Author: Richard Conyers

Can you answer who is your customer? in detail and with up-to-date information?

As a business owner, the answer to who is your customer? should be as easy to recall as your own name. After all, the customer is why you’re in business, so everything you do should be about them.

Most new businesses start by knowing who their customer is and what solution they want to offer them. However, as time goes on, many companies can forget to check if their more profitable customers have changed. Not having this information can lead to decreased sales and inefficient business operations.

The following guide is here to help new businesses identify their target customer and ensure existing businesses have an up to date profile.

 

Why is understanding your customer important?

Knowing who your customers are forms an essential foundation for all your business, marketing and sales planning.
This understanding will help you structure your business and better communicate with your target audience to help convince them to use your products and services over your competitors. This information will also help you retain profitable customers and help you find more like them.

Regularly checking in and keeping this information up-to-date will also help identify new opportunities and allow you to have more informed conversations within your business. For example, when you started your business, a physical store on the high street might have been the best place for your customers. Now, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and a general preference for online sales, an e-commerce website might be a more profitable sales platform.

Knowing who your customers are is the key to adapting your business to become more efficient, increasing sales and improving profitability.

 

How to identify your target customers

When identifying your target customer, it’s essential to start broad and then narrow it down. Starting too narrow might mean you miss more profitable opportunities.

You may need to split customers into different audiences. This segmentation is sometimes necessary to help create specific messages later in your marketing planning process.

For example, you may need to start as broad as separating UK customers from international customers. You can then follow this line of discovery down – are you targeting businesses or consumers; are they affluent or low price point; are they buying for themselves or someone else?

Asking these types of questions will help give you a range of customer types. Your next step is to identify who your primary target should be. This should be based on who will buy the most from you and who is the most profitable (which might not be the same customer type).

 

Creating target customer avatars

Once you understand all your customer types and have a clear target customer, many people like to build a customer avatar (an image of what their ideal customer looks like). Let’s use a flower shop as an example:

Step one: Identifying the customer goals and targets
Flower customer A wants to show appreciation/sympathy to someone else (occasional/circumstantial purchase). Customer B wants to buy flowers for themselves (regular purchase).

Step two: Find their influences
Flower customer A will typically search online and be heavily influenced by imagery, delivery availability and customer reviews. Customer B wants a tactile experience to ensure the flowers are fresh and will last (florist knowledge and advice is critical).

Step three: Their demographic information
Flower customer A will statistically be male buying flowers online for someone else. Flower customer B will statistically be female buying flowers in the store.

 

How to keep your information up-to-date

Things inevitably change, and it’s important to keep checking in on your target customers to ensure you’re meeting their needs.

Over the course of your business career, customer buying behaviours will change. Continually profiling and understanding your customers will help you adapt your business structure, marketing message and sales process to help meet their needs.

To keep your information up-to-date, you can:

• Regularly review top-performing customers, understanding why they continue to purchase from you – a case study can be a great way to obtain their information and document it for others to read
• Ask new customers where they found you and why they chose you over your competitors – an introduction meeting can be a great way to establish the relationship and gain a fresh perspective of what marketing/sale message is working
• Understand why customers leave you – assuming you maintain a good relationship, this can be a great way to identify areas to improve and maintain a connection for potential future business

 

How ETC can help

If you need help with your marketing and understanding who your target customer is, please get in touch.

If you are new to ETC, why not contact us for a free new business review? We’ll spend two hours with you, giving you professional coaching and will leave you with actions for immediate implementation.

Video calls with colleagues, clients and even family members have become a standard way of life since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Virtual meetings are flexible, time-saving and environmentally friendly. Many businesses have thrived as a result of reducing their office overheads and travel expenses.

So, as businesses plan for a post-pandemic ‘new normal’, will face-to-face meetings return, or should we encourage the continuation of the virtual meeting?

 

The impact of lockdown

At the start of the pandemic – once we figured out how to use Teams, Zoom and Google Hangouts – it could be easy to assume that face-to-face meetings would die out.

Setting up a meeting with a colleague, client, or prospect is now easier than ever. Generally, people now have access to their own diary (fewer gate-keepers), and you don’t have to factor in any travel time. You can now arrange to see a client on the other side of the country or world in a matter of minutes.

However, now that restrictions are easing, businesses should be asking themselves: should we continue with a virtual approach?

