their operations, we found that they could
save 40 % of their labour costs by agreeing to work practice standards, setting
targets, measuring them and providing training when and where required.
They became the lowest cost provider while being the best service provider
in their industry.
Lessons Learnt
Measurement is the Key.
In a typical business, measure the following. They are only a guide.
You should adapt them to suit your business.
Measure your last 12 months results. This should be measured by month
and 24 months or longer is better.
- Sales
- Profitability
- Number of different customers
- Number of new customers
- Average transaction value
- Number of repeat customers
This is a list. Adjust it to your business.
My only key piece of advice from experience I can give is only to pick 3 to 5.
If you know these, they will let you sleep easily at night.
When you have the past numbers, understand this will be a historical
standard. Don’t believe that is the best you can do.
Don’t worry about trying to benchmark. There are too many things that are
different in other companies. If you do benchmarking, be sure the company you
are benchmarking against you have found out some details about it. (It is easy to
look like a fool when you quote a competitor having three times the profitability
but they have put a lot of money into their company.)
(Please email me if you want to discuss the pro’s and con’s of benchmarking
and there are both.)
Think about the improvements you want to against the comparative time last
year.
Don’t get me wrong, you should find your competitors standards but that is
only a starting point. If this gap is too big, it may make you afraid you can’t
achieve what you can and want to achieve.
It may be “Jive talking” which takes your courage away.
“We could never achieve that.”
“Go for gold.”
No one ever thought anyone could break the 4-minute mile because it had
never been done. Then when Roger Bannister did, it was done again two
months later. The myth had been broken. It was achievable.
No one thought the astronauts could bring Apollo 13 back from space but
they did it because at that point America had never lost a life in outer space.
Never say “never” and never say “always” because at some point you will be
proven wrong.
Look for at least 20 % improvement each year as a base. Don’t accept a 5 %
change as good enough.
Your competitors don’t.
Shoot for the stars and you will at least hit the moon and most probably
higher.
Shoot for the moon and fall to earth.
Hitting the moon is an inspiration to build on, while going 3 miles off the
ground doesn’t do much for an astronaut.
Guide 12
Assessment Part 2 - Health Check of Your Business
Story 1
I once worked with a company that didn’t know which markets, products,
services and customers were making them money. We reviewed the data and
history together and identified what the profitability of each of their market,
product, service groups and customers was.
Guess what? The ones they thought great were not.
Actually they were the worst.
Diagram 32
Diagram 33
Story 2
Alice as in “Alice in Wonderland “was asked by the Cheshire cat, “What are
you doing?”
“I am in a hurry,” said Alice.
“I can see that,” said the Cheshire cat, “But where are you going?”
“I don’t know,” said Alice.
“Then forget the hurry,” replied the Cheshire cat.
Lessons Learnt
What do you know of your numbers?
What do you want from your business and what do you have to do to get
there and when? For example, your goal is to run a marathon or a 100 metre
sprint?
Quick wins, shorter term achievements and longer strategies.
Have plans for all three but remember:
“Haste brings bad management”, “Look before you leap”, “He/she who waits
is lost” and I am sure you can quote many more.
Diagram 34
Balance is the key.
You need to understand & articulate your desired outcome for your business.
Write a vision in your mind then put it on a board and work with your team to
understand it. Help them to adapt it so that it brings them with you.
“We may be at great speed but is it in the right direction?”
What do you want from your business?
Take back the control. What do you want financially, mentally, intellectually,
emotionally, socially, spiritually, and physically?
Apply it today in your “thinking session”. (Remember your 30 minutes of
planning time.)
Be careful of worrying about taking the “road less travelled”.
It may be patched in diamonds, gold, coal or whatever it is.
In the Alchemists, “Sometimes you search the world for your dream but it
maybe in your back yard (at home).”
“Somewhere over the rainbow may be home but you can’t see it.”
What I am trying to say is, in life and business you will get a mixture of the
good, the bad and the ugly. Your business can be profitable. Stay focused.
Guide 13
Get Smarter. It Is Not About Working Harder
Now you know where you want to go, how you get there.
Diagram 35
Story
I once worked with a company that looked at their business like looking
through a telescope from the wrong end.
They concentrated on controlling expenses but not the marketing and sales
side of the business. These are the lifeblood of the business and need to be
managed well.
The company created an environment of fear and risk adversity. This in the
end caused everyone not to do any sales. People were always worried about
what they spent. In the end the company was losing money and eventually the
business closed.
Lessons Learnt
What are the important things in your life, the “big rocks” not the pebbles, not
the sand? But always have time for two beers at the end of each day but only
two. (For those of you who don’t drink, pick your own reward.)
How many transactions or sales do you need to generate the money to live
the life you want?
How do you get people motivated to make steps to change and let them
know they have the support of management to give them the confidence to
succeed?
These questions need to be addressed to “Make More Money”.
Guide 14
Create a Plan
Story 1
I once worked with a media company that liked to think but didn’t want to put
their plans in action. They were too slow to the market, and they said the
business moved too fast. (It is easy to blame someone else.)
Story 2
Another large organization called NASA (National Aeronautics and Space
Administration). This is an Aeronautical Base in America for those of you that
don’t know. We were told by them they can’t plan the time for “thinking of
developing new products” to a set timeframe, quality and cost.
“It’s impossible” was their initial comment.
Well, we developed a system where depending on the outcome required and
expected return. They set plans for their “think team” as to how they could plan
to manage the process. They eventually understood it. It became part of the
culture which saved them from spending a lot of money on ideas with no value. It
also got them focused on the ones which would give the greatest return.
