Customer Success

3 Ways To Expand Your Business Without Sacrificing Margins

August 25, 2020 by Dan Lok

There is a prominent myth about business. People think businesses run on huge margins that leave the owners rolling in cash. But that isn’t the case. Margins have to be decent to account for the unforeseen costs of running a business. But they are often smaller than people think.

The hidden costs of owning and operating a business would astound the public. And when it comes to expanding your business, it can be impossible to sacrifice those margins. But you can expand your business without sacrificing your profit margins.

There are a few key things you can do that will need your time but not at a large monetary cost. Or you could trade one cost for another.

These steps will allow you to expand your business while keeping your margins intact.

Ultimately, they will set you on the path to take your business to the next level. You’ve worked hard to get your business where it is. But what got you here will not take you where you want to go.

So you need to learn how to put in place these skills. You will not only better your business but improve your presence in your industry.

The first step to this future is simple: use what you already have.

Expanding Your Business With Tools You Already Have

Why invest in something new if what you have is more than enough? This is the first step to expanding your business without sacrificing margins. You don’t have to create new long-term expenses. Instead, invest your time in evaluating what you already have.

There are two things every entrepreneur with an enterprise has: human capital and a process.

Your human capital is your team and any freelancers or agencies you use. Your process involves what you do to make your product or service happen.

If you operate any business at scale, you have these two items at some level. They helped you get your business to your current level, and they can help you go further.

But they need to be adjusted if you are going to expand your business.

Evaluating Your Human Capital

To expand your business, you need to build a powerful team. When operating a business at scale, your team will represent you to the industry.

You will not be able to have a hand in every part of the process. So every time your team interacts with someone, that reflects on you.

Conquering your industry requires recognizing that your role in the business has changed. Instead of handling day-to-day tasks, you need to operate at a higher level.

You need to focus on your industry.

This is one way to expand your business, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

As you are no longer part of the day-to-day operations of your business, you need a high-caliber team. You are most likely operating with a team already. So expanding your business without sacrificing your margins requires examining your team. Ask yourself:

What is your team structure?
Could they be more effective?
Are they driven by your business’s culture?
Do they represent your best interests?
Are they costing you money with mistakes?

Being loyal to your team is an excellent trait, but you also need to be loyal to your business. That means acknowledging when a team member is no longer necessary. Or when they are costing you more than they contribute.

Employees are human. They make mistakes and need time to learn. But to maximize growth, reevaluating your team and its structure is important.

Are there people on your team who have hampered your business’s growth?

Or could you encourage your team more to expand your business?

Does your team know you appreciate them through your wellness initiatives?

Is Your Team Happy?

There are several management styles. Knowing yours will help you better understand how you relate to your employees.

If you’re a very people-oriented manager, you may be in tune with your team’s happiness. But you may have difficulty restructuring your team because of your loyalty.

If you’re a more numbers-focused manager, you may not recognize if your team is happy. But you’re ready to restructure for growth.

But all the restructuring in the world won’t expand your business if your team isn’t happy.

Happy employees are more loyal with higher engagement levels. And engagement levels are very significant. A Gallup study showed businesses with engaged employees had 59% less turnover.

Plus a 21% increase in profitability.

Wellness initiatives in businesses are not cheap. But asking your employees how they want to feel appreciated could reveal solutions.

For instance, offer more flexible work hours. Adjusting work hours to fit employees’ lives would not impact your margins. Yet it would increase employee engagement.

It would take time and a process to change the schedule. But there would be long-term benefits.

So investing in your human capital does not only mean restructuring your team. It also means evaluating their happiness.

What are the little things you can do every day in your business to encourage your team’s engagement?

Do Your Employees Have Hidden Talents?

Another way to keep your employees engaged is to take advantage of their hidden talents. Allow them to express what they’re passionate about outside of their job description. Then, use those talents.

Keeping your team small and agile will help your business expand in the future. But that means everyone has to have multi-faceted jobs. While you do need to define those jobs clearly, people will still need to have roles.

So get to know your team. Find out what they are good at.

An accountant might have a knack for photography. Or a salesperson may be a grade-A social media manager.

And that brings us to an important question:

Are you outsourcing work that in-house employees could do more effectively?

There is a time and a place for outsourcing. Some positions need a highly-skilled person who does not need to be employed full-time. For instance, copywriting is often outsourced.

If you are outsourcing and plan to continue doing so, ask yourself this:

Can you outsource more effectively?

Take a look at your external team. Are their services worth what you are paying? Are their offerings effective?

This is part of examining your team as a whole. These contractors are not directly part of your team. But they are a piece of your external team, so they impact your business.

Therefore, you need to see their role in your business.

Evaluating Your Process

The next step is diving into your process. You most likely have many processes. These could include marketing, production, distribution, accounts payable, and more.

These processes all have a few things in common: they take time and they’re powered by something. Whether they are powered by humans or money, they require something to make them function.

Are you making them function?

Are you too involved in each process? Are you personally involved in processes you don’t need to be a part of?

If you truly want to expand your business, you need to delegate effectively. But you need to be sure that your process is streamlined for your team, so they are not wasting their time. Or your money.

Your processes should make use of technology and humans to the fullest extent.

Are You Up-To-Date With Technology?

We live in a world full of constantly changing technology. What was top-of-the-line tech five years ago is now deeply outdated.

When was the last time you examined your technology?

If your last evaluation of your tech was several years ago, it’s time to review your technology. This includes processes from payroll to production to lead acquisition.

Software often makes up the foundation of these processes. Software companies will come up with updates for the software you are using. So make sure to check you are updating your software automatically.

And alternative options or solutions may have become available. So it’s important that you continually research and remain open to ideas.

There will be switching costs. But they may be low in comparison to the switch off.

Or alternatively, you may find an all-inclusive software. If you are using a separate invoicing and bookkeeping system, you could find a service that does both. So you can consolidate your needs into one bundled solution.

Make sure to view your process with an open mind. You might also find ways to streamline by using technology less or differently. Pieces of tech you once considered critical may not be required anymore.

But the key is approaching this evaluation with a very open mind. You need to be ready to change. This includes humans.

Are You Using Too Many Humans?

The process of evaluating your team and your process should happen at the same time. So you will know, when you go through your process, how your team will be impacted.

Because you have to ask yourself a harsh question: are you using too many humans?

Is there something you are paying for that technology could do?

If you are a people-oriented manager, this question will be really difficult to answer. And if you decide to keep people on your team that are doing jobs a computer could do, that’s up to you. But you have to recognize you could more efficiently expand your business in other ways.

One of those ways could be capitalizing on your people-oriented attitude. Not every business can say they are loyal to their employees.

But 87% of employees expect their employer to support their work-life balance. This is a large portion of the population who cares about how companies treat their employees.

So if you are unwilling to replace humans with computers, capitalize on that market.

Acknowledge that you may need to sacrifice some margins. It will not be as fiscally efficient to expand your business. But you do have a market that you can tap into without changing your business.

Expanding Your Business With New Additions

While you can use what you already have, you could also make additions.

Depending on your business, this may involve new investments in people or technology. Replacing older technologies with new ones will create a short-term expense. If you replace technology, you may be able to make the process more affordable.

But the long-term ramifications will save you money.

Hiring someone to help with your evaluation could help, too. It would be an additional expense but with long-term benefits. A fresh set of eyes and open mind could help you identify areas to improve.

But there are other steps you can take to expand your business that involve you specifically.

