Nextree Business Growth Consultancy – Part 2

Detailed Show Notes:

Personalized Sales Approach, Customer Segmentation, and Subscription Models

In this episode, we dive into the importance of understanding and adapting to your target audience in order to improve sales and customer retention. We discuss the failure of generic sales pitches in Australia and the