Lessons Learnt
If you fail to plan, then you are planning to fail.
Effective business and marketing has to be planned and executed on a
consistent basis.
Haste brings bad management as does binge marketing or panic
management. Think before you act.
Lead times vary but are usually 9-12 months to start to get the strategies
right.
Every day review your plan.
It only needs 30 minutes.
It puts you in control.
Make the plan simple, don’t outthink. It will change and it should change if
you want to stay in and
“Make More Money.”
Diagram 36
Guide 15
Urgency versus Importance
Story
I worked with a Chief Executive of a life insurance company. He knew his
business was not performing very well.
He is a very good strategic thinker. He decided to spend two days to go
away to get his thoughts in order. While driving to a beach in Northern New
Zealand to do this, his Managing Director of the group rang and asked what he
was doing. He told the Managing Director his plan.
The Managing Director told him to go back to work to fix it now.
A lot of you will know insurance and will know he couldn’t fix it that afternoon
but the Managing Director didn’t understand. He was thinking operationally not
strategically.
Diagram 37
Lessons Learnt
Don’t confuse urgency with importance.
Urgency sometimes rules our lives. It’s kind of excitement.
Putting out fires makes you think you are doing something and you are
important.
Wrong! You are fooling yourself.
You are treating the symptoms instead of the problem.
Look at the quadrants.
What is urgent and what is important?
Paying a $100 overdue bill may be urgent but it is not important while
keeping your marriage may not seem urgent at the time but it is the most
important.
Pick one activity which if you did it well that would change your life for the
better.
Are you doing this thing?
Act on it and now.
It is never too late to change.
Before you go to sleep every night, reflect on that “one” thing that if you
changed, it would give you and other people a better life.
Plan to do it tomorrow. Sleep well, knowing you can and will do it.
Guide 16
Understand Your Competitors
Story
This is the one that everyone has a view about but may not always measure
the results to see the impact.
Discounting “dos and don’ts”.
Discounting always sounds like a good marketing strategy. This company I
worked with hadn’t done their homework on costs. So they didn’t really know
whether they would make more money by discounting but thought the increased
volume of sales would help them “make more money”.
Also how should they take their competitors on with different products?
The last six months before they eventually went bankrupt, they wouldn’t
listen to the advice they needed. They didn’t establish accurate costing and
profitability models before they set out on this strategy. We tried hard to help
them but they thought they could do it without these numbers.
If you know the numbers, you can work out the trade offs of the volumes of
business at different margins that need to be sold to make a profit.
You can’t do it as much as you may think you can without the facts. You will
get it wrong from my experience.
Take your time with your answers, thinking strategically.
Lessons Learnt
How much do you need to sell to be profitable? $2,000,000 or $16,000,000.
Where are your costs and where are the profits?
Aim for the stars, at least you will hit the moon or in between the two.
Develop your strategy.
Decide on which tactics you are going to use.
Set up simple to do’s.
Time, Quality, Cost, Teamwork and Action Plans.
Set a deadline.
Don’t accept slippage. A drop dead date is a drop dead date.
If it is not achieved, then here is a planned 3 step approach.
One failure is bad.
Two is a private discussion.
Three fire them.
You will quickly be seen as serious.
Sounds hard but it gets results.
Set quality standards.
Set cost and budgets.
Use peer measurement for teamwork. Don’t set up for individual selfishness.
Guide 17
Break It Down – Understand
Story
I once worked for a company where they didn’t have any regular
management meetings except maybe on a monthly basis. The company was like
a truck ready to go over a cliff without looking at what was in front of them. They
were always looking in the rear vision mirror and spending time on reporting the
problems that had occurred.
They didn’t think time was important and they had no plan for what they
needed to do to achieve in order to be successful on a daily basis and therefore
would always miss their monthly targets.
Then they would spend all their time on writing reports on why they failed.
Too late! You can’t change last month’s results.
Look and measure.
Lessons Learnt
Put the company’s big goals on a whiteboard.
Make smaller goals on a daily “to do” list and ensure you complete them.
Work until you complete them.
Pick only 3-5 items. No more or you will fail.
Test the logic. If It Does Not Sound Right, it is probably Wrong.
Forecast and measure the actual results, daily or weekly and monthly with
compliance to achieve the forecast plan.
Guide 18
Treat the Problem
Story 1
I once worked in a hospital emergency ward where when someone came in
they had to act on it at once.
Once we had a patient come in with an axe in the back of head. The doctors
had to treat the problem there or he would have died. They couldn’t just put a
bandage on it.
Story 2
In a manufacturing company, there was as usual a production line. When we
analyzed what 30 % of the people were doing they need not be completed.
Why they were there was a problem that had occurred up to 3 years ago. They
were needed, but when engineering eventually fixed the problem no one had
thought to remove them. They had forgotten that while they needed to cover the
first issue with a short term solution, they no longer remembered how things
used to be.
Story 3
In a clerical department, they have built a process where for the key steps
being performed by one person, they had two people to check and recheck the
checker.
We identified the errors being made, designed and implemented a training plan
for the personnel to “Do It Right the First Time.”
Lessons Learnt
Take Action.
Just do it. Cows can come home while you talk.
NO paralysis through analysis.
Ask three times … why, why, why and then you will get to the problem,
otherwise you will only treat the symptoms.
Why did he get the axe in his head?
What is he doing in life?
What is the root cause?
Highlight three things you are going to do before the day is through and then
do them.
