Double your business cash flow in a year or less – It is not as difficult as you think. A proven, time tested, simple system combined with the discipline to stay on track will supercharge your business results.
Discover the 8 most important marketing questions. Learn a proven 8-step implementation system. The best part is that your staff does most of the hard work.
A small bicycle shop in California increased profits by 201% in a down economy using a system of 8 Marketing Questions combined with an 8-Step Implementation Program: The 8/8 Program.
Can YOU double your profits this year? Of course! How many ways are there to increase your business, starting today: 50, 200, 999, more?
The real answer is 8 – yes, just eight!
The challenge in marketing for YOUR business (and doubling profits) boils down to 8 basic marketing questions. Much of your long-term business success will result from effectively answering the questions below. All great ideas start with questions.
WOODS’ 8 MARKETING QUESTIONS
New Customers:
#1 How can we attract additional customers in our current market niche?
#2 In what new market niches could we sell?
Current Customers:
#3 How can we increase the frequency of sale?
#4 How can we increase the size of each sale?
#5 How can we increase our word-of-mouth (referral) business?
#6 How can we best maintain an on-going marketing contact with our customer?
Past Customers:
#7 How do we reduce the number of customers who stop doing business with us?
#8 How do we get our lost customers to come back to us? If you have an effective program for recovering this group… 42% of them, on average, will come back to you as customers.
Can you have a 100% increase in sales (along with a 400% to 700% increase in profits) this year? The answer depends upon you… and how you answer the Woods’ 8 Marketing Questions and apply the 8-Step Implementation Program.
WHY YOU SHOULD TRY THIS
I have been paid as much as $238,000 to help clients make speedy, substantial improvements in their bottom lines. In nearly every case, I have begun the profit improvement program with a process similar to the one outlined below based on the 8 Marketing Questions. I suggest you do this yourself and save a lot of money you would pay me or some other consultant AND make a dramatic, speedy improvement in your profitability.
This system produces significant improvements when it combines the two critical elements: 1. A SIMPLE profit optimization system that you use continuously, and 2. DISCIPLINE to stay on track every day.
ACTION PLAN
Step 1. Brain-storming
Set up a half-hour meeting time with all of your employees. In the meeting, brainstorm with them each of the 8 questions and put all the responses on a large marker board or on large sheets of paper. Don’t evaluate or reject any ideas at this point. For help in getting started, see RESOURCES below.
Step 2. Evaluation of the brain-storming process
Schedule another half-hour meeting a week later. At that meeting, let the staff know which ideas you will implement immediately, which ones will be deferred for a time and which ones are not feasible now. Get their feedback on the ideas that will be implemented now.
Step 3. – Define responsibilities and due dates
Make a list of the detailed steps involved to accomplish the goals. Identify which staff persons will perform the needed tasks and the target date for completion.
Step 4 – Keep project on schedule and keep the staff engaged
Determine who will track the progress of the tasks performed and report back to managers when any task completion dates have been missed or when it appears that there will be difficulty completing a task by its due date. It is important that each person know precisely what tasks are theirs to complete and the due date for completion.
Be very verbal and laudatory towards those people who are sticking to their plan and getting it done. Celebrate and reward achievement. Especially celebrate the accomplishment of the goal when completed.
Step 5 – Maintain accurate data
Track precisely the costs involved with each of the profit improvement ideas and the total amount of new business each generates. Evaluate each idea based on the actual revenue improvement results compared with the cost of implementing the new idea.
Step 6 – Evaluate and reset goals
Bottom line: did it work? If not, why? What in the process did not work? Bad idea? Poor implementation? If it worked great, then establish it as a new system and continue.
Step 7 – Leverage what you’ve learned
If it worked, what activities similar to this accomplishment can be explored and evaluated? Look closely at what worked and determine why it worked and what else can be done that fits this same type of model for improvement.
Step 8 – Repeat the process
If it worked, do it again. Do it better. You can begin to repeat the process before the prior one is completed.
EXAMPLE
A small bicycle retailer was losing $4,300 per month on average for the previous 12 months. Their banker was hinting that she may not be renewing the lines of credit that the Company relied on to keep the doors open.
BIG problem.
We began the 8/8 Process and achieved these results from the first attempt:
- Step 1 generated 72 ideas
- Of the 72 ideas, only 4 ideas were determined to be viable for immediate implementation – Step 2
- A masterful job was done to get people to do what was needed and on time – Steps 3 and 4.
- They maintained accurate data on the progress for each of the 4 ideas implemented. For each idea they identified:
- The increase (decrease) in Lifetime Value of a customer (CLTV) for new customers.
- The increase (decrease) in the Lifetime Value (CLTV) for the current customer base.
- The strategic cost (those which are spent to directly increase bottom line) for each new idea.
- The increase in the ongoing marketing cost of the new and current customer base.
- Based on the data in Step 5, they made this evaluation:
- New Idea 1 – For each dollar invested, it increase the CLTV by 50.5 times
- New Idea 2 – For each dollar invested, it increase the CLTV by -12.7 times (negative)
- New Idea 3 – For each dollar invested, it increase the CLTV by 27.1 times
- New Idea 4 – For each dollar invested, it increase the CLTV by 9.9 times
- For Step 7 they came up with 2 new ideas based on the original ideas 1 and 3. Over 12 months they did the following:
- New Idea 5 – For each dollar invested, it increase the CLTV by 2.8 times
- New Idea 6 – For each dollar invested, it increase the CLTV by 16.6 times
- Step 8 was re-implemented about each 60 days.
NET RESULTS
At the end of 12 months, the Company was increasing their CLTV generated per month by 48.8 times their cost to acquire and service the customer.
What did their banker see? She saw the average monthly loss of $4,300 transform into a monthly profit of $4,900 for the first 12 months and to a monthly profit of $8,700 for the second 12 months.
That increase in cash flow more than covered the line of credit requirement and put the Company into the “safe zone” as far as the banker was concerned. Owners certainly didn’t mind taking home a much fatter paycheck every month.
RESOURCES:
Search “Brainstorming Books” on Amazon and you will discover many options. One that I have used, and like, is: Quick Brainstorming Activities for Busy Managers: 50 Exercises to Spark Your Team’s Creativity and Get Results Fast, by Brian Cole Miller
This eBook is available through Amzaon.com for only $2.99: How To Up Your Profit In A Down Economy – 114 Tips, Techniques, and Tactics To Kick-Start Your Cash Flow, Boost Your Business, and Pile Up Your Profits When Other Businesses Are Struggling Just To Survive, by Robert Boduch. The main take away from this eBook is that it is a laundry list of all the standard marketing ideas; use it in combination with a good brainstorming session.
Learn the 9 STEPS TO BUILDING PROFITS IN CHALLENGING TIMES at https://woodsco.com/request-form-9-steps-report/