Adapting and Adopting »
Print friendly
Learn how to adapt and adopt ideas over to your unique business or professional situation. It does require a small shift of focus from literal to lateral. Here's an easy process I use with my private business and professional clients. It should work well for you, too.
Look at how you currently generate customers or clients, or how you organize the operational side of your business and ask yourself, "Is this the only possible way this can be done?"
Then ask this second question, "Is there a better way to accomplish this?"
Then look at everyone you can in your industry, beginning with direct competitors and then move to people outside who probably are no threat whatsoever. Ask yourself: "How do they generate customers or clients?" "How do they manage their operations?" It may look on the outside to be exactly the same as what you do, but I assure you that it is different. Developing the ability to decipher and discriminate the differences is important.
Next, look at people in similar buy non-competitive industries, asking the same questions of them. Make careful notes on your observations. Once you recognize and appreciate that there are all kinds of other ways to accomplish the objective, and that the method you have chosen may or may not be the best, most effective, efficient or productive option you have, it opens up your natural curiosity. This sense of discovery becomes further fueled once you realize that if you can improve the effectiveness, reduce the time, effort and expense, you will win really big.
Start by really questioning and examining how many different ways other people (within and outside your industry) have discovered how to build their businesses. Then ask yourself constantly, "What have I learned, or discovered, that I can borrow from them, and directly, or indirectly, apply to my business or profession?" Exciting things will start happening very quickly once you commit to doing this on a continuous basis.
A few people have point-blank asked me, "Jay, how can all of what you are writing about apply to my high ticket or high-tech business?" It all applies the same way, but you have to adapt it a bit.
If you sell high-ticket items, your customer or client needs to feel more comfortable and advantaged than any small-ticket purchaser ever could. The same principles apply here. You put their benefit ahead of your own. You educate them, protect them, reverse the risk and guarantee them a desirable result. Give them plenty of benefits and advantages that they can depend upon receiving. Find a way they can sample either the product or service itself, or find someone they'll trust who has successfully purchased your product or service previously.
Take a leadership role when you direct your customers or prospects to action by guiding them each step of the way, telling them what to do, why they should do it and even how exactly to do it for maximum outcome and result. Then add products, services, protection, etc., to the purchase to increase perception, as well as performance for the customer. Increased results is what everyone sells. Increased benefit or advantage, protection or certainty is what everyone wants to buy.
Recapturing Lost Customers
1. Something totally unrelated to you happened in their life or business that caused them to temporarily stop dealing with you, and they intended and still intend to come back. They've just never gotten around to taking action.
2. They had a problem or unsatisfying purchase experience with you that they probably didn't even tell you about, so they're turned off to you.
3. Their situation has changed to the point they no longer can benefit from whatever product or service you sell.
If a customer or client stopped purchasing because of reason #3, they obviously still have respect, goodwill and a connection to your firm. By merely contacting them and honestly expressing your concern about their well-being, you position yourself perfectly. If they tell you they no longer can use your product or service, ask them to recommend you to friends, family members and associates who can benefit from what you do.
This simple action of contacting people who can't use you anymore, and nobly asking for referrals, has increased client companies I work with by as much as 50% within months.
Find out whatever change has occurred in that customer's or client's circumstance. If it's an improvement, be happy for them. Congratulate them and celebrate with them. If it's a reversal or decline in circumstances, be empathetic. Commiserate with them, and, above all, genuinely care. Show deep, heartfelt emotional connection to them. This is the secret to great referrals. Care about them, not about yourself.
At the end of the conversation, ask them if you can ask a favor, if it's appropriate. Tell them that while they were an active customer or client, they were the kind of customer/client/patient you love to have. Nice, frequent, paid bills on time, you appreciated their value. Tell them, quite frankly, that you would love to have a hundred other customers just like them, then ask if they have friends, relatives, coworkers or neighbors who would enjoy, appreciate or benefit at the same high level they used to from your company's products, services or practice.
Tell them you'd be privileged and honored (we rarely use the concept of honoring a customer's patronage, but it is an honor to us) to accept and serve anyone they want to refer. This process is solid gold. Done correctly, and that means with sincerity and respect, it can produce enormous numbers of the highest-grade referrals imaginable.