The convenience of a virtual meeting doesn’t always outweigh the value of meeting someone in person. Few calls are without their technical challenges. How many of us have uttered the phrase “you’re still on mute”. We’re also asking a lot of virtual meeting participants to remain 100% focused when they’re using the same device they work from – it’s so easy to become distracted by other things on the screen.

And after weeks of lockdown and social isolation, most of us are craving face-to-face communication.

 

The benefits of face-to-face interaction

Meeting someone in person can be an essential step in building positive relationships with our clients and prospects.

According to a recent study by Great Business Schools, 84% of people still say they prefer in-person meetings.

Having a conversation with someone face-to-face allows for a more fluid and dynamic exchange of ideas and collaboration. Unlike in a virtual meeting, we’re not subject to time delays that can make the responder seem less friendly or focused, and it’s harder to misinterpret essential non-verbal cues. 

Steve Jobs, founder of Apple, once said; “There’s a temptation in our networked age to think that ideas can be developed by email and iChat. That’s crazy. Creativity comes from spontaneous meetings, from random discussions.”.

To support this, think about your personal life. Virtual connections aren’t new. Facebook has been widely available in the UK since 2005, and there is an estimated 3.96 billion people who use social media worldwide, according to Backlinko. Yet, despite this overwhelming access to virtual connection alternatives, we still meet our friends in pubs, clubs and at the park.

 

Getting back out to business

Many businesses will soon face increased expectations of meeting in person, whether that expectation comes from a client, prospect or your staff.

Restrictions as a result of COVID-19 will likely be in place for a while yet, so it’s inadvisable to rush straight back into in-person meetings. We should all be careful and ease back into them to keep us and others safe. This is particularly important for owners of SMEs who stand to lose a lot if they become unwell.

However, all businesses should anticipate an increase in expenses. As restrictions ease, it’s unlikely remote working and video meetings will disappear overnight. However, any decisions to keep virtual working will need to be weighed against your wellbeing and the value of relationship building.

Those businesses looking to remain completely as a home working environment should seriously consider their employees’ mental wellbeing and the consequences of not having organic, free-flowing conversations.

Businesses who gave up offices at the start of the pandemic, but are now looking to move back, should consider a more hybrid working function (office/home-based working). This will help minimise overheads and maintain social distancing. You should also take into consideration your new office size, to ensure you can maintain social distancing – what used to be called a small office space or meeting room might now be too small.

 

How ETC can help

Over the past year, throughout the various stages of the pandemic, we’ve worked with businesses to help them create comprehensive ‘bounce back’ plans that outline how best to return to work and take advantage of new opportunities.

All the businesses we support found that an external, experienced consultant added real value to their return to work plans. Let us help you get back to business; please get in touch.

If you’re new to ETC, why not contact us for a free new business review? We’ll spend two hours with you, giving you professional coaching and will leave you with actions for immediate implementation.

Again, thanks to the NHS’s stellar efforts and the vaccination programme, the UK is slowly reducing restrictions and ending lockdown.

From Monday 29th March, the stay at home rule will end, meaning offices can start to re-open and allow more staff to return to the office.

From Monday 12th April, depending on the infection rate, we’ll see all shops, hairdressers, beauty salons, gyms, zoos, theme parks, libraries and community centres all open again. Pubs and restaurants will also be allowed to serve food and alcohol to customers sitting outdoors.

As we saw last year, reducing restrictions creates massive opportunities for all types of businesses.

Those in the service industry who have been closed for most of 2020 should expect a massive and sudden rush. Make sure you’re prepared and have thought about efficiently meeting demand inline social distancing and Covid-safe regulations.

For those businesses who have stayed open throughout lockdown, peoples habits are about to change; think about what fewer restrictions mean for your business. For example, we may see less online traffic, and disposable income might now be spent on outdoor activities instead of at home-services.

Your number one priority at this time is to prepare for change and a safe return to work. To help prepare you for a return to business, we have created an essential three-step guide:

 

1) Prepare for a change in behaviour

As restrictions reduce, more people are going to want to travel. Therefore every business needs to ensure it can accommodate change while operating safely.

