One Coach

In my previous two posts we addressed the questions: How do I generate more profits per sale? and  How do I get more sales per customer?

The third question that every business owner should ask themselves every day is: How do I get more customers?

John and I have spent years learning the answer to this question. In fact we have taken this it to a whole different level by adding one critical word that, when you add it to this question, can skyrocket your business growth and help you achieve a whole new level of success.

Ask yourself: How do I get more of my ideal clients?

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In my previous post we discussed how to get more profits per sale.

Today we’re going to look at the second of the three crucial questions that every business owner has to ask themselves every day, and that is this: How do I get more sales per customer?

After all, you absorb substantial cost and expend a lot of effort to obtain your customers, so why not try to sell them more?

First, there are several things to think about. You need to consider:

• The frequency of interactions you have with your customer
• Their lifetime cycle (how much they will buy from you over the five years or so of your relationship)
• Their value per transaction.

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One of the most basic concepts of economics is want vs. need.

They may sound similar, but they’re as different as day and night. As a small-business owner, it’s important to distinguish between the two in order to attract more clients and grow your business. By learning the specific wants and needs of your clients, you can learn how to better market your product or service in a way that speaks to your ideal client and leads them to buy from you.

A want is something you would like to have. It is not absolutely necessary, but it would be a good thing to have. A good example is music. Now, some people might argue that music is a need but you don’t need music to survive.

A need is something you have to have, something you can’t do without. A good example is food. If you don’t eat, you won’t survive for long. You might not need a whole lot of food, but you do need to eat.

It may sound completely counterintuitive, but the fact is, wants are much more powerful than needs. Even though their needs must be fulfilled for survival, most people make their purchasing decisions based on their wants, rather than their needs.

For example, people need to lose weight for health reasons. A weight-loss clinic might assume that clients would respond to a weight-loss program that is positioned to help them feel better and improve their health. But oddly enough, what most people want from a weight-loss program is not health, but to look better, attract more romance into their lives, to receive compliments from people and gain confidence. Those are all emotional wants versus objective needs.

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When it comes to finding your ideal client, there is a basic principle that you must remember:

Your prospects buy what you sell because they have specific needs or wants.

Your job as a business owner is to know, understand and deliver the solutions for those needs and wants, which will differ depending on each specific business. Therefore, it’s critical that you know exactly what your prospect’s needs and wants are. This is the essence of marketing: to create a match between your buyer and your product or service.

There are two primary categories of information that will help you with this determination.

The first category is demographics. These are the characteristics that identify the ability, need and interest of a client to purchase your product or service. Demographics define those clients who need what you sell.

The second category is psychographics. These are the factors that identify the motivation or reasons why someone wants to buy your product or service. Psychographics define those clients who want what you sell.

As you identify your prospects’ wants and needs, based upon their demographic and psychographic characteristics, then compare this data with your own wants and needs, you will gain greater insight into your ideal client. And once you accurately target your ideal clients, you’ll spend less time and money to acquire them.

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If you are a regular reader of this blog, you will see us repeat over and over that there are only three ways to grow your business: 

• Attract more clients.  
• Create more profits from existing sales 
• Generate more sales from existing clients.

So simple, you hardly have to give it any thought, right? That would be a mistake.

Two of these three basic components of growth have a common thread, and it’s key to growing a business; so I’d like to take some time in my next couple of posts to raise the discussion of lifetime value (LTV).

One often stumbles upon the concept of LTV, especially at Web sites about marketing, but I think there’s not enough emphasis on what LTV really is, or how to enhance the average LTV across your customer base.

Simply put, LTV is the net contribution to the bottom line that each customer adds to your business.  There is often a debate over what the true definition of “lifetime” really is, and while important for consideration in fancy predictive models, we can simplify the definition of “lifetime” to mean one of two things:

• the average length of time your customers remain actively with you; 
• or a fixed period of time such as a year, or five years. 

Regardless of how you define ‘lifetime,’ you’ll need to create a definition that makes sense for your business.

LTV is calculated as the total gross profit that you accumulate from a customer over their lifetime (based on the definition of lifetime you pick as noted above), less the original customer-acquisition cost and the subsequent marketing expenses over their lifetime.  I won’t go into the details of this calculation here, but you can refer to these in the OneCoach Attract More Clients program.

(We’ll also be examining this topic this week in our OneCoach Momentum Call. Register for the call here to learn more about how to attract more clients.)

What I want to address here is a couple of ideas as to how LTV can be enhanced.  In a future posting, I will discuss the impact of enhancing LTV on your overall customer-acquisition efforts.

LTV is central to the second of the three principals of business growth noted above.  Yet we often don’t concentrate on how to get more sales from existing customers.

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Let’s begin with the end in mind. As a small-business owner, you want more clients, which translates to more revenue.

However, the only way to attract more clients is through effective and compelling marketing. Unfortunately, marketing is expensive these days. So when you do it, you want to make sure you’re getting the right message out to the prospects who are most likely to buy what you sell. And if you get the right message to the “right” prospects, they’ll not only buy from you, they’ll keep coming back and buying from you forever. They’ll tell their family and friends to buy from you as well. And they’ll spend more money with you than your typical client.

So your number-one priority is to find out exactly who your ideal client is.

A massive volume of clients is not nearly as important as serving the right clients. When you match your business with the right clients, you’ll increase customer loyalty, decrease complaints, and have fewer returned items from dissatisfied clients.

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Everything in business gets easier when you attract more clients.

Your sales, referrals and revenues all go up – which is why you’re in business in the first place. And once you build a solid base of clients, you can grow your business as big as you want.

So if someone could show you a proven path to attracting more clients, you’d want to hear what they have to say.

Well, here’s your chance. This Saturday, OneCoach Founders John Assaraf and Murray Smith, and Managing Partner Scott deMoulin will address this topic for about 45 minutes.

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Parts of the economy have slowed down, there’s no doubt about it. But now is not the time for you to slow down.

In fact, the opposite is true. You can gain market share while your competitors are pulling back, provided you execute the right strategies and tactics. 

Be on our free teleconference this Thursday at 5 p.m. Pacific to learn why now is the perfect time to:

• Attract more of your ideal clients, who will:
  • Buy more from you, boosting your profits
  • Refer even more clients to you, growing your business exponentially
  • Stay customers for life, dramatically reducing your marketing costs
• Say goodbye to deadbeat clients (and the stress they bring)
• Craft a foolproof sales process so you close more prospects
• Build a business that works for you, instead of you working for the business.

If you’re serious about growing your business, please join us for this teleconference. It will include access to the OneCoach Business-Growth Scorecard, so that you can rate your business and see if you are doing the right things to prosper in the coming months.

Space is limited, so if you are committed to seizing the opportunity presented by today’s economic conditions, register for the call now.