Mark Williams Action Coach

Client retention is one of THE most important parts of your business, especially in a time when anxiety is high and spending power may be slightly decreased due to uncertainty in the marketplace.

Focusing on your customers, building the trust, loyalty and their confidence in you is hugely important to your bottom line. After all, it could be your most loyal customers who are seeing you through these slightly rougher seas.

Right now customers are acutely aware of how businesses are handling the current crisis, with those showing care, empathy and compassion emerging as leaders in their industry. Never has there been a better time to focus on your brand values, ethics (for both your customers and your staff) and your purpose.

Turning customers into loyal and raving fans is a process which we call ‘Ladder of Loyalty’ and it goes like this:

1. Initially you have Suspects. Suspects are clients/customers who you feel could potentially be interested in your products/services. To get them hooked think of ways to grab their attention. That could be great social media content, a blog, collaborating with another business, an event, an invitation to an event (the invitation itself could be just what they need, even if they can’t attend).

2. Suspects then turn to Prospects. Prospects are essentially Suspects who have shown interest in what you sell. They have taken the first step of engagement and seem warm to the idea of what they could buy from you. According to the book Never Lose A Customer Again by Joey Coleman a Prospect is in the ‘Assess’ phase at this point. “The customer is hopeful that you’ll be able to help, but it’s cautious optimism at best. If you don’t position yourself as fulfilling your needs while wrapping them in a great customer experience, they won’t choose to work with you. If you can convince them that you are the best choice, they will move forward with the purchase. This dance between customer and the organisation is what most people would refer to as “sales and marketing.” The potential customer is assessing their options.” – Joey Coleman.

3. Shoppers are not like a Customer. Shoppers are those who have invested once in your product or service. They have seen the value of what you do and handed over their cash. Here is when you can start the process of keeping your shoppers loyal to turn them into a client/customer. Let them know how much their custom means to you – if you are a relatively small business you could perhaps tell them how their custom affects you/your staff/your family. Bring your shoppers into the fold and make them feel valued and appreciated. This phase is usually where a customer can begin to doubt their decision to work with you – commonly known as ‘buyers remorse’. This is where your communication skills play a huge part and can re-affirm the initial feelings of euphoria and excitement which your customer felt at the start of their buying journey with you.

4. Next up is moving your Shoppers into Customers. Customers are those who have made multiple transactions with you. They have purchased your goods or services 2 or 3 times and they’re beginning to feel some form of loyalty to you. Often this will be because of a mixture of a few key elements such as pricing, communication, brand values and ethics, customer experience and locality. These Customers need nurturing. Could you offer them exclusive deals? Boden do this in the form of a £10 discount offer to those who regularly buy from them online. If you offer a service are there any critical non-essentials you can send them as a thank you for their custom – everyone loves an unexpected card and box of chocolates. If your business is a one time purchase (like weddings) then perhaps there are special offers or bundled packages you can offer for future milestones like birthdays/babies/special occasions. I’m sure there are many ways you can reward your local customers to turn them into…. (go to point 5.)

5. A member. Your Customers reach Member level once they are fully engaged with your business. Now they are more than a Customer. They are a friend of your business who actively believes in what you do/sell and has some deeper connection with you. Members feel a part of what you’re doing. At this stage you want to build this connection. Can you take them out for ‘member meals’, invite them to join you at events, give them a relationship manager so they can always deal with the same individual, who in turn will get to know and understand their needs to further build the relationship. Ask them when their birthday is and make sure you send them a postcard or little gift to make them feel special.

6. Nxt up is an Advocate. Once you start moving beyond the Member level you should be able to rely on your Advocates to help YOU market YOUR business. See what’s happened here – your clients/customers/members have turned into a marketing resource for your business as a result of all the time your have spent building your relationship with them. An Advocate is someone who will respond very positively when asked about their experience with your business. They will say things like ‘I would highly recommend them’, ‘You must work with them/buy their products’. ‘I wouldn’t know what I’d do without xxx, they have really helped me’. Word of mouth is THE most powerful form of marketing and it’s your Advocates that will do this for you. Advocates appreciate your level of customer service and they feel a strong connection to your business/your staff/you. The key to building Advocates is to stay connected with them. Keep in touch with them to see how they are doing and send regular exclusive offers/invitations. Maintain this level of service to keep them feeling loyal.

