My latest addition to Amazon’s Kindle Book program is my newly updated
Short Curt (C)opywriting Guide
Check it out at - http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004C445PG
I’ve intentionally kept the price as low as possible – and at only $4.97 any small business owner or entrepreneur can easily affort to improve their marketing efforts.
Hey Folks!
Doug Huggins here with a few ideas on increasing your income at no cost…
Over the years I’ve both generated literally thousands of leads for my company and taught many others to do the same.
By thousands of leads I mean that for a period of 107 consecutive weeks I was able to create in excess of 280 in-bound lead calls to my own company. That’s over 30,000 lead calls in just over two-years. And I did it on a shoe-string budget.
When I am speaking or writing about this I often get a question something like, “What happened after two years, did your marketing stop working?”
And my answer is consistently the same – “NO My marketing continued to work just as well as before. The difference was I was able to turn down the volume on my marketing because I developed a simple yet much more efficient and effective way of converting those inbound lead calls.”
You see, when I was able to convert a higher percentage of those leads into customers, I didn’t need as many lead calls to reach the same income for my company. I was able to cut my shoestring budget even thinner and still make the same or more money.
THIS IS AN IMPORTANT LESSON IN YOUR BUSINESS – regardless of what business you are in.
Think about it!
Learning to convert a higher percentage of your prospects into customers and clients is by far the least expensive way of dramatically increasing your bottom line.
Example:
Let’s say you need two new customer or clients per week in order to stay in business. How many prospects do you need in order to get those new customers? You can certainly use your own numbers here, but for our example, let’s say you need twenty (20) prospects per week to get the two new clients you need each week.
Now, let’s say you want to increase the number of new clients you get per week to three. What are your choices?
One, you can spend the time, money and effort on generating an additional ten new prospects per week so you can get your one additional client. Or Two, you can spend a whole lot less time and effort, and no money learning and honing your skills to convert one more of the 20 prospects your are currently generated each week.
Both options will in deed take you time to implement. But, long term, which will better serve you and your business?
In my mortgage business we were generally converting an average of twelve (12%) percent of our call in leads – or about 33 new loan applications per week. Over time, I developed a much better conversion script. We taught it to our people and required that they use that script when responding to one of the “house leads” we gave them.
In just a couple of weeks of getting our people using the conversion script we increased our conversion rate from the 12% to over 30%. No changes in the quality of leads. In fact, if anything the overall quality of our leads tended to go down over time. But, as a result of the increased lead conversion percentage we were able to go from about 33 applications per week to over 50 per week. And even more importantly we were able to cut our advertising costs dramatically.
So, instead of handling over 280 leads per week, we were able to cut our lead generation efforts down to only about 160 to 170 per week and still increased our bottom line by about 150% (33 customer to over 50 per week).
In addition, we were not only able to cut our marketing costs, we were able to survive with less people and less skilled people. The scripting helped us convert from highly paid loan originators to what we called “marketers.”
I’ll give you more on this tomorrow and the rest of the week. In fact, I will be giving you my simple Four Question Seque Lead Conversion Script later this week. But, I believe it is important for me to give you a bit more “set-up” so you’ll really understand the power of this simple process. And finally, late this week, I’ll show you how to modify the script from our mortgage based busines to literally any other business situation out there.
In the meantime, take a look at this very short video. It will prove to you that my scripting actually works for other people and not just in my one business.
Hope you will enjoy, use and profit from these ideas!
Doug
Doug Huggins
info@doughuggins.com
CROP CIRCLES
Here we are only a couple of days before Halloween, so it seems somewhat appropriate for me to talk about something “SPOOKY”. And for some reason, “Crop Circles” have come to mind.
I know I’ve talked a lot about traveling and flying and that’s because I’ve been doing that a lot over the last several years. I was taught early on by my dad to train myself to look for money making ideas in just about everything I do. So, when I travel I try to observe my new surrounds to see if there are any telltale marketing ideas to be gleaned.
A while back, I had to fly unexpectedly and at the last minute to Spokane, WA to visit with the family of one of my closest friends following his untimely passing. Since the flight had to be book last minute, I was very lucky to be able to obtain the last seats on timely flights out and back, and was able to book myself into the additional space, comfort and the slightly improved service of the first class cabin. Unfortunately, I was stuck with a window seat. I hate the window seat!
I’m borderline claustrophobic and being stuck between a stranger and the side wall of the aircraft is uncomfortable for me - But, I had to be there and the window seats were the only first class option so I flew.
Again, always trying to turn every situation into a learning opportunity, I pulled out my CD Player and listened to a couple of audio training CD’s. Between that and eating the semi-adequate meal Delta serves on longer flights (hey, at least Delta still serves something other than chips and trail mix) I was able to occupy most of my time by the window.
Now, I’ve flown over a lot of the US and have seen farmland from the sky. Usually, the ground looks like a giant chess board with some squares the light brown of dirt, some almost a sand color (river sand not beach sand) and others shades of green going from almost a moss gray to a brilliant emerald green.
