How to increase the company’s profit?

Pytanie, które wciąż zadaje sobie większość z nas. Jak zwiększyć zysk i to najlepiej szybko? Wiele zależy tutaj od indywidualnych kwestii danej firmy. Są jednak rzeczy, które marketingowo są w stanie dać nam lepsze wyniki i na nich się skupimy.

Pytanie, które wciąż zadaje sobie większość z nas. Jak zwiększyć zysk i to najlepiej szybko? Wiele zależy tutaj od indywidualnych kwestii danej firmy. Są jednak rzeczy, które marketingowo są w stanie dać nam lepsze wyniki i na nich się skupimy.

Trust

One of the most important aspects is building customer trust in our company or brand. We have devoted a separate note to the subject of trust available here. We assume that the subject of trust is more or less under control, so what next? The trust itself influences the perception of our company by outsiders, which will automatically allow us to gain a directly proportional to this level number of customers potentially interested in our service.

Gaining Clients

We usually start customer acquisition with leads. Leads are, in a nutshell, the contacts obtained with customers potentially interested in our services. The lead for us (as RedRockS’a) will be you, if after browsing our website and deciding to contact us, you call us or send a message via the contact form.

How to get a lead?

We can do this by promoting our website in social media, Google, using a mailing campaign, building a landing page to collect contacts. We can also offer our customers a free e-book or other material in exchange for subscribing to our newsletter, thanks to which it will be in our database.

Usually such contact will be cold, but it doesn’t mean it’s worse!

Of course, the lead will also be the person who comes to us by recommendation. But that’s a topic for another note.

Sales funnels and what is it all about?

The mere fact of acquiring contact does not give us certainty of sale yet. It should also be remembered that not every contact can become our client, but every contact should be taken care of.

A sales funnel is nothing more than a literal funnel – through which we sort the obtained contacts on those interested in our service and those not interested, on whom we do not focus our activities further. The funnel can also be used so that we can screen customers in terms of whether we want to serve them. Various obstacles may appear here, from too small budgets, through unknown industries or other problems.

Below in the diagram, we will show you an example of the type of sales funnel that we can implement in your company.

What we can see on the left side are the stages of the funnel indicating at which stage the customer is and how he can go further, while on the right side we have drawn lines showing how a specific place in the funnel can be assigned to the principle most often used in networking and recommendations, i.e. VCP (Visibility – Credibility – Profitability), or in Polish Visibility – Trust – Profitability.

The acquired contact falls to the very top of the funnel and it has a long way to go until it stays with us for a longer time. Our goal is to help him make that decision.

Getting in touch – where to start?

To get top-level contacts, we need to get attention – that is, be visible. It is important to have a professional website that will show not only our offer, but also the level of our services and clients. If the website does not clearly communicate this, we can lose a lot on query conversion – i.e. fewer people will enter our funnel at all.

Let’s consider whether we want to promote ourselves as a company’s brand or a personal brand. In the latter case, it will also be extremely useful to show yourself in social media as an expert in a given field (depending on the industry, you can choose different channels). Building brand awarness regardless of whether it is a personal or corporate brand, is important because it allows us to gain trust in the eyes of our potential customers. Most of the conscious people who care about high quality and service will choose an experienced company that will be sure that it will not disappear, that it will not deceive them, that it will fulfill its obligations properly. Therefore, sometimes it is not enough to be good and experienced, but you have to show it to others – so that it is noticed.

In order to sell well, it is not enough to have experience and be a professional – we must also have a product or service that will meet the expectations of customers and solve their problem or demand. Only by meeting all of the above points, we can lead the customer to the final step – that is, the purchase. And after the purchase, we can start building loyalty with the customer so that he or she wants to stay with us for longer.

If you don’t know how to build a sales funnel at home, what can make your product or service stand out, or how to show it – arrange a free marketing consultation. At a short meeting, we will not give you all the know-how on how to increase sales in 5 minutes – but we will try to show you the way, and if you like working with us – we can always prepare the entire company’s marketing strategy for you.

Methods of acquiring customers

Acquiring contact with the customer can be divided into three main groups – cold, warm and hot contacts.