Even if you only get one of them done, you have moved forward.
Don’t get “Some Days are Diamonds, Some Days are Stone.”
Tomorrow is another day.
Chapter 5
Review the Results and Adjust to Achieve
Success
Guide19
Reassess Your Actions – Continually
Story
I once worked with a company where they would set an annual plan for the
business. Then it would only one year later at budget time come back and revisit
the plans. The result was they never made the plan.
Either they were not improving, haven’t moved or they were off schedule.
They thought they were safe but they eventually got in to real financial
problems. They got taken over by a competitor who saw their weaknesses and
had a plan of attack. They bought and used the old company to help their
business “Make More Money.”
Lessons Learnt
Determine the effectiveness of your actions.
Keep the big goals of the business in mind.
Schedule a health check or analysis of your business’s performance in your
diary and do it now. Email me if you want to at ross@worldview-consulting.com
to schedule it.
Guide 20
Adjust and Move Forward
Story
A company I worked with had a general manager who realized he couldn’t
do the job that he had responsibility for. He was open and humble enough to ask
the CEO for a lesser role. So a new Operations Manager was employed and we
as consultants were lucky enough to start on the same day as he did.
He didn’t know that type of business but he came in with an open mind that
he could change things.
He would never take no for an answer.
The company doubled their profits in 15 months. Each week the Operations
Manager would meet his team, adjust and improve the overall performance. He
had daily meetings for the first 3 months until he was convinced he had changed
the behaviour of his management team.
He used his previous client base to find new customers and that lead to help
him to reinvent and improve the business. (Bringing it back to life.)
Lessons Learnt
Foundation principles are necessary. Change as you need to but not at the
risk of your ethics.
Build your character so it is never in the question.
Referrals are the key.
Analyze your entire approach.
Guide 21
Three Ways to Increase Your Profits : KISS
Keep It Simple Stupid
Remember, Sales Expenses equals Profit.
Story 1
I worked with a housing company where they didn’t measure the profitability
by customer so they had to work on intuition. When they finally began to
measure, they realized that they could do 30 % less work, have 20 % less
complaints and make 30 % more profit.
Story 2
The average business is not profitable enough.
I once worked with a company that concentrated on cross selling, up selling
and customer loyalty programs which lead to the following results.
(1) More of Their Old Customers Returned: they got 30% extra customers
from old ones that had not come back in the past.
(2) More Sales Frequency: 50% increase in the return rate by cross sell.
(3) Customers Spend More: 30 % increase up sell, e.g. extra large french
fries for $ 2.00.
If you have a restaurant or a service company, it gives extra services at a
lower rate because the costs have already been covered. (This is not true or
sensible that you hope your customers will pay a higher rate for a backlog.)
This is a key system specification requirement in hotels and airlines on
setting booking rates. They need to be able to optionism the individual payment
rates as it comes closer to the actual customer requirement date for the service
against the occupancy or how many seats are filled.
Do all of the above and you will increase sales by 80 % without any new
customer.
Guide 22
The Numbers Do Not Lie
Story 1
I worked with a company where they were smart enough to know what they
needed to measure to be successful. They started to measure them. The only
problem was they didn’t tell the CEO the true numbers. So while he was relaxed,
he actually was delivering poor customer service.
A very experienced consultant friend of mine who has passed away (God
bless) Marty Hopp used to say, “You have to touch, smell, taste and feel the
numbers before you can believe them.” Get behind the numbers and check that
they are right.
We once had one client who, when asked, said he thought they employed
121 people. So we asked to see the payroll and guess what.
They had 179 people. The payroll doesn’t lie.
These numbers you can trust.
This applies to all key performance indicators such as Inventory, Debtors,
Sales, Margin and Customer Service.
Caution: Check other expense codes where they may hide payroll costs.
Story 2
I worked with an international airline that wanted to introduction
measurement of customer service levels to improve their service.
They thought the simplest way was to start to measure the time it took to get
the bags off a plane when the passengers received them, which we can all relate
to. So they decided to measure and report to the CEO the time it took for the first
bag to get off, loaded off the plane and to the passenger.
Sounds smart.
Wrong.
What then happened was the handling people opened the plane door and
got one bag and raced hurriedly to the baggage outlet. The time was 1 minute so
it looked so great.
The average time for the rest of the bags took 5- 10 minutes but the CEO
was happy because he didn’t know the truth.
He only knew the delivery time for the first bag which was not when the
majority of his customers were receiving their bags.
Lessons Learnt
The numbers don’t lie if you and your team are truthful.
The key numbers to measure success need to be known by all levels of the
business and how important they are to the success of your business.
Once they have been decided upon, report them with honesty and accurate
at appropriate timeframes.
They are vital.
Ensure you have a good control process and set up a mystery shopper
process where you can verify them. Test your real customer service levels. Get
an impartial party whether internal or external to do the measurement.
Guide 23
Measuring the Results of the Business, Marketing,
Promotions and Risk/Reward Schemes
Story 1
I once worked with a company that didn’t understand the value versus the
cost of advertising. They spent millions on advertising.
I asked them what extra business or money they generated out of it.
They couldn’t answer the question but said they “knew” it was worth it.
Measure it.
Story 2
One company that brought us in to help turn them around, when asked how
they performed operationally yesterday, they said they didn’t even know how
they performed the previous month until half way through the following month.
This is like trying to drive a car by looking in the rear-view mirror. Let me
assure you a crash will happen. The only question is when?
