The GoProposal Audio Experience: Recent Episodes
James Ashford
A big, often overlooked skill needed of business owners is the ability to let go. This takes many forms, such as knowing when to let go of clients, or let go of staff, but what about letting go of your workload? Often, if there’s a specific service you’ve positioned yourself as the expert in, or a client has an issue you know you’re best experienced to fix, then you’ll just do it. You’ll know you can do it 80% - 90% right. And delegating it would mean it would get done 70% right. That’s why it feels easier to keep hold of it and do it yourself. The problem arises when you keep hold of everything, and find you’re at capacity and end up doing 0% right because you haven’t had time. A more valuable use of your time, as the business owner, is to let your staff do it 70% right, then work with them to get it 71% right, then 72% right, and so on. That’s how you’ll successfully build your business overtime and have people doing things for you. Learn more about how you can banish the bottleneck in your team from this post from The Accountants Mastermind, Simon Chaplin... scroll to the end for the full webinar with myself and Simon.
Client Stories“GoProposal is the cheapest product you'll get for your accountancy firm. It's been worth £30,000 in revenue to me this year.”
Euan Brown | Founder of Total Accounting
Hear Euan's Full Story
READY TO GET STARTED?Take the guesswork out of pricing & control your profitabilitySign Up Now for Free
When I was a business consultant I worked with a skip broker company, who would provide a wrap-around removal service, but weren’t getting sales because customers would ring up and ask the price and because they thought they only wanted the cheapest skip, the call would end there. But when I looked at their range of services, it was obvious they had a far wider range on offer than their competitors, with an incredible support service. So, what does this have to do with your accounting business? Ask clients the right questions I helped the team at the skip brokers change the questions they were asking clients, and this is something you need to be aware of in your business. Let me explain… Someone would ring them and ask for an eight yard skip. Straight away they’d give the price and the conversation would end. I coached them to say this instead: “Absolutely fine, I will give you a price straight away but I just need to ask you three questions to start with to make sure I’m offering you the right thing, is that okay? Great. Will it go on the drive or on the road? What are you putting in it? Are you filling it yourself? Yes? What else would you be doing if you weren’t spending your weekend filling a skip?” From these questions, they could instead offer them a man with a van who’d fill it and take the waste away the same day. The last question helped sell the client their weekend. It painted the picture of what they could be doing with their time instead, in exchange for the higher priced service. Remember, YOU’RE the financial expert You see, clients come to your accounting firm knowing what they know, and they ask for what they think they need and want. It’s our job to:
Learn what they’re really trying to achieve Understand what obstacles are in their way Educate them on what they need to do to reach their goals
They might still not sign up for the options we suggest, BUT we’ve presented them with a bespoke set of services that we know will get them where they want to be. You can still progress the relationship with a stripped down set of services, knowing you can re-communicate the value of extra options down the line.
How can I do the same in my accounting firm? A consultative sales framework can easily be incorporated into your accounting firm to empower your entire team to have better conversations with your clients. They might feel scared initially, but you can show them that this isn’t a case of retraining completely… it’s just a case of asking better questions. To help you and your team with this, we developed The GLOSS Method®, to ensure you’re presenting your clients with the very best solution for them.
Ready to learn more? Access the FULL masterclass, 'The Art of Pricing & Selling to Serve,' on the GoProposal Academy. The course is free to ALL active GoProposal members and available for purchase for all non members.
Client Stories“GoProposal is the cheapest product you'll get for your accountancy firm. It's been worth £30,000 in revenue to me this year.”
Euan Brown | Founder of Total Accounting
Hear Euan's Full Story
READY TO GET STARTED?Take the guesswork out of pricing & control your profitabilitySign Up Now for Free
I get asked a LOT by accountants…. “Should I get rid of this client?” And I reply with… “Well are they REALLY a bad client, or are YOU making them bad?”
Imagine if, every time a new client signed the proposal, a set of clean pyjamas was automatically sent to a child in emergency care?
Present your prospects with ONE solution
It can be tempting to offer more than one option to your clients and prospects, maybe with different tiered prices and services. Initially it might seem like the best way to bring them on board, we might think, using some sort of sales psychology, they’d go for the ‘mid-range’ fee or the ‘silver’ package. But by doing this, you’re actually doing your clients a disservice. We should only be offering ONE solution to prospects and clients of our accountancy business. That’s the RIGHT solution.
Free Download: How successful Accountancy Firms have the Fee Review conversation with their clients
The best way I can explain this is by comparing it to surgery. You wouldn’t want a surgeon to offer you varying levels of packages, each containing different levels of anaesthetics and stitches, right? No. You want a surgeon to tell you exactly what’s going to happen and when. Because you trust that they’ve chosen the right option for you, based on a consultative process. Accounting is no different. Accountancy services are so critical to a business that it’s your ethical obligation to present the RIGHT solution for your clients. Even if the price is more than they were expecting. This is exactly the same when repricing existing clients. Watch the full video to find out more.