____________
This resource is (c) Jay Abraham, a renowned marketing expert, and is taken from the "Jay Abraham's Business Breakthroughs" newsletter.
by Jay Abraham
Learn how to adapt and adopt ideas over to your unique business or professional situation. It does require a small shift of focus from literal to lateral. Here's an easy process I use with my private business and professional clients. It should work well for you, too.
Look at how you currently generate customers or clients, or how you organize the operational side of your business and ask yourself, "Is this the only possible way this can be done?"
Then ask this second question, "Is there a better way to accomplish this?"
Then look at everyone you can in your industry, beginning with direct competitors and then move to people outside who probably are no threat whatsoever. Ask yourself: "How do they generate customers or clients?" "How do they manage their operations?" It may look on the outside to be exactly the same as what you do, but I assure you that it is different. Developing the ability to decipher and discriminate the differences is important.
Next, look at people in similar buy non-competitive industries, asking the same questions of them. Make careful notes on your observations. Once you recognize and appreciate that there are all kinds of other ways to accomplish the objective, and that the method you have chosen may or may not be the best, most effective, efficient or productive option you have, it opens up your natural curiosity. This sense of discovery becomes further fueled once you realize that if you can improve the effectiveness, reduce the time, effort and expense, you will win really big.
Start by really questioning and examining how many different ways other people (within and outside your industry) have discovered how to build their businesses. Then ask yourself constantly, "What have I learned, or discovered, that I can borrow from them, and directly, or indirectly, apply to my business or profession?" Exciting things will start happening very quickly once you commit to doing this on a continuous basis.
A few people have point-blank asked me, "Jay, how can all of what you are writing about apply to my high ticket or high-tech business?" It all applies the same way, but you have to adapt it a bit.
If you sell high-ticket items, your customer or client needs to feel more comfortable and advantaged than any small-ticket purchaser ever could. The same principles apply here. You put their benefit ahead of your own. You educate them, protect them, reverse the risk and guarantee them a desirable result. Give them plenty of benefits and advantages that they can depend upon receiving. Find a way they can sample either the product or service itself, or find someone they'll trust who has successfully purchased your product or service previously.
Take a leadership role when you direct your customers or prospects to action by guiding them each step of the way, telling them what to do, why they should do it and even how exactly to do it for maximum outcome and result. Then add products, services, protection, etc., to the purchase to increase perception, as well as performance for the customer. Increased results is what everyone sells. Increased benefit or advantage, protection or certainty is what everyone wants to buy.
Recapturing Lost Customers
1. Something totally unrelated to you happened in their life or business that caused them to temporarily stop dealing with you, and they intended and still intend to come back. They've just never gotten around to taking action.
2. They had a problem or unsatisfying purchase experience with you that they probably didn't even tell you about, so they're turned off to you.
3. Their situation has changed to the point they no longer can benefit from whatever product or service you sell.
If a customer or client stopped purchasing because of reason #3, they obviously still have respect, goodwill and a connection to your firm. By merely contacting them and honestly expressing your concern about their well-being, you position yourself perfectly. If they tell you they no longer can use your product or service, ask them to recommend you to friends, family members and associates who can benefit from what you do.
This simple action of contacting people who can't use you anymore, and nobly asking for referrals, has increased client companies I work with by as much as 50% within months.
Find out whatever change has occurred in that customer's or client's circumstance. If it's an improvement, be happy for them. Congratulate them and celebrate with them. If it's a reversal or decline in circumstances, be empathetic. Commiserate with them, and, above all, genuinely care. Show deep, heartfelt emotional connection to them. This is the secret to great referrals. Care about them, not about yourself.
At the end of the conversation, ask them if you can ask a favor, if it's appropriate. Tell them that while they were an active customer or client, they were the kind of customer/client/patient you love to have. Nice, frequent, paid bills on time, you appreciated their value. Tell them, quite frankly, that you would love to have a hundred other customers just like them, then ask if they have friends, relatives, coworkers or neighbors who would enjoy, appreciate or benefit at the same high level they used to from your company's products, services or practice.
Tell them you'd be privileged and honored (we rarely use the concept of honoring a customer's patronage, but it is an honor to us) to accept and serve anyone they want to refer. This process is solid gold. Done correctly, and that means with sincerity and respect, it can produce enormous numbers of the highest-grade referrals imaginable.
____________
This resource is (c) Jay Abraham, a renowned marketing expert, and is taken from the "Jay Abraham's Business Breakthroughs" newsletter.