Story 3
We were once in a property company where the General Manager with the
best of intentions had introduced a reward scheme for someone who gave new
ideas. This sounds like a good idea but he also then thought he should put a
downside where some of the risk was placed on the person who initiated the
idea. Well guess what suddenly happened. The flow of new ideas dried up.
(Email me for more details.)
Diagram 38
Lessons Learnt
A lot of businesses don’t measure the results of their business, marketing
and/or promotional efforts in the appropriate timeframes.
If you don’t measure, how do you know if it is working?
If you do measure, that is great but this is only half the way to the total
solution. You need to know what judgement you are making and measuring
against. Is producing ten widgets yesterday (units of the product you produce or
sell) good or bad? Unless you have a plan to measure against, you can’t make a
judgement.
You have to have a standard and then as a company and a manager, decide
what you want to achieve daily and what is a pass and fail mark.
Look at the savings to cost ratio.
You should expect $3 back for every $1 you spend in all areas of your
business.
If you are doing a CAPEX (Capital Expenditure) project, you should ask what
they predict this number will be and when.
You should also ask them for the assumptions that they have made to back
this number up.
Get a peer review before the proposal comes to you. Then you should still
challenge the logic.
It is better to be safe than sorry.
Other Lessons
If you offer an additional upgrade service or product with a special discount
offer, 80% of people will take you up on it.
Pilots are the key. Just take baby steps until you know you are right and are
going to make profit.
Test in a small way you need to know, how the market thinks and what
makes it act.
Test all strategies through marketing; don’t expose yourself too much.
Test only one element at a time makes it easy to understand what works and
what doesn’t.
Track and measure the results. This may seem a pain but it gives you the
gain of knowledge and instils it as part of your company’s behaviour.
Ask how each new inquiry heard about you, e.g. from internet, word of
mouth, TV etc.
Calculate the sales for each customer.
Return on investment of three times or more is a real winner. 80 % margin is
gold.
Risk/Rewards Programs
Be careful of the consequences that may occur with a risk/reward program.
Make it fair and transparent. To the employees it may look like David and Goliath.
This doesn’t mean don’t do it. Just make sure that you don’t race in and then
have to suffer the on flow effects of your speedy action.
“Act in haste and repent at leisure.”
Diagram 39
Chapter 6
Pick the Right Markets, Customers
and then the Right Products to Match Them
Guide 24
Lifetime Customer Value
Once or forever?
Story 1
My doctors want me for life and they have done this well so far. Thank you Dr
Ivan Connell & Dr Ji (I hope I am not testing fate). They want me to be healthy
and they also know the income for them in terms of Lifetime Customer Value and
I thank them for working so hard to keep me healthy.
I won’t leave them. I trust them and they deliver excellent care and medical
advice. I am worth at least $20,000 to them and I am not looking to their
competitors. I also want to pay him that, otherwise that means some alternative
which I will leave it to you to figure out. But I don’t want it and neither do they.
Story 2
An insurance company I worked with paid their agents on commission.
Higher commission was paid for getting a new business. This meant for the
first year, the agent did well and paid well but after that the commission dropped
significantly. The agents who brought the most business in were rewarded with
praise and trips etc. What the company didn’t realize was that these were the
smart agents and after the first few years, they would then move that client to
another insurance company where they had the same deal. They “churned”
them. In this case the Lifetime Customer Value was either minimal or at a lost if a
claim came in.
Definitions
Lifetime Customer Value (LCV) is the total revenue you will get from a
customer over their lifetime buying from you from $40,000 to $80,000.
Calculate it and think about it.
What is the Marginal Net Worth (MNW) of each of your customers? This is
the profit you earn in this lifetime relationship e.g. $16,000 - $60,000.
Diagram 40
Lessons Learnt
You should be measuring both LCV and MNV if you want to sleep easily at
night and identify who your good and bad customers are.
Then you can calculate the margin achieved e.g. 40 % - 80 %.
Another calculation you should be doing is, how much you can spend to
make that profit out of a customer? $10,000?
You should look beyond the front end sale (the first transaction) and to the
possibilities of what further sales you can make.
In the circle of friends, you ask them for 3 names and get them to help you
follow up to “Make More Money.”
Look long term not short term at the customer. (You don’t get married for a
week.)
“Give to get” strategy. Use this $10000 to get more sales.
Develop two budgets on how to spent money.
Budget 1 - for the first time customers
Budget 2 - for the cost of repeat business
You are building an asset. Think of it like buying versus renting a house, long
term versus short term.
Guide 25
Double your Sales
(This linked to Guide 21 but is focused on sales)
You can do it the hard way but why not do it the easy way?
Story
I worked with another company where we planned a simple strategy of doing
the following. They need results fast and didn’t have a good cash flow position.
So we went into quick win tactics while planning the strategy for the future.
How do you increase your sales in a few easy ways?
There are only 3 ways to do it :
(1) Have more customers - get old ones back is the key.
(2) Buy more often, frequency cross sell
(3) Buy more each visit, up sell (want some fries with the burger)
These are the quantitative ones. When I talk about these things, it should
always be known that excellent customer service is a given.
Another way of describing these, I told them there are 3 ways to do this and
they are Volume, Quality, and Margin.
For example, here is a discount card to use next time. A bigger burger is only
20 % more in price but 40 % in size.
Doesn’t matter if it is a burger or clothes or food, it still applies.
If you do these three things, sales will increase by approximately 80%.
Lessons Learnt
Customer retention is the key.
Your most precious asset is your existing customer base.
It is a most overlooked and underutilized asset that a company has.
Have an open mind to ways of working with existing customers.