Ready to learn more? Watch our FULL masterclass, 'Feel the fear and reprice anyway' for FREE (just scroll down to 'Academy) We ran this 45 minute session with James Ashford and Paul Barnes, directors of Manchester accountancy firm MAP, and ran live to over 100 accountancy firms. The video above is taken from The Art of Pricing & Selling to Serve, my brand new course on the GoProposal Academy. The course is free to ALL active GoProposal members and available for purchase for all non members. Click here to begin.
Client Stories“GoProposal is the cheapest product you'll get for your accountancy firm. It's been worth £30,000 in revenue to me this year.”
Euan Brown | Founder of Total Accounting
Hear Euan's Full Story
READY TO GET STARTED?Take the guesswork out of pricing & control your profitabilitySign Up Now for Free
Don't just raise your prices across the board
It might seem like a great idea initially. Raise all of your clients fees by 30% and THEN you'll be making a profit. Right? This would be the case, if all of your clients were the same. But fact is, they aren't. When you're repricing clients, they should be split into three distinct sections:
Profitable clients Clients who you break even with. Clients who are losing you money.
If you increased your prices by 30% across the board, you will just annoy the first group, who were profitable anyway. You should start to see a profit on the second group. But chances are you'll still be losing money on the third. Splitting them into these three sections, means you can meet them with three different approaches.
Free Download: How successful Accountancy Firms have the Fee Review conversation with their clients
Where should I start? We should start with the repricing of the third group, those who are losing you money. Their fees need to be raised significantly. This might involve a difficult conversation. It may seem daunting. But the fact is, they are already losing you money. So even if you lost all those clients, you would still be better off. In fact, you would now be free to take the time you spent on those clients and reinvest it into your other clients. But, by coming to them with the right conversation and by showing them how much value you will bring, you aren't likely to lose most of them. With the second set of clients, those who you are breaking even with, you won't get much friction repricing their fees by about 20/30%. So long as you show them how much value you can offer. Finally, the first group, those who were already profitable. They might seem like a great stopping point, they were already making you profit anyway. So why go to the trouble of repricing them? In fact, you should be repricing clients who are profitable too. But with a different approach. Ensure that you're using the 1-3-12 Rule™ to keep on top of the scope of work, or run them through the GLOSS Method™ and start to solve BIGGER problems for them and their business. After all, our value in this world is directly proportional to the size of the problems we can solve.
Ready to learn more? Watch our FULL masterclass, 'Feel the fear and reprice anyway' for FREE (just scroll down to 'Academy) We ran this 45 minute session with James Ashford and Paul Barnes, directors of Manchester accountancy firm MAP, and ran live to over 100 accountancy firms. The video above is taken from The Art of Pricing & Selling to Serve, my brand new course on the GoProposal Academy. The course is free to ALL active GoProposal members and available for purchase for all non members. Click here to begin.
Client Stories“GoProposal is the cheapest product you'll buy. It's been worth £30,000 in revenue to me this year.”
Euan Brown | Founder of Total Accounting
Hear Euan's Full Story
READY TO GET STARTED?Take the guesswork out of pricing & control your profitabilitySign Up Now for Free
Discover the margins that remain largely invisible but decision by decision, they get squeezed, taking you closer to the edge.
Igot a very emotional phone call from a business owner this week. She was totally overwhelmed with everything that's going on, couldn't see a way through. Her revenue had taken a 40% hit and she was about to make a series of decisions based on this bleak perspective and from a position of fear. She was at rock bottom, a level 0, and within 24 hours I was able to take her to a level 10 and thinking very differently. It's this approach that I want to share with you here. This is her... and this was her meeting with her team today which was VERY different to what she thought she WAS going to say to them.
The Practical Positivity Approach The approach I used is something I'm calling 'practical positivity' to help her see her situation through a different lens and to start looking upward. I wanted to help her to cut through the drama and the emotion and bring some clarity to the situation and the next few months.
It's not a magic bullet by any stretch, it doesn't work with every business but it's a good framework for accounting businesses to use with their clients.
Follow The 9 Steps This was the process we went through. I didn't turn up with this plan, it was just free-styled, but on reflection, these were the steps...
