Speaking from his experience as an entrepreneur and consultant who has helped businesses earn more than a $1 billion in revenue during his career, Saeks says he believes any business interested in increasing top-line revenue and bottom-line profit must do so one of four ways: acquire more high-value customers; increase the average transaction; increase the frequency of a customer purchase or referral; improve efficiencies using business systems and technologies.
But simple as those strategies might sound, Saeks adds any business focused on growth also will face a number of challenges that can potentially derail a business growth plan before it ever leaves the station.
When it comes to business planning, Saeks says: “It’s not about what we know, it’s how well do we execute.”
He says some of the most common mistakes he sees businesses make that prevent growth are poor marketing and sales efforts, failing to focus on social proof for potential customers, disregarding one’s presence on social media and Google and post-sales apathy in which a business immediately loses interest in a customer once a sale is complete.
Regarding the first challenge, Saeks says all too often businesses get caught relying on a simple strategy that worked for them in the past and fail to update the strategy for today’s business climate. He says the sales tactics of the 1990s aren’t as valuable in the age of interconnectivity and businesses that don’t adjust accordingly are at a significant disadvantage.
The same can be said for social proof, or testimonials. Saeks says today’s consumers are hungry for product or service validation from their contemporaries. In the same way customers turn away from restaurants with a poor Yelp review, Saeks says commercial customers can turn away from suppliers who don’t have proof that their quality parts and superior customers service are really as good as advertised.
As for Google, Saeks says there’s no excuse for any business today to fail to have a strong corporate presence on the search engine. He says even in a relationship business such as commercial truck parts, customers need to be able to search you and find your website and relevant business information in the places where they are most active. He says that latter point is the important one. Just because a business owner doesn’t use Facebook doesn’t mean his customers don’t. Saeks says aftermarket companies (like any other business) need to have a presence where their customers are active.
Finally, on the topic post-sales apathy, Saeks says successful business growth today requires constant engagement with any and all customers. He says the more a business does to assist a customer in the time between purchases (such as with product information, technical guidance, etc.), the more likely that customer is to not just return to buy products but also refer contemporaries to the same business.
Here, Saeks returns to his statement about testimonials. He says taking as little as a minute with a customer after a successful transaction — during what he calls the customer’s “happiness moment” — to record their appreciation is a great way to create a library of authentic “social proof” satisfaction that can be distributed any number of ways.
Saeks also closed his presentation by reminding his audience that marketing, even in a business-to-business climate, still requires a person-to-person focus. He says the key there is to ensure one’s benefit message is clear and is being sent to the right market using the right communication method.
“Not all markets and methods are the same. Make sure you’re targeting correctly,” he says.