7. Finally we move to Raving Fans. Raving Fans are simply the best type of customer for any business. They have bought into what you do with such emotion and understanding that they want to spread the word about what they have found. They feel proud to buy from you/use your services and you have made their life so much better that they want to shout about you. If you have Raving Fans then you know how to keep your customers loyal! Just keep doing what you’re doing and MAINTAIN the level of service you offer them!

One final note – if you are serious about client retention and working out how you can best navigate your way to gaining more and more advocates then we’d highly recommend you to read ‘Never Lose A Customer’ by Joey Coleman. Read his first 3 chapters here – we’re pretty sure you’ll get hooked pretty quickly!

To find out more about how I may be able to help your Norfolk business thrive then please don’t hesitate to get in touch on 01603 559590 or email markwilliams@actioncoach.com – you can also get in touch through my contact form here. If you’d like to know a little more about my experience, expertise and accolades then click here. 

9 lessons business leaders can learn from sports coaches

Leon Davies, Sustainability Consultant

There is arguably no more pure form of leadership than coaching a sports team, and business leaders can take many lessons from the world of sports team management.

I had a manager at work a few years ago who had rowed for Australia. He had a phrase he often used that has stuck with me: “Don’t say anything unless it makes the boat go faster.” In its literal application, it made sure team members only opened their mouth in competition if it helped correct a fault or offer encouragement. In the five and a half minutes it takes an eight-man team to complete a race, there is no time for negativity or personal agendas. Every second literally counts.

Of course, the use of sports phrases in business is nothing new. Whether you have a ‘game plan’, are ‘pitching’ to a client, or have just ‘dropped the ball’, the lingo crops up every day.

And more useful than these simple idioms has been the motivational wisdom shared by the great sports coaches over the years. Scan YouTube for motivational speeches and it is a mixture of sports stars and business leaders sharing their advice. 

“The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary,” – Vince Lombardi 

Perhaps you’ll just find them as memes on your social media feeds, but maybe you have the odd one printed or framed as an inspirational trigger. Lombardi was the first truly great sports coach to be thought of in this way. The hugely successful Green Bay Packers coach of 1960s American Football revolutionised what it was to coach a sports team. He was capable of gems such as: “Individual commitment to a group effort – that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilisation work.”

And…

“Leaders aren’t born, they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work. And that’s the price we’ll have to pay to achieve that goal, or any goal.”

Teamwork and self-discipline were the pillars of his philosophy. He was very much about the greater good of a team; it was almost a form of sports socialism. Without that, he felt that you just have a group of people doing their own thing.

The challenge in business, as in sport, is to get them working together smoothly. And that often needs a whole range of skills.

Great sports teams are often led by an inspirational character with powerful motivational skills – most often someone who has played the sport themselves and walked in their shoes. They can understand the challenges the team faces, because they faced them in the past.

There is invariably plenty of communication happening on the sports field – much of it robust and direct. Shouting, gestures, instructing each other. And an acceptance that it is all in the name of the team’s greater good. There is an implicit trust that it’s not just about the individual’s need to be heard.

This trust comes from training and preparation. And unlike the business world in some respects, the majority of what a sports team does is preparation. Almost 90% of time is spent getting ready to do the job of competing. While this isn’t possible for the business world, you do sometimes get a sense that people at work are always busy. Flat out ‘doing stuff’ to justify their existence. Perhaps not enough time is spent thinking and planning. 

“Leaders aren’t born, they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work. And that’s the price we’ll have to pay to achieve that goal, or any goal,” – Lombardi 

And of that thinking time, the vast majority will be spent analysing what went wrong, rather than focusing on success and what you’re good at. Sport is always about looking at the positives and becoming even better.

Of all the modern sports, Premier League soccer in England is perhaps where sports coaches are most tested. 

The parallels with commerce are strong – the Premier League is big business. A manager needs to recruit a diverse bunch of individuals with the budget at their disposal, get a strategy in place, manage and motivate large egos and achieve results almost immediately. Change management at an acute level.

The average tenure of a football manager in the EPL is just over a year. And the resilience they have to display in the face of incredible scrutiny can be soul destroying. Nearly three years, Bob Bradley took over at Swansea City, having previously managed the American national soccer team. He lasted 11 games in around 85 days and was sacked. 

Imagine the CEO of Telstra or Optus sacked after less than three months, while simultaneously being booed by a stadium full of customers and their results picked apart right the way across the media as a form of entertainment.

Accept what you cannot control, and focus on what you can affect is one of the lessons business leaders can learn from sports coaches.