MELTDOWN – If you need to have a meltdown, do it. Negative emotions will never go away, only fester. Don’t be ashamed to have a cry and to let it all out. Listen but don't indulge. ESTABLISH A BETTER VISION OF THE FUTURE – You and your clients have possibly got quite a negative vision of what’s to come. Armageddon, recession, etc. Start to envision what life could look like when we get through this. SCENARIO PLAN – Produce a cash flow forecast for the next 3 months. Imagine the worst scenario in terms of sales, then plan for it. Maybe you get no revenue for the next three months? The reality may be better, but plan for it anyway. This will be a dip. It won’t last forever. CUT BACK - Cut on any costs that are excessive. You need to be careful with this bit. Don’t strip back operations completely, only those that seem excessive. I don’t mean staff here AT ALL if it can be helped. STEP UP AS A LEADER – This is your time. If your team are working from home, get them fired up, have daily calls, keep everyone positive. Show up. GALVANISE YOUR TEAM – Communicate your better vision of the future. They are on this mission with you. They have probably had the same panics that you've had. Explain that you’re going to get through this together. The reason we’re cutting back (in the step above) is to preserve your team. BUILD BACK INTO THE FOUNDATIONS – This is where we look at things you may have been neglecting. Systems, processes, getting your pricing right, marketing. Whatever it is you need to do, build back into these key systems. Some of the peripheral things (maybe small jobs on your todo list), they aren’t important in times like now. Work on the fundamentals. EXPLORE OPPORTUNITIES – What opportunities do you have now to give value to your clients or customers? For your clients, this could be digitisation of your product. It could be new products, new markets. START RELATIONAL MARKETING – Don’t be aggressive with selling. Start to build relationships. Be there for your community and the clients or customers that you serve. Invest in long term nurturing processes.
If I had to add a tenth point, I'd say - LIMIT THE NEGATIVE INPUT - Things are shit at the moment; proper shit. People are dying, people are losing their jobs and businesses are closing. Get the essential updates you need to stay safe but that's it. Don't over indulge and excessively focus on the problem, as it will take valuable time and energy away from where it's needed and ...
Even if you’re one of the few firms which has figured out how to correctly charge your clients in the first place, the complexity of the services you provide and the constantly changing nature of your client’s businesses, means that the scope of work can quickly become out of alignment with what they’re paying you. So unless you have a system which flexes throughout the year which is driven by your team , you’ll end up over-servicing and undercharge your clients. This then leads to a lot of accountancy firms not making enough money to be able to deliver the level of service your clients are happy to pay for and one of two things tend to happen: - You over-service and undercharge your clients (nightmare for you.) - You attempt to hit them with an ‘ambush invoice’ at the end of the year... IF..... you can figure out what they actually owe you (nightmare for you AND them.) Neither work. All you want is to be paid for the hard work you do right? There are several ways firms attempt to solve this, but over the years, we’ve refined a process which is being successfully used by accountancy firms around the world, which we call the 1-3-12 Rule™. In this online masterclass you will learn… - How to start any new client engagement off in the right way (which includes the first fee review after month three) - The best way to position the 1-3-12 Rule™ to your clients so that client’s actually welcome the call - The key bottleneck that will prevent this from working and the unexpected way firms are removing it
This one idea has helped us to understand a lot of frustrations we were experiencing in our accounting firm towards the end of last year. Initially, I just couldn't figure out what the problem was. We had more staff, they were better trained and demonstrating great values. We had better processes and systems, powered by better technology. We were attracting our dream clients and our MRR was higher than ever before. But things still felt.......tough... tougher than ever in fact. But why was that? Wasn't technology supposed to be making our lives easier? THEN, one day, I came across this concept of the COMPLICATED versus the COMPLEX in a book called "Brave New Work" and I immediately saw how it applied to our firm and the accounting industry as a whole. Complicated vs Complex So let me start by explaining the difference between something that's complicated and something that's complex. Complicated - A good example of this is a car engine. Something that's complicated can be understood. We can write instructions for it. We can learn about it. It might take time, but eventually we can dissect it. We can write rule books for it and fundamentally, we can control it. That's the key aspect of something that's complicated. Something that's complex, on the other hand, is quite different. Complex - Something that's complex can't be controlled. It can only ever be managed. If complicated is a car engine, then complex is traffic. Traffic is complex because you have different drivers, of different abilities, driving different cars, going in different directions with different focuses. All manner of complexity surrounds that. It suddenly becomes a very difficult situation. We can't control traffic, all we can ever do is do our very best to manage it. Complicated vs Complex in accounting The services we provide and the prices we charge in our accounting business are complicated. They take time to learn. We can put processes in place to plan, maintain and fundamentally, control them. We can get the right technology. We can train our team to use and sell them. However, the complex side of accounting is introduced in the businesses that we serve. Our clients. This is due to having different business owners, with different agendas, different levels of experience, different operating systems, different sized businesses, different markets and many different frustrations that appear. These are people. They're not processes and systems. The challenge that we face in providing accounting services to these businesses, is that it's where the complicated meets the complex. It is in the meeting of these two entities, that causes so much frustration. Where we were going wrong... All of our efforts were being poured into controlling the COMPLICATED (our services) and a much smaller amount into 'attempting to control' the COMPLEX (our clients.) The problem though, as I mentioned above, is that complexity can never be controlled.... it can only ever be MANAGED. And it doesn't matter how good the technology gets, managing that complexity will always be challenging, because it's a hands-on process, which is why we need to develop skills and tactics to arm us in this mission. Now I don't have a silver bullet, but I can help you to understand the problem better and moreover, help you to articulate the problem to your team more clearly. What I want to do in this video, is to help you to unravel the difference between what's complicated and what's complex and to understand the approach you have to take to solve each of them. This is an interesting and strong concept for us to get our heads around. Watch the full video below, then join in the discussion on Linkedin >>
We put so much effort into our training, in our systemisation and in our checklists that we produce for staff. But we put very little effort into learning the required skills to go and actually manage our clients,
So, you've just increased your prices, you've now had a few client meetings, and perhaps they've not gone as well as you'd hoped. The client's not jumping for joy, they're saying you're too expensive, or you're charging more than my previous accountant or they didn't expect to be paying that much and perhaps you've not had them signing your proposals instantly or even at all.
