'Marketing Bootcamp' peps business owners' strategies
By Lynn Wolstenholme
In a workshop advertised as “the best two hours you could invest to improve your business,” marketing coach Michael Stay gathered small-business owners in Leesburg April 29 for a Marketing Bootcamp, offering tips to “make their business go through the roof.”
“Eighty percent of small business fail in the first two to three years,” said Stay, a marketing coach and professional business builder with Leader Global Consulting. “If you don't understand marketing, you aren't going to grow your business.”
Stay, with more than 28 years of experience in helping organizations grow profitability, gave attendees tips and strategies, one of which he implemented himself to get people to come to the seminar – give customers something for free. In Stay's case, he gave two hours of information in hopes of gaining referrals from the attendees.
Stay rolled through the two-hour morning session, giving the nine attendees a plan on how to grow their business: Write out dreams and goals, create a unique selling proposition, build on a current customer base and ask for referrals.
“The information was well presented,” said attendee Indra Books, owner of On the Go 4 U, a concierge services business.
“It made me think, 'I know [the information], but am I doing it?'”
Three days after the seminar, Books said she had already implemented some of the tips Stay suggested.
“I went back through my notes and noted to myself that I need to check on this, I need to do that,” Books said.
“I get caught up in the daily business,” she added. “I realized that I never ask current customers for testimonials or referrals.”
Building on a current customer base is one of the biggest building blocks of a business, Stay said in the seminar.
He showed a chart breaking down what one happy customer can do for a business in a year. A customer who spent $100 10 times a year would bring in $1,000. If that customer were to bring in 10 more customers with the same spending habits through referrals, that builds revenue another $10,000.
“You can't look at them as a $100 customer,” Stay explained.
“Getting current clients to give referrals turbo charges out through the roof,” he added.
Financially speaking, Stay also pointed out, “It takes seven times as much to attain a new customer as it does to to maintain a current one.”
Books said she took Stay's suggestion right after the seminar. That night, she was talking with a customer who was speaking highly of Books' service. “I said to myself, 'Wait. I'm about to miss and opportunity to ask for a testimonial.'”
Stay brought up the question, “Are you confusing being busy with being successful?” He said business can be looked at through two different laws – Pareto's 80/20 Principle and Parkinson's Law.
He acknowledged that small-business owners don't have a lot, if any, free time on their hands, so focusing on the core group of customers is key.
Stay used the example of Pareto's 80/20 Principle, which states that “80 percent of results in life come from 20 percent of your time.” In a small-business owner's world, that relates to 20 percent of customers bringing in the core revenue of money, while the other 80 percent aren't the customers to focus on.
“If you analyze customers and revenue and figure out who is spending what,” Stay said, “you can see where to spend the majority of your time and marketing.”
Then, Parkinson's Law builds on a small-business owner's time schedule, Stay said: “Work expands to fill the time you give it.”
One attendee concurred, saying if he gives himself four hours to write a proposal, it takes him four hours. But if he only has an hour to put it together, he gets it done in an hour.
“Identify a critical task and shorten the work time,” Stay suggested. This gives a business owner more time to focus on other essential tasks.
At the end of the seminar, the nine attendees all left looking happy with the time spent in the conference room.
“I feel like I'm really going to leave here and do something,” said KD Kidder with Photoworks in Leesburg. “I have a clear vision of what I am going to do now.”
Contact the reporter at lwolstenholme@timespapers.com