As we mentioned, your role in your organization has to change to expand your business. If you want to take your business to the next level, you need to invest in your industry.

This is why it is so important you trust your team to delegate to them. And you trust your process to make sure your business is running according to your standards.

Once you have those two factors in place, you will be free to explore your industry further. Take the opportunity to network with your peers and establish yourself as an authority.

Collaboration With Peers

Networking with peers is fundamental to expanding your business. Knowing others in your industry will allow you to better understand your competitors. It will also help you capitalize on best practices in your own organization.

Can you honestly say right now that you know the standards for your industry?

The internet has made researching an industry easy. But nothing will replace gaining wisdom from those who are currently succeeding. That’s why finding the right mentor is so important.

And networking with those in your industry around the world will help you to establish yourself as an authority. What are the benefits of being an authority with a recognizable brand? You will be top-of-mind when they need your services.

But networking with peers extends outside your industry. It includes similar industries or ones with which you work. And if you network correctly, that allows for collaboration. You could find new products or services to offer based on people you connect with.

This is why networking is so important to expand your business. Your business will be able to grow so much more when you keep an open mind to learning from others. Plus, you will give your business opportunities by being open to collaboration.

Networking takes time and social skills but virtually no large investment. It’s an excellent way to give your business opportunities without sacrificing margins.

Are You Networking Correctly?

The internet has given plenty of networking opportunities. LinkedIn is a great example.

But you need to know how to fully utilize the platform.

If you are attending an industry event, find out beforehand who is going to be at the event. Send them a connection with a note about attending the event. That way, at the event, you can re-introduce yourself but with research.

You know their job history, current responsibilities, and projects they’ve worked on. You can determine if collaboration would be a good option.

But even if you are not able to attend events in person, LinkedIn is still a good option for virtual networking.

Don’t be afraid to connect with and message others in your industry. You can respectfully and professionally encourage them in their endeavors and introduce yourself.

Make sure to brush up on the proper way to connect with powerful people in your industry. They are busy professionals, and there is a proper way to go about it.

Even if you aren’t reaching out to others, you should post a few times a week about your own business and projects. If people know what you are doing, they can collaborate. Additionally, you should interact with peers’ posts, so they become familiar with you.

Expanding Your Business Through Networking

Ultimately, to expand your business without sacrificing your margins, you need collaboration. Collaborating has several benefits. Namely, you will establish yourself as an authority in your industry. Plus, you will learn best practices while setting industry standards.

”You have to put yourself in connection with other entrepreneurs who are seeking the same growth as you if you want to expand your business.” - Dan Lok Click To Tweet

Dan Lok’s S.M.A.R.T. Challenge is an excellent example of entrepreneurs coming together to build unbreakable and sustainable businesses and growing their networks at the same time.

The S.M.A.R.T. Challenge is only run a few times each year, and with every challenge, business owners see phenomenal results.

Being a relatively short but impactful implementation program is what sets the S.M.A.R.T. Challenge aside from other business-scaling challenges.

How To Evaluate Business Opportunities And Ideas

April 9, 2020 by Dan Lok

There are many different types of business opportunities that entrepreneurs are regularly faced with. The reason why so many people are interested in pursuing business opportunities and ideas, is because they want to achieve wealth, success, and significance.

Perhaps you are evaluating business opportunities because you want to figure out a way to make more money, or you just want to feel more important, or more significant. Or, maybe you are simply ready to have something to call your own, and you’re eager to be your own boss.

It’s possible that for you, the wealth you could achieve from pursuing certain business opportunities would simply be a bonus of something greater: A sense of accomplishment and that satisfying feeling of fulfillment and achievement.

Types of business opportunities you may find yourself evaluating include starting your own business, expanding your current business, or investing in someone else’s business. You may even be thinking about buying an existing business that is currently for sale, or inventing a new product or service that you think there would be a demand for.

No matter which type of business opportunity you are considering, you must always properly assess, evaluate, and analyze any business opportunities that come your way. According to the most recent data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 20% of small businesses fail in their first year, and about 50% of small businesses fail in their fifth year. So, now you understand why it’s so crucial to analyze and assess business opportunities instead of jumping right in. But how do you evaluate business opportunities properly? Below are several important tips, so be sure to read this entire article.

Evaluate Business Opportunities By Asking The Right Questions

Properly evaluating business opportunities requires that you ask all of the right questions. Don’t look at business opportunities through rose-colored glasses and assume it’s a great idea. Instead, ask yourself the hard questions.

For example, ask yourself what could go wrong. What is the downside? Have you done a proper risk assessment, and if so, what are the risks? Do you have the funds to start this business? How much will it cost? How much money could you lose?

And, even more importantly, ask yourself, Could I live with losing that much money?

Then ask yourself, Is there a sufficient market demand for this product? As well as, How long will it take to see a return on my investment? If the answer is that you might not see a profit for 5 years, then you need to ask yourself if you’re okay with that.

It’s also important to evaluate business opportunities by looking at the opportunity from other perspectives, rather than having tunnel vision. Ask yourself, What don’t I know? And ask, What don’t I see?

Critical Thinking Skills are Necessary to Evaluate Business Opportunities

Business is an intellectual sport. Whenever you’re evaluating new business opportunities, you must put aside some time to think. Whether that thinking time is done in your quiet home office, or you’re in deep thought as you stare out the window at your corporate office, this thinking time is crucial.

However, evaluating business opportunities doesn’t just require thinking. It requires critical thinking. You don’t just want to only think about how awesome this business idea is. (Many of my bad business decisions started off with a “good” idea, and a bad assumption on my part that the business would do well.) Your thinking can’t all be positive thinking about how great this opportunity is. Instead, you must engage in critical thinking. Part of critical thinking is asking yourself some of the questions mentioned in the section above.

Critical thinking, however, is also your ability to analyze the information objectively and without bias. A critical thinker will think about all of their research findings, industry data, facts, and run the numbers to see if the idea makes sense financially.

Critical thinkers are good at evaluating business ideas from a logical and fact-based standpoint, rather than from an emotional or biased standpoint. Click To Tweet

Critical thinking is important, as it’s smart to analyze business opportunities from a logical, objective and fact-based standpoint, rather than from a biased or emotional standpoint.

Conduct Market Research

When evaluating a business opportunity, it’s crucial to spend the time doing proper market research. Why? Because you need to know if there’s a high enough demand in the marketplace for your product or service. How big or small is the market for your type of business?

You also need to be aware of how much competition there is. Perhaps the marketplace is already over-saturated with similar businesses, and tons of competition. Do you think you can compete? How will you stand out?

You can also research how other similar businesses in the marketplace are doing. Are they struggling, or thriving? And what are the buying patterns of consumers in this market?

Market research also involves understanding the market and its current trends, what consumers in the market are currently paying for similar services, and where there is a gap that needs to be filled.

You’ll definitely have to do a lot of other research while evaluating business opportunities as well, but market research is one of the most crucial types of research.

A Detailed Business Plan is Required

You probably shouldn’t consider any business opportunities that don’t have a well-thought out, complete business plan.

If you are considering starting your own business, your first order of business is to do your research and write out a detailed business plan.

If you think you’ll need investors to start your business, know that they’ll require a business plan from you.

If the business opportunity you’re considering involves investing in someone else’s business, you should of course take a look at the business plan, and have industry professionals you trust take a look at it as well. You want to know that the business idea is one that is likely to be sustainable and profitable, within a market where the demand is there.

