Dan Kennedy

"Specialization" or "perceived specialization" can turn an ordinary business into an extraordinary business, boost prices and margins, provide competitive differentiation, and allow you to be a "big fish in a small pond."

Just for example, you might say that printing is printing and business forms are business forms. But I know of a printing company specializing in medical forms for hospitals. They and their competitors packaged and sold their forms in cartons of 1,000, 5,000 and 10,000. But many small hospitals and nursing homes refused to buy from them because they couldn't use up 1,000 copies of any of these forms in a year. This company developed a catalogue of all the forms priced in packages of 150 and targeted all the smaller institutions. In short order, they controlled this market. And they tripled their profit margins which more than made up for the handling of smaller orders
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Everybody gets lazy - especially when things are going well - and tends to rely on just a few means of acquiring their new customers. But your job is to continually and constantly test new methods/media, so as to, over time, enlarge the scope and diversity of your marketing.
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One of the most annoying things to me, as a consumer, is calling some advertiser to request information and being told I'll get it in 3 to 4 weeks - or not being told anything at all, but getting the information so late I can't even recall wanting it. Leads stay "hot" for a very, very, very short time. One of the best things you can do to maximize response is to get promised information into the hands of leads fast. And, given a sufficiently high sale price, it's always worth checking whether or not Federal Express or other overnight delivery boosts response more than enough to justify its cost.
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In terms of profit improvement, there may be no greater point of leverage than the immediate telephone upsell, because there is virtually no cost of sale. One survey I saw recently indicates that the overall odds of selling to a new customer are 16-1, but of selling to an existent customer just 2-1. I think those odds get even better when the 2nd sale is made immediately behind the first. Our experience in DRTV and catalog houses indicates that 20%+ of all purchasers will say yes to an upsell offer.
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The phone rang persistently in the little shoe store where I was buying a pair of shoes. Finally, after six rings, the clerk at the counter said, "dammit, I'm busy", but grudgingly answered the phone. Guess how he must have sounded to that caller!

This attitudinal error must occur a million times a day in every type of business, as the incoming call "interrupts" the "important" work.

Somehow, you must educate, motivate and staff so that the response to the inbound call is enthusiastic - it's OPPORTUNITY CALLING!

Every inbound call is an opportunity to impress, make a friend, make a sale or upsell.

Inbound Call Management can dramatically improve a business' profits.
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For years, I've used and preached the importance of following up the sale and delivery of merchandise with a "stick letter" - designed to make the sale all over again and make the sale "stick." (REFERENCE MY BOOK, THE ULTIMATE SALES LETTER). These days, many of my clients employ very sophisticated, complex, multi-step "stick procedures" to reduce refunds - and they are usually highly profitable.
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In SUCCESS MAGAZINE, telemarketing consultant George Walther described how U.S. West Cellular's "retention group" had turned keeping customers into an important profit center. It then cost the company about $700.00 to get a new customer, then about 7 months to recover that investment before beginning to reap profits from the relationship. But half of all new customers were dropping out before that "magic" 7th month. Analysis revealed that cutting the monthly cancellation rate by just 1/10th-of-1% would add one million dollars to the bottom-line. An elite taskforce, "The Retention Team", was created to place Welcome Calls to new customers, to explain their first bills to them, and respond to customers who wanted to cancel service. Retention group soldiers are paid bonuses on 'saves'.
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As I'm writing this, I'm particularly peeved about a jewelry store in Phoenix (Weisfields). Last year, for Christmas, I bought matching Tag Huer watches for Carla and myself there. Not a cheap purchase. On my last trip, I dropped mine on the carpet and the band broke. Carla took it in and was treated as a nuisance.....told it'll take 4 to 6 weeks to get it repaired and that she'd probably do better handling it with the manufacturer herself. If you buy a Timex at Walgreens, that kind of non-customer service would be expected and accepted. But when you buy two very expensive watches from a jeweler, that is NOT the kind of service that should exist. (It's also incredibly dumb to tee off a customer like this right before the holiday shopping season.)

The result is that I'll spend money elsewhere this year and every year thereafter, will never spend another dime there, and will give them lots of negative word-of-mouth advertising, just as I'm doing here.

Different levels of customer service are required for different businesses, different clientele, and the differing expectations established through a business' positioning, advertising, marketing and pricing. Lots of advertising dollars are wasted if not supported by congruent customer service.
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Sales Prevention Department
In every business, small or large, there is an inherent struggle between "operations" and "sales", and far too often "operations" win.
the correct process is, all operational issues and staff preferences aside, what is the best thing to do to maximize sales - then it is "operations"' job to figure out how to support that approach.
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Periodically call your own office phone, your order-taking service, your stores, etc. and "play customer/prospect".
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