My favourite strategy is GIVE to GET!
Several businesses which I’ve worked for over the years have crashed and burned after I’ve left! The reasons are many and I’m not sure that I was the actual catalyst but there are some interesting cases.
Take for instance the big firm of City Lawyers who were once in the top 100 Solicitors in the country. Whilst the children were young, I approached them about reducing their book debt of – I am not kidding – £2,000,000!! I only knew this because I was married to one of the Partners at the time.
They weren’t sure about it. I mean they weren’t sure about asking their Clients to pay their bills. It seemed, well, a little churlish to contact their exceedingly wealthy Clients and remind them that they owed money. I pushed them a bit more. Ultimately they conceded and I, with some ‘slowly, slowly catchee monkey’ methods brought in a whopping £1M within the first year! And not one Client was lost or even offended.
But then we got a bit stuck. I recognised that one of their favourite Clients was most definitely tinkering on the brink of extinction. I told them in the strongest terms but they wouldn’t allow me to exert some extra pressure to get our eighty grand back! Sure enough down the toilet they went along with the debt. Crushing.
A couple of years later the whole firm, bound up in the barbed wire of debt were swallowed up by a savvy competitor and the previously high profile firm expired. Had they taken any notice of my warnings about Clients using them for extensive long term loans with no interest charges, which was forcing them to get ever deeper into their own Bank’s clutches, maybe they would still be thriving on the South Bank.
The business niche
Before having the children I worked for a small recruitment agency in the West End where I set up a desk from scratch, niched right down to Commercial Estate Agents, who I knew inside out and made a killing. In a dreadful recession too. But when I left to have my first baby, the owner employed an ex-police officer who she’d befriended over a long liquid lunch and within six months the firm was history.
Similarly I’ve recently worked on Saturdays for a local Estate Agents where the owner is largely absent. He calls the Manager frequently to find out when contracts will be exchanged and commissions paid. Last week I was poached by a competitor and, sadly, tomorrow the branch office I worked in closes. It’s looking likely that the final office will be squeezed out like a rancid pimple by the hot competition. When business is about the money and not good care and service, its demise is just a matter of time.
I have even more examples of poor business management but I’m not going to tell you because that might make me start to look like a witch!
My favourite business strategy – GIVE to GET!
Recently, two days before an Alumni reunion event, I was approached by BCOM to step in to cover for their keynote speaker who had been taken ill. Now bearing in mind my earlier blog ‘When opportunity knocks, open the darned door!‘ I knew that I just had to somehow juggle things round and get there for them. If you remember, on Saturdays I like to wear a suit, call myself ‘Dave” and sell houses for an upmarket Estate Agency locally. So I put together a presentation, schmoozed my new boss so I could leave early and got myself down there on time. The presentation was extremely well received and I saw a few Osteopaths I knew, put some faces to names, made many new friends and most certainly will be doing some business with some of them too.
But then today the Old Boy said something. He, being the World Expert on Everything, said I was doing it all wrong. He said I shouldn’t do a last minute favour like that. He thought that I should have charged heavily for attending and sharing my knowledge.
Like many Accountants, Bankers and Lawyers who advise business owners but who have never run their own successful business, he works for a large company. His work is given to him on a plate and he gets paid a salary every month come what may. For those of us who run our own businesses, we have to strive every day to keep bringing in new business or new Patients. We also have to maintain relationships with our customers and encourage repeat business where appropriate.
Know, Like, Trust = Business
There are myriad ways to do this (and you know I’m an advocate of spending as little as possible to achieve the highest return) and one of them is to GIVE. To give some time, to give some energy or to give some advice. Not willy nilly to give everything away but to give a little in order for the recipient to understand that you know your stuff. Letting them see your character, your skill and your enthusiasm will enable them to easily make a judgement as to whether or not they’d like to work with you, buy your stuff or have their body manipulated.
Invest a little of your time, energy and yourself in reaching your desired audience and allow the flow to return to you, as it always will. Many a new Client has come to me and said they’ve been reading my blogs, receiving my newsletters and following my social media posts for a long time. They’ve looked at the quality of my offering, they’ve employed some of the ideas I have freely shared and eventually (and only when they are ready) they have come for strategic help in building the business they dream of.
Had I never shared some tips, given some of my time or been patient, that business would simply have gone elsewhere. So what can you do to invest in your future business by sharing your knowledge, skills and awesomeness today?