Ask a Professional Business Consultant for Advice

It’s worth it to hire a business consultant with credentials. Get their input. Business consultants typically charge by the hour, and they can help you with many things. If you don’t have a business plan yet, the consultant can give you tips on how to write a compelling business plan, and what should be included in it.

If you do have a business plan that was given to you or written by you, some consultants are willing to take a look at it, and provide their expert opinion. This helps you properly evaluate the business opportunity.

Hired consultants or lawyers can also help you review any contracts that you’d have to sign in order to take on a business opportunity.

Get Opinions from Industry Experts

Whatever business idea you’re evaluating, it’s always a smart idea to get advice from industry experts or mentors. Perhaps your mentor will advise you to write down a pros and cons list, or conduct some other ‘thinking’ exercise that is helpful while evaluating the business opportunity. Or, maybe an industry expert you talk to will have valuable insight on the current needs of the marketplace.

The more advice and opinions you get from business experts and industry experts, the more insight you’ll have into the business opportunity in front of you.

Think Outside the Box

How you think about your business, and how you execute your ideas, that’s what increases the odds of success. Intel is very valuable, as is thinking outside the box.

In the tough work of business, there are winners and losers. Contrary to popular belief, those who work the hardest and hustle the most, don’t always make the most money or succeed the most.

Those who take the time to think outside the box, however, are more likely to succeed. An example of thinking outside the box is thinking about a gap in the marketplace, where there is a demand. This is often referred to as a ‘blue ocean’ market, where there aren’t any competitors, as it’s a current gap in the market, but the demand is there. If you pursue ‘blue ocean’ business opportunities with no competition but tons of demand, you have a higher chance of success.

Financial Assessment: Is There a Less Expensive Opportunity to Consider Instead?

I want you to imagine that you’re evaluating a business opportunity in the restaurant industry, because you’re interested in this industry. Let’s say you’re thinking of opening a restaurant. But you know it’ll be expensive. This is not a cheap business opportunity. You have to think of the cost of the real estate, the labor, the cost of the food, the wait staff, etc.

Think about how much it will cost to open and run a restaurant. Let’s say you figured out that it’ll cost at least $400,000, and you have an investor willing to put in $150,000. You’ve realized that because of how pricey the initial investment is, it will take you at least 5 years to make back your investment. You might not start making a profit for 6 or 7 years. And in this competitive industry, the likelihood of failing is quite high. If things don’t go well, you could lose over half a million dollars.

After evaluating this business opportunity, you’ve realized your restaurant would have to do very well, even to just break even and make back your investment.

Don’t jump into anything without running the numbers. Do your break even analysis. The restaurant industry is extremely competitive.

Is there a less expensive business opportunity in this industry? How can you start a business that would cost less, in this industry that you’re interested in? Why not sell a food-related product instead? If you were thinking of opening an Indian restaurant, you could sell a related product instead. Consider selling delicious Indian cooking sauces instead.

Do You Know How to Pitch to Investors?

There’s a high likelihood that your business opportunity will be too expensive for you to take on by yourself. That means you need investors. But do you know how to pitch to investors?

Knowing how to pitch to investors is one of the skills you need to have if you want to pursue a business opportunity.

The first thing you’ll need to do is prepare a sales pitch. This typically includes memorizing a speech and creating a compelling power-point presentation. However, before you prepare your pitch, understand that your pitch should focus on the benefits for the investors. What’s in it for them? Investors only want to provide you with funding and invest in your business idea, because they want a return on their investment. It’s your job to explain how and when they’ll get their return on investment.

Your pitch should preemptively answer the questions you know your investors will need answered before they’ll feel comfortable investing. After hearing your pitch, the investor should now have more trust in your and your business idea, less doubts about it, and feel more confident in their investment. doubts, fears, and questions about whether or not they can trust you.

Be sure to rehearse your pitch and practice it again and again, before your investor meeting.

Knowing and Understanding Your Niche Market

It’s always important to invest in what you know, so if you’re considering investing in a new business opportunity, do you know the market quite well? Do you understand the market needs for this particular niche, and do you understand the industry?

If you aren’t knowledgeable in this particular industry, or you aren’t passionate about it, the business opportunity might not be right for you.

What Skills Do You Need to Have in Order for the Business to be a Success?

In order for a business to succeed, you need certain skills. So, when evaluating a business opportunity or idea, you should also evaluate whether you possess these crucial skills, or whether you could acquire them. These skills include sales and closing skills, marketing skills, industry knowledge, and business acumen.

If you don’t possess some of these skills, can you take a course to learn them? Or, do you have a potential business partner who does possess these skills? These are important things to think about.

Evaluating whether or not you have the right skills needed for the business plan to work, is part of what’s called a “self-analysis”. Reviewing your skills (including sales skills, people skills, marketing skills and special skills that align with the business model) is an important step. Other things to consider while doing a self-analysis, is considering whether or not you’re willing to put in the amount of funds, time, and effort needed to increase the odds of success.

If You Lack the Required Knowledge or Skills, Invest in Yourself First

You might not be ready to pursue certain business opportunities if you lack the required knowledge or skills. Before you can safely pursue these business opportunities that seem over your head, you must invest in yourself by learning the things you need to know.

Investing in yourself could be deciding to learn the required skills by taking an online course, or reading a business-related book written by a business expert.

Gain Knowledge by Reading Books on Business to Set Yourself Up for Success

Great business people are always learning. Business-related books can help you gain more knowledge, and books can also help you learn the skills you need to reach your goals. After reading these books, you’ll feel more confident in your pursuit of business opportunities, and it’ll be much safer for you to pursue them.

The right books will help set you up for success. You should ensure that the book you buy was written by a successful business professional, who recently pursued business opportunities and succeeded.

Think of how much crucial business-related knowledge you can gain, simply from buying a book that costs $10 or $20?

I recently published a book called Unlock It: The Master Key to Wealth, Success, and Significance. You’ll learn a lot about business in this book. What you’ll learn includes how to grow your business to grow rich, how to think critically by focusing on what you don’t know, how to hire the right people for your business, and how to unlock your business’s highest potential in terms of success and wealth.

Order my book Unlock It: The Master Key to Wealth, Success, and Significance here. Start reading about business so that you can pursue only the best business opportunities that have the highest chance of success.

How To Bring Personalization To Your Email Marketing Strategy: 7 Simple Techniques

March 10, 2020 by Dan Lok

An effective email marketing strategy is an essential and powerful marketing tool for any business.

With so many marketing tools available today…

Email still continues to be a great channel of communication with your audience.

With emails, you have the chance to directly reach your customers and prospects.

You can make a connection with them. And send your latest offers, promotions, and important updates, direct to their inbox.

It is not surprising 56% of marketers consider their email marketing strategy to be very important. And 30% consider it important.

Overall, marketers consider retention to be the best use of email (59%).

Followed by brand promotion (57%) and conversion (52%).

What’s more…

According to a survey done by Litmus, email marketing has an average ROI of 38:1.

While emails give great results, it has become important to personalize them.

Why Personalize Your Email Marketing Strategy?

It should come as no surprise that people receive lots of emails in their inbox every day.

I am sure you do too.

The Radicati Group found that the average office worker receives 121 emails per day.

So how does a business stand out?

Well, that’s where personalization in your email marketing strategy comes in. It can cut through the clutter and capture the attention of your target customers.

You target an email campaign to a specific subscriber by leveraging the information you have about them.

Yes, personalizing takes time and effort. But all the research suggests that it gives incredible results.

eConsultancy’s study found:

74% of marketers who used personalization strongly agreed that it improved customer engagement.

