You would be much better off to create your own sub-niche in the already existing niche. Find something for your business to be the first to provide in the already existing products or services offered within your market. That right there is a foundation that will make your business undoubtedly unshakeable.
Take for instance the iPhone. Before the 29th of June 2007, Apple did not have a product for the mobile phone market. Back then, cell phone companies like Nokia, Blackberry, Motorola, and Sony Ericson were the most popular mobile companies. Apple could have made a mobile that imitated the rest and stayed at the back of the sales line with dormant sales. But they had a better plan, to create their kind of smartphone; the iPhone. It was a revolution in the smartphone industry because there was none like it.
By 2015, Apple had recorded the biggest annual profit in corporate history. Now every mobile phone company had to make their smartphones that tried to be like the iPhone – just to stay relevant.
That is what creating your niche or market can do for your business.
Ask yourself: How can I position my product or business so that it becomes its own unique, hot sub-niche?
2. The Magical Power – An Upsell-Downsell Funnel
I think a lot of business owners underestimate the power of sales funnels especially upsell-downsell funnels. The upsell-downsell funnels are where the real money is if you use them well.
Business owners that do not have these sales funnels yet, probably do not quite understand how they work. To them, it is still a secret.
In case you do not know what an upsell is, an upsell entails a simple question, “would like to purchase another service or product to go with the one you have already purchased?” The question is, however, strategically structured and placed at a position where the buyer sees more value in the acquisition.
A perfect example would be McDonald's. A customer bought a simple meal of medium-sized French fries for $1.79. Then the upsell is induced by the simple question, “Would you like a Coke to go with your fries?” Note that not all customers will buy the extra coke for $1.49, but for the many that will, McDonald’s on average added an extra 20-30% increase to their profit.
What would an extra 20-30% increase in profits mean to you, your business and your family?
As for the downsell funnel, it entails a simple offer. Have you ever walked into a shop, for instance a shoe store, looking for limited edition sneakers, then you realize that they are way above your price range? But then the seller offers you the previous edition for say, half the price. Well, it is not what you came for, but the deal is too good to refuse. And in the end, it’s a win-win.
Remember that it is your moral obligation to give your customer the best possible outcome of what they desire. This will also culminate in sales and profits for your business.
How can you add more value for your customers?
3. Focus On the Backend
Have you ever wondered why some business owners can spend more on marketing and PR than you? Well, the answer is simple, it is because they are aware of the secret of focusing on the backend.
The backend gives your business the exposure it needs to beat the competition.
Most businesses focus on making a profit on the first sale. You might be thinking, “Patrick, how can I survive without making a profit on the first sale?” Well, you need to focus on your Lifetime Customer Value (LCV). The LCV is the worst case average value of a 30-day, 90-day or even a one-to-two-year customer repurchase cycle (this depends on your product or service and your cash flow abilities).
Let us say the average new customer brings to your store an average profit of $50 on the first sale. He or she repurchases three more times a year with an average reorder amount of $200, and with a gross profit of $75 for every repurchase. Now, with the average customer lasting two years, every new customer is worth $500. Allow me to do the math for you: $50 + (3 repurchases x $75 x 2 years) = $500.
Because you now know that your customer is worth $500 all through his or her lifetime, you can confidently decide to outspend your competitors in acquiring customers. You can spend for instance $50, when your competitor is only willing to spend $20 to $30, because they think they need to make profit upfront, considering they are not aware of their LCV. That means you can get more customers into your business than your competitors.
Remember, the business that is willing and can afford to spend more to acquire a customer wins.
What’s your LCV?
4. S.T.M. = Growth Maximizer
This strategy is one of my favorite, most effective and fun ways you can use to build firm ground to establish your business and build a brand. It is an approach that saves you the frustrations of having to travel for miles just to try and convince a client to buy your product or service – a client who might end up saying “no”. It can save you frustrations of having to hire a sales team even though your business cannot afford it yet, or the frustrations of spending loads of time describing your product or service over and over again, rather than selling it. S.T.M. changed all that for my business, now I only spend 5% of my time selling, and the rest I can spend on serving my clients.
S.T.M. stands for Sale-To-Many, and it involves the use of seminars, webinars, info days, conferences and even books and magazines to sell your product or service. All these are avenues that enable you to get in front of your target market on a large-scale platform. Plus, it is the best way for authoritative selling, where you get to describe your product or service and its benefits to a wide range of consumers at one time. This is one instance in which interested buyers call you instead of you going after them – not to mention the exposure your business will get. And with this approach, every call you receive has more potential for a sale given that you already have the buyer’s interest – unlike the sale-to-one approach.
A perfect example of a successful S.T.M. forum is the TED Talk.
TED is the gold standard for any conference. And for the businesses that are presented on that stage, well, it goes without saying that they are tops in their markets.
