The Billion Dollar Sales Machine is based around

15 Crucial Business Strategies

Implement, Test, Optimise and Systemise these pivot points and almost any business can drive significant profit increases.

And you don’t have to tackle all 15 business strategies at once – just focusing on two or three could produce outstanding results.

When you join Peter Spann’s Billion Dollar Sales Machine Coaching Program you will identify and prioritise the highest leverage strategies for your business and then systematically implement, test, and optimise them to build a market dominating cash flow machine out of your business.

Business Strategy 1. Pathfinding

Pathfinding is all about seeking out new markets and new ways of doing business.

Market Breadth

You need to expand your available pool of customers to draw upon.

Find new markets

Where are customers waiting for you?

What markets can you service that you aren’t now?

How can you be…

– First to Market

– First to mind

– First to dominate

What are your existing customers buying that is complementary to your offering?

How do you expand your product offering without expanding your cost base?

Where and how can you expand your product offering?

Business Strategy 2 – Show Off

Is all about bringing the…

Wow factor!

How does your business stand out from the crowd?

Product Proposition

– What do you do that nobody else does?

– Who do you do it for?

– Why are you better?

Unique Selling Proposition

Buy this product for this specific benefit unique to my business

Targeting

Who exactly are your clients, and how do you most effectively reach them?

Business Strategy 3. Jostle for Position

What is your perfect niche? How do you get more than your fair share of it.

We do X for Y because of Z

– Who wants you most?

– Who is prepared to pay?

– Most efficient delivery

Pricing Strategy

Most businesses, mostly small business do not understand pricing strategy and end up costing themselves margin because of it.

For example for over a decade our research showed that there were no more than 50 items in a pharmacy that were price sensitive out of an average 14,000 items stocked. By monitoring their prices and remaining consistently under their competitors our clients got the reputation of offering excellent value even though they had a gross profit margin 35% higher than the industry average.

Business Strategy 4. Make it Rain

A rainmaker is a person (in this case a system) that brings oodles and oodles of profitable customers to a business. So let’s make it rain profits in your business…

Constant Lead Generation

Most businesses only attempt to generate new customers sporadically.

There is nothing wrong with promotions or “Big Push” marketing when used properly but all businesses should be set up so their marketing delivers a constant stream of new customers.

And in order to do that you need to understand…

Life Time Value

The value of a client over their life time to you.

Unless you know this value it is impossible to determine how much to spend to attract a customer.

Once you know it and your cost of acquisition you can scale your marketing budget with pin point accuracy.

Multiple Marketing Channels

– Internet

– Email / CRM

– Media

– Promotion & PR

Understand what marketing channels are most cost effective for you on a cost per sale basis.

“All pigs are equal, but some are more equal than others…”

– George Orwell, Animal Farm

Business Strategy 5. Sort & Grade Customers According to Status

Qualify and grade clients according to:

– Recency of purchase

– Frequency of purchase

– Value of Purchase

This allows you to prioritise your service delivery, product and pricing.

Sort your clients

– Platinum

– Gold

– Bronze

– Bin – Some people were never meant to be your clients.

This is a difficult concept for most business owners to understand but once you start simplifying and systemising your business it becomes impossible to be all things to all people so you need to know, and fast, who your best clients are, and start tailoring your product offering, branding and marketing to them.

Lots of D clients or other clients you can’t serve? Start up a New Brand specifically for them.

Toyota has Lexus to service their premium customers and Qantas has Jetstar to service their leisure customers. These are examples of using branding to cater for different tiers of customers.

Business Strategy 6. Super Size Me – Multi-Tiered Product Offering

Having a range of products and packages that is wide enough (variety) and deep enough (package size and price) to best serve your clients

Easy Through Sale

Providing a pathway for your clients to move upwards in your ranking

Productise Services

Turning a service into a product. For example we converted the service “financial planning” which is hard to sell into a product called “Wealth Club” which had a range of prices and benefits that was easy to sell.

First Offering, Best Offering

make it easy for and train your team to offer your best product to your customers first.

Upsell and Cross Sell

Until Further Notice Arrangements

Business Strategy 7. Bring ’em Back Alive

Repeat business is some of the most profitable a business can muster. Increasing the frequency a client buys from you, or share of customer can dramatically boost your bottom line.

You need to develop a client nurturing systems that starts with your…

Customer Service Team (usually Telemarketers)

– Re-Sell

– Push to Platinum

– New Product Stream

– Fix 🙁

Constant Communication

– What adds value?

– Educate

– Entertain

– Build the Brand

Referral Programs

– Bring a Friend

– Client Only Closed Door Events

“If your business is not a brand it’s a commodity”

– Donald Trump

Business Strategy 8. Spread the Love

A truly awesome brand communicates and adds value by it’s look, feel and consistaent application across the business.

Brand – The Heart of Your Business

Your brand is how you present yourself to your clients.

It’s how they remember you and feel about you.

A good brand is worth a thousand promotions.

Fortress Brand

Make your business unassailable by your competitors.