An Experian study discovered that email personalization can boost transaction rates up to 6 times.

Hence, a personalized email marketing strategy:

Helps your emails stand out
Improves CTR
Increases conversion rates

And yet…

Most businesses have not implemented personalization in their emails.

eConsultancy reported that only 5% of companies focus on personalizing emails.

Note that personalization goes beyond just mentioning your subscriber’s names.

It is a broad term. There are various degrees to which you can personalize.

What I see most commonly, is basic email personalization:

Subscriber’s name in the subject line
Their name in the email copy

On the other hand, an advanced personalization technique means…

Tailoring the content of the email to meet every single one of your subscriber’s needs.

Business owners and marketers have to identify ways to connect with customers on a deeper level.

Here are 7 powerful techniques to drive deeper relationships with your customers:

1. Segment Your Audience

This is the very first thing you have to do when you personalize emails.

It is the core foundation for the personalization of your email marketing.

Why?

Because when you segment your subscribers into different relevant categories…

You will be able to send uniquely crafted emails that speak to their needs.

Think about it…

If you receive an email that is not relevant to you, what do you do?

Ignore it. Delete it, perhaps. Right?

The more relevant your audience, the more likely they will open your email.

And the more likely they will take the desired action you want them to take.

So how do you segment your audience?

You could start with:

Location
Gender

Moreover, you could use any information they provided when they signed up for your email list.

An advanced personalization email marketing strategy derives from a subscriber’s behavior:

Are they an active or an inactive subscriber?
What are their interests?
Did they participate in your events or contests?
Download any specific content?
Which pages do they visit?

Behavior-triggered emails are real-time reactions to how your customers are using your product. Trigger emails have a 152% higher open rate compared with traditional emails.

Data collection is key here.

You could create and target your ideal buyer personas.

According to HubSpot:

“A buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer. It is based on market research and real data about your existing customers”.

Looking to make your buyer persona? Check out this free persona generator by HubSpot.

Create unique combinations of potential customer profiles. And you will take your first step in personalizing your email marketing strategy.

2. Humanize The Sender

If you are sending out emails under your company name, then you need to rethink your strategy.

Have you noticed…

When you receive an email the “from” name is highlighted. Usually, it’s written in larger and bolder text.

Almost all the email clients do it. Desktop or mobile.

It is done so you can easily identify who has sent you the message.

Before you even open it, you know who has sent you the email.

Most likely, you also make up your mind whether you are going to read that email or not.

Hence, the “from” field is very important. And it’s often overlooked.

You see…

People are more likely to open emails received from a person. Even more, if it’s a person they know or someone they could relate to.

It could be you as the owner of the company. Or a particular account manager who is associated with a subscriber.

If a sales manager is handling the subscriber’s account, use his name to send the email.

The bottom line: Your audience will trust and relate to an email that comes from another person, as opposed to a business. You need to use a person’s name in the “from” field.

Take personalization up a notch by using the sender’s face instead of your logo.

3. What’s It About?

The subject line is the second most prominent element in the inbox.

Just like the sender’s name, it stands out. It has a darker and heavier text compared to the body copy of the email.

So how can you use that to your advantage?

Well, you could reference your individual subscribers by their names, in the subject line.

Marketing Sherpa’s research shows:

Including a name in the subject line can increase open rates by 29.3% on average.

That’s a significant reason to add it to your email marketing strategy.

What’s more…

For consumer products and services companies, subscriber’s name in the subject line produced a boost of 41.8%.

But remember, don’t overdo it. If you do it in every email, your subscribers may start ignoring it.

Moreover, personalization doesn’t just mean adding your subscriber’s name to the subject line.

It could also mean talking to your subscriber.

What do I mean?

I will give you an example here.

Let’s say you are offering your services as a copywriter.

When sending out your latest newsletter you could go with either:

Increase Your Revenue OR
I Increased XYZ’s Revenue By 10%

Which email is your target audience more likely to open?

You see…

In the 2nd subject line, you are talking to the subscriber.

Even better, you are backing it up with a statistical claim and a clear benefit to your audience. A result that you have already delivered.

Similarly, using “your/you” is also an effective way to personalize your email marketing strategy.

4. Email Content

The content of your email should be targeted to meet the specific needs of your target audience.

Here are a few guidelines:

Write To The Subscriber

This is the most common technique for email personalization that most companies implement.

Addressing their subscribers by their names at the beginning of the email.

However common, it is important to note it is an essential step that you need to take.

Don’t you appreciate it when someone takes the time to remember your name?

Similarly, your target audience will too.

Your subscriber wants to feel unique, spoken to and special. When you talk to them directly, they are more likely to respond positively. Click To Tweet

Talk, Don’t Type

There are several types of email content that you could send to your subscribers.

Before we get into the types of content, let’s just talk about the tone of your emails.

Keep your language simple, engaging and conversational.

Imagine the subscriber reading your email, is your friend.

Use an informal tone. And avoid using complicated words.

Break up your emails into an easily readable and scannable form. It shouldn’t overwhelm your readers.

Remember…

It is all about your audience understanding your offering in the simplest way possible.

Types Of Content

The type of content you send out depends on your company. And the value you want to provide your subscribers.

Here are a few examples of tailored content:

Solutions to their problems

How to overcome a problem is one of the best ways to engage your subscribers.

If you provide them solutions, they are more likely to become your customers.

And if they are already your customers, they are more likely to return.

Tell a story

Stories are a powerful way to connect with your subscribers.

It could be a customer’s experience of using your product or service. How did your product help them?

You could share your own or your company’s story.

Or it could be something interesting from your travels. You could even wrap a piece of informational content in the form of a story.

Tips & Tricks

You could send helpful advice on how to get the most out of your product or service. Tell about the features they haven’t used yet or aren’t aware of.

Ensuring that your subscribers learn something new will increase their loyalty and satisfaction.

Product Recommendations

If you run an e-commerce store, you could offer and suggest relevant products to your subscribers.

Keep track of their purchasing history to provide recommendations based on their previous choices.

It can also help you create an inclusive sense of community. You could include popular products purchased by similar customers to encourage conversions.

Milestones

Celebrate important moments or milestones in your relationship with the subscriber.

Furthermore, you could add advanced personalization to your emails by sending behavior triggered emails.

These types of emails can be easily automated.

You can use them for:

Up-selling
Cross-selling
Welcome
Re-engagement
Dynamic content offers
Cart abandonment and so on.

5. Personalized Call-To-Action

A strong call to action (CTA) is one of the most important elements of your email marketing strategy.

Unbounce’s study showed 1st person CTAs had a 90 percent better conversion rate than 2nd person CTAs in emails.

Hence, for a personalized email experience, design CTAs from the reader’s point of view.

First-person CTAs create a reading experience that feels tailor-made for the individual.

You want your subscribers to feel like they’re in control of the process.

And using the first-person language makes them feel that it’s their decision to click or not.

For an even higher level of personalization…

You could automate calls to action depending on the person reading them.

Let’s say your subscriber clicked on your CTA and downloaded a pdf. Now next time they will see a different (but relevant) call to action.

Targeted and customized CTAs will be a unique and personalized experience for your subscribers.

Dynamic CTAs work hand in hand with dynamic content. Using dynamic content means your email will populate based on when it is opened, rather than when it is sent.

6. Where Are They Going Next?

Personalization that begins in an email should continue to flow to your landing page.

