No Cost Profit Boosters

Let’s take a look at 7 of the best quick-win profit boosters (in no particular order) that you can 

apply to your business right now... 

1. Transformation Of Your Existing Tactics & Marketing Pieces 

We discussed the Core Elements of marketing at length in Issue 1 of my newsletter. The key thing to remember is whatever marketing pieces you’re using at the moment, they can be significantly transformed and improved by adding the Core Elements... 

The 9 Core Elements 

1. Target Market
2. Differentiator
3. Irresistible Offer
4. Headline
5. Features & Benefits 6. Guarantee
7. Reasons Why
8. Social Proof
9. Call To Action 

Take all your marketing pieces and review them carefully. If a Core Element is missing (or weak) add to it or replace it. Therefore, and with absolutely no cost increase, you can optimise each marketing piece to give you a significant lift in either leads or sales. 

You will genuinely be astonished at what this simple exercise can do for your business and that’s precisely why it’s one of the first things I do when working with my mentoring and coaching clients.

2. Referral System 

Putting a Referral System in place will also see a quick and significant increase in leads and sales for your business. 

3. W.A.Y.M.I.S.H. 

Put your feet in your customer’s shoes. Run through the steps you ask them to go through up to and including buying from you. 

Are you doing everything in your power to make things as easy as possible—or are you making it hard? 

That’s what W.A.Y.M.I.S.H. (Why Are You Making It So Hard) is all about. 

When you run through the sales process of your own business, it is highly likely you will see some big improvements that can be made. With W.A.Y.M.I.S.H. you’re looking primarily at the following 4 areas... 

• WAYMISH #1: Making Customers Wait
• WAYMISH #2: Accessibility
  
• WAYMISH #3: Payment Options
  
• WAYMISH #4: Making It Difficult To Contact The Business 

4. Monthly Offers To Your Customers 

One of the biggest mistakes many businesses make is not selling to existing customers. 

Your existing customers are your ‘acres of diamonds’, your ‘treasure chest’. However, you cannot expect them to keep buying from you if you don’t keep selling to them. 

One of the easiest ways to do this is by giving them an offer EVERY month on one of your products or services that they don’t currently buy from you. 

The key is to make it time-sensitive. The offer from ‘Charles Tyrwhitt’ to their customers on the next page is a great example of how to do it. 

5. Up-sell/Cross-sell 

An up-sell or a cross-sell on EVERY sale should be compulsory!

Perhaps the best way to explain what an up-sell is, is to give you a well-known up- sell that McDonald’s use. 

Let’s say you go into McDonald's and ask for any of their standard meals – the reply from the person serving you (or digitally from their self-serve tills) will be, ‘Do you want to go large?’ 

Basically, they are using a well- rehearsed ‘Up-sell Statement’ that makes it easy for the buyer to say ‘yes’. 

With just six carefully crafted words, McDonald’s generate an up-sell that 30-40% of customers say ‘yes’ to. 

That’s another 30-40 people in every hundred that spend, say, a pound more than they would have done had the 

Up- sell Statement not been used. 

And just think for a moment... the cost to McDonald’s for providing the larger- sized meal probably adds up to about 20 pence – so they’ve just created another 80 pence profit on the sale with virtually no effort (six words). 

To define up-sell more accurately... an up-sell is when you move the customer up to a larger quantity (bigger size, etc.) of the same product or service for a perceived preferential price. 

So why does the up-sell work so well? 

The reason why up-sell (and cross- sell) works so well is that it’s used at the point of purchase once the person has made the decision to buy. That means they are comfortable with their decision. It’s at this point they are much more susceptible to the up-sell (or cross-sell) because they are in ‘buying mode’. 

You should be aiming to convert upwards of 30% of people to the up-sell. 

Again, very few companies ever capitalise on the power of the up-sell or cross-sell. So take a close look at what products or services are creating 80% of your sales and create an up-sell or cross-sell for each one. 

Example: The Dell Up-sell... 

Most computer manufacturers are great at this but DellTM stands out from the crowd. Their competitive prices coupled with attractive up-sell offers make it very difficult for the buyer not to move up to a better, faster model. 

For example, as you can see, they are currently offering 3 InspironTM 5000 All- in-One models starting from £649 to £1,079. 

Let’s now take a quick look at cross- selling. Like up-selling, cross-selling is one of the easiest tactics to apply to any business. Once again, it is a simple, highly-effective way to increase the average order value and to increase the profit on the sale. 

Let’s use the McDonald’s example again to demonstrate how the cross-sell works... 

You go into McDonald's and ask for any of their main dishes, such as a Big Mac or Chicken Sandwich – the reply from the person serving you (or digitally on the self-serve tills) will be, ‘Would you like fries with that?’ 

Again, they are using a well-rehearsed ‘Cross-sell Statement’ which makes it easy for the buyer to say ‘yes’. 

So to define cross-sell more accurately... a cross-sell is when you sell a product or service complimentary to the product or service initially being bought. Ideally, be sure your cross-sell adds related value to your customer’s purchase and you can’t go too far wrong. 

Example: The Sunglass Hut Cross-sell 

Buy a pair of designer sunglasses from the Sunglass Hut and, when you go to pay, the shop assistant will draw your attention to four ‘plastic balls’ on the front of the counter (with a price of £10 clearly shown). Each one contains a different-coloured cleaning cloth for the sunglasses.

Their cross-sell script goes something like this... 

“Thank you, Mrs Jones. Because you are ordering today, would you like to choose any one of the cleaning cloths in front of you and I’ll add just £4.99 to your order?” 

Note the following... 

The assistant has been well trained and uses the name of the customer by looking at the card passed to them. 

This is a simple one-sentence cross-sell. The cross-sell in this example is probably adding close to £4.50 in pure profit to the sale! 

6. Customer Reactivation Letter 

Reactivating past or dormant customers is one of the easiest ways to get a rush of sales. Research has shown that 69% of customers stop buying because of indifference (Sales and Marketing Executives International). 

In other words, they didn’t think the business cared about them. A ‘Customer Reactivation Letter’ will do the trick. 

All you need to do is write to past customers and make them an offer they can’t refuse and make sure you tie the offer in to a deadline date. The example opposite shows you how to do it. 

7. Non-Converted Leads/Enquiries 

This last quick-win is again an easy way to get a good influx of sales. 

Most businesses never, ever contact their non-converted prospects (those who enquired, but have never purchased from you). The key here is to once again create an irresistible offer that almost forces them to give you a try. 

Don’t do what many people do and get to December wondering what happened to the time, and why they've made so little progress. 

You have a wonderful opportunity to use my proven and cost-effective marketing strategies to multiply the sales and profits of your business. Start as you mean to go on and apply all 7 of these profit boosters.