Let’s start digging for gold diamonds around the corner. Believe me.
Guide 26
Understand Your Customers
Dislikes More Than Their Likes
“I would rather hear one true fault told to me about myself compared to nine
contrived ego statements”, Carlos Martuka.
Story
I worked with a company that was in big financial trouble. I asked if they had
spoken to their customers about what they did and didn’t like about the service
they provided. (Keep doing what they like and fix the others they don’t like.)
“No”, they said.
I asked how could they improve their product and service offering and keep
ahead of their competitors.
They said they didn’t need to change. The customers liked what they
delivered.
So we put a survey together where we went and asked the customers
whether they had any dislikes with the supplier’s performance. All of them had at
least one thing. They would like to say price is an issue.
How could they create value through innovation? We came up with a
success by partnership program like the one mentioned earlier in the book.
We asked why they hadn’t said anything to the supplier.
The answer was “we weren’t asked.”
Now because my company was employed as a third party, it was easier for
them to tell us but that aside they still were not asked. It was so simple.
We prioritized the most common and serious issue, then worked together
with the customer and our client to redesign their processes to achieve a
solution that both of them agreed.
After analyzed we found out the following list of the biggest issues that the
customers disliked and made them not return.
Take at look at your business through your customers eyes.
See if any of these apply to you.
The top 8 customer complaints :
(1) Pressure – Are you selling too hard? Are you asking “Can I help you?”
before the customer is ready?
(2) Time – Do you open and close at the optimum times for both of you and
the customer? Do you cover lunch time or do you shut down? For a lot
of small enterprises, this is the only time the operator, who is usually the
owner, can have time to place an order. It is a trade off. 24/7 is not
always right. For example, do you want to buy a painting at 3.05 am?
Not a nappy, right?
Do you ensure that you always do what you say? If you say you open at
7 am, and then make sure you do.
(3) Environment/ Layout/ Temperature – How is the shopping environment?
This can mean the “feeling” as well as the layout and the ease to buy.
Is the product in the right place to buy easily and for the products that
are most frequently purchased?
(4) Talking too much – Don’t talk too much but ensure you get engaged in a
conversation with customers on things that matter to them.
Talk about their children, sports, and hobbies.
Build rapport. Get them to come back.
(5) Being unresponsive to different requests – Tell them clearly what you
are selling and give open advice on the features and benefits of each of
the different products/services you have to offer.
(6) Follow up – Do you ring your potentially major customers the next day
after their first purchase to see if they are happy with the product and
service they purchased? They will never forget the experience. Be
careful if you are not too familiar but it is professional. Let them know
you want their feedback.
(7) Appearing tired/ Not interested/ Poor Personal Dress Standards/ Poor
lathagetic telephone technique/ Complaining about your own problems
(8) Lack of clear instructions and knowledge on how to use the product. For
example, what the product can and can’t do? This saves a lot of time on
returns when the customer says it doesn’t do what they thought it would
do.
Why should I buy it and why from you?
All the above create a level of anxiety or unwillingness to return and spend
more.
Most customers will never tell you have given bad service.
Customers feel uncomfortable complaining.
Diagram 41
Help them to complain without them knowing it. Do this by asking their past
buying experiences they most remember, the good things and the bad things
about services and products they have bought from your competitors.
Bad things help you to improve. Good is not enough for tomorrow’s
customer’s expectations.
Ask them how your company compares. This makes it not look like a
complaint but a comparison.
A good question is ”where you like shopping or buying the most.”
Then why?
Start a monthly competition where the best suggestion to improve the
business gets a $500 (RMB 2500) prize.
Anyone else who enters, gets an upgrade or discount on the next purchase
give vouchers or cards, doesn’t matter.
Guide 27
The Exceptional Experience
The “somewhere over the rainbow” buying experience :
Story 1
My health insurance company is the best example I know of this. The last
thing you want when you are sick is to deal with red tape. My company thinks
first about the customer then adapts to assist the patient. Not always staying
directly with the company policy manual but not crossing the line.
I tell all my friends about them. This is the cheapest sale in town and I am
their salesman.
Story 2
I went into a restaurant in Beijing recently for the first time. They gave bigger
portions for the price of the smaller one. They gave free courses away.
These were probably the products that they were overstocked in, so they
probably would have to throw it away anyway. Their labour costs were fixed
therefore their cost virtually nothing. To me it left an impression in my eyes that
they were fantastic. This was an exceptional experience. I now tell any one that
asks for a recommendation. (If you want to know who they are, just email me.)
Diagram 42
Lessons Learnt
Don’t “process” customers, treat them as real people.
Treat your customers as you want to be treated as a customer.
Introduce yourself, be confident and tell them what you are selling or in the
service industry what you are going to do.
Ask and use the person’s name, “Make Them Special.”
It doesn’t cost anymore to give these simple things but it makes such a
difference.
How can you make your customer’s experience exceptional?
What do you have that have little cost to you in the short term but a great
long term relationship?
Guide 28
Create a One Minute Message and Repeat
Story
I went into a local hardware store where I normally shop. I only wanted to
buy some nails and came out with a $400 ($2,500 RMB) water blaster.
The salesman said, “Hi, Good to see you again”. He asked if I had a water
blaster and I said no. He then told me how a friend of his who loves golf freed up
3 hours a weekend when he bought one and so could play golf. The next thing I
know I am at home with the water blaster.
The easiest people to sell to are your exiting customers. They trust you.
Lessons Learnt
(1) What types of features would they like to see more in your business?