At this stage, preparation and communication is essential. Here are some information points you should consider making available to staff and customers:

• Are you reopening the office fully, continuing to work remotely or adapting to a hybrid model?
• How many people can you safely have in your office/store at the same time?
• Do you have sufficient cleaning and PPE available?- it goes down faster than you think.

Top tip: If you haven’t already, start consulting with your employees about returning to work. Consider that personal circumstances might have changed. For example, an employees’ child-care situation may be affected.

 

2) Invest in marketing and PR

Marketing is an essential element of bouncing back from lockdown. 75% of consumers say that brands should inform people of what they’re doing.

Whether you have a big or a small budget, there are plenty of marketing options for promoting your business. For larger budgets, we recommend you invest in content creation and advertising. This can include:

• Google Ads
• Remarketing (Retargeting) – Getting people back to your website
• Targeted Facebook and LinkedIn advertising

In addition, and for those with smaller budgets, we recommend you focus on Social Media and Guerrilla Marketing. This can include:

• Social meida marketing
• Competitions
• Email marketing (think about email automation)
• Content marketing

Again, think about people’s changing behaviours. People are likely to be spending less time online and more of their disposable income in-person rather than online. Be on the lookout for changes in behaviour and prepare to adapt your marketing communications.

 

3) Be consistent and clear

After you’ve invested in PR and worked with your staff to return safely, you must ensure you follow through. It’s great to have handwashing stations and social distancing in place, but people may become anxious about what the protocols are if they aren’t clearly visible.

Messages about ‘safe’ have become more important as lockdown has eased. Larger brands are opting for a clear, positive, inspirational, and helpful tone over humorous, witty, or casual.

According to a study by Econsultancy: one in five consumers have actively stopped purchasing from a brand because of its response to the coronavirus outbreak. This included not providing a safe working environment for its employees.

In the same study, 62% stated that they were more likely to spend money with companies that prioritise the health and safety of their staff.

The full study can be found here: coronavirus impact on marketing, ecommerce & advertising

Without noticeable, tangible changes to improve safety, all your PR and messages will be wasted – and potentially counterproductive as it may appear disingenuous.

Finally, on a more serious note, the importance of these Covid-safe measures cannot be stressed enough. If COVID-19 gets into the workplace, everyone exposed will need to isolate, which may include some difficult conversations with customers.

To protect your business, get your cashflow going again and rebuild customer trust, don’t just give COVID-19 safe the lip service – it’s the key to ending your business lockdown.

 

How ETC can help

Over the past year, throughout the various stages of the pandemic, we’ve worked with various businesses to help them create a comprehensive ‘bounce back’ plan that reduces recovery time and identifies ways to take advantage of new opportunities.

All the businesses we support found that an external, experienced consultant added real value to their return to work plans. Let us help you get back to business; please get in touch.

If you’re new to ETC, why not contact us for a free new business review? We’ll spend two hours with you, giving you professional coaching and will leave you with actions for immediate implementation.

A few years ago, we wrote an article on the value of client retention. Part one outlined some common reasons companies lose customers and how to keep hold of customers if you’re losing them on a regular basis.

In part two, we want to expand on client retention’s true value and give you four simple to implement retention strategies to inspire loyalty, maintain your client list and increase profits.

 

New vs Retained Clients

New clients are exciting, and depending on the service, you could be justified in charging more money than you do existing clients for similar work. So, why not go after new clients all the time?

The answer: It’s because the cost of acquisition is so much higher. The actual cost of obtaining a new client is often overlooked. A typical new client acquisition might include:

• Marketing
• Advertising
• Networking
• Introduction meetings
• Proposal creation
• Sales meetings
• Briefing meetings
• Project management meetings (reviews)

And what’s your sales conversion rate? – how many times do you need to do all this to win one new client?

Some studies suggest client retention can cost 2-25 times less than client acquisition. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

If you haven’t already, spend time working out how much it costs you to obtain a new client – you’ll be surprised.

For more information on the value of holding onto clients, read part one.

 

Four client retention strategies

 

1) Onboarding

Onboarding is all about teaching your customers how to get the best from your product or service. When users first start working with your product or service, they may get frustrated if they don’t understand how to get the best from it. Deadlines and external pressures may lead them to discount your solution over the smallest detail. Onboarding helps users learn intricacies and how to problem solve challenges themselves.