– Values

– Consistency

– Linked to Positioning

– Embrace and Love Customers

Extend Reach

– Promotions

– Sponsorships

– Community Involvement

– Benevolence Program

– Guerilla Marketing

“As for you, be fruitful and multiply; Populate the earth abundantly and multiply in it.”

– Genesis 9:7, New American Standard

Business Strategy 9. Go Forth and Multi-Channel Distribution

Getting your product to market is the key leverage factor overlooked by most businesses.

Physical Distribution

Goods and services sold in multiple outlets obviously will sell more than in a singular outlet. If there is no barrier to ramping up supply most businesses should focus on distribution.

What opportunities are there for you to dramatically increase your reach and distribution? What non-competing business already sells and distributes to your clients?

Digital Distribution

Many services businesses could refocus their offering around digital, eliminating product and shipping cost.

– WWW

– Mail Order

– World Wide Shipping

Affiliates and Agents

What opportunity do you have for affiliates and agents to distribute your product for you?

Business Strategy 10. Be Response-Able

How a business handles a crisis will often determine its future.

Handled well a crisis can build the brand, develop customer loyalty and create future opportunities.

Handled badly a crisis can literally end a business. Plan for the former!

Operational weaknesses and threats

What could go wrong?

Compliance Plan

Designed to avoid any potential issues

What happens in a crisis?

Business wide understanding and training

Media Plan

Business Strategy 11. Count Your Beans

Make it easy for your customers to do business with you.

Easy $ Handling

Provide multiple ways to pay

Manage Your Business

– Fast, efficient, meaningful reporting

– KPI’s drive results

– Maximise efficiency

– Rigourously lower costs throughout the machine

Business Strategy 12. Here Comes Another One… Replicate

If you knew you were going to franchise your business how would you have done it differently?

Build scalability from day 1

Most businesses have to completely redesign to get scalability.

If you were given the opportunity could you expand rapidly?

Systemise and simplify

Most businesses are too complicated and they need experienced, highly trained and paid people to operate them. If you are going to be successful you need to simplify then systemise.

– Attack different markets

– Franchise

– Replicate

Different brand

Is your business / brand even the right one to attempt to scale? Is there an easier, simpler way to expand?

Business Strategy 13. Happy Campers

A powerful team really does achieve more.

Time and again businesses try to hire superstars and fail. even if they do succeed those people are often difficult to manage, cost significantly more than others and create rifts within the business.

Instead focus on how you can build a culture, system and environment where good people do great things.

Team Synchronicity

Vision
Direction
Training
Resources
Recognition
Communication
Systemisation
Team Work

Once this can be done your business will be able to operate with a…

Low People Skill Requirement

This means people cost less and are easier to manage.

We replaced one supposedly “superstar: field sales team with a group of in house telemarketers. Within a year, with the right training, management and incentives they had tripled the sales of the field team at a lower cost.

Business Strategy 14. Angels and Demons – The Art of Capital Raising

When it’s time for a business to grow rapidly or its founders to remove some capital sometimes it’s necessary to go externally.

IPO

When a business is ready sometimes going public is it’s best choice to extract value but most entrepreneurs are not ready for the Governance, Compliance, and Scrutiny that a Public Company requires.

Venture Capital & Angel Investors

For a smaller business or one that wants to remain private Venture Capital is a good option. However more and more VC’s want 100% of a business. Time to go?

Crowd Sourcing

Crowd Sourcing sites like Kickstarter are a modern twist on raising capital, particularly for start ups.

20/12/$2m

Small capital raising can take advantage of a number of exemptions to the rules of IPO’s – this is one. It allows you to raise a maximum of $2million over 12 months from no more than 20 investors, usually known to you (friends, colleagues and family).

Borrowing to fund growth

Borrowing to fund growth in good times can often be the cheapest form of capital but it comes with a lot of strings, especially if the business gets into financial trouble down the track.

Business Strategy 15. Exit Strategy

You must always answer the question…

Before you get in how are you getting out?

Most business people never think about how they are going to exit and tragically often close a business or sell it for next to nothing when they are done.

Understand and build capital value

Profit alone does not mean a business is worth a lot of money. Look at all the strategies of the Billion Dollar Sales Machine. THAT’s what makes a business both saleable AND valuable.

Make your business investor / sale ready

Funnily enough very few business are sale ready and all businesses should be. In fact as a discipline it’s worth preparing your Investment Memorandum as soon as you can. Can’t do it? Then you’re not ready.

When offered – Take the cash

If there is one thing I have learnt from all my multi-millionaire and sometimes billionaire friends and my own experience, that is, when somebody offers you a reasonable price for your business, take it.

That opportunity may never come again.

I sold one of my business for $300,000 (a fortune for me at the time) to a multinational who was annoyed at us taking their market share. They shut it down the day after they bought it. Within a year they were bought out and its unlikely the opportunity would ever have been offered to us again.

I was also offered $50million for my financial services business on an IPO at the top of the market, fully under written. I always had in my head that I would cash out when the business was worth $100m and despite the advice of more experienced colleagues I said “no”.

A year later the GFC hit, valuations of financial services business (and our profits) evaporated and the business was eventually sold for about its debt 3 years later.

Take the cash!!!