(2) Think of successes you’ve had with these or do some research.
(3) Relate an experience of how previous people with similar needs have
benefited from these products/services.
(4) Ask them to refer people who have similar wants and needs so you can
help them.
Make an elevator speech which easily tells people what products/services
your company offers. What is different than your competitors in words that a year
old could understand but don’t be condescending?
Structure this message before, during and after the sale.
Tailor it to suit the person and make sure it is only about 60 seconds in
duration.
For small companies, if you are just starting your business and don’t have
any success stories, ask other businesses for some of theirs.
Guide 29
An Easy Way to Increase Your Income By 60 %
Story
I worked for a company that was smart enough to help their customer to
determine their purchase requirements using their own records of previous
purchasing patterns. They improved customer service for both themselves and
the customer. Also they reduced the costs for companies by stopping emergency
and panic buying.
Everyone won.
Lessons Learnt
The easiest way to get more business, “Can we work together to help you
plan your future’s needs and requirements now?”
62 % don’t come back because they are never asked “We hope to see you
again soon” or “Have a great day” (not just good).
Do it consistently.
It is in the best interest of your customers to give them the products/services
that they need to get the maximum benefits possible to help them.
Diagram 43
This may seem at first hard to believe but it is true if you deliver value.
They rely on your experience and expertise.
Tell them exactly what they need to do to get the benefits and results they
need.
The best time for a further sale is right after the sale when they are feeling
great.
Ask what they may need then.
Give advice on what you think their needs may be.
If they don’t know their needs for your services and/or products, help them.
Don’t put the responsibility on them for doing your job.
Get someone to ring to follow up the next day for potential major new
customers and clients and leave a message for the appropriate level person to
call you back or alternatively say when you will ring back.
Make sure you do it. You are building a relationship based on trust.
Leave up to three follow-up messages for your major customers.
Make a commitment to take care of your customers needs by getting them to
return and purchase other products/services.
Guide 30
Introductory Letter/Email, Let Them Know
They Are Special and Show Them That You Car
Send a welcome letter or email after the first purchase to the key customers.
Researches have shown a 250 % greater satisfaction for people who receive a
follow-up letter after a purchase.
Let them know you exist for one reason which is of service to them. Be
sincere. If you want some examples of these, just email me.
Personalize the letter and add something that was said in the purchase that
they would be thinking about.
Over time, get to understand the key dates in their life such as birthday,
wedding day, anniversary etc. (Note, don’t try to do this for everyone but only
your key customers)
It is a hard Return on Investment to beat.
Guide 31
The 4 M’s of Marketing
This is a very short guide and it is meant to be but spend the same amount
of time on it as you have the others.
Quantity needs to be balanced with quality. So I don’t confess to think all
chapters are of equal importance to each of you. Take the ones you think suit
you and can get you to get some positive steps forward. Remember God built
the world in 6 days but the Chinese took 3 thousand years to build the Great Wall.
Some tasks are harder than others depending on a number of factors.
Diagram 44
What I am trying to say is if you have a plan for each of these, you will
succeed:
Marketing
(1) Systems – Processes to ensure consistent outcome
(2) Educate – Outline specific benefits of your products/ services
(3) Compel – What are the unique benefits that you have
(4) Products – Services are a very difficult and sometimes seem an
intangible concept depending on the industry but you need to explain
what it is that you are really selling
Guide 32
Do Not Let Your Customers Choose You
Story
I worked for a company that didn’t have a strategy to identify the segments of
the markets that would make them money. We profiled the company and the
buying patterns of their customers and just targeted the top 60 % while
encouraging the next 20 % to buy more. We let the bottom 20 % go. Within 3
months the profit had increased by 35 %.
Once we had cleared the problem customers of the past, we put in place a
more vigorous filtering process to see who we wanted to work with and who we
didn’t want to work with.
Lessons Learnt
To be successful, you need to choose your customers instead of letting them
choose you.
Your message is conveyed with every interaction with a prospect or
customer.
Don’t Let Your Customers Choose.
You can’t appeal to everyone. Some people won’t want your services and/or
products at your profitable price.
You want people who will love your products/services, appreciate the
benefits and can afford them.
Choose the people you want to buy from your business.
Who is your target market?
Keep control of your product lines, the number of them and the profitability.
Two basic criteria for choosing your ideal customers :
(1) Someone who likes the products/services and understands the benefits
but needs financial help to buy.
(2) Someone who can afford but won’t pay the right price. Educate them
first, and then eventually if it doesn’t work, get rid of them.
Diagram 45
More Details
(1) Strategies, for someone who likes the products/services
- Offer shorter timeframes
- Have a sliding scale
- Take advantage of third party suppliers to provide the services that
are not your key competencies, e.g. outsource, banks, credit control
companies, credit cards.
(2) Someone who has the money but can’t see why they should buy
- Educate them in the benefits
- Do demonstrations
- Build credibility for the products/services
Guide 33
Focus Your Attention
Story
I once worked with a company that had 3000 products but when reviewed
the profitability, only 800 were making money. We stopped selling 2000. You
need to be careful. You don’t stop selling the ones that are linked to the
successful ones. For example, when you sell pavers you have to buy the corner
ones as well, while the volume is low but essential.
Make your niche and stick to your knitting.
It is like saying Starbucks should sell screwdrivers. Keep the product line
simple, that is keep the business simple. Test the market as you expand and
measure the profitability of new products.
Rationalize your products. Set a fixed number of products. If your marketing
people want to add one, ask them which one they want to drop.
It makes them think and makes for “Making More Money”.