And so when that starts to happen what the logical thing to do is, to think well, I've increased my prices, now people aren't accepting the price, therefore I've got my price wrong, so let's bring the price back down. The problem is that perhaps your price is now where it needs to be, but it's other aspects of the equation that's causing that client not to sign up. So, it's unfair just to consider price, when you need to consider the full equation at work here. So, what I'm going to do is take you through each aspect of the equation. I'm going to give you some questions to challenge each of those aspects to make sure that they're as robust as they should be. And I'm also going to give you some pointers to improve it, so we can start to take price out as the key culprit.
Key Aspects of the Equation
1 Source
So the first factor we need to consider is source.
Where are you getting these leads from? How good are these leads that you're actually getting? Are they coming from a Google search? Are they being referred to you by other people? Are they being referred to you by existing clients (who are also paying low fees)? How good is your overall marketing?
ACTION POINT: Check out the Profitable Firm. They've got loads of fantastic resources you can go and get from their website that'll really help you to see how good your marketing is and how it can be quickly improved.
2 Priming
The next thing is something that we call the priming phase. You need to prime your clients to your way of thinking, you need to educate them and invest in that client relationship first.
Have they downloaded an ebook from your website? Have they read your articles Have they watched your videos? Have they attended your events?
3 Discovery Call
The next step is the discovery call. A discovery call is a 15 minute phone call, where we get to understand a little bit more about that client and to make sure that we're a good fit for them.
Do you have a Discovery Call? Have you got a minimum monthly fee? Have you read "Selling to Serve"?
ACTION POINT: If you're interesting in knowing more about the priming phase or the discovery call phase, go and check out my book, "Selling to Serve" and map out our entire priming and discovery call phase including scripts in that book, go and grab that and I'll be able to help you with those. You can also check out The Gap's "8 Questions for Effective New Client Screening" for the questions to ask that establish your expectations prior to sealing the deal.
4 Experience
The next part is the experience.
Where are you meeting your prospects? Are you in control of the experience they have? Is that experience world class? Are you sending them confirmation of the meeting via text, via email? Are you sending them a little video of where they're going to be coming to and how to find your office? Is there a car parking space ready for them with their name on the parking space? Is there a sign when they come into the offices with their name on, their company name greeting them either on a screen or on a board or something like that? Is the meeting room professionally laid out? Do every member of your team know everyone's name who's turning up, so we can say hello to them by their name and make them feel significant and special when they arrive? Are there no distractions? Have you sent out an agenda before that meeting so they know exactly what they're going through? Are you controlling that meeting in its entirety in terms of time and the agenda when they get there?
Pricing Tax Returns is a real challenge. If you have a fix fee, those clients who have more complicated affairs are getting it cheaper.And those who have simpler affairs are being overpriced and may eventually leave. So you’re left with clients who you’re doing too much work for. Meades & Co. discovered a far better method for pricing Tax Returns that allows their firm to deliver the most value and have the greatest impact with his clients. In this podcast you’ll discover how they do it, the results they’ve been able to achieve and the potential pitfalls you can encounter if you don’t price this way.
‘Person first, client second’ is one the core principle we have at My Accountancy Place, which enables us to serve our clients to a much higher level, give them far more value and which has contributed towards growing our monthly recurring revenue by 50% in the last nine months alone. Not only that, when you fully embrace this philosophy, it enables you to…
Improve retention rates Develop lifelong relationships with your clients Sign clients up quicker Have them buying more of your most valuable services Have more fun
It’s a very subtle shift in thinking and seemingly backwards in some respects and therefore very few accountancy firms around the world ever make it.
There’s a phenomenon that has lead accountants and bookkeepers to thinking that they should give their clients 3 options to choose from, when selling to them. This approach causes many problems and can’t work effectively for one good reason. The reason I really wanted to share this with you is that I believe there is so much bad advice out there about what accountants should or shouldn’t be doing. And a lot of it is not grounded in fact. In our accountancy firm, we have PROVEN that offering clients 3 options doesn’t work because it delays the sales process and undermines your authority. That’s why this method I’m sharing with you has been so effective. Why should you let your clients decide what they need? After all, YOU are the expert. You wouldn’t want your doctor or surgeon to allow you to pick a card, any card, about what treatment you need would you? You would expect them to TELL you what you need, based on the consultation they’ve given you. Make sense? So check out this consultative sales approach I’m sharing and the one subtle change you can make to boost your results.