That means your email and landing page should have a consistent look and copy.

Moreover, they both should have the same personalized call to action for the subscriber.

Why?

Because if the entire journey of your audience is streamlined…

There will be less confusion in their minds. They could easily keep following the path to conversion.

A HubSpot study of 330,000 CTAs on websites found:

Personalized CTAs performed 202% better than any other types of CTAs.

So just like in your email, keep your CTAs personalized on your landing page.

Also, ensure that the content of the landing page supports your email’s content. Or reflect your reader’s next interests (the reason they clicked on the CTA).

This will lead to the customer having a unified experience. And it will make them more likely to convert.

You could have different landing pages for different customer segments. So when you write custom emails for each segment, the landing page should have similar content.

Remember…

The focus is to convert subscribers based on their specific interests in your business.

7. Timing & Frequency

An integral part of a personalized email marketing strategy:

To deliver your email when your subscriber is ready.

It’s likely that not all your customers are in one location. Or respond to emails at the same time.

By testing different times, you will know the best time for your emails.

Find out when your emails are opened and engaged with, the most.

With email software, you can easily track the time and date, your messages were read.

Use that data to send emails at the best times for a particular “segment”.

You can even go beyond that by identifying the data of each subscriber.

Behavior such as:

When are they opening your email
When and how are they engaging with your content

This way you can further personalize emails by sending messages at the best time for each individual customer.

Furthermore, not every subscriber would want to receive an email at the same frequency.

You should give your subscribers the option to maintain a sense of control.

For example…

Someone could be likely to engage with your content twice a week. While another subscriber could be more responsive once a month.

It’s always best to give your audience an option to choose:

How often they would like to receive your emails.
What types of content they would like to receive.

The best way to do that is to ask questions through feedback.

Survey your subscribers. And use that information to further tweak and personalize your email marketing strategy.

The Art Of Writing High Converting Emails

Emails are a highly lucrative form of getting traffic to your website.

If you are not already utilizing personalization in your email marketing campaigns then you are missing out.

There is no doubt that a personalized email marketing strategy can bring you more revenue.

Personalization gets customers engaged with your business.

But as I mentioned earlier…

Most businesses are unsure of what to do when it comes to personalization.

62.26% of consumers feel “happy” and “excited” to respond to a personalized email from a business.

And yet…

Businesses are content with sending out generic emails to their subscribers.

Why?

Because crafting and delivering personalized emails isn’t quite as easy.

You first need to understand how to write effective emails.

But revenue-based writing is an art. And not everyone knows how to write high converting email copy.

Writing compelling emails is a golden opportunity to stand out from your competition.

For the best ROI, there are two ways you could go:

Hire a professional copywriter: The right copywriter could give you great results. Save your time.
Write the emails yourself: Learn to write compelling copy for your business. Save your costs.

But doing it yourself isn’t as hard as it sounds.

The art of revenue-based writing or copywriting is nothing new. You just have to know the right words. And where and when to use them.

That’s why I have put together a in-depth training. So you could discover the little known art of copywriting.

In this training, I will also show you 3 other untapped writing opportunities…

That can benefit any business. And help you take your business to the next level.

The best part?

You don’t need a degree or any sort of experience to get the best out of this free training.

How To Reduce Customer Churn and Get More People To Care About Your Business

December 25, 2019 by Dan Lok

Customer churn is one of the biggest influences that causes businesses to stagger in growth or outright go bankrupt.

Without customers a business cannot survive. And the problem is that more and more business owners are focusing on their bottom life instead of an old age saying that is true even to this day:

The customer is king.

What Causes Customer Churn?

Customer churn occurs when a business does not value their customers. This is a common problem among businesses that have employees. The owner may do everything in their power to ensure customer satisfaction, but their employees may not feel the same way.

They may hate their job or be overwhelmed by stress and project their emotions onto the customer. As a result, customer service and overall experience goes down, making customers feel unappreciated and motivated to go somewhere else. Overtime, through repeated negative experiences the customer becomes fed up. And when the time comes that they are presented with an experience that treats them much better, they will happily accept it as their new go to service provider.

Customers no longer base their loyalty on price or product. Instead, they stay loyal with companies due to the experience they receive. If you cannot keep up with their increasing demands, your customers will leave you.

Customers no longer base their loyalty on price or product - they base it on the experience they receive Click To Tweet

Understanding Your Customers

In order to avoid customer churn and retention issues, the simplest and most effective way is to place yourself in your customer’s shoes. The interesting part is, you are already doing it.

When you visit shops, stores, and are provided with customer service, how do you feel? You and your customer are both human beings – and the experiences you have with the employees you interact with tell you how other customers feel as well. The same goes for your business – to identify and solve inconsistencies that are causing customers to go somewhere else, go through the process yourself.

Have your own employees serve you. Take note of the entire experience – how do they make you feel? Do you feel rushed and ignored? Are they attentive to your needs? Do they go above and beyond to ensure your satisfaction?

The easiest way to know what the customer wants, is to go through it yourself. After all, you are a customer as well, and how you feel is a good indicator of how your customer will feel as well.

The simplest way to know how the customer feels is to go through it yourself. Click To Tweet

Making Customers Feel Like Royalty

Your customers are the lifeline of your business. They provide you with revenue, repeated business year after year, and either recommend you to their friends and family, or inform them to stay away. Taking care of your customers should be the most important priority if you want to avoid customer churn.

In Japan, they take this concept of customer satisfaction extremely seriously. They have a saying called Okyakusama wa kamisamadesu – which translates to “The Customer is God”. Forget being treated like royalty – the Japanese take it to a whole new level, literally worshipping their customers as someone they cannot bear to live without. Which in business is very true, because without them you would have no business.

Understanding your customers is the first step to making them feel like royalty (or omni-potent beings). Every human being has a desire to be understood and accepted, and if you are able to demonstrate that kind of care and compassion for your customers, they will feel exhilarated from the amount of attention being provided to them.

When your customers feel you understand and care for them – something that your competitors may slack out on, you’ll gain their trust and loyalty. That results in more and more business overtime, to allow your business to grow and thrive.

How High Ticket Closers Create Genuine Customer Loyalty

To create the same kind of customer service that makes customers revere you as their dream service provider, think of every interaction in your business process as an opportunity. In sales, this is known as being a high ticket closer.

The difference between a salesperson and a high ticket closer, is in their approach. A salesperson is concerned with closing the deal, and getting the customer to buy something. They may use pushy or aggressive sales tactics to get this result, and in the process make the customer feel turned off and unwilling to return. This increases customer churn.

A high ticket closer however, is in no rush to get the sale. They focus more on customer interaction and building a solid connection with them, because they are aware that genuine customer relationships pay off much more in the long term. A high ticket closer asks questions to understand the customer on a deep level, and uses that mutual understanding to make the customer trust and like them. High ticket closers know that a customer that knows, likes and trusts them, is much more likely to buy than someone who doesn’t.

The 3 Long Term Benefits Of High Ticket Closing

Because customers buy from people they know, like and trust, being that kind of person has many long term benefits.

The first way is that they are more likely to buy from you over everyone else, which increases your sales and revenue.

The second way is that loyal customers are going to keep coming back to you year after year, because of how you make them feel. They are going to recommend their friends and family to do business with you, because of the excellent service you provide. This compounds on itself, bringing you more and more business overtime and growing your base of loyal customers.

