Questions about your business that you should know the answers to

Watching the State of Origin rugby league match last night, the advertising kept leaping out from the screen. Why do organisations spend so much money on advertising? Why does the ANZ bank spend a fortune on the naming rights to the stadium? Why do companies buy expensive television advertisements?

Does signage at sporting arenas cause you to make purchases?
Is "ANZ Stadium" going to influence us to bank with that financial institution?
Will a television commercial be the catalyst for you choosing to spend $50,000 for a motor vehicle tomorrow?

How might you quickly and effectively increase your business results?
By having real people, develop real relationships, in a valuable and meaningful way.

Here are some questions to stimulate your thinking about your business:

1. How many active clients do you have?
2. Imagine you increased that by just 10%; what would that mean to your business results?
3. How do you generate inquiries for your business?
4. How well are those methods working for you?
5. Where does most of your business come from?
6. Do you have systems in place for actually measuring your business performance at a human (not financial) level? Yes your P&L is important but it is a lagging indicator. How about measuring the conversion of leads into sales? How about measuring referrals from sales? How about measuring proposals to sales?
7. What are you doing to ensure clients come back and invest with you again?
8. How many times in a year would a typical client engage your services?
9. What would be the result for your organisation if this number was increased by just 10%?
10. What is the average life of a client?
11. What do you genuinely do to stay in touch with your clients?
12. What is your client "default" rate? That is, what percentage of your active clients would cease to do business with you each year?
13. How much business are you losing each year as a result of these clients leaving you?
14. Typically, how much does your average client invest with you each time they engage your services?
15. What would be the result if you could improve this by just 10%?

You have a choice. You can waste your money on advertising, naming rights and signage. Or you can invest in having your people interacting with your clients in a real and purposeful way. Implementing strategies to engage, excite, and earn the right to do business with our clients may not be as quick or as easy as paying a PR firm to run an advertising campaign. But if we have our people striving to improve the answers to these 15 questions at least, it has to be more effective!

Ric Willmot - Delivering Breakthrough Executive Performance

Comments

[Dr. Marc Clark]

1.

Ric,

"Hats Off" for 15 great points. Thinking today isn't any more complicated than it was 10 years ago or how it will be 10 years from not. The key will be for people to THINK in the first place.

As you know COMMON SENSE IS NOT SO COMMON.

As for advertising on a stadium or during a national sports event: Sometimes it boils down the number of eyes that will be watching. Cost per view. What will those eyes see, capture and retain is the question. Will there be a call to action?

Your points are well taken, thanks for sharing with the group.

Wishing you well.

Dr. Marc Clark

[Ric Willmot]

2.

Thank you, Marc.
I appreciate your comments.
And, I am delighted that you saw this article for the simplicity that I intended.
Business doesn't have to be complicated.
But it does need people to be building relationships.
Rgds,
Ric

[Jalini Alias]

3.

Yes, it is true that common sense is not so common. However, it seems that adversity has drummed sense into a lot more companies than training ever could. Since we're going through economic challenges here in Malaysia, I've seen my clients scrutinize their spending and evaluating its benefits more carefully. Its good for those of us who provide value, and for those providers who don't, they're having a difficult time making ends meet.

I do think that smart advertising works. Putting your company name into the public's subconscious has value in lowering resistance, and helps you build the stature of your company. I think advertising works especially well for companies with products that don't seem to have any tangible differentiation. Products like milk for example -- they're all white and they taste the same. The only way to differentiate is to tell the customer what is different, then its up to them whether they believe you or not. I guess to a certain extent banks could be in the same category. So they need to rely on the customer's familiarity with the brand name, their internal perception, to attract the customer.