There’s a downward spiral that accountants can easily fall into, that zaps all of their energy and time. This spiral then prevents them from investing their time and energy into the clients that they’d love to be able to serve to a higher level BUT….. the reason that they’re unable to break free from this spiral is the very fact that they are an accountant. “Accountant thinking” is great when finding problems within a set of accounts, but not necessarily when it comes to making risky decisions. So I’ve come up with a risk free method of breaking free from this spiral that can having a huge impact on your revenue and save huge amounts of time, energy and frustration. PS Sorry about the interruption at the end. Kids eh!!!
I get to meet so many accountants who’s goal is to provide the most value they can to their clients, but the one question they always ask me is…..how can we make life easier and get paid more for the hard work that we do? So I’ve put together my 7 Step Battleplan that solves this problem once and for all. It will help you to get rid of the time wasters, charge more for your services, deliver greater value to your clients and make life a lot easier. It’s very logical to implement, it takes just 7 days before you start seeing results and within just 3 months, your firm could be dramatically different. Are you ready to change your firm?!?!!?!?!?….. Well here we go. Summary Of The 7 Step Battleplan STEP 1 | Unify Your Pricing If you’re not reliant on a 100% consistent, unified pricing system for your firm, then you are reliant upon people. You therefore don’t have a business, you have a collection of freelance accountants all making their own decisions about what to charge who. This causes the majority of your pain and problems…. FACT! STEP 2 | Seal The Profit Leakages You need a pricing system that prevents profit leakages, so that the price adjusts based on your client’s demands, their circumstances and the EXACT level of service you provide. This is where most accountants lose money. STEP 3 | Carry Out Fee Reviews Every Quarter Your client’s circumstances change. They generate more income, have more staff, have more bank transactions, require more services or a different level of service. If you are therefore leaving fee reviews until the end of the year, you are missing out. (Just a note here, in my firm, we only change our fee based on the client’s revenue going up, once a year….. unless it goes up significantly.) STEP 4 | Stop Charging By The Hour If you charge by the hour, then there is no incentive for you to improve your efficiencies. And remember… the client doesn’t care. They only care about the results they get. Use technology. Outsource. Implement systems. Work smarter. STEP 5 | Leverage Your Team Your team is your greatest asset. Leveraging your ENTIRE team to sell to prospects and clients is the fastest way to deliver more value. They will have mindset issues around this, but these can be quickly blasted away. STEP 6 | Flush All Of Your Clients Through Your Pricing System Once you have all of this in place, and the tools to deliver it consistently and fast (that’s the key… FAST), you can now flush all of your clients through the system. This will force you to make a decision about those low paying clients, but that doesn’t have to be as hard as you think. STEP 7 | Provide Greater Value To Your Top Clients Do all of your clients know everything you do? Could you be serving your top 20% of clients to a higher level? Are you being fair to those clients by providing them with services that will save their time, save their tax and boost their income? What Next? The plan now is to take action. If you don’t change anything in your firm, then nothing will change for you. And it’s doesn’t have to be a big step. Just take one step, right now, while you’re motivated and build from there.
There are 7 fundamental mistakes that accountancy firms makes when they attempt to systemise, that lead to them being exposed to the 3 vulnerabilities. These mistakes are…
They systemise like a firefighter They don’t use automation They have too many cracks in the systems The process was broken in the first place (this is the killer) You were never told the true goal They take on the wrong technology Your staff were never brought along the journey
There are 3 major vulnerabilities that accountancy firms around the world expose themselves to. And these 3 vulnerabilities cause nearly every problem within your firm and are the reason why you feel overwhelmed and overworked. In this podcast I outline what those 3 vulnerabilities are, the real problems they create and how to avoid exposing your firm and yourself to them in the first place.
I met with a firm of accountants who had a real issue with regards their pricing. They had several proposals out and none of the prospects were signing them, and they didn’t feel confident that those prospects were ever going to sign those proposals either. And when I asked them how they’d arrived at the pricing that they had sent out, they said they’d be mentored by a very prominent person who very highly regarded with regards to pricing for the accounting industry. They said they’d been taught to sell their premium-level service, their highest-end package to that client, and then if the client isn’t happy with it and they don’t want to go ahead with it, take things out of it. Because nobody likes anything being taken away, and they won’t want that to happen, and so they’re more likely to sign up for your high-end package. The problem is… that’s not what I advocate with the accountants that I work with around the world, OR what we do in the firm in which I’m a Director of. I believe in being totally transparent and honest with all of our clients and aim to develop a life-long relationship with them. And the only way that you can do that is with honesty and transparency and ethical pricing from the start.
There are five levels of accountancy firms. Most accountants are aware of the first three levels, but not a lot of them have been told about the highest two levels that you can actually take your accountancy firm to. What I want to do, is talk you through each of the five levels, explain what the characteristics are of each of them, how you transition from one to the next and what the ultimate two levels of an accountancy firm are. Now I’ve been working with leading accountancy firms around the world for quite some time now, helping them to systemize and automate their business and so I’ve got to see lots of different accountants, got to really understand them from the inside out and understand what the challenges are, where they think they are, and actually showing them where they can get to and where they really need to get to, moving forward.