Cold contacts,

that is, those with which we have not been connected before. Usually, they are strangers and companies who may have found our e-mail somewhere, picked up the phone or saw the advertisement. A large part of such customers may not even look for the services we offer and may not be interested in our company. In cold contacts, we usually do not have a strong point of reference, which we can refer to and the conversion from such a query will be the smallest – because cold customers more often compare offers based mainly on the price, because they are not aware of our brand, do not know it and do not see why maybe be better than the competition. It is easier to acquire cold contacts if you have a unique product or service and operate on a much larger scale – because here high sales are often made by high numbers of people who will see our offer.

The cold contacts include, among others contacts acquired by:

  • cold calling,
  • cold mailing,
  • ATL (above the line) advertisements, targeted at a mass audience,
  • Google Ads and SEO campaigns (positioning),
  • landing page,

Warm contacts,

are our potential customers who for some reason have not used our services yet, but already have some brand awareness, know what we are doing, are initially interested in our product or service. Warm contacts include contacts that are so-called observers – that is, they can follow our movements in social media, observe our website and implementation, hear about us often from someone they know and have not used our services yet – but they like what we do, just wait for the right moment (and our task is to show the client when the right moment comes). In many companies, most customers are customers obtained from warm contacts, which is why there is a very wide range of possibilities to look for them!

The hot channels include:

  • social media channels (Linkedin, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Tweeter, itd.),
  • website,
  • friends who have heard somewhere about what we do,
  • BTL (below the line) ads that have a more specific audience,
  • fairs and conferences,

Hot kontakty,

it’s actually mainly referral contacts – where another person proves our professionalism by telling another person about it. It may be a good friend or business partner, but the best proof of our good work is usually a satisfied customer. If our satisfied customer recommends us to another company – there is a very high probability that they will also take advantage of our offer (of course, if such mundane things as the budget do not stand in the way). It is the most valued contact, but the hardest to obtain – because it is harder to develop such contacts than warm contacts from the Internet.

The channels that can allow us to get hot contacts include:

  • satisfied customers (the best advertisement!)
  • networking groups (e.g. BNI),
  • business associations (e.g. JCI Kraków),
  • family and friends (although with business with family also be careful),
  • business groups, e.g. on social media,
  • relationships, relationships, relationships!

Because most importantly – without a good relationship, there is no good recommendation!

And what does RedRockS use to acquire customers?

There is no one way and no shortcuts. In order to increase sales, we constantly focus on acquiring new customers and replacing existing customers with loyal customers. We try to simplify customer service as much as possible, so that everyone feels that we respect his time, but we also do our job well, so that he can move forward thanks to it.

We focus on continuous development, most of our clients come to us as warm contacts through social media channels and the website. As a company, we belong to the BNI Victoria networking group in Kraków and to the JCI Kraków business association. We also do charities, which may help build brand awareness a little – but our main goal is simply to help others. We also try to participate in various industry forums and share our knowledge.

However, it should be remembered that the channels of reaching the client must always be selected according to our needs, budgets and, above all, to the type of client we care about. Without it, no marketing can go wrong and we will only lose money unnecessarily.

Therefore, if you do not know what will be most suitable for you – arrange a free consultation with us. We are always happy to advise you on what to pay attention to, because we have helped many industries to succeed in the online world 🙂

Customer retention

Many experienced entrepreneurs say it straightforwardly – keeping a client is definitely less time-consuming and less expensive than acquiring a new client. So why not take care of those customers we already have?

How can we do that? First of all, let’s remind ourselves from time to time, not necessarily in a very intrusive way. Let us thank you for the cooperation so far, ask if they currently need something or if they have problems that they cannot cope with at the moment. Even if it is not our company that will be able to solve this topic at the moment – let’s consider if we do not have someone worth recommending and recommend him. Thanks to us, both parties will win, because our client will get a solution to the problem, and the company we recommend – hot contact. Thanks to this, we will gain the gratitude of both parties, and thus – they will remember us and, having the opportunity, will repay us with help.

Depending on the industry, in some industries it will be easier for the customer to retain and transfer to subscription services, in other industries these will be rather one-time orders. But always taking care of good relations, remember that even with one-off orders – one day it may come back to us with something big. Therefore, let’s plan internally a customer retention strategy. Let’s think about what in our industry may be important to them, which may be a „catch” that will allow us to maintain these relationships in good faith and be able to talk to him at any time without fear. Contrary to appearances, it is not that easy and many companies are constantly trying to improve this process.