As an example, if your company build websites. First, your onboarding strategy might include a guide for someone who has no idea how to build a website – this could consist of a technical jargoon breakdown to help ease any language barriers.

Next, once the website is built, spend time with your client teaching them how to use the website, update their content and add new features.

As a result, you’ll have fewer support requests, and they’ll feel more ownership and pride. At the very least, they’ll know what’s possible and how to ask for it in a language you both understand.

 

2) Customer feedback loop

Although we also covered this in part one, we wanted to elaborate further on the importance of Feedback.

It’s hard to know what you’re doing right or wrong if you don’t ask. If you get feedback, it should always be looked at in two ways.

Say, Mrs Jones hates the flowers you sent her because they died within 3-days. First, address the individual needs of Mrs Jones and ensure that the client is happy – or at least answered. Following this, take a step back and look at the broader picture – removing all individuality – is this a bigger problem, and only Mrs Jones is speaking out?

More often than not, one person’s voice is an indication of how others might be feeling. Mrs Jones’ flowers might have died after 3-days because they were sitting over a radiator. How many other people are doing that, not telling you and thinking it’s your flowers. Why not use this as an onboarding process and include a handy ‘get the best from your flowers’ guide with every purchase.

The same goes for positive feedback. If someone loves your services, how can you get the most from it- is there an opportunity for a new product or service?

After this comes the ‘loop’ part: When you implement a new idea based on feedback, pay attention to customers’ responses and follow the same steps of gathering feedback and implementing new ideas.

Customers love to be heard. If you’re open and transparent with your feedback, you’ll not only increase loyalty, but your product and services will improve – helping you attracts new clients and retain the clients you have.

 

3)Lapsed client communication calendar

Keeping track of all your customers (past and present) can be challenging. Smaller clients who only worked with you once and contributed a small amount to the bottom line can be overlooked. While it might take some project management time to get lapsed clients on board again, it’s still more cost-effective than attracting a brand new (cold) client.

Create a date in the diary each month/quarter to review lapsed clients in a batch can reduce the overall time expenditure. Include details of new products and services that weren’t around the last time you worked with them or a case study of a successful project.

 

4) Newsletter

A company newsletter is a simple and cost-effective way of reminding customers of your brand, products and services – helping to retain customers.

Today, sending, scheduling and automating these emails is simple. Platforms like Mailchimp can help you create personalised, dynamic content that looks like the email was written specifically for the individual, not the masses.

 

Hold onto clients

Following these four steps will not only help hold onto clients, but it will help you deliver a better service.

1. Onboarding customers will build relationships and help promote brand advocacy.
2. Feedback will help you deliver a better service. You’ll build better relationships with your customers and demonstrate your willingness to progress.
3. Keeping in contact with lapsed clients will dramatically reduce ‘client churn’; you’ll also build a specific target marketing segment for new products as you know these clients are interested in what you can deliver (low hanging fruit).
4. Newsletters will remind customers of your brand every time they open their inbox. They may not need you all the time, but your brand will be remembered when they do.

 

How can ETC help

If you need help in retaining more clients or understanding the cost of obtaining new clients, please get in touch. 

If you are new to ETC, why not contact us for a free new business review? We’ll spend two hours with you, giving you professional coaching and will leave you with actions for immediate implementation.

Business success is a result of careful planning. Yet, even the most considered, well-thought-out business plan is just a stack of paper if you don’t implement it!

Throughout your business plan, there should be clear goals that outline what you want to achieve. Some of these goals might include employing a new customer support executive or downsizing the office due to increased homeworking.

To help ensure you achieve these goals, consider adding an implementation or action plan as a supplement to your business plan. This supplement should further break down the specific actions required to accomplish each goal. For example, when recruiting for a new employee, you might create a list of things to do, which might include:

• Outline job specification and salary
• Speak to a recruitment agency or post on job sites and LinkedIn
• Arrange interview dates
• Create contract with HR

Next, you need to turn this list into an implementation plan.

 

Step 1: Assign accountability

There is one sure-fire way to achieve your business goals, and that’s implementing the actions you set out in your business plan. The best way to accomplish this is to assign accountability.

To help break it down further, detail who is responsible and who is accountable. These might be the same person, or they could be different. For example, one person might be responsible for posting the new customer support executive’s job specification because they are more experienced at recruitment. However, it might be a different person who is ultimately accountable for approving the hire.

