Rating: +3
I had owned a number of businesses before I bought into a chain of print shops in Australia, vey similar to the Kinkos concept in the U.S.
I had built up a list of about 4,000 customers, and developed a newsletter that I started to mail out to them as part of our overall marketing strategy. Part of the content was built around “business success” tips and strategies I picked up over the years, and it became the most popular section of the newsletter. Soon, I was actually getting calls from the list from owners who wanted more insight about a sales tactic or marketing strategy.
I always liked the idea of teaching and consulting, and those calls turned into actual one-on-one sessions with some of those people. What I found, however, was that many small-to-medium sized business owners don’t need a sales strategy, they need an entire system to grow their business, because they are more than an ad or a sale away from success. Most didn’t have a clue how to sell, how to market or what the numbers were in their companies. But with a little help, they could turn things around pretty quickly – as long as they had the right knowledge.
It just grew from there – and soon, I was systemizing knowledge that was out there and my own experience and getting more clients than I could handle. But the key was actually getting results and holding both myself and my customers accountable to get results. That proved to be the foundation for our system today.