Lessons Learnt
Make more money for less work.
Go after the market segments that have a lot of money and people want to
buy.
Be successful so you can give something back to the ones that matter.
Pick only up to three groups or you will lose focus.
Segmenting the Market :
(1) Demographics – age, sex, family size, family life cycle, income,
occupation, education, religion, race
(2) Geographic – may be a neighbourhood practice or customers
(3) Affinity – groups of people who share a common passion such as sports,
hobbies, crafts, foods, business
(4) Condition – specific medical condition e.g. ????
(5) New residents – people making a new start
Your ideal customer :
(1) Easy to locate
(2) Someone who can afford your services/products
(3) Has an affinity for your products/services
(4) Have enough numbers to support your sales goals
Also potential for
(5) Partnership/distributions to the group
(6) Connecting personally with members of that group
You need to ensure there are enough people in the segment to make money.
Are there organizations that already reach your selected segments, e.g. retail,
professionals, service businesses, support groups?
Organizations that will give you access and promote you to their customers
at no cost.
The most important factor is to use their trust in you to help both of you to
“Make More Money”.
Get direct contact with your future customer to start building the trust
process.
You need to have three legs for a chair to support you and to rely on.
Get a pillar of products/services/ customers and stay with them.
Section 3 – Other Useful hints from people I have spoken with.
Some tips from other authors on how to “Make More Money”. (Mainly
targeted for SME’s but are useful to reflect on.)
Please contact me if you would like to talk to the authors directly.
14 Golden Rules of Successful Advertising
You can call these the “14 Faithful Rules for creating more sales from your
advertising.”
Some of these are based on marketing surveys on the results of over 60,000
advertisements. And most of these rules were set before you and I were even
born.
And yet they still hold true today. These principles have sold many millions of
dollars worth of products and will sell millions more in the future.
How can I be so sure of that? Well look at it this way. Throughout the age,
since humans walked on this earth it has always been that a woman wanted to
look attractive to the man and vice versa.
Over times the definition of what beauty is changed. In the 1900’s a beautiful
body would seem almost ‘fat’ by today’s standards. But the desire to be beautiful
is the same. The same thing goes for making money, providing for one’s family,
want to be recognized and appreciated ...and so it goes. Human nature doesn’t
change. That is why the rules below will apply today as they did 10, 30, or even
80 years ago.
Rule No. 1
It is 5 times easier to sell something else to your existing customers than to
get a new customer.
The easiest way to re-sell your existing customers is by using the telephone
or by sending them a letter. I have been accused of focusing too much on selling
by direct mail. But it is by far the most efficient way for you to get more business.
Your past clients are on a “hot buyers” list. All you have to do is ask them to buy
something else.
And it doesn’t have to be your product either. You can offer them someone
else's products.
Thus an accountant can offer financial services. A restaurant can send
invitations to a clothing sale and so on.
Rule No. 2
If you have an established business, 70% of your advertising dollars should
be spent on re-selling your existing customers.
Why? See Rule No.1. And yet I see most businesses spend thousands of
dollars in the media trying to get new business, forget all about those people
after they buy. If you want to send out some thank you letters, call your
customers instead and ask them to buy again. You could almost see a magic
increase, on your bottom line. Done correctly, this always works better then
chasing new customers.
Even if you are going to run a full page advertising in the newspapers
promoting a sale or whatever, reproduce the ad and send it to your existing
clients. Attach a note saying “I thought you may want to see this, come in the day
before to get your best pick of the bargains. Regards,”
Rule No. 3
Where possible sell only to “players”. (People who want what you sell and
have the money to afford it.)
It is far easier to make money by selling half as much but at double the price!
I always advise most of my clients to increase their prices and improve their
marketing and customer service rather than lower their prices and have no profit
margin left for good marketing and customer service. Usually this results in less
work and more profit for the business. The “players” don’t really ask “how much”
as they do ask “Will it work?” and “Can I trust you?” or “Do I like dealing with this
person and the business?”
Rule No. 4
If you need to get new customers, by far the best (and the cheapest) way is
to offer a free sample of your products/services.
What I am saying is, take the money you would have spent on fancy
advertising and give it to your best prospective customers (the players) in the
form of a sample or trial of your products/services. Therefore a restaurant can
offer a Free Main Course or an Open Voucher of $5, $10 or $20. A clothing shop
can offer a free shirt. A new car retailer can offer a free dinner with any test drive.
Another way to get new customers is to create an Information Product such as a
“FREE Report” which you can sell or give away. Create something that positions
you as the expert and educates the customer on why they should buy from you.
(Warning : Aim your free sampling only at the players - see Rule No.3) You can
easily test this rule if you monitor the results from your different marketing
strategies.
Rule No. 5
When promoting your products find the “right appeal”.
This is usually the biggest reason why your customers buy your products
and also the benefit they get by using your product. The wrong kind of
advertising appeal can actually reduce sales. It has been tested that one
advertisement can out-sell another by as much as 19.5 times.
Even though they both look the same, cost the same and sell the same
product, the difference is in the “appeal” used to sell the product in the ad
(usually contained in the headline). The best way to find the right appeal is to ask
your best salespeople what arguments they use to sell your products. Or, ask
your best customers why they buy from you.
Rule No. 6
The more information you give in your ads, the more you will sell.
As a general rule, two-minute TV commercial will outsell a thirty-second
commercial. And a thirty-minute infomercial outsells both again. Remember your
ads are targeted at the players.