So I received a message this morning on LinkedIn asking how do you maximize the engagement of your audience on Facebook? How often do you post? How do you get people to like and share what it is that you do? And more importantly, how to get people to take the actions that you want them to take. So I quickly had a look through the Facebook page and just come up with some ideas for them that I’m going to share with you right now. Then this morning I was just sitting having a coffee and just jotted down four simple strategies that I share with my clients and hopefully you can benefit from these as well. x
1 DON’T ASK FOR A SHAG
The first one is, don’t ask for a shag on the first date. What a lot of us do is they go onto Facebook and they try and make a sale. They say, do you want to buy this, do you want to come to this event, do you want to come and do this? And it’s like being 17 and walking around the nightclub and trying to pull someone. That strategy just doesn’t work. We need to think in terms of a longer strategy, a longer game. Take somebody for a coffee, get to know them, talk to them, engage with them, find out if they like you, find out if you like them. That’s a far better, longer term strategy that you could end up with a more meaningful relationship you actually want to stay with rather than just going around with the wrong attitude. Yet, that is what so many people do on Facebook but you’d never do that in a pub or a club or a sociable gathering, you would never behave like that, so why behave like that on social media? Think about it in terms of long-term and start to engage.
2 TELL YOUR STORY
The next thing is tell your story. Story telling is the oldest form of marketing that’s existed. It’s existed for thousands of years and it will exist for thousands of years to come. It makes no difference whether you’re doing it on your website, whether it’s emails, whether it’s social media, videos, it makes no difference. Story telling is the theme that’s constantly and successfully running through the most successful marketing campaigns. Tell your stories. You’ve got so many stories in your business, I guarantee. And I would also guess that you’re telling a very, very small percentage of them, if any. There’s so many things, so many stories, that you can tell that you’re currently not doing. And there are so many tools on Facebook that you can do that with, Facebook Live, Facebook Video, there’s just so many things that you could use, that’s at your disposal. Just go and do it.
3 GET AN APPRENTICE
The next thing I’d say is get an apprentice. Look, I’m in my 30s (late 30s) and I’ve had to learn social media. Do I claim to be an expert? No. But I’ve had to learn this. It wasn’t around when I was younger. 17, 18, 19 year olds, they were born with social media. They were born in this era. They don’t know anything different. Get an apprentice. I was speaking to a client last night. He’s spending 6,000 pound a month on SEO and online strategies. I said, look, take that six grand and get five apprentices who you could have full time working for your business producing videos, taking photographs, sharing on social media, engaging, for the same money. How devastating would that be if you train them up?
4 ASK YOUR AUDIENCE
And the final thing I want to share with you is… I don’t know what you should be sharing on your Facebook page. You probably don’t know either. But you know who do know? Your audience. Go and ask them.
There’s a real subtle transition you can make with regards to your marketing, it’s like a 2mm adjustment you can make with it, its not going to cost you a penny and it will massively increase the engagement you have with your audience and also get them to take the action you want them to take much faster!
Sometimes, the only way you’re going to find the resources that you need to achieve all you can, is by removing all other options. It’s about only having a Plan A with no fall back. Sometimes, this is the only way for you to achieve your goals. We call this burning the boats. Here’s the story of “Burning The Boats”, how I’ve used this principle in my life and how you can use it in yours.
“I didn’t feel like I got much done today” is a common phrase that business owners in particular say at the end of the day. EVEN THOUGH you planned out your time. EVEN THOUGH you worked on the right things. So why DIDN’T you get much done? Let me tell you a story!!! I can explain exactly why you felt that why and why in fact you didn’t get as much done as you would have hoped, and……. it’s not your fault. Well not really. And what we do is that we look for the big time and energy thieves to blame. We look for the things which steal hours from us or even days. But the problem is far more subtler than that and totally understandable as to why you didn’t see it happen. So let me help you to combat this problem once and for all.
It is so costly in terms of both time and money to get a new customer to walk through your door in the first place. It is then imperative that you maximise their lifetime value. And when you know how, it’s relatively straightforward too. This is a story of how I visited a high end cafe recently who got this horribly wrong. Now you might think it’s a challenge to maximise your customer’s lifetime value, but the reality is, it’s never been easier. If you’re armed with the strategy and you understand the steps you need to take, you can nail it. Technology can automate the system and the cost of this technology makes it within reach of small businesses…..even cafes.