To survive 27 years as a Premier League manager then, takes a special individual. Step forward Sir Alex Ferguson.

In over 38 years in management, the working-class Scotsman won an astonishing 49 trophies. He helped grow Manchester United into one of the biggest brands in the world. And interestingly often credits the workers at the shipyards in Glasgow where he grew up, as an inspiration for the teamwork he strived for. 

Obviously his management credentials are respected in the sporting world, but they have also been recognised elsewhere. Professor Anita Elberse of Harvard Business School called him “one of the world’s all-time great leaders”.

Ferguson has had a book published called Leading, co-written with his friend and long-time collaborator Sir Michael Moritz, a successful venture capitalist. It is about the lessons he learned in football that can be applied to business and everyday life.

Ferguson was the manager who showed David Beckham the door when he felt Becks had become bigger than the team. His book focuses on the qualities he identifies for team success: hiring and firing the right personnel, mastering boardroom politics, coming back from failure and adversity, discipline, control. But also perhaps unexpected skills such as data analysis and delegation. 

And famous for trusting young players such as the Class of ‘92, Ferguson believes youth has a strong part to play in business. “If I were running a company, I would always want to listen to the thoughts of its most talented youngsters, because they are the people most in touch with the realities of today and the prospects for tomorrow.” 

In researching this piece, a number of threads came to the fore from various sports and coaches; here are nine recurring themes about what business leaders can learn from sports coaches:

1. Teamwork, communication and self-discipline are the cornerstones of team success
2. Perfection never happens – so don’t let its pursuit slow you down
3. Failure usually comes before success – you win or you learn
4. Be obsessed with improving
5. Accept what you cannot control, and focus on what you can affect
6. Simplify your game plan into manageable components for the individuals
7. Visualise success and understand what success looks like
8. Encourage diverse personalities – everyone has a different skill and role to play
9. And perhaps most importantly of all, especially for micro managers, remember that: Coaches can’t get out on the pitch and play. Set the game plan, communicate, motivate and then let your team go to work

The final word goes to John Calipari, an incredible university basketball coach in the US:

“Leadership is about serving everyone under you, asking yourself, ‘How do I give you the tools you need to succeed and proceed?’”

It’s a great lesson to take into business. But there are plenty of others…

Source: www.theceomagazine.com

Kathy Ennis, LittlePiggy

If you’re a Solopreneur, then the chances are you enjoy all the thrills and spills that come from going it alone in business. (The clue’s in the name… ‘solo’-preneur!) But there comes a time when you want more … time, money, clients, recognition. What do you do then? How do you scale a Solopreneur business – when your business is just you?!

Solopreneur

/ˌsəʊləʊprəˈnəː/

noun

a person who sets up and runs a business on their own

As a Business Mentor who is a Solopreneur, and someone who’s been there, done that, and wears the T-shirt to prove it, I understand how exciting it feels when you take charge of your business destiny.

But I also know how it feels when you hit a plateau.

So, let’s go back in time for a moment. 

You bravely turned your back on the 9-5 and launched your business in a blaze of glory. Armed with a brilliant idea and a bucketload of passion, you weren’t sure if you’d be a success or a failure… but you were determined to give it a good go!

Now, after a LOT of hard work, late nights, and missed catch ups with friends, you’re the successful Solopreneur you always dreamed about being.

As such, everything is ticking along just fine – but that’s not good enough anymore!

It’s time to take your business to the next level. 

But if you’re anything like I was at this point, you’ll have identified three issues.

One: you’re not exactly rolling in cash

Two: you don’t want to give up that precious freedom you’ve worked so hard for

Three: you never want to hire and manage staff

Here’s why scaling your Solopreneur business for growth doesn’t have to mean investing piles of money you haven’t got… or building a world-dominating empire that means recruiting vast teams of people.

So, want to know how you can grow and scale your Solopreneur business? Here are eight proven ways that keep you solo and firmly in the driver’s seat.

1. Outsource

You know those jobs you hate, but you keep on doing because it’s YOUR business?

Things like writing and scheduling endless blog and social media posts, managing your business accounts, and making sure your website is up to date.

Outsourcing to professionals who love the jobs you hate will give you time to work on a plan that focuses on growing your business, rather than dealing with distracting day-to-day tasks.

(Let’s be honest, it’s also likely those pesky jobs will be completed to a higher standard than if you’d completed them yourself!)

2. Invest in a CRM

Growing and scaling a business effectively means getting organised.

