The world of business has evolved so much and very rapidly. With the boom of IT and the ease of a worldwide market has our business improved with the evolution? Learning to use new tools and implementing better processes; instead of being like a caveman still using barbaric tools to do intense labour work.
In Australia, people generally do not like the cold call sales technique, yet it still happens today. We have emails which I often delete straight away offering me their services, but why is it the case? I will often put it down to relationship, Australians much like many Asian cultures we like to have an established relationship before we commit to doing anything, especially something which has risk and money involved.
So why do businesses still use these practices?
It might be out of habit, or the fact nobody has really thought about the sales aspects or the relationship building. Often we will use our family members who are trained or qualified in an industry when we need that particular work. Not because we want ‘mates rates’ or anything it is mostly due to the trust and relationship that we know it will be done by someone we trust. So why is business seeing their customers differently? Is there a better way to build up clientele without ‘harassing’ people into becoming clients?
Most businesses have established with the rise of Spotify and other music apps that radio advertising is on the drop, as well as the fact there are businesses who have ‘radio’ applications for use by shopping centres which runs their own internal ads. Likewise with TV advertising, we have Foxtel, Netflix, Stan, etc so many people are more interested in an on-demand TV option today.
Can we meet them online?
Again only looking from the Australian perspective, we don’t really ‘see’ the ads on the sides of the screen, in the banner and similar. There are companies that do SEO (Search Engine Optimization) but is that the solution to new clients? Well you need to work out as a company what does your client look like? Some of the oldest methods are the most effective, learn about the profile of your client and adapt your methods to suit them.
Meeting the client where they are at
Alcohol companies are great at this sales aspect, they know people in bars, nightclubs and similar are their clients. So they send Brand Ambassadors to these venues with samples, people try people like then sales go up (obviously not so directly, more often as an in-direct approach). Do you profile your new clients? Asking the questions like how they found your business, and some basic profiling questions? This can help you to work out how you can ‘clone’ this type of client, if you get 4 new clients from a function they attended and they are good ‘value’ clients; why reinvent the wheel? Just use the same method again, maybe try and see if you could improve on the next event and make 10 new clients or similar.
Are we actually reviewing stats?
Often managers don’t like to invest time into activities that are in-directly impacting on the business; however they will freak out when clients are not walking through the doors anymore; but why is that? Without reviewing every ‘project’ or ‘program’ you perform you can neither say it worked or failed, and without knowing how the new clients coming in are finding your business you can be pouring money endlessly into marketing which is not giving you a good ROI (Return on Investment). It can be frustrating and can be challenging, but by analysing your business performance actively you will get to see the impact every decision is making.
The world is a different place and we need to be constantly seeking how effective our methods are and whether it is time to try a new approach. Otherwise some new business run by fresh out of business school students will steal the market, because they will find the ways to ‘communicate’ with their ‘ideal client’ and your clients will start to feel more love from that company. It is a more competitive world today if you are in a business which doesn’t need to be local to be able to provide a service, or solution.
Evolution of Virtual Assistants
If you are unfamiliar with this ‘Virtual Assistant’ it is as the title says, there are online companies who work with ‘freelancers’ who can be anywhere in the world. You can go and post a ‘task’ for instance “Needing website designed” you then get offers from people all around the world who bid for this task. Some are a once-off type assistant, and others you can ‘hire’ to work for you and do various Personal Assistant type tasks. Because you are dealing with people all around the world their cost of living varies so you can get someone who works on a very casual basis or full-time etc.
It really operates very customised to what you are needing completed and often they are cost effective because they might have 3-4 ‘employers’ to put in those words. They are not employees, they are more like a contractor. There are limitations in many businesses due to information etc especially government based and similar where the information cannot leave the country. This is not much different to the cloud and often having freelance contractors can mean your tasks are accomplished and completed and you have not needed to hire more staff or overload existing staff.