Although the hiring process is heavily reliant on the person responsible, it’s the person accountable that needs to drive the process and ensure it’s complete.

Even if you are a small business or sole-trader, someone needs to be accountable for achieving your business goals. However, in these circumstances, the best person might not be yourself. If you’re in this situation, you know what will happen; you’ll be too busy doing the work to focus on the business itself.

This is where an independent business consultant can add real value – they can hold you accountable.

Learn how the co-founders of Eaglet Business Systems Ltd, completely turned their business around by working with ETC to assign accountability and make time to focus on the business. Eaglet Case Study.

 

Step 2: Create checkpoints

The simplest way to ensure you’re moving forward, implementing your actions and celebrating milestones is to hold regular management meetings.

It might seem like an arduous exercise that takes senior people away from day-to-day operations, but it’s a critical element to achieving your goals. Yes, you might not see giant leaps forward between each meeting, but this is better than suddenly realising you’re heading in the wrong direction when it’s too late in the day to course correct.

Also, you can be sure that most of the activity actually happens right before these meetings. It’s likely that without them, other distractions will take priority and you won’t achieve as much.

 

Step 3: Celebrate and reward achievements

When working towards larger goals (that might take more than 1-year), it can be easy to forget to see the wood through the trees.

All objectives should be timebound, as should each item on your implementation plan. When you meet milestones, celebrate and assign an appropriate reward (even if it’s just a special mention at the next meeting).

It’s natural to have negative associations about regular progress meetings and assigning accountability. However, positive enforcement can encourage you and others to continue to meet targets.

So, next time you achieve something, make sure you celebrate the win!

 

How can ETC help

If you need help creating or implementing your business plan, please get in touch. 

If you are new to ETC, why not contact us for a free new business review? We’ll spend two hours with you, giving you professional coaching and will leave you with actions for immediate implementation.

There’s no denying it, 2020 has been a rough year for pretty much everyone – and it’s not over yet. You may be thinking: ‘what’s the point in creating a 2021 businesses plan? All my plans for 2020 went out of the window’.

Over this past year, every business has had its strengths and weaknesses exposed, and we’re sure to see the impact of coronavirus continue into 2021. This year has taught us that adapting to change quickly is vital to business success.

Spending time planning for 2021 now will help you consider potential roadblocks and identify unknown factors. This plan will help you prepare for the year ahead.

Here’s our guide for creating a successful 2021 business plan.

 

Where to start?

If 2020 has taught us anything, it’s to expect the unexpected. So, while we can remain optimistic, make plans for some tough decisions.

Top of your list should be cashflow. Positive cash flow will give your business more flexibility to invest in new opportunities and grow.

It’s also worth considering starting a rainy day fund. While the government have been supportive (for many) in helping businesses remain active, we shouldn’t rely on continuous support. You may need access to cash quickly to seize a new opportunity or to tide you over for a little while.

Budgeting is essential to help keep your cash flow on track. For more advice on how to budget, take a look at our 7 easy steps to successful budgeting.

 

How to plan for business in 2021

The principals of planning for 2021 are no different from any other year. Perhaps the only contrast is there is more evidence to suggest things may get more challenging. And this is why planning is essential.

In 2021, consider the national tried system. How will your business continue to operate in another full lockdown, and then work from there? Consider how you will switch on and off services based on these restrictions. Agility in these circumstances will be the key to helping you survive and thrive.

 

What should your 2021 business plan include?

You don’t need to overcomplicate the process. If you have a business mentor, now is the time to get them involved. They can help steer you in the right direction and identify hidden factors.

When writing a business plan, it’s always helpful to use the SOSTAC model. Here are some guidelines to help you create a successful 2021 business plan:

The purpose of your business

It is always important to keep the ‘why’ you’re doing business at the heart of your business plan. This will help ensure the content within your plan supports your business purpose. It also provides context for anyone outside the company reading your plan.

To understand more about the importance of ‘why’, we recommend you check out ‘Start with Why’ by Simon Sinek – also available on Amazon.

Situation

Document where you are now so that you can measure progress. For example, how did you handle lockdown? What challenges did you overcome? How many products do you have, how many customers, how much did you spend against your 2020 budget, sales numbers etc.

