Doug C. Brown - 10 Ways Your Company Can Expand Its Revenue

It's true that some things change as we get older, but if you're a woman over 40 and you're dealing with insomnia, brain fog, moodiness, and weight gain, you don't have to accept it as just another part of aging. And with Miti Health, you can get help and stop pushing through it alone. The experts at Mitty understand that all these symptoms can be connected to the hormonal changes that happen around menopause, and Mitie can help you feel more like yourself again. Many healthcare providers aren't trained to treat or even recognize menopause symptoms. MIDI clinicians are menopause experts. They're dedicated to providing safe, effective, FDA approved solutions for dozens of hormonal symptoms, not just hot flashes. Most Importantly, they're covered by insurance. 91% of MIDI patients get relief from symptoms within just two months. You deserve to feel great. Book your virtual visit today at joinmidi.com. That's join MIDI.com. Hi everyone, it's Bill Black, the exit coach from the Exit Coach Radio show. You know, one of the biggest questions I get on the show is what exactly goes into a business exit plan and when should I start creating mine? Well, I always tell people that the best time to start was 5 years ago, but the next best time is now because you never know when you might need it. So we put together a free report that describes what an exit plan is and what you should know. You can get it free by texting exit plan with no spaces to 442-22. That's exit plan to 44222. Again, text exit plan to 44222. Welcome to the Exit Coach Radio show, the show for baby boomer business owners who are looking for cutting edge information as they plan their 3 to 10 year business succession and exit. Every week we interview top professional advisors for their best tips, strategies, and precautions so you can be well planned. And now here's your host, the exit coach Bill Black. Hello everyone, thanks so much for joining me today. Always a pleasure to have you with me. My next guest is Doug C. Brown, and he's with Business SuccessFactors, and they're a consulting, coaching and training company that helps companies to increase their sales revenue growth. And we're going to talk today about 10 ways your company can expand its revenue. And, you know, we may not be able to get to all 10, but we're going to, we're going to give it a try here, Doug. So welcome to the show. Thanks so much for joining me today. Uh, thank you for having me on here. My pleasure, my pleasure. Tell us a little bit more about you and your, your background and business success factors before we get into those top 10. Well, I started working when I was the age of 3 for my dad's business, and I was sweeping floors, right? So I started from the ground up, uh, I've gone on to build, uh, over 35 companies at this point, not all succeeded, uh, some, you know, definitely did not, and some broke even and some were, uh, quite, uh, successful. So, uh, what led me to here was in one of my last companies. That I was actively doing, uh, the, the business led us into kind of supporting training companies. And so the first one I supported was a man named Jake Conrad Levinson from Gorilla Marketing. Uh, then he introduced me to a man named Chet Holmes, and I, uh, for about 5 years or so, I did the independent sales, president of sales and training with Chet Holmes, and then I ended up doing it for Tony Robbins, for Russ Whitney. We worked with a bunch of, you know, brand names, you know, whether it's Deepak Choper, Brian Tracy, any of those, um, you know, names. And we were, I was the guy behind the scenes, uh, helping them to expand their revenue. Awesome. OK, so you're, you've got a lot of experience with a lot of great names there and 35 companies started. You've learned a thing or two. Uh, a day at a time, I, I would imagine over the last, the last several years. So today we want to talk about uh the 10 ways your company can expand its revenue. Um, you wanna just, uh, click us off on David Letterman style? Number one, yeah, for sure, so. So he, he always starts from the 10 at the top down, right? So the top 10. Um, so I'll just go through them. I mean, look, the number one is uh acquisition of new clients, you know, increasing the number of new clients because, you know, and this is the one that most companies are uh very myopically focused on, and they need to have some um you know, certainly some focus on it, so. Number 2 would be increasing how much that the client actually buys through the transactional values, so increasing the actual purchase at the time of purchase. Number 3, increasing the frequency of how they buy, uh, you know, how frequently frequently do they buy, I should say. So you know, if you can get them to buy more often, uh, then you'll increase your revenue. Number 4, you want to increase the effectiveness of the actual purchase. And so what that means is you want to close the uh the loops on anything to help move the purchase along. Number 5 is to speed up the purchase. How do you speed up the sale? Because if you can speed up the sale, then you have more time to do additional things such as prospecting. Uh, number 6. was to increase the efficiency of the process. So one, you know, being the effectiveness, how do we actually sell more, and the other being how do we actually sell more efficiently. Number 7, increasing the human capital. Uh, number 8 increasing the overall retention rate of the clients. Uh, next one was increasing the margins and prices of what we're selling that will not only increase the revenue, but it'll increase the profitability. And then followed up, I think we're on number 10, which is increasing meaningful communications on the internal and external side of the business. Those are your top 10. All right, well thanks for joining us. I'm just kidding that was great you uh. Yeah, you went through through those pretty quickly and I wrote them all down, so I think that