Investing in a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system will help you manage your customer data in a way those paper lists and Excel spreadsheets just aren’t capable of.

With a CRM you will be able to store messes of data such as, user behaviour, how long a customer has been with your business, purchase records, and notes on sales interactions, which you can use to optimize your sales and marketing processes and improve customer service across your organization.

• customer behaviour
• how long a customer has been with you
• how often a customer contacts you, engages with you or buys from you
• purchase records
• notes on sales and interactions

With all this information you will be able to make informed decisions which means you which you will be able to optimise, automate and streamline your sales and marketing processes. This will help to improve your customer service and increase your sales.

Both essential if you are looking to grow and scale your Solopreneur business.

There are lots of CRM options available. Two of my favourites are the freebie from Hubspot’s and the really cost-effective one from Capsule.

Make sure you do some research into the best CRM for your business.

3. Productise Your Business

Don’t worry if you don’t know what ‘productise’ means!

It’s a word I made up to describe how you can make tangible ‘products’ to sell when your business usually involves exchanging time for money.

The problem many service-based Solopreneurs face is how to grow and scale their business when – essentially – they sell time for money.

If you’re a Coach, a Consultant, a Personal Trainer, a Therapist, a Copywriter, an Accountant etc it may seem that the only way you can scale up is to work more hours, charge more per hour / per project or to bring in a partner or staff.

Any one of those things will change the nature of the business you have built and love.

But there is the option to ‘productise’.

An example of the introduction of physical products could be that of one of my clients, She is a massage therapist; a hands-on, treatment-based business. Because she can only physically work with around six people every day, her turnover is limited. Limited by the number of hours per day and the number of days in the week she works.

However, if she ‘productises’; selling sleep masks, scented candles, or pillow sprays at the consultation or via her website, she can increase her income.

[BTW: I think she should increase her prices too]

But what about if you don’t have the kind of business that would work easily alongside additional products like these?

You could:

• Create a course
• Write a book
• Have a subscription-based Group on Facebook
• Work with a group of people rather then one-to-one (one hour x 10 people is more cost-effective than 10 people x 1 hour each!)

If you want ideas about how you could Productise your business, let’s talk

4. Automate Tasks

The less you have to do of the daily grind, the more time you will have to spend with the customers who pay you – and more customers means business growth and scale.

This is why automation is a godsend for any business. It takes repetitive tasks off your hands, seamlessly running them in the background for you!

Do some research into the tasks that could benefit from automation in your business. For example, you could set up an automated email series for people who sign up to your mailing list, invest in an accounting software package, automate your customer appointment bookings or pre-schedule social media posts for certain days of the week.

Every five minutes you don’t have to spend on these tasks is five minutes you can spend with someone who pays you.

5. Maximise Your Email List

If you haven’t built an email list yet, why not?

Here’s a guide to getting going with building your list

YES PELASE, I WANT A COPY

The return on investment for email marketing is estimated at £42 for every £1 you spend – and since some platforms (like Mailerlite) are free to start with, you may not even have to spend that!

Entice people to sign up to your list by creating an enticing lead magnet (check out the ones I have included on my Business Toolkit page), then use your subscriber data to send targeted messages with information and offers they’ll appreciate.

6. Build Your Personal Brand

Far more than just your logo, your personal brand encapsulates everything people see, hear, think, and feel about you and your business.

Your personal brand is built around your values – so make sure you understand what these are, and how best to explain them to your customers.

If you struggle to define your values, you could start by thinking of five words that best describe your approach to business (fun, confident, reliable, etc.!)

7. Spend, Spend, Spend

OK, I might have got a little carried away.

But there’s no escaping the fact that a successful business costs – as well as makes – money.

The secret is to spend wisely, on the tools, tech, and expertise you’ll need to facilitate successful business growth. 

This includes outsourcing and automation, plus marketing, memberships, and training to keep your skills fresh (and your business competitive.)

8. Review and Reflect (With a Helpful Mentor!)

It’s no secret that planning is an essential ingredient for success (I call it the link between passion and profit!)

But there’s no use coming up with a brilliant business plan… that you never look at again.

You’ll only know if things are going according to plan – and how you can adjust your goals for future growth, if you review and reflect on your results.

As a highly experience Business Mentor who specialises in working with one-person businesses, I will help you get to grips with what really matters, so you can roll up your sleeves and get stuck into those plans for the growth and scale your Solopreneur business deserves.

To find out more book a half-hour, complimentary Breakthrough Session now.