Business is easy until you start employing people. This is because people are awesome and people are awesome and they will always be your greatest frustration. These are ten steps to better hiring which I learnt from Dave Ramsey. SUMMARY
Make it hard for people to be employed by you and set up hoops and hurdles for them to get through and over. Employ thoroughbreds, not donkeys and understand that they do not mix and won’t enjoy each other’s company. Conduct a minimum of 4 interviews per person and the first interview could be just 5 minutes. Conduct spousal interviews where you get to see them with their partner in a relaxed setting. Don’t motivate staff. Employ motivated people. Don’t allow any gossip within the workplace. You don’t want any drama. Release (fire) people with love and allow them to go and find their true vocation. Firing people is THE most important step. Encourage referrals from staff & provide an incentive which everyone gets to see being paid out Have the candidate reflect on their living costs to determine a good fit. If they need £80k to live and you’re paying £50k, it won’t work. If they’re going for a leadership position, try and see how they are around their children or their dog. It will be a good indication of their leadership skills.
One of the biggest killers of momentum and achievement is perfection. If you’re waiting for perfection, you are holding yourself back and preventing many ideas from getting into the world. But if you can embrace this concept on launching version 1.0, you will start achieving so much more in this year and the next. Watch this short video to understand how YOU can start generating massive amount of momentum RIGHT NOW, by adopting this simple philosophy. And not only that, this concept saves massive amounts of time, energy and lots of money AND it can help you to start generating greater profits faster. I’ve been sharing this with my clients for years and yesterday in B&Q car park, I thought ‘What the hell am I doing? I need to share this idea with you too.’
Let me tell you how I sold the Tesco delivery driver on a cup of coffee. Now I didn’t literally SELL him a coffee, but I sold him on the IDEA of having a coffee. Because look, you’re always selling. Whether you’re selling a customer on a new service, or a member of staff on a new procedure or your kids on what time they’re going to bed. You are either selling, or you’re being sold to. So it stands to reason that becoming better at selling (or influencing) is an important skill to master.
SO IT’S SATURDAY MORNING
So it’s a Saturday morning and it’s raining and the Tesco van pulls up. Now I don’t know about you, but I’m always well impressed when my shopping rocks up and get genuinely excited. So as the old guy emerges from the van, I shouted “Would you like a coffee?” To which he replies “No thank you, I don’t have time. But thank you.” So without missing a beat, I waded straight in with “A hot, freshly ground, cup of the best coffee you’ve had all week.” And he said “Go on then, but just half a cup.” Now although he objected to my proposition, look what I did…..I ignored it. I gave it no energy at all, and instead I stayed in the sale. Most people tackle the objection, which only gives that energy and makes him dig his heels in. Had I done that and said “Come on, of course you’ve got time.” He would have said “I really don’t I was late to start, I got stuck in traffic and I have loads of deliveries to make.” He would have fueled the objection. Instead, I focused on the sale and kept the energy there. Now he only said “Half a cup.” But what do you think I did? That’s right, I sold him on the idea of having a full cup AND a biscuit (Jammy Dodger no less). I made the sale and I promise you it brightened his day and in turn, the lives of the people he met. WHAT’S THE MORAL OF THE STORY? If you believe in what you’re selling, MAKE the sale. Give no energy to the objection, instead, REMAIN in the sale. As soon as you sell, SELL AGAIN. I bloody love selling. So if you or your team want to massively improve your sales processes and you think you’d benefit from a half or full day session with me, drop me an email and let’s make it happen!!!
Everybody knows that people buy from people, but what do you do in your business to reinforce this idea? This week I experienced a fantastic Starbucks Barista who used this one technique to breakdown the corporate facade and talk to me as a person. The result was me buying a piece of cake to go with my coffee when I would have ordinarily said no.
We all hit snooze when our alarm goes off. Sometimes we hit it twice or three times or until, like me, your partner boots you out of bed. But does it matter? Does that small decision really impact our lives? Small actions we take or don’t take, when compounded, actually add up. Does it matter if you make that sales call today? Does it matter if you eat that cookie today? Does it matter if you motivate your staff today? The answer is yes. It’s down to those small victories or losses or a day by day basis which ultimately shape our live and the outcomes we reach…..or don’t.
People do business with people. Yet we forget this and believe that people do business with our company. They don’t. They always do business with you, because your business is just an extension of you. Think about your favorite film. What is it? And why do you love that film? Is it because of the story, the cinematography, the special effect? More likely, it’s because of the characters in it which you connected with on some level. Fans of Apple love their products, but fell in love with Steve Jobs. They believed what he believed which helped them to form a strong and deep connection with him and his company. TELL YOUR STORY You’ve got to tell your story. Explain where you’ve come from, where you are now and where you going. Explain what you believe and why you believe it. Tell people your flaws. Tell people your passions. Use the words that you would use. It won’t resonate with everyone, but it will resonate with the people who matter. HEAR MY STORY You may have already seen this on the homepage or up above, but, listen it again, listen for the words I use and develop a similar structure for yourself. Then share it below in the comments. I’d love to hear it.
What is the #1 marketing strategy? What is the ultimate marketing strategy which can grow your business geometrically and it needn’t cost you a penny? Which is the best marketing strategy that will outlive Google, SEO, Facebook, Social Media and nearly everything else you’re doing? Do you know? Would you like to? I have been working with a major high street shoe company recently and I revealed to them, the idea of the “ultimate marketing strategy”. And as simple and as obvious as it is, it blew them away and is set to transform their business.