you know some of them really bear repeating. Like for instance, I don't think, and maybe maybe you agree with me, maybe you won't, but I don't think anybody does a better job these days at helping at increasing a purchase than Vistaprint. Have you ever bought a business card or a Uh, anything, you know, you, you, they don't, they make you go through about 10 upsell opportunities because they want you to, you know, to leave with a mouse pad and a coffee cup and a and a sticker for your car and all kinds of things. What are some other examples of companies that that um increase purchases and um and how can I or or what are some tips you have for our listeners? Well, I think, uh, GoDaddy is another good example of that if anybody's ever worked with GoDaddy, right? You call into GoDaddy, you want to get a domain before you know it, they've got you into a website program, email, um, you know, uh, private domain registration, uh, hosting, right? They're constantly trying to, to either upsell, cross-sell, or sometimes even downsell. So in the, in the increasing the transactional value side, um, You know, it's either we want them to buy something more expensive, if you will, or more, more costly, or we want to sell them items, you know, if you go into Best Buy, you know, uh, or something like that, they'll try to, uh, if they're any good at it, they'll, you know, you buy a camera, they want you to buy a bag, uh, memory cards, extended warranties, anything that is related to the sale that is a cross sell, uh, or a downsell, let's say you go in and you want a camera and it's like you really want to. Yeah, I don't know, the $2000 camera, but you're just not really there. The one of the mistakes that companies make all the time is they let people leave without getting anything. And so they would be much better off if they had, hey, listen, you know what, we have this, uh, it doesn't matter, $29 education program on how to buy cameras, whatever it is, um, because that first step called the downsale, gets engagement from the client, and now we're building trust. But a lot of times people will let these people walk out their door. I see this happen a lot in retail, but I, I mean, it definitely happens in corporate as well, you know, on B2B sales. Right, right, and, and these days for people that are still that aren't completely virtual, which, you know, most, most people are virtual, but I hear this a lot is that, um, you know, your, your consumer is coming in, let's say you're, you're selling cars, for instance, your consumer is not coming in to look at the cars. They've looked at the cars. They, they know about the cars. They've researched it online, so your, your sales people have to be asking different and better questions to get them engaged in other different ways, right? Uh, but without question, because the information transfer now, you know, be like years ago, the, the seller had all the information. If you went to buy a car, you didn't know hardly anything. You, you might have read a magazine or something like that, but there was no internet, right? So, the internet has leveled the playing field where now the buyer actually has more information than the seller. Uh, on, on the products and services, and the, so the sales conversation changes at this point. It's much more about building rapport and to understand that the buyer doesn't need, unless it's, you know, you're the, the, the one person that's selling, you know, the magic pill, and that's it, they don't need to come to you. So the the question now is, instead of it being a top-down sale, it's got to be a rapport win-win basis sale. And it's funny though, because the other night, I, I, uh, my refrigerator at my home was making noise and I'm like, oh, I gotta get a new refrigerator, right? And I do what most consumers do. I, I go online, I start looking at it, OK, this Maytag or GE or whatever it might be. And I'm like, OK, well, heck, you know what? I'll go to Lowe's, because Lowe's is right down the street from me, #1, and number 2, I'm a veteran, so they give me 10% discount, right? So I'm like, no problem, I'll go down there. And I walk into the, into the place and I, I go up into the appliance side and I say to the gentleman, Hey, listen, I'm looking for a new refrigerator. He asks me what type. I say, Well, I'm looking at these models and now I'm asking questions. Does this one use more electricity than this one type things? And he's like, I don't know. And I said, I already have the information, you know what I mean? Because just like most consumers, you can find almost everything that one needs to be able to make a purchasing decision. And, uh, I think I just saw a stat yesterday that said, in business to business, over 50% of the people now before they make a buying decision are actually going to the internet to actually find something, whether credibility on the person selling or, or, you know, the product or service information. And with consumers, it's, it's even higher than that. So the, the whole game of selling and doing transactional type process is, is, is, is diminished and it's really about now selling on value and that value is what is the value to the end buyer because they don't need a seller anymore, not in most cases, unless it's a very complex sale. Well, yeah, a good point, because consumers, you know, they're not new at this anymore. They're not new at using the, you know, yeah, I remember, I don't know, back in 1990 looking at a, I was going to go traveling and I looked at, uh, I went on the internet and I'm like, what is all this and who put all this stuff on here, you know, and I was, I was impressed but I was new at it. Nowadays it's second nature and companies like of course Amazon have made it. Just really easy because you know you're going to get it in a day or two. You don't have to worry about the, the, the lack of customers are expecting more and more. What's the number one mistake that you see companies making with their