As we got closer to Seattle, I began noticing something interesting on the ground. There was the familiar chess board effect of almost perfect squares being lined off but in the middle of many of the dirt colored squares were bright, emerald green “crop circles”.
Now these crop circles were certainly not created by some alien being or prankster. They were, in fact, created by the farmers who work the land. I thought I knew what was going on, but just to be certain, I asked one of the Seattle based flight attendants if that green circle in the middle of the brown dirt –square was a result of the irrigation system being used.
I was correct. The irrigation system they use in the area is like a long line of sprinklers on wheels all connected to an auto-drive mechanism. The system sweeps around a central point in the middle or the field. This generates the green crop-circle one can see from above.
Two things struck me about this…
First, I’ll bet that the farmers working this field have no really good idea of what their field looks like from the sky. They are right there, on the ground they don’t have the prospective view I did at that moment.
Plus, I can easily imagine that my view point really wouldn’t matter to the farmer anyway.
I see an almost perfectly round green dot in the middle of a brown square. They see a ragged edged field of hopefully profitable crop.
Second, it occurred to me how very much that farmer was exactly like most small business people, nclujding those in the mortgage and real estate field (pun intended).
Consider the similarities…
Over the last few decades most of American Farming has been taken over by the big corporations and conglomerates. The mom and pop farms of a century ago are almost a thing of the past. Plus, with the absurd inheritance tax (more accurately termed, “death tax”) we have in this country, many of the sons and daughters of those early farmers can’t keep the property that has been in the family for over a century.
I was reading an article a few days ago about how the smaller farms, the family owned farms, were able to survive. Not surprisingly, many of the most successful (meaning profitable) family owned farms have started growing a more specialized type of crop. Items like “heirloom tomatoes” and other specialty crops that cannot be grown by the mass – farm corporations. In other words, they’ve found a niche!
And just like agriculture, a lot of businesses have been taken over by the big named, big-box, national firms. And while there are still a large number of mom and pop type companies in many fields, their numbers are diminishing daily.
Those companies and individuals who want to not only survive but thrive now and after the current set of problems in the marketplace are going to have to narrow their focus and find a profitable niche market that the big guys either can’t work effectively or don’t understand enough to get into.
Like the corporate farmers who try to grow one crop this season and a completely different one next season…
• The big mortgage and real estate companies will continue to try to please as many in the market as they can.
• Family restuarants try to attract more customers by expanding their menus – only to end up looking just like everyone else in the marketplace.
• Specialty shops try to increase their profits by enlarging the styles and variety of the inventory the carry.
Certainly a mortgage or real estate company, a resturarnt, and retail store should be watching their marketplace, looking for opportunities. Perhaps their core offerings are no longer what their market wants. But, that doesn’t mean expand or enlarge just to do so.
A true entrepreneur will examine thier market and marketplace and, after careful research, discard offerings that are no longer profitable, no longer in demand and replace them with a product or service the customer base wants.
You need to be more like the farmers on the modern, small family owned farm who have discovered larger profits and an easier operating environment by going after specialty crops. And, find a focused niche market.
Look at the large retailers. Many have gone out of business, replaced by either the big discounters (like a WalMart) or by smaller, more specialty shops who can cater to the specific needs of a smaller but more loyal market.
By “niche-ing” you will discover larger profits per transaction, much better response to your less expensive, narrowly focused marketing, and an overall easier company to run. Even if the company you own is just “you.”
So, what does all this have to do with “crop circles”?
Well, crops only grow where the farmer has tilled, planted, fertilized and watered. One of the tell-tale signs of a successful business is that the owners are actually working, on a continuous basis, not only in their business but on their business.
“Just as a farmer must prepare his field, plant the seeds, water and nurture his crop before he can go to harvest and profit; you too must tend your own crop – prospects to leads, leads to purchase or contracts, and contracts to getting paid. The process is the same, only the crop changes.”
Check out my updated book – The Serious Business Owner’s Guide – How to Win More Clients and Keep Them For Life for the Kindle. Find it on Amazon.com – http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0047O2QVG
Doug Huggins – entrepreneur, speaker, trainer, consultant, coach, and President & Founder of B-E-S-T – Business Owners & Entrepreneur’s Success Tactics.
Hey, I’m on a roll….
My second book…submitted to Amazon
is now available on Amazon for Kindle – http://amzn.to/avtsJR
Received word last week from Amazon.com that one of my books has been approved for delivery via the Amazon – Kindle book reader.
The Book…
Why Most Mortgage Marketing Fails and
What You Can Do to Fix Yours,
is a new revised and updated of my highly regarded book designed to help mortgage professionals – both originators and company owners how to achieve success, wealth and happiness marketing their mortgage business.
Here’s the link to the Amazon page – http://amzn.to/9qKzUY