Why do businesses fail? The answer is down to systems and checklists. In this incredible story, written by Atul Gawande in the Times, he describes how a 3 year old girl fell through ice on a pond in Austria. She was under the freezing water for 30 minutes. What happened next was amazing, and what the surgeon put’s the outcome down to is profound. And it’s in this outcome that you can draw a valuable lesson for your business, which may mean the difference between it dying or surviving and thriving. YOUR CHECKLIST CHALLENGE Create ONE checklist for ONE critical process in your business. Keep it SIMPLE and EASY for EVERYBODY to understand.
If you’re in business, then you are investing time and money into attracting customers. You then have an ethical obligation your to your clients and customers to sell to them. I went to a Car Showroom to buy a car with money in my pocket, and the salesman f*cked up to the point where we walked out and bought a car from down the road. This is a story of what happened and the Seven Key Sales Lessons you can learn for your business.
Knowing what to say is one thing, but the tone in which we say it is another thing entirely. It is said that what we say, the actual words, only communicates about 7% of what we mean. However, the tone in which we say it accounts for 38% of what we mean. Do you know what tone of voice your staff use? Do you know how much their tone of voice is costing your business? Do you believe you have any control over it?
What I want to talk about today is something that’s had a huge affect on my life, and has a big impact on my client’s lives, especially on their teams that they have in their businesses. It’s all about an above or below the line attitude. I’ll bet you’ve come across this before, but basically above the line, is all about ownership, acceptance, and responsibility; and below the line, is blame, excuses, and denial. It comes down to where is your response? Where does your attitude lay? Is it an above the line or below the line response? Now the most important one above the line for me is responsibility. By accepting responsibility for everything, it means that you are able to respond. This is a very powerful position. It means that we can do something about it. Whenever we’re blaming other people, making excuses, or denying that it’s happening, it keeps us out of power. It makes us a victim. It means that we can do nothing about it. And while it’s nice to think that you’ve an above the line kind of guy or kind of girl, very often it’s easy to creep below the line.
EXAMPLES OF AN ABOVE THE LINE ATTITUDE
Let me give you a couple of examples: I was working with a client recently and they were trying to make some sales. When I was speaking to him he says, “You know what, the clients, they’re just not getting back to me. I’m not making the sales because they’re not getting back to me.” Now straightaway I could say, “Listen, is that an above the line or below the line response? Well it’s below the line because you’re blaming the customer;” ‘They’ve not gotten back to me.’ Let’s take it above the line. Taking the same response, above the line is, “I’ve not gotten back to them.” Now as soon as you say, “I’ve not gotten back to them,” it puts you in a position of control because that means that you can get back to them; you can do something about it. The same guy I was talking to me and he says, “Yeah, I have not made as many sales because the customers just can’t buy; they couldn’t afford it.” Yeah, take it above the line again. Listen; taking it above the line means how can you help them to afford it? How can you help them to purchase your product? What finance deals can you put in place? As soon as you accept responsibility for everything that’s happening, it means that you are able to do something about it. Listen, nothing is happening to you. Everything is happening because of you, and as soon as you accept that one fact, it means that you can start taking control of your life and taking control of everything that is happening to you.
Tony Robbins taught me that in business (and life) you will have experienced the phenomenon of BREAKING POINTS time and time again. You will certainly encounter them again in the future & you may even be experiencing them now. Knowing what they are, how to break through them and what’s on the other side, gives you a massive advantage. I first experienced BREAKING POINTS when I went to see Tony Robbins a few years ago. He worked with me to overcome the breaking points I was experiencing in my life and in my business, and when he showed me how to break through them, the results were instant and astounding.
It is so easy to become distracted when you’re in business for yourself. There are people who want to waste your time, tasks which seem important but aren’t and just the massive amounts of crap you’ve got to deal with every day. Staying focused on what’s important is a huge challenge, which is why I’ve developed the Battleplan of Battleplans to keep me, and you, on track. I become easily distracted. It’s just so easy. Who’s emailed me? Who’s that calling? Who’s that text from? Ooooh, who’s just connected with me on Linked In? Should I grab a coffee? Hi, not seen you for a while. Of course I can help. It is so easy for your day to become hijacked with the noise of the World & we lose site of the key tasks we must do each day. If we are to stand any chance of achieving our goals we must stay laser focused on the few, critical tasks that need completing each day. HOW I DEVELOPED THE DAILY BATTLEPLAN Over the years I have studied the World’s leading business experts on daily goal and task setting. The likes of Jim Rohn, Tony Robbins, Brian Tracy & Grant Cardone. And I have brought together the best bits from everybody to produce the James Ashford Daily Battle Plan. I complete it at the end of each day so I know exactly what I need to do tomorrow to take me closer towards my goals. Maybe you’re able to keep on track and know instinctively what must be done each day, and, you get it done. Or maybe you’re like me and need a powerful tool to help you cut through the noise and keep on track.