5 Reasons Why You Don’t Have to 10x Your Business in 30 Days

If you want to 10x your business in 30 or 90 days, then this post is not for you.

However, if you want to increase your sales and profits, create more repeat clients in a sustainable way, AND still have time to run your business, then read on.

My mother often said to me:

“Ross, if it’s worth doing,
it’s worth doing properly!”
and
“Less haste, more speed!”

In business I found my Mum to be right in most cases. 

Experience has shown me that the performance significantly improves for businesses that use the five steps below. The organization sees an increase in sales, profits, and repeat customers!

The Five Steps to Successful Scaling

1. Centralize your information about clients, prospects, leads and business network into an electronic database

As a start, merge information in business card holders, spreadsheets, employee mobile phones, accounting, and CSR systems.

2. Look for and create segments or groups of people and businesses among your:

  • Current customers, e.g. “Top 20%” or the key group of customers who make up your top 20% of customers. You are likely to have 2 or more groups and they will be the basis of your ideal buyer persona
  • Past Customers
  • Lapsed (Inactive) customers
  • Your prospects and Leads
  • Your business network of contacts

3. Identify what your revenue and profits are now

4. Set goals for your revenue and profits for the next 12 months and 18-24 months

5. Develop a sales and marketing action plan to generate the revenue target from:

    • your existing customers (current, past, and lapsed)
    • leads generated from your past prospects and leads
    • Marketing to your ideal market segments (online and offline)

The Centralized Database

Bringing all your contact information into a centralized electronic database will provide you with the best opportunity to follow steps 2 – 5. 

By centralizing information about people and businesses, you can:

  • see the status of a contact or business and who in your organization is in contact with them, what the contact is about, and any interactions planned
  • easily place the contact and businesses into different market groups and segments
  • reduce the chances and related costs of clients defecting when staff leave, particularly sales reps and CSRs
  • increase your return on investment on marketing spend due to better targeting
  • improve coordination of activities between staff in sales, marketing, accounts, customer service, and distribution

Today, many customer relationship management (CRM) systems are available by subscription through the Internet. Most CRMs are relatively easy to learn, a great example is Nimble.  However, CRMs are not a “magic bullet” to increase revenue, profits and customer retention.

CRMs aren’t just a tool! It is important to plan how your business will use the customer relationship management system and train staff in its use. To maximize your ROI engage professionals to show how you and your staff can get the most from your new system.

For more than 20+ years I have assisted businesses to use a centralized database to underpin their sales, marketing, and customer experience activities. 

Results I have seen include:

    • Sales doubled in less than 12 months for one division
    • Customer retention increased by 50%
    • 300% increase in past customers being contacted. This, in turn, resulted in a 10% increase in monthly sales revenue
    • More than $60,000 in sales generated from a single targeted e-update (the average value per sale for the business was between $2,000 – $3,000)
    • Nett profit improved by 30% over 12 months

Here are five more benefits of using a CRM:

      • Overall, 74% of businesses using CRM report better customer relationships (Software Advice)
      • Customer service can improve by 47% by using a CRM (Capterra)
      • Conversion rates can improve by 300% with a CRM in place (Cloudswave)
      • Average purchase value can improve by 40% with CRM (Cloudswave)
      • Lead cost is reduced by as much as 23% with CRM (Cloudswave)

The steps shown above don’t promise to 10x your business in 30-90 days. But, as you can see, the 5 steps may have a dramatic effect on your business on a sustainable basis.

Use these links to find more information about customer segmentation and integrated CRM strategies.

Click here to download a free copy of 10 Reasons to Have a CRM in Your Business.

If you have any questions or like any assistance you are most welcome to contact the author Ross Keating, the Client Orchardist.