The third way is that you will never have to sell again. There is no customer churn, because your customers are loyal and like you – they already want to do business with you. When the time comes that you have a new product or service to offer, you already have a list of customers who are willing to buy from you. You don’t need to spend time doing cold calls, using hard sell sales tactics or even trying to persuade them into doing anything – they are already interested in what you have to offer and willing to buy.

Customers buy from people they know, like, and trust. Click To Tweet

Why High Ticket Closing Is Not For Everyone

Unfortunately, this way of doing business is not cut out for everyone. As high ticket closing is more focused on creating relationships, using influence to close deals and developing genuine customer loyalty, there is a bit more work involved.

In order to be someone that people know, like and trust, you need to develop the kind of skills that make people flock to you. This means taking the time to improve your communication abilities such as speaking, storytelling and listening in order to establish trust at the highest level. In the world of business, this is known as personal development.

Personal development is a lifelong process that never ends. Humans are capable of much more than they think they can do, which is why most people fall short of their abilities. They think that investing in themselves to become the best version of themselves takes too much time, and would much rather settle to be a mediocre version of who they truly are. Some examples of this are are people saying things like:

“I was born this way.”

“I’m too old to learn anything new.”

“That takes too much time. I’d rather enjoy life”

“I’m lazy”

As a result, many people live below their means and never truly realize their fullest potential. They never discover what they could become, and instead opt to make excuses to make up for their shortcomings.

Why Successful People Never Stop

The opposite kind of person, is someone who never stops. These kind of people never give up, who take every single day as an opportunity to improve their life, skills, abilities and mindset in order to become the best version they possibly are.

They have the mindset that anything is possible as long as they are willing to put in the work to make it happen – and often do. As Steve Jobs said, “The people who think they are crazy enough to change the world, are often the ones who do.”

They don’t make excuses for their shortcomings, and instead find ways to overcome them. Instead, they turn their weaknesses into strengths, and use them to enhance their life, business and relationships. As a result, they are able to experience everything life has to offer.

That is the mentality of a high ticket closer – someone who never stops trying to make themselves better in any way possible. They are constantly learning new skills, trying new things, and getting out of their comfort zone. They understand that it is the only way to develop the skills and habits that make other people gravitate towards them. As a result, people find themselves naturally drawn to these kind of people, without knowing why. Often the reason is because of all the work this person does behind the scenes, to get them to where they are.

HTC Platinum – A Long Term Business Strategy

That is why our newest program, HTC Platinum reflects this. In order to accommodate for the philosophies that create highly successful individuals that are able to build trust and loyalty with people, HTC Platinum embodies these principles into it’s training’s.

Applicants are taken through a rigorous 7 week program that teaches them the fundamentals of business acumen, B2B sales, inbound and outbound sales techniques and closing ultra high ticket deals. They receive a holistic, synergistic, and foundational training to become a well-rounded person, leader, salesperson, business owner and closer, with an additional 4 weeks of valuable B2B content afterwards.

Inside our community, members are given special access to trainings that help them develop their leadership skills, personal coaching at the highest caliber, as well as group classes to hold themselves accountable to ensure success. Additional resources include productivity sheets and goal and progress tracking to ensure every member is performing at their peak level, to turn them into the type of people who possess the skills and abilities to secure deals and business agreements that set themselves up for life – such as celebrities and public figures.

Bonuses also include priority access to the “Discord Batline” – an exclusive communication platform that allows them to connect with the internal members on Team Dan Lok.

Implement High Ticket Closing In Your Business

High ticket closers use their skills and abilities to create trust and loyalty with customers. They reduce customer churn and make customers more likely to do business with them year after year. Customers also recommend them to their friends and family – resulting in more repeat business over the years. This increases customer retention, and increases their overall experience to influence them to choose you over the competition.

If you are ready to implement high ticket closing into your business, relationships and life, click here to watch the video now.

How To Deal With Angry Customers With These Simple Tips

June 28, 2019 by Dan Lok Leave a Comment

If you’ve never been an angry customer, then the person next to you has. That means one out of two people – 56 percent – has gotten angry about a product or service… and if your business is the one they’re upset about, you could lose much more than a customer.

As a business owner, the big question on your mind is probably, “What makes a customer angry, and how can I deal with them to fix the problem?” You can have policies and procedures for handling angry customers, but that’s just a temporary fix. You want more than that.

It’s like trapping a hungry lion in a cage and throwing meat at it every time it roars. No. What I’m going to show you winds back the clock… before the customer walks into your store, or before you get on the phone with them. We’re going back to when your lion was a purring cub. Let’s prevent the problem before it begins.

First, we’ll take a deep dive into your customer’s mind to get a better understanding of how they think, what they want, and what they desire. Now is that a little bit intrusive? Maybe. But when you offer the service they are looking for, they will thank you for it.

The Psychology Of An Angry Customer

What Makes People Say, GRRRR!

Let’s start with the surprising facts about anger and what it means for your as a business owner with an angry customer on the phone or in your store.

First, anger is not destructive. It’s actually healthy. Researchers now say it helps optimism, brainstorming, and problem solving. It’s the opposite of fear and anxiety. What does that mean? It means anger stops us from running from our fear, and gets the other person to do what we want.

Psychologists now believe anger is rewarding. You might be thinking, that doesn’t make sense!

But researchers found “levels of the stress hormone cortisol drop, suggesting that anger helps people calm down and get ready to address a problem—not run from it.”

What does that mean for you as a business owner? Bear with me while we take a detour into some science. In plain English, new research is saying that anger triggers the part of the brain that’s associated with positive, pleasurable behaviors.

The Benefit of Anger

Researchers found “Brain imaging and electrical studies of the brain consistently show that the left frontal lobe is crucial to establishing approach behaviors that push us to pursue desired goals and rewards in rational, logical, systematic, and ordered ways, and that activation of the right frontal cortex is tied to the more negative, withdrawal motivational system, marked by inhibition, timidity, and avoidance of punishment and threat.

“Brain scans show that anger significantly activates the left anterior cortex, associated with positive approach behaviors.”

So, “If the angry person is successful, it not only produces benefits (“I win!”), but also pleasure—enough to reinforce deploying anger this way repeatedly.” They’re feeling up for the challenge and they don’t want anyone to put them down or make them feel bad when they’re in this “angry” state.

Now, their feeling of “I win!” happiness isn’t your feeling of happiness. You have a customer who is asking for a refund/ deciding not to buy from you/ threatening to go to your competitor.

Let’s hit the PAUSE button on your angry customer for a moment. You understand what gives them the courage to be angry. Next, let’s look at what you can do to resolve the situation, and what you can say to win them over before the situation escalates.

One strategy is to understand the type of customer you are dealing with.

Affluent, Difficult, Price based, and Sophisticated Customers

4 Types Of Customers And How To Handle Them

Imagine this scenario. A customer comes into your store, raging about how terrible your service is, and how the discount you gave wasn’t as low as the price your competitor offers. Then they say the dreaded words. I want a refund.

Could you have prevented this moment from happening? You could.

Let’s go back to the day you opened up your store and announced to the world that you’re ready for your first customer. What type of ideal customer would you like to attract?

There are four types of customers that you could attract to your business.

Priced based customers

This type of customer is attracted to deals and discounts. They love to chase a good bargain. If you tell them to buy now, and they’ll get three bonuses for an added value of $300, they’ll buy even if they don’t need to because they get $300 in bonuses.

Now, if you started your relationship with this customer by saying you can give them the discount they want, you’ll get a price-based customer.

You’ve said the word that attracts them like honey. They’ll become an angry customer if the discount they got wasn’t low enough or if they feel they didn’t get a great bargain.