Objectives

Where do you want to be: both for the business and personally? Set Specific Measurable Achievable Realistic Timebound (SMART) objectives for each of the steps required to achieve your goals.

Strategy

How are we going to get there? Broadly, how do you plan to achieve the objectives you’ve defined? For example, if one aim is to increase sales, the strategy might be to start selling in new markets.

Tactics

What are we going to do? With the strategies outlined, you’ll need to decide what tactical elements are required to achieve these. Looking back at the example above, let’s say one strategy is to penetrate new markets, one tactic to achieve this may be having an online store.

Action

What do we need to do, by when, and by whom? This is the list you’re probably used to making. It’s the task list for each of the tactics you outlined above. Sticking with the same theme of selling into new markets, and using a website to do that, your actions may include things like:

• Build an e-commerce website
• Research shipping fees
• Review pricing
• Review packaging options

With a list in place, add to it who will do what and by when. Day to day service delivery can often get in the way of delivering on an action plan, so be realistic when deciding on deadlines.

Control

How are we going to measure and monitor success?

Outlining precise, defined metrics or milestones will help you record and recognise success.

An easy mechanism to establish success against your goals is to attach accountability to the objectives, strategies, tactics and actions. Regular management team meetings, or if you’re a smaller business, scheduled meetings with your business coach will encourage you to stick to your plan.

It sounds logical, but you’d be surprised how many plans are written but not followed. There are so many distractions as a business owner; it’s easy to lose sight.

 

How ETC can help

If you need help creating a comprehensive business plan for 2021, please get in touch.

If you’re new to ETC, why not contact us for a free new business review? We’ll spend two hours with you, giving you professional coaching and will leave you with actions for immediate implementation.

In business, there’s nothing more frustrating than a missed sales opportunity.

During the lockdown, many businesses either had to shut down or had to adapt to a new way of working. In many cases, this has resulted in a backlog of work and sales.

A backlog of sales can be a positive thing, as it shows a high level of customer demand as well as future financial stability. However, if you can’t work through the backlog in a reasonable time, then you’ll start missing out on opportunities and potentially tarnish your company’s reputation.

 

How to effectively work through your sales backlog

 

1) Update your sales pipeline

Before you start anything – is your pipeline and work priority list up-to-date?

It doesn’t matter if it’s on a project management software like HubSpot, an excel spreadsheet, a whiteboard or a scrap of paper, take the time to outline everything. Without this, you won’t be able to assign priorities.

In the long-term, this information should be put into a more robust system so it can become a process. However, on a short-term basis, the important thing is to understand the scope of the task at hand.

If you don’t have a process-driven sales pipeline, read our The importance of a sales pipeline article to learn more about the tremendous impact having one will have on your business.

Top tip: Don’t be tempted to tackle any project until the list is complete- even if, as part of the process you write something down you just remembered you should have done, keep going until the list is done.

 

2) Manage workload

Once you’ve updated your sales pipeline, your objective is to prioritise.

An increase in backlog orders doesn’t mean you should focus all your energy on them and forget the day-to-day work or new sales opportunities. New leads are essential, they’re warm and, depending on the age of your backlog list, may need less ‘effort’ to convert.

Remember, a sales backlog isn’t always a bad thing. By regularly communicating with clients, you’ll be able to manage expectations, giving you time to work through both new and old leads methodically – more on this to follow.

Set out a plan to manage your workload effectively and assign priorities to both new and old projects. An alternative is to spend a proportion of your day exclusively working through your backlog.

 

3) Manage expectations

Continually communicating with clients and prospects is one of the essential keys to business success.

If you’re working through a backlog of orders, let your prospects know. Using your priority list, let them know when you’ll meet their need – and make sure you do. In having the conversation you may discover they’re no longer interested, they were after something more, or they’re happy to wait longer because they’re going on holiday.

Likewise, if it’s a new prospect and you can’t meet with them straight away, let them know and set their expectations.

This stage is vitally important. Yet, it cannot be achieved without a plan. If you can’t deliver on your word, your company reputation may suffer. However, managing expectations effectively can help to increase loyalty and boost your company’s reputation.

 

If you need help managing your sales backlog, or in creating a sales pipeline, please get in touch.

If you’re new to ETC, why not contact us for a free new business review? We’ll spend two hours with you, giving you professional coaching and will leave you with actions for immediate implementation.