What STM approach can you use (webinar, seminar, infodays, books etc.) to sell your product or service?
5. Master the Art of Follow-Up
This is one of the most common and perhaps my biggest mistake made at the beginning of my career in business. This cost me dearly
– hundreds of thousands of dollars and emotional distress. It is all about pitching the right message to the right client at the right time.
The message and the client part are the “easy” parts. The right time, however, is not easily known. So how do you deal with that predicament? Well, it is rather simple, be there consistently until the right time unveils itself, by regularly following up.
You know the drill when you do your pitch to a potential client, and then they tell that they are not ready to buy yet due to reason ‘A’ or ‘B’. But by the time they are willing, your competition had them already boxed in. Mastering the Art of Follow-up makes you own the client’s loyalty. However, I would advise that the follow-up be carried out in an engaging, funny, and educational manner. Become creative in how you can stay in contact with your clients.
There is no better way to put that than the way Dan Kennedy told me, “Be a welcome guest, not an annoying pest.”
How can YOU constantly stay in contact with your customer?
6. The Hidden Profit Booster Most Owners Fail to Utilize
One thing I learned the hard way was that making the first sale is the hardest. The other thing that I learned from this experience is that to have a successful business, you need to focus on the existing clients.
Build a relationship of trust with your customers, add massive value and make them loyal. These will be the customers that form the very foundation your business will be built on.
Like most small business owners, I made the mistake of focusing on the front end. I was advertising and marketing my business to attract many new customers out there that did no
t know my business existed. Instead of building a trustworthy relationship with my existing customers and letting them bring in the rest, I pushed them away because I did not give them the attention they deserved. And that, as I said, cost me a lot.
Acquiring a customer is the most expensive part in a business. It’s a shame to ignore your current customers after their initial purchase.
Make your existing customers like, love, and trust you, so that they become your best advocates.
Don’t fall in love with your product or service, fall in love with your customers instead.
The best thing about these six strategies is that it does not matter which tools you use to fulfill these strategies, they will work and grow your business as long as you use them. It does not matter if you follow up by direct mail or if you use the newest email marketing tool, it comes down to the strategy … not the tools. If you are feeling a bit overwhelmed right now, it is ok. I was too. Just pick one strategy at a time and think of how you can implement it in your business and decide which tool is the best fit for you.
But it all comes down to you and the choices you make, and reading this article was the first step. How you implement what read here in your business in the real world is up to you. However, if you do apply it, then I know you will succeed.
Remember, a strong business is built on a strong foundation. It does not matter how fast your business grows, if the foundation was not well constructed, then the countdown to its collapse has already begun.
The six steps to achieve this are all above.
Master the basics and build a strong foundation.
About Patrick
Patrick Rahn is a Marketing and Business Strategist, bestselling author, CEO of Rahn Consulting and a Certified NLP Practitioner who specializes in the art and science of the high-achieving business owner.
Before he founded Rahn Consulting, he had worked in over ten different industries and ended up as a structural engineer with a Master’s degree. Because of his journey, and by seeing so many different businesses and industries, he was able to find a common denominator of success – one that became his philosophy: A strong foundation is everything in business as well as your personal life. This is a philosophy that has enabled him to help his clients find underutilized assets and overlooked opportunities to multiply their profits and expand their freedom. Patrick’s goal is to help business owners grow their businesses, thereby increasing their freedom and happiness.
Patrick, in his passionate endeavor to help small-to-midsize businesses reach their full potential, invented a process he call s the “Neuro-Business Strategy Process.” In this process, he first incorporates his Infinite Personal Growth Triangle. He analyzes the mindset, paradigms, beliefs systems and goals of the business owner. He then takes his toolbox of proven business tactics and strategies and builds a strategy that fits the business owner, one where they feel happy and free – a company that grows with the business owner on their terms.
Patrick is a bestselling author of the book, Mindset of Success – How Highly Successful People Think About Goal Setting . He has also written books alongside other significant personalities such as New York Times BestSelling Author, Brian Tracy and five-time Emmy Award winner, Nick Nanton. Apart from writing, Patrick is also the CEO of Rahn Consulting, from where his clients receive the best of his business coaching consulting services. For example, he advises clients from all industries, including Banks, Financial Sales & Services and Award-Winning Tech Companies in Germany.
You can connect with Patrick at:
• www.PatrickRahn.com
• [email protected]
CHAPTER 25
HOW DFNDRS LEPT INTO BEING IN THREE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT GIANT STRIDES
WHY IT ALL HAPPENED AND WHERE IT IS GOING
BY PHILIPPA STEEL
DFNDRS is a multi-platform project ranging from experimental youth workshops to internet series to live action TV, animated features, video games, virtual reality and theatre. These are in various stages of development, and all of them relate to protection of the environment.