These are the people who want what you are selling and have the money to
pay for it. They will read your ads (or watch them) if what you say is interesting
and relevant to them.
Some of the most famous long copy ads include 6,450 words for Merrill
Lynch Stockbrokers. One insertion brought 10,000 responses from interested
investors.
There were 5 pages of text for selling Schlitz beer. Within a few months,
Schlitz went from fifth in sales to first.
600-word ad for Puerto Rico by David Ogilvy got 14,000 readers to send in a
coupon. Dozens built factories in Puerto Rico as the result of this.
An 800-word ad for Mercedes Benz headlined:
“You give up things when you buy the Mercedes Benz 230S.
Things like rattles, rust and shabby workmanship”
It increased sales from 10,000 cars a year to 40,000 a year in the U.S.A.
A copy-rich Yellow Pages ad got a $40,000 increase for the owner of a video
repair shop the month Yellow Pages came out.
What more can I say? Except that Demtel built a $50 million dollar a year
business virtually overnight with their 2 minute ads. And I could give you dozens
more examples.
This is the absolute truth (for anyone who cares to test and monitor their ads)
and something that 99% of the ad agencies and people who sell advertising
have no clue about.
If you want to make money, don’t listen to them. Test it out for yourself
instead.
Rule No. 7
Research clearly shows that ads that look like editorial articles get 500%
more readership than ads that obviously look like ads.
Unless you haven’t heard a word I have said previously, no more needs to
be said here, does it? O.K. I will explain a little.
People don’t buy magazines or newspapers to read the ads, do they? Of
course not. You, I and everybody else, buy the papers, the magazines or watch
the TV for the stories. By making your ads informative and looking like the
stories in the publication, you will get more sales. When writing your ad, pretend
you are the editor of the magazine writing about your company or product. (See
Rule No.6)
Rule No. 8
Never run any advertisement without monitoring the response.
In other words, if it doesn’t sell your products get rid of it FAST! 99% of ad
agencies, newspaper and radio representatives hate the idea of monitoring.
Their advice is “Repetition is the key to success!”
The only trouble is, they are referring to...
Their success - Not yours.
Since they get paid by the quantity of advertising you place, it is not always
in their best interest to teach you how to halve the amount of advertising you do
and double the effectiveness. And that is exactly what is possible. Once you find
an ad, sales pitch or marketing strategy that work, keep doing it. Remember, the
market place is constantly changing. You may get tired of seeing the same old
ads but your new and existing customers won’t. Remember at least 100,000 new
people are born each year in Australia and 100,000 (or so) die. If it is working,
don’t change it! If your ad sold baby clothes to new mothers this year, it will
probably work just as well with new mothers next year!
Rule No. 9
Monitor everything you do to promote your business.
Start yourself a promotion analysis folder. Inside it has details of each
promotion or ad you run and the results it brought you. You will at least double
your advertising results by doing this! Never use reverse type in your ads (Never
use white type on a black background). Research clearly shows that this is
difficult to read and will reduce response by at least 50%. However, if you look in
many magazines, lots of articles and ads are designed this way. What a waste!
Diagram 46
Rule No. 10
Don’t try to be creative or original.
Pretty ads don’t sell products. The most appealing (to look at) and artistic
ads seldom make people buy the products they are supposed to be selling. The
ads that win awards for the advertising agencies that create them rarely win
sales awards for the clients! During a survey of ads that won a “Clio” award, the
advertising industries highest recognition, it was found the agencies that won 4
of the Clio lost the clients business.
Another client refused to even run his ad and of 80 TV classics picked by
Clio, 36 of the business owners involved had either sacked the agency or had
gone broke. Not a real good record, is it?
As the owner of one of the biggest direct response ad agencies once said to
a client, “Do you want creativity and originality? Or do you want to see the
darned sales graph going up? It’s because you sure as hell you aren’t going to
get them both!”
I guess the point I am making is, don’t be creative for the sake of being
creative.
Finding a new twist for a proven sales approach is fine, but only as long as it
works better than the previous one.
Rule No. 11
Use Headlines in all your ads.
On average, 5 times as many people read the headline as read the rest of
the ad. If reader’s attention is caught by the headline, they read on. Unless your
headline sells your products/services, you’ve wasted 90% of your money. The
best headlines are those that promise the reader a benefit such as lose weight,
meet new friends, less tooth decay, easy to maintain garden, make more money,
get relief from arthritis and so on.
Rule No. 12
Client testimonials increase credibility and sales.
Like a referral, a testimonial is a third party endorsement and therefore is
much more believable. Hardly anyone (except mail order companies) uses
testimonials. Use them. They work.
Rule No. 13
Nobody has been able to show a relationship between advertising recall and
actual sales.
The standard form of measuring the effectiveness of an ad by mainstream
advertising agencies and media representatives is by recall. Or how many
people actually remember the ad after it runs for a set period. This is really stupid.
What counts, from my point of view, is not how many people remember your ads
but how many actually went and bought your product. If all you want is recall,
just run ads featuring chimpanzees dressed in a swimming costume.
Rule No. 14
Test every ad, sales letter or marketing campaign before betting your house
(or your business future) on it.
Don’t be seduced by the media representatives or the list brokers with
promises of huge readers, ships and hot buyers lists. Test everything on a small
scale before you commit large amounts of money to it. What the large and
successful companies always do is test a campaign in one region first. If it works
they expand it, if not they change it until it does work. This way, even failure can
make you rich.
Because when the eighth test you run was a winner and you kept on
repeating it, it more than made up for all the learning you did during the first
seven that didn’t work.