9 insights from a lifetime resolving business growth
Updated: Aug 13, 2021
I've grouped these 9 insights into three categories for ease of reference.
Category 1? That gets the label of People.
Category 2 receives the Communications label.
Final category is Business.
We shall start with the People Category!
INSIGHT NINE
Understanding Human Behaviour is king, queen and god when it comes to getting the best possible return for your investment.
Who the hell-o are you selling to?
What is their psychological pre-disposition?
What does the world look like from their GPS point?
How do they describe the situation, solution and how do they want to be engaged, invited and served?
This insight has led me to do this:
Literally find 5 individuals who represent the ideal client you’re interested in serving, and spend 30-minutes asking quality questions, while you practice active listening. And I promise you, you will quite literally shift the matrix in your favour
INSIGHT EIGHT
Serve vs Sell. They are two very different places to sell from.
Selling my Service can make my audience feel like I’m humping their leg.
Being in Service can make my audience feel like I’m one of the best things to ever happen to their business.
Guess which state leads to more sales?
This insight has led me to do this:
Working with the type of clients that are fun, profitable and come with a lower cost-to-serve. Doing so creates happier employees, satisfied clients, better quality work. Matching. my small business owner clients with the ideal Audience for them, right now.
INSIGHT SEVEN
Clarity, Certainty, Confidence -
aka the 3Cs are mission critical to create inside your audience during the Know, Like, Trust phase of an interaction. Your audience needs all 3 to remain in the conversation with you. The language used here is almost always one or two degrees removed from the language you use at your boardroom table if it’s to create the sensation of the 3Cs in your audience.
This insight has led me to do this:
Co-create communications with Small Business Owners and the Audience they are here to serve.
INSIGHT SIX
Familiarity is brand lube!
Social Proof & Brand Recognition is deeply important to winning over hearts and minds of any audience. Also referred to as PR, top of the funnel efforts, Brand Awareness, Thought Leadership.
Being known, liked, trusted BEFORE they even meet you, is the byproduct of a psychological shift that has taken place in the mind's eye of your Audience about you.
It’s the difference between “Who? Nah, never heard of them” vs. “ Oh year, I’ve seen them around - sure, let’s set something up!” proceeds to book appointment.
Thus being seen, consistently over 12 consecutive weeks, in ways that inspire your audience, (co-creating with them directly) is something firms want to ensure they have in place.
This insight has led me to:
Designing a simple sales funnel that works for most small business (not all).
Feel Goods (PR - Being Seen) The top of your funnel
Free Goods (That drives a simple call to action - Marketing bit) The upper middle of your funnel
Trial Goods (That creates a safe & small experience for your client - Sales bit) The lower middle of your funnel
Invest in Goods - (The moment your prospect becomes your high valued client) bottom of your funnel.
Refer Good - (Retention part of the process - that keeps clients happy and referring you)
You can find that Sales Funnel in visual form over here >
IN THE COMMUNICATION CATEGORY WE HAVE...
INSIGHT FIVE
Hyper Relevant to Me (says your audience) - there is just way too much out there today, to think that you can be everything to everyone just doesn't work. Hyper Relevant to Me is the new benchmark for communication to your perfect-for-you Audience.
This insight has led me to:
So much.
1. I interview 3 to 5 individuals for 30-minutes who each represent the ideal client of my Small Business Client. The insights from here are then transposed into sales funnel activities. I call this Mirroring your Audience.
2. I co-create initiatives with the Audience I am here to sell to. Literally place them front and center - whether they are client, known to us or not. I am seeking to organise a comprehensive 360- view of a situation. Not just the narrative that supports the Small Business sales collateral. This bit is what I call - Showing up in your Audience Mirror.
3. Websites are not marketing brochures - they exist to do one thing, one thing only - that is to contain my Feel Goods, Free Goods in the form of landing pages bespoke to a particular audience. All marketing and sales brochure type content shows up at Trial Good stage - and away from the home page of a website.
4. Invite Small Business Owners to recognise that their conversations around the boardroom table - are best served inside the business - only≥ Taking that language into your marketing activity is why they feel marketing doesn't work. That boardroom language almost always is 2 degrees removed from the psychological disposition of your Ideal Client - and as such, you don't get to tick the Hyper Relevant For Me box - and thus left wondering why your marketing isn't working, why your bounce rates are so high, and why your marketing collateral just isn't converting.
INSIGHT FOUR
Leverage your Tactics!
Respect your investments, build momentum, create rungs on a ladder to achieve the end goal by leveraging that tactic into the next tactic. Running a one-off webinar is great. Gold stars for doing it! Running a webinar that is leveraged into the next tactic, which we leverage into the next tactic, until 12-weeks of tactics have completed, is far better.
This insight has led me to:
Frowning on one-off tactics - and instead, opting for creating activities in real-time that use the insights of the last tactical activity to build the next activity on top of.
Appreciate deeply the need for 12-consecutive weeks of activity to shift the psychological disposition of the ideal client.
INSIGHT THREE
Co-create with the very audience you want to serve.
This one is almost as awesome as Insight 1.
It’s been the most fun, inspiring and clever approach I’ve used since …. Twitter back in 2009. Genius. In. A. Cup! While it is not entirely new - businesses have been doing events featuring their clients for ever - I've adjusted the nuance of it over the years to find the optimal route to the best return.
Instead of propping up a sales narrative for your firm, consider seeking out a full, complete view of the problem/situation you address by inviting a 360 degree look at it. For and against.
This insight led me to:
Appreciate that doing what's right, not just what's easy, is far better for business.
That your Audience doesn't want a smoke and mirrors sales pitch as much as they want to be informed, inspired, and if possible, edu-tained.
INSIGHT TWO:
Slow, to go fast.
This took me the longest to learn and embrace.
If you know me, you know I’m a super nova of energy and I can spin out a 12-week growth hacking lab on a dime.
And, in the last few years, I’ve come to greatly respect and appreciate that establishing a solid foundation with which to build on is more profitable, more fortuitous than rushing a venture into the infamous: “Ship It” phase.
This insight has led me to:
Become deeply comfortable being uncomfortable. Refine the art of being present to an unfolding campaign, and pivot in real time.
AND THIS ONE SITS INSIDE THE BUSINESS CATEGORY:
INSIGHT ONE
Revenue is where we start!
100k in new business is comprised of X clients x Y value.
Eg. 10 clients at 10k each = 100k in new business.
10 clients can be found inside of an audience of 200 perfect for you decision makers.
When you pursue 200 decision makers who have a shared set of traits, then one campaign, lands among those 200, returning 10 clients that each pay you 10k. This is where your growth hacking efforts reside (particularly when you’re a small firm, with conservative budgets)
This insight led me to:
Hand pick my 200 prospects.
Clearly define the marketing parameters to sit around those 200 logos only.
And commit to 12-weeks of effort to move 10 of those 200 logos from prospects to clients.
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