Starting your relationship with your customer by showing them the value you provide and not giving them a discount can prevent this situation.

Difficult customers

Difficult customers enjoy giving you a hard time no matter what you do. They love to pick a fight with you. They will be the angry customer that won’t be satisfied with your product or service no matter how perfect it is. Avoid doing business with this type of customer.

Sophisticated customers

When a sophisticated customer walks into your store, they’ve already decided what they want to buy. They’ve done their research on your company and your product or service by searching the internet and talking to people they know.

If you try to push features and benefits on them, or use aggressive sales tactics, they’ll get upset and refuse to buy. Don’t be pushy. Answer any questions they may have and tell them about flaws they should know about, such as your product will not work with certain software.

Affluent customers

For these customers, money is no object. They buy for emotional reasons, such as how the product makes them feel. If a $300 umbrella makes them happy, they will buy it. They want the best, and they want what’s convenient. Hermes is all about creating an emotional shopping experience for the affluent.

Convenience is important to them, so inconvenience is what will upset or anger these types of buyers. Don’t sell them by asking them to wait while you find the best deals or ask them to fight rush hour traffic to do a clothes fitting. Time is valuable to them.

Avoid these situations by pre-selecting items for the customer before they arrive at the store, or better yet, select what the customer prefers and deliver it to their residence to save them time.

Those are some tips on how to deal with the four types of customers. Understanding what attracts them to buy can prevent some ugly situations.

Here’s a summary of some telltale signs that you could have a future customer or client that will bring you trouble. Avoid these situations and you’ll reduce your chances of facing an angry customer.

Warning Signs of a Customer or Client From Hell

No respect for your time. They are unreasonably late for meetings, or give you only 5 minutes of their time for an important meeting. They call you when they want to and expect an answer right away.
Lack of respect for your expertise. They are always checking up on your work or they are control freaks telling you how to do your job. They are always disappointed when you send your work to them and they want you to change things because they are never satisfied. But they can never give you constructive feedback.
Don’t want to sign a contract or nitpick every line in the contract. They spend a lot of time focusing on what’s not important and they just want to fight and argue with you all the time.
Desire cheapest provider of services. Before talking about what you do, they are already asking for a discount or a deal. As a client, they want extra work without extra compensation. If you don’t give a discount, they threaten to walk away.
Unrealistic expectations about deadlines and want things to be done in a rush. Something that takes months for a result they want done in one month. That sets you up for failure.

Watch this video about clients from hell.

Now remember the customer’s anger that you put on PAUSE? Anger is what allows a customer to challenge you to get their needs answered. You might have prevented that angry moment by identifying the type of customer they are and understanding their needs. You might have avoided working with a customer from hell.

But despite your best efforts to find ideal customers, you still find yourself dealing with an angry customer and no time machine could have prevented this moment. What do you do?

Dealing With Customer Anger

In a perfect world, all interactions with customers would be flawless but that’s not always possible. Hundreds of things could go wrong on any given day. Your website could go down unexpectedly and customers cannot finish an online payment.

Your customer could be having a problem with your product. It’s not working the way they thought it should, or they are not getting the results they want.

Maybe the customer complained to support but the response time is longer than they expected or they have preconceived expectations about the level of support they expect.

Their anger may have nothing to do with you… they’re having personal or professional problems, such as a divorce or job loss and an issue with your product used up the last of their remaining patience.

What’s important to remember is that most customers – around 75 percent – just want an apology – but most fail to get one. Companies fear lawsuits if their customer service admits liability. For example, if a customer service agent says, “We meant to fix that” if there was a safety issue.

Making a customer angry can be very costly when you look at these customer service statistics.

Consumers tell twice as many people about poor experiences than positive ones. (White House Office of Consumer Affairs)
Resolve a complaint in the customer’s favor and they will do business with you again 70% of the time. (Lee Resources)
A typical business hears from 4% of its dissatisfied customers, with 96% not voicing out their complaints, and 91% never coming back. (“Understanding Customers” by Ruby Newell-Legner)

Source

What To Say To An Angry Customer

“Hi Scott, this is Steve,” said the voice from the other end of the phone.

“Steve Jobs?” asked the customer.

“Yeah,” Jobs said. “I just wanted to apologize for your incredibly long wait. It’s really nobody’s fault. It’s just one of those things.”

Not every unhappy customer will get a call from the CEO of a company. But there are strategies you can use to calm the anger of a customer who is calling customer service.

Be a good listener. Avoid saying “I understand.” You may think it makes you sound empathetic but it will frustrate them. Listen when they explain the problem and take notes during the phone call.

If you repeat back what they say in their own words, they will feel like you’ve heard them because you’re speaking in their language. Check that you understand what is going on. Don’t promise a solution, but listen and ask questions about what they need.

Customer: “I’m frustrated because we have a limited budget and you’re unwilling to offer us a discount.”

Customer Success Manager: “So, what I’m hearing is that our pricing is a barrier for your business. Your budget is tight, and I’m not offering a discount that meets your needs. Is that correct?”

Ask Questions

Ask open ended questions. Open ended questions give you more information than closed questions. Closed questions ask for yes/no answers. For example, “Have you called customer service about this before?” is a close ended question.

Customer service: “How can I help you feel comfortable enough to move forward?”

Get as much information as possible. Don’t assume what the customer should already know, such as reading a policy. Ask the customer to tell you about what happened in their own words and don’t interrupt them when they speak. If they say something important, take notes so you don’t forget when it’s your chance to speak again.

Customer service: “Can you give me a brief summary of the issue you’re having?”

Take ownership of the situation and explain what you will do to resolve the customer’s issue.

Customer service: “I’ll send those notes in a follow-up email along with my contact information. Let me know if I missed anything, and please don’t hesitate to contact me directly with any other issues.”

Another option is to give the customer some choices and ask which one they prefer.

Customer service: “I have a few ways we can make this better for you. Let’s go through some options together, and you can tell me what you think.”

Set the Tone

Remember. You set the tone for the interaction, so no matter how angry the customer becomes, don’t take the situation personally. The closers on my sales team are taught to stay unattached to the sales call because the prospect or customer is the one with the problem and it’s our goal to solve their problem as best we can.

Maybe the customer is having a bad day and they become angry. My closers stay calm and in control and will call out the prospect on their attitude. Depending on the rapport they have with the prospect, and the personality of the prospect, they may even ask, “Are you always this rude?”

The expected answer is “No.” We hope that our prospect is normally a calm and peaceful person and they were just having an explosive moment. If the prospect is a Difficult Customer looking for a verbal battle, we don’t want to do business with them anyway.

But if they say, “No, I’m not usually this angry, but…” Ask questions, and find out what’s really going on. Did you hit a sensitive spot when you were asking questions to get to the bottom of what was making them angry?

When you have an angry customer, stay calm and in control. Ask questions to get information and find out what’s really going on. If they are angry, look for the real cause. Maybe they are upset that the product is not working. But the real reason they are angry is they’ve bought a product like this before, and it didn’t work either.

When you find the source of the problem, suggest a solution and follow up with the customer.

Summary

An angry customer can damage your business. People will avoid businesses with negative reviews, and customers with a negative experience aren’t likely to return.

Understanding the type of customer you want to attract for your business is one way to avoid angry customers. For example, don’t offer discounts if you want to work with clients that pay premium prices. Look for warning signs that a customer will be a difficult customer.

