Want to smash your income goals?
Sat in the Queen's Hotel on a winter morning in Penzance, it dawned on me that my old Business Studies teacher was right.... I knew nothing about business. I sat there nursing my 3rd coffee, avoiding eye contact, hoping to dodge questions about my company's assets, liabilities and cash flow.
However, that morning I witnessed the most profound business lesson of my life, and no, it wasn't the caffeine talking. It felt truly magical, like some financial wizardry that opened my eyes and blew my mind.
Who was this money master who imparted such wisdom? John McCarthy, an intense but relentlessly positive ex-marine come energiser bunny, who was soon to become one of my most trusted business mentors.
What was it that he did? He taught me that by simply adjusting a few components of my sales process, I could significantly increase my profits. The lesson I learned was that making more money isn't as hard as I thought, and the power of marginal gains isn't reserved for sports.
The problem is that many of us have a hard time asking for money. We accept inflation but struggle to increase our prices out of a fear that we will be rejected.
This fear is nearly always in our heads, and we will start to slip behind our competition if we don't learn to overcome it. This additional financial pressure will start to impact our professional and personal lives, and that never ends well.
Fortunately, to fix this you don't need to do anything drastic, just focus on making minor changes to areas that, when combined, will have a big impact. Plus, these areas can be improved upon year on year, making sure you stay profitable and stress-free. I took what John taught me and built upon it, adding easy ways to make money that have worked for me across multiple businesses. I want to share with you how I did it so you can have the same success.
1) Increase your number of leads
Leads are potential customers. They are interested in what you do and want to work with you but haven't made up their mind yet.
They have usually sent an email, left a message or signed up for a guide on your website. It's our job to contact these potential customers and try and get them into a position where we can convince them to buy from us or work with us.
How do your increase leads?
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Advertising and Marketing
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Know where your leads are coming from
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Ask for referrals
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Go networking in influential circles
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Do PR articles, award wins
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Create Lead magnets/reports/whitepapers
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Film videos explaining your expertise
2) Increase your conversion rate
Your conversation rate is how effectively you turn potential customers into actual customers. It can be done in many ways but are easiest to organise everything is either 'with you' or 'without you'.
Your 'with you conversion rate' includes conservations in person, on zoom or via dm.
Your 'without you conversion rate' usually includes offers, promotions and sales pages.
Whichever approach you choose, the goal is to convince potential leads to become actual customers.
If you can't be there, you have to consider what's in your place? And how is that working for you?
When we can't do it ourselves, we have to rely on other factors such as marketing, landing pages, testimonials, word of mouth to increase our conversion rate.
How do you increase your conversion rate?
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Address any reservations that customers/clients may have with an FAQ section on your site.
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Offer Written Guarantees
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Before/after testimonials
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Add extra value
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Display Awards/Certificates
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Use Payment Plans & Financing
3) Increase your number of sales
We all know that increased sales will bring in more money, but it's easier said than done. Here are a few things you can try that have worked well for me:
How to do it:
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Can you convince clients to buy from you more often? If not, what do you need to do to convince them?
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Make the value of your product/service outweigh its price in the eyes of our clients.
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Offer better service by making your customers feel special.
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Under promise & over-deliver.
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Streamline your service to deliver quality service consistently & reliably.
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Keep in regular contact with your customers to make sure they feel appreciated.
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Increase your range of products and services and let customers know about them.
4) Increase the average price of each sale
This is perhaps the most straightforward advice and the easiest to do.
Raising your prices by 10% to 20% won't generate much resistance or pushback, but the impact of that combined with doing everything else on this list will make a significant difference in how much money you will take home at the end of the year.
Remember, we are trying to increase each sale's 'average' price so some items will be easier to sell at a higher price than others.
How do we increase the average price of each sale?
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Increase the price
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Offer Upsells, Cross-Sells, Add Ons
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Bundle services/products together
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Offer payments terms
5) Increase your profit margin
There are two ways to increase your profit margin; firstly, you need to increase your profit, as the name suggests, which is usually done by implementing some of the strategies outlined previously. The other is to go the other way and reduce your costs.
Sometimes it's not always easy to continually raise our prices, so another way to go is to find ways to become more efficient so that we can reduce our costs and therefore increase our margin in another way.
If you do both simultaneously, you're guaranteed to keep your profit margin nice and healthy.
How do you increase your profit margin?
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Increase all your Prices
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Sell higher priced products/services to more affluent clientele
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Stop discounting
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Find cheaper suppliers
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Use apps to streamline your process
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Outsource tasks to overseas freelancers
Increase the number of products/services you offer
By offering new products or services, you give people more chances to buy from you. You can go even further and sell them to your clients at a range of price points, covering everything from exclusive VIP to digital self-paced learning.
Beyond that, you can "sell your sawdust" and sell all the templates, processes and workflows behind-the-scenes of your business to people who wish to emulate what you do.
6) How can you increase the number of products/services you offer?
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Offer new products/services based on what clients value most
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Create a VIP version of what you do
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Turn your Products/Services into tiered packages
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Create Digital Versions of what you do
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Sell Templates, Scripts, Workflows and Processes of how you work
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Create Courses that teach what you do
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Offer Subscription Memberships
7) Increase your number of referrals
Referrals are a brilliant way to get work and can often be the lifeblood of your business, especially when you're starting out.
The key to getting good referrals relies on making sure that the people who are you understand what you're looking for.
It's vital that you educate them on the type of clients you want and how they can explain what you do.
The most straightforward way to do this is to reach out to people you already know and clients you've already worked with and ask them 'if they know anyone who they could refer them to?'
Referrals should automatically toward the end of any project. Still, I've included a script you can use when sending out referral email requests to make it as easy as possible.
Email Templates
Initial Outreach Email
Hi [Name],
It's been a while since we wrapped up our work together — I hope everything is still going well with you and the team.
I know I've asked before, but is there anyone you can introduce me to that might also be interested in our [product/ service]? I'd hate for them to miss out if they're [experiencing the same pain point you were].
Best, [YOUR SIGNATURE]
Follow Up Email
Hi [Name],
I wanted to take a moment to thank you for referring [Referral name] to me.
It means so much to me that you were happy enough with the work we did together to share my name with someone you want to see be successful.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to help [him/her/them] [details on what you help with], too.
If I can be of service at any point in the future, please don't hesitate to reach out – I'd be thrilled to work together again.
Best, [YOUR SIGNATURE]
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