Raise Your Hand, Raise Your Profits Tour
Entrepreneurial giants Brad Sugars and Marcus Sheridan are in the UK with their Raise Your Hand, Raise Your Profits Tour.
The Raise Your Hand, Raise Your Profits tour reveals the marketing secrets that only the top 1% of businesses are utilising to reach success. Brad and Marcus show how you can get your prospects to raise their hand and come to you.
There are insights that even Harvard, Oxford and Cambridge don’t teach!
Visiting Bristol, London, Coventry, Sheffield and other UK cities, we the ActionCOACH Cheltenham team wanted to share the 10 best things we have learned from the tour.
Firstly, who are these marketer gurus?
Marcus Sheridan
Marcus Sheridan has been dubbed a “Web Marketing Guru” by the New York Times and in 2017 Forbes names Marcus one of 20 “Speakers You Don’t Want to Miss.”
As author of the content marketing guidebook, “They Ask, you Answer,” Marcus has not only inspired thousands to achieve their potential but has given them the tools they need to get there. Mashable rated his book the “#1 Marketing Book” to read in 2017. Forbes listed it as one of “11 Marketing Books Every CMO Should Read.”
Marcus has been featured in the New York Times, Inc., The Globe and Mail, Content Marketing Institute, Social Media Examiner, and more. He has inspired thousands of audiences and helped millions of people from all over the world to achieve their own success with his “They Ask, You Answer” philosophy.
ActionCOACH Cheltenham’s Anne Wall and Georgina Taylor meet Marcus Sheridan.
Brad Sugars
Internationally known as one of the most influential entrepreneurs, Brad Sugars is a bestselling author, keynote speaker, and the #1 business coach in the world. Over the course of his 30 year career as an entrepreneur, Brad has become the CEO of 9+ companies and is the owner of the multi-million dollar franchise ActionCOACH.
As a husband and father of five, Brad is equally as passionate about his family as he is about business. That’s why, Brad is a strong advocate for building a business that works without you, so you can spend more time doing what really matters to you.
The Raise Your Hand, Raise Your Profits Tour
Brad and Marcus delivered engaging, inspiring, thought-provoking and often funny sessions, delivered to hundreds of business owners around the UK.
Here are the 10 Best Things We Learned:
1. The 80% rule
That a massive 80% of the buying decision is made before anyone talks to your company.
A staggering percentage, right?
So that means that even before your sales team or BDM has talked to a potential customer, 80% of the buying decision has already been made by the consumer.
And 33% of customers want a seller-free experience.
This is the case for both business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) by the way.
2. What does this mean for your marketing?
It means that for sustainable business growth there should be a shift between your sales and marketing with most effort and marketing budget spent on answering any potential customers issues or problems.
To be transparent and address any “elephants in the room”, particularly about pricing. Being open and honest about what you do (and don’t do), will lead to more “trust” – the fundamental key to making more sales.
3. Where to start?
What questions do your customers want to know the answers to?
A great place to start is with a brainstorming session with your team. Get feedback from anyone who has a customer-facing or sales role in the company. Then list all the questions a potential customer has ever asked of you and work with your team on how to address them. This is the first step to your “they ask, you answer” journey.
4. The Big 5
What do most customers think or worry about before making a buying decision? Marcus Sheridan highlights what he calls “The Big 5”, namely:
- Pricing and cost
- Problems
- Versus and comparisons
- Reviews
- Best in class
These are all subjects that consumers research and contemplate before making a purchase. Irrespective of industry.
Address these concerns, reassure your potential customers, in other words, answer their questions via some great marketing to remove all doubt in their minds before you speak and your sales conversion rates will increase.
5. Sales Conversations not Sales Conversions
Brad Sugars, founder of ActionCOACH worldwide talked about “sales conversations” and not “sales conversions”. In his highly impactful and inspirational talk, Brad encourages business owners to embrace “raise your hand” marketing, In other words, use your marketing methods to reach potential customers to say “yes I want to discover more about you and your business”.
6. Brad’s definition of marketing
Brad says that your marketing should be about “profitably buying lifetime customers”. In his powerful talk to a room full of over 250 business owners, he asked some insightful questions about marketing activity, including:
- What is your marketing budget for each customer?
- Do you test and measure your marketing activity?
- What is your ideal number of new clients per week, month or year?
- How many prospects do you need, to turn those into leads and then customers?
These vital KPIs and understanding your market are all key to potential growth. And something by the way that an ActionCOACH business coach can support you with.
7. The Ladder of Loyalty
In an hilarious analogy of dating, Brad compared getting new customers to going on a date and warned of the perils of “going too fast too soon”. In other words, don’t ask someone to marry you before you’ve had the first date!
If the old style of marketing was “hunting”, the new style is “farming”.
Brad encourages business owners to understand each step of the sales and marketing process and aim for ActionCOACH’s ‘Ladder of Loyalty’, where your work suspects, to prospects, to leads and eventually to loyal customers who will become your “raving fans”.
8. Target your audience
The more defined your potential customer is, the more likely you are to reach them and get them to “raise their hand”, says Brad.
But how do you do that? “Be very specific” advises Brad on who exactly you want to talk to.
Find 22 potential target groups, highlight 10 or 12 problems or issues you believe they have, list 10 or 12 benefits that your business offers to address those issues and then use your chosen marketing channels to start a conversation to let them know about how your product or service can benefit them.
9. Choose your marketing channels
Choose the appropriate marketing method to suit your customer, advises Brad. If you know that your potential clients use social media, Tik Tok, Instagram or Pinterest, use those platforms to speak to them. Alternatively, if your target audience are more likely to read a white paper, E-book or research paper on Linked-In or via an email, then direct your marketing activity (and any budget) there.
10. “They Ask, You Answer” UK Training Programme
As Marcus Sheridan says in his book “They Ask, You Answer” is “a business philosophy. An approach to communication, company culture, and the way we sell as a business”.
A UK Certified Coach of “They Ask, You Answer”, Nick Burrage is offering a complete content training package with double your sales guaranteed. To discover more, click here.
Nick Burrage, UK Certified Coach of “They Ask, You Answer”
ActionCOACH Cheltenham clients Jared Wilson of Penguin Uniform and John Phillips of John Morgan Partnership have fun on the Raise Your Hand, Raise Your Profits Tour!