sales that impede or stop their growth, Doc? 0, #1, uh, there's so many. Um, but the #1, I think, that I see most commonly is, well, there's, there's, I, I would say these two are equal. Number one is they're neglecting their past or dormant buyers, right? So, so they sell them, they're in their database. They might send them an email here and there, or they might send them something. But they're not engaging with their past client base because most of them think, well, they're already purchased, they're not really good for, you know, repurchase. But the reality is, one of the first things I do when I go to a company and we do an assessment, do the audit and do the interviews, we inevitably find this, that they have a whole bunch of money sitting there in their past clients that they can just go back in mind. And that, you know, that could be a phone call. Um, you know, I, I had a, a company that were doing $4 million and we just did this for, uh, two weeks. They went back and they engaged their old client base, which they said was dead. Some of the stuff they said was, you know, 4 years old, and they got $300,000 of new sales out of the old client base with, with zero marketing cost. So yes, yes, so and and the second I oh go ahead, sir. I would, I would put that in the category first of all, sorry to interrupt but of not looking at that that long term value of a customer right? that they think one and done or something like that. Yeah, I mean, they teach lifetime value in all the business courses, but, you know, when it comes to entrepreneurs, many of them are just so myopically focused on getting new clients, they're forgetting about the LTV, the lifetime value of that particular client. Now, the, the, the thing that people are not actually getting, even though, you know, a few $100,000 in sales is nice. But when they go back and they re-engage, some of the clients have said, jeez, I've been missing you, right? I've been da, da, da, right? My brother actually needs what you need. So now they're starting to pick up referrals out of that old dormant client base that they would have never had. So now they're expanding the sale just from one facet of going back and re-engaging old, old clients. Yeah, yeah. Really, really good point. And you know, let's face it, in this, in this day and age where everything's automated, um, yeah, it's one thing if you're, if you're, you know, if you say blue curtains and all of a sudden on your phone it's popping up with pictures of blue curtains from Amazon, you know, we've all had that happen these days, but it's different if you have a relationship with an interior decorator and you really miss that connection and you know a lot of people are missing connection these days, aren't they? I Statistics show that quality of life is actually more important to people in, in getting a job today than the actual money they make. Uh, especially when it comes to sales, the quality of life, so that connection that you're speaking about is goes to, in my opinion, to the quality of their life and the fact that we've been in a pandemic and the economic struggles that have been going on and people have been sheltering in place, they're craving connection more than ever. Uh, and, and just in simple little ways, right? I mean, we don't have to, we don't have to do big gigantic things. I mean, uh, for the first time in, I think it's 4.5 months, I went to a restaurant with my, with my family. And, you know, we sat down, but just the fact that I got to speak with the person who was serving us and talk with the front person on the, I mean, it was like, wow, a whole new world, right? Cause we haven't had it, but yes, people now are craving connection more than ever, and they're finding it now through You know, other mediums like they, you know, video conferencing or, you know, Zoom or whatever they might be doing. I mean, you know, they're even doing like video dating is a big thing going on now, right? But there's nothing replaces the the connection between human and human interaction, uh, and you know, the, the being in person is even a higher quality than that usually than over video. Unless it's a low salesman that says I don't know. Right, effective communication, you know, exactly, and, and here's the really weird thing about that, right? I would have expected them to know some of the basic stuff, but they're not well trained in that particular area or that individual didn't learn about that. That gave me enough doubt to say, you know what, Home Depot's not too far away, and I got an appliance, you know, warehouse not too far away, and I've got another place not too far away. So I'm like, OK, I'd better look. And I'm typically a guy that goes in and says, I know what I want, but he created enough ambiguity in the, uh, in the thought process of his responses created ambiguity in my head. He didn't create anything I did, which I said, you know what, I feel a little uncomfortable here. And so, since I didn't feel comfortable, now I'm looking at competitors where Lowe's would have had that, you know, whatever the heck it was, $1500 sale or whatever it was at the time. That's a great segue into another question I wanted to ask you, which is, uh, you know, these days when a when a business owner, uh, one of our listeners wants to sell their business, they find that they're in an ever expanding beauty contest, right? It's not. A very rarely, and I hear this a lot, I'm sure you do too, that private equity groups or financial buyers of businesses, they're, they're generally, they're not looking at one business, they're looking at 10 businesses. They're looking at 20 businesses to find the one that And there's a lot out there. There's a lot for sale. So what would you say, you know, what can our listeners do to start working on their sales and revenue growth so that they can be attractive in that beauty contest? Yeah, and, and you're absolutely right. They are looking at numerous companies, you