Where is this profitability?

In this article, we will not teach you how to manage finances, calculate costs or evaluate work. Maybe one day we will write something about it, but so far there are many valued people who share this knowledge (both for a fee and for free). Therefore, we assume that we have arranged or relatively finances, our product or service has a fixed value that will allow us to earn as much as we expect on it, but we have no one to sell it to. And the increase in profit is correlated with sales. More sales – it will always give us more profit (if we have well-organized matters of margin and profitability).

A good marketing strategy will allow us to attract those customers we want to hit, to sell our product at a fair price that we want to get for it.

Avoid unprofitable customers

Small businesses often kill unprofitable customers. Unfortunately, so far we also sometimes get into the trap of working with such. And who is an unprofitable customer? In short, it is a customer whose requirements are at least 10 times higher than the budget for a given project, has 100 times more comments than a conscious customer who relies on our experience as specialists, knows everything „best” and wants it at every step prove.

As a consequence of such cooperation, instead of gaining XXX money, we lose at least twice as much, summing up the time, nerves and work devoted to the contract, in return we often do not even hear „thank you, good job”, and we can forget about recommending our company. Therefore, it is definitely not worth wasting energy on such customers. And I don’t write this maliciously – but in order to make money, we need to target those who are willing to pay for our years of experience – and just trust us. Then we can achieve the expected effect, and the customer will be satisfied with the implementation – which will meet his assumptions.

How to do it?

It is best to prepare a short brief, where you ask the client about his expectations, ask about the budget, about the phone number (to exchange at least a few words with him). Arrange the questions for your industry so that they give you the broadest possible view of the client’s situation, his expectations and willingness to invest. See if he will treat you with respect, will he be able to trust you. Write a contract with him that will clearly specify any arrangements you make. With time, you will notice some common elements and it will be easier to recognize which group of customers you can include him in.

And if you have any doubts and are afraid that it may be a difficult cooperation – give a very high price (for which, in case of W, you will pay off to accept this difficult client – because sometimes it may turn out that the price will not be a barrier), or say that you don’t have deadlines. No, it will be the next one – but don’t let your passion and your processing capacity kill off unprofitable jobs.

Prepare a good offer

Make sure that your offer is clear to the client, includes everything that should be included in the scope of work, warranty, after-sales care, price and what it includes.

Be clear – do not hide any additional costs at the price you will not tell the customer at the beginning, because nobody likes it.

Make sure your offer has a nice visual setting, especially in the first contact with the client, i.e. on your website.

Remember that your website should first of all respond to the needs and problems of customers – and not lead intrusive sales.

Take care of a marketing strategy that will guide the customer step by step through the entire sales funnel.

Mierz siły na zamiary

Nie bierz czegoś, czemu wiesz, że możesz nie podołać. A jeżeli temat jest trudny powiedz Klientowi wprost, że możecie spróbować – ale nie gwarantujesz efektu. Niech on zadecyduje. Nie ma nic gorszego niż coś obiecać – i tego nie zrobić.

Measure your strength against intentions

Take care of the deadlines, although sometimes it is because of the customer’s delay that you may have slips (we know it all too well). Taking care of deadlines means respect for the client, his time and money. Respect the client and his wallet. He will appreciate it.

Ask your clients what else you could do for them, what to improve, what they value most for them. Not only can it help you increase your sales, it will also increase loyalty among your customers. Because not everyone can listen.

Sell ​​what customers want to buy

Make a thorough analysis of what is profitable in your company. Try to put the greatest emphasis on selling what generates the highest income according to the principle of 20% of work gives 80% of the effect.

Scale.

What you can – try to scale. If you have repetitive things in your company – automate them into processes, use ready-made solutions wherever you can. Don’t reinvent the wheel. Delegate the tasks you can to those who do best. Spend the time you save on developing or improving your processes.

Set a goal and reach for it.

Finally, the most important thing – set a goal. But I will not achieve anything there someday. Set a specific financial goal with which you want to close the year. Break down this goal into smaller monthly goals so you can see what you need to do in each one to achieve it. Sometimes it’s worth starting small steps.

Good Luck!