Key to these is the art and culture of the First Nations, starting with the tribes of the Pacific Northwest in British Columbia, Canada. The root of many things is often in childhood, and the beginning of this particular story dates back many years.
As a small child, I spent a good bit of time watching the carvers at work in Thunderbird park in Victoria. In a very short time, I conceived the desire for my own Thunderbird and proceeded to make enquiries as to how to achieve this. I was informed that this was a time-consuming process, not immediate, and that we would first have to agree a financial transaction. … with money up front! We dickered for a bit. My allowance at that time was 25 cents a week. The figure of $1.50 was suggested and we settled at $1.25.
Splendid. Carving could commence: it would take some time. Several weeks passed: it seemed an eternity to a six-year-old! Finally, I was told that next week all should be ready for me.
I arrived virtually with smoke pouring from my shoes … to find that some final touches were being made to the paintwork. I bounced about in anticipation. I could see the beautiful small totem as it was finished off and the carver turned it to sign it on the back of its wings. First the left, and then the right – “MUNGO … MARTIN”.
Thus began a lifetime of fascination with the art and culture and stories of the First Nations – initially of the Pacific Northwest, but later all over North America, across Canada, around the USA and all over Mexico.
The next main impelling force shaping this project was years hence when I accidentally went to India for a landmark interview with HH the Dalai Lama. The person originally scheduled to go was unable to at the last moment, and I was the only person available.
So, head over heels into the most foreign of countries on less than 48 hours notice – just long enough to get the necessary visa, pack and fly. Arrival in India at Delhi required immediate ditching of all expectations and entrusting myself and our mission to my Tibetan hosts. The inscription
“God Help Us” on our taxi proved predictive: Nothing went according to plan, but everything worked out for the best.
From one side of the continent to the other, up to Sikkim for His Holiness’
Kalachakra and back to Dharamsala via Calcutta when it emerged that the original interview plan had been submerged in changes of schedule.
From tuk-tuk to trains, planes to motor transport, eventually I found myself in His Holiness’ presence.
My instructions were to ask him for guidance as to what one person could do to make a difference to the world. His response was that one should start where one could have the most immediate effect – with oneself. Next, he suggested that I should look around me and see who or what nearby needed help – and start doing whatever I could.
He then said that one had a duty to be happy – as if one were not happy oneself, what could one possibly offer others?
To my comment that there was so much that needed to be done in the world and how could one hope to do much in so little time? He responded:
“If not in this lifetime, then the next!”
The third major influence has been my long involvement in developing the work of Jilly Cooper for the screen. In reading her unique books, one is immersed in the world of her characters and their hopes, dreams and adventures. As both crime writer Ian Rankin and Cambridge University literary academic Dr. Ian Patterson also appreciate, since Dickens, no other novelist has come close to compare!
Underpinning everything is the theme that love resolves everything for the best.
In going forward and making choices from loving motivation, eventually the best possible results emerge for all concerned. The good guys triumph and the ‘baddies’ receive their just deserts. In it all, you see some of the less attractive sides of the heroes, and unsuspected hidden virtues in the villains – and eventually arrive at entirely happy-ever-after solutions by the end of each book. … and can’t wait for
the next!!
When ITV unexpectedly backed out at the last moment on this project, we were thrown into some disarray with massive personal losses for me, including my home. And then when this was rapidly succeeded by Sir David Frost’s tragic sudden death, I too, came to a temporary dead end.
What was to be done?
So I looked about me, and the DFNDRS project jumped into being.
Largely due to the efforts of May Street Productions and the Educating Through Change Society, our first experimental youth workshop takes place on Denman Island, BC this summer – it is an exciting time!!!
Other elements are steaming ahead, but this is our starting point to save the planet. A first small step to help create a world of peace and joy.
Everything is inter-related – rooted, implanted, immersed and growing on the land and in the oceans, in the lakes, the rivers and streams. To survive and thrive, we must care for the earth and all who live in it, and there lies our happiness. Our starting point is to care fundamentally for ourselves – to eat and drink well, exercise with delight and ensure our individual good health.
DFNDRS is taking off in the Pacific Northwest, cradle of other well-known sustainable ventures too. But the launch of this one and its ancillaries beyond is from the traditions of the marvellous First Nations cultures and their magnificent, exciting traditions in story, music, dance and art. There is much to reveal … and a lot of fun to come.
Watch this space, but meantime the basic recipe for health and happiness is a version of do as you would be done by – and quite likely you may find heaven on earth by making earth a heaven.
Look after the earth, and it will look after you.
Saving the world is crucial for us all, and if not now, then when?
I can only wish you the peaceable best in every way.
Ready, Set, Go! (Special Edition) Page 21