The way you deal with an angry customer will affect the outcome. Listen to what your customer says is the problem and ask open-ended questions. Watch the tone you use and offer a solution and follow up with the solution.

Want to get your hands on a closing script that will get you more sales and close more deals? Find out why old sales techniques aren’t working and new techniques that are giving businesses the competitive advantage.

What Do People Buy – Personality Or Product?

June 4, 2019 by Dan Lok 1 Comment

Photo credits: Anton_Ivanov / Shutterstock.com and Bloomicon / Shutterstock.com

What do people really buy? Your personality or your product?

If you choose personality, then does it mean you have to first become a better leader and a good communicator? Or do you have to create a powerful product?

Well, over the years I could tell you that if you study my work then you know I am very big on personal branding and building a business around your personal brand. That’s not the only way to build a business but it’s my way of building a business.

Of course I’ve got other companies and in those cases it’s all about the company and the product. But I found that when I shift to the personal brand focus on the Dan Lok brand, not only do I experience more success, but more doors open up.

People buy your personality more than your product, and here are several reasons why.

Watch this video about what people buy, personality or product.

Putting Your Name On What You Sell

Just looking at the results, as I focus more on my personal brand, big business becomes more successful and my wealth increases faster. Here’s what I notice: people buy people at the end of the day. People like to do business with people that they like, trust and admire.

It depends on what you’re selling. Commodities are a different thing, but if you are selling a product or service, people buy people. Even though people are buying Apple products, when Steve Jobs was alive they were buying a piece of Steve Jobs’ genius, creativity and vision.

The people who do business with you need to trust you. It’s easier to trust and like you when you have a face versus a faceless corporation. When you’re just a product there’s no emotion involved.

But if you do have a face to the company, and you’re the spokesperson for your brand, it takes a lot of guts, if you think about it. If I put my name on everything that’s built around my personal brand but the product fails, it’s my name on the line!

You must be pretty confident to put your name on your products. When you search Dan Lok’s company on Google or on social media, you can find me. On some subconscious level, this gives people some comfort, knowing that I’m putting my name on the line. It’s not like a company that will change its name when it goes out of business.

What Really Sells Your Product: You Or Something Else?

Second, when it comes to selling and marketing, it’s never about the thing. It’s the thing that sells the thing. People see so many entrepreneurs struggle and put in so much time to create what they believe is the perfect product.

But it’s not about what they think, it’s about what the marketplace wants. They have too much personal attachment after spending a long time creating the perfect product, but they don’t spend time thinking about how to sell the product.

Do people even want to buy this new innovation? How can they verify if that’s what their marketplace wants? That’s what I mean when I say it’s the thing that sells the thing. It’s the marketing and sales that sells the new product.

It doesn’t matter how talented you are or how great your product is if nobody knows about it. Nobody can benefit from it because you were so focused on making that product or service perfect before getting it out there.

The Marketing Genius

The customer is the marketing genius. They will tell you if they like your product or not, and they you will tell you if your price point is good or not. Your customer is the expert in all the details – right down to what kind of color they want.

Your branding is based on your personality, so for your personal brand, lead with your personality. Your product may change or die but if your personal brand is strong, you can sustain it for a long time.

Look at Michael Jordan’s Air Jordan. Michael doesn’t even play basketball anymore. He’s retired, but those shoes are still selling, making millions of dollars. That’s the power of personal branding.

Imagine if Nike just build their brand on one product, not a person. If you study Nike’s history, Nike would not be where they are today without Michael Jordan. Their success is all built around a personality.

Being a personal brand isn’t for everyone. You may be afraid that you aren’t capable or ready to be a personal brand. But if you think this is what you want to do and you think you could do it, then I would say definitely do it.

What Customers Really Buy

I know people buy me because of me. Very often I do business with people and we talk about what we do and I joke about the moment that we sign. They don’t even know my company name.

It doesn’t matter what my company name is. They are doing business with Dan Lok and that’s what they’re buying. On the agreement it may have just the company name but at the end of the day, they’re buying me. That’s the most important thing.

The product might change but the comfort of knowing that they’re doing business with me is what makes them move forward. The name is what they are buying at the end of the day.

Look at Steve Jobs over the years. There have been different inventions of Apple products when he was alive but it was Steve Jobs that customers were buying.

They believed in his vision and they believed he’s a genius. When the iPhone first came out, people were fascinated at the invention that could play music, provide internet, and make phone calls. It was phenomenal.

It revolutionized the entire cellphone industry and changed the way we live. The iPhone disrupted an entire industry for an entire generation. And it was one man’s vision, one man’s idea. That’s the power of building a personal brand.

Final Thoughts on Personality Or Product

Your personal brand, your personality, creates trust with your customers. People buy Nike because of Michael Jordon, and they buy iPhone because of the vision that Steve Jobs had for his company.

They aren’t buying a product from a faceless company that could go out of business overnight. Of course, there is more risk involved when you put your name on your product. But you also increase customer loyalty.

Let your customers be your marketing experts. They will tell you what they want but your brand is why they will stay with you.

If you want to know more about how I am able to close deals with my team of closers, or how you can improve your closing skills for your business, click here to book a call and find out more.

Customer Success

Expanding Your Business With Tools You Already Have

Evaluating Your Human Capital

Is Your Team Happy?

Do Your Employees Have Hidden Talents?

Evaluating Your Process

Are You Up-To-Date With Technology?

Are You Using Too Many Humans?

Expanding Your Business With New Additions

Collaboration With Peers

Are You Networking Correctly?

Expanding Your Business Through Networking

Evaluate Business Opportunities By Asking The Right Questions

Critical Thinking Skills are Necessary to Evaluate Business Opportunities

Conduct Market Research

A Detailed Business Plan is Required

Ask a Professional Business Consultant for Advice

Get Opinions from Industry Experts

Think Outside the Box

Financial Assessment: Is There a Less Expensive Opportunity to Consider Instead?

Do You Know How to Pitch to Investors?

Knowing and Understanding Your Niche Market

What Skills Do You Need to Have in Order for the Business to be a Success?

If You Lack the Required Knowledge or Skills, Invest in Yourself First

Gain Knowledge by Reading Books on Business to Set Yourself Up for Success

Why Personalize Your Email Marketing Strategy?

1. Segment Your Audience

2. Humanize The Sender

3. What’s It About?

4. Email Content

Write To The Subscriber

Talk, Don’t Type

Types Of Content

5. Personalized Call-To-Action

6. Where Are They Going Next?

7. Timing & Frequency

The Art Of Writing High Converting Emails

What Causes Customer Churn?

Understanding Your Customers

Making Customers Feel Like Royalty

How High Ticket Closers Create Genuine Customer Loyalty

The 3 Long Term Benefits Of High Ticket Closing

Why High Ticket Closing Is Not For Everyone

Why Successful People Never Stop

HTC Platinum – A Long Term Business Strategy

Implement High Ticket Closing In Your Business

The Psychology Of An Angry Customer

What Makes People Say, GRRRR!

The Benefit of Anger

4 Types Of Customers And How To Handle Them

Priced based customers

Difficult customers

Sophisticated customers

Affluent customers

Warning Signs of a Customer or Client From Hell

Dealing With Customer Anger

What To Say To An Angry Customer

Ask Questions

Set the Tone

Summary

Putting Your Name On What You Sell

What Really Sells Your Product: You Or Something Else?

The Marketing Genius

What Customers Really Buy

Final Thoughts on Personality Or Product

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I hope you enjoy reading this blog post.