know, that's why they call them portfolio companies, you know, they're looking at all these portfolios, and they're trying to find the diamond in the, in the rough, right? Because if they invest, they typically want somewhere between 6 and 15+, uh not percent, but X return, right? That's what they're looking for most of the, the companies like this. Um, so, Look, the more profitable a company is, the more attractive they're going to be. The more a company has systematic sales processes and systematic customer journey processes all the way through from, you know, marketing aligned with sales, aligned with operations, aligned with customer service, uh, you know, all the way through. Um, and it should go back to the marketing or sales channel at that point to regenerate a new sale. The more that they have that, the more attractive they're going to be. So if they want to grow their revenues, the first thing they must do, they got to audit where they are. Well, no, let me back up. The first thing they got to do, they got to get really truthful. About, are they committed to actually growing? To the levels that they say they are, you know, because a lot of companies will come and they'll say, you know, I want to go by $1 million or 10%. But then when we start digging in, we find out that that's not the true number. And the challenge with that is they'll spend money that they don't have to. They'll do effort they won't have to do, um, if they were just truthful. You know, as long as they're growing, they'll be attracted to, uh, in most cases, be attracted to a buyer. The second thing they want to do is then do an audit of where they are. Let's do a real assessment of what do we have, because we're gonna have big grand ideas, but if we find out we have all these constraining factors that are going to stop us from getting there, and we don't clear those constraining factors first, and we end up dumping marketing money and all kinds of things into it. Um, you know, it could actually hurt the company more than help the company. So what we do is we, we go in, we get, help them get truthful, do an audit on the company, then we do interviews with the people because you might find things in the people side that you don't find in the, in the, in the process side, if you will. And so, once we do the interviews, we might even have to assess people, you know, if they have a sales team, for example, and they're not really hitting quota every single month, maybe they're in the wrong position, right? Maybe they're not a hunter of a, of sales process. So once we do that thing, then that's when you build the growth plan, because you know all the constraining factors, you know what you have for assets, what you're gonna need for assets if you need to go out and get some. Uh, and then build the plan from there. That's the process of what I take my clients through anyway. That's great, great information, uh, really great tips for our listeners. We got the, you know, we got the top 10 list out of the way early. That was good. I really enjoyed the conversation with you and I hope you'll come back and share more tips with our listeners in the future. I want to tell our listeners that they can get a sales and marketing checklist from you by sending an email to youatter, the word youatter altogether at business success factors.com. You matter at businessess factors.com. What is that? What are they going to get there, Doug? What is that going to look like and why should somebody do that? So it's a, it's a, a first initial assessment. So if you basically it'll have a series of questions all around your sales and marketing and it it'll punch holes where the holes should be and it will reveal blind spots that they're having within their company. So they'll be able to rate how are they doing, you know, gauged against. You know, companies who are doing, uh, you know, consistently well, how, how are they, uh, gauging up against those, and they can, they'll find out, you know, it's, it's usually a pretty eye-opening thing where they go, OK, well, we're, we're, we're good here, but we're deficient here. And that's really what the checklist is all about the design. So it's a quick way of them being able to say, OK, whoa, all right, we can grow, um, but we're, we have these constraining factors or we have these things going on. Uh, or we have these things not going on and therefore we need to do this. Excellent. Always good to hear, good tips and help people take inventory, and it sounds like you have a great, great thing going there for business owners, and I hope our listeners will get in touch again. Go to businesssuccessfactors.com or if you want to get that checklist youatter, send an email to youatter@businessuccessfactors.com to receive it. Doc, thanks so much for joining me today. I really appreciate it. As I said before, I hope you come back and join us again. I'd be happy to. You're a great interviewer, and I really appreciate, uh, the questions you've asked and having me on here. Thank you for listening to Exit Coach Radio. It's true that some things change as we get older, but if you're a woman over 40 and you're dealing with insomnia, brain fog, moodiness, and weight gain, you don't have to accept it as just another part of aging. And with Mitty Health, you can get help and stop pushing through it alone. The experts at Mitty understand that all these symptoms can be connected to the hormonal changes that happen around menopause, and Mittie can help you feel more like yourself again. Many healthcare providers aren't trained to treat or even recognize menopause symptoms. MIDI clinicians are menopause experts. They're dedicated to providing safe, effective, FDA approved solutions for dozens of hormonal symptoms, not just hot flashes. Most Importantly, they're covered by insurance. 91% of MIDI patients get relief from symptoms within just two months. You deserve to feel great. Book your virtual visit today at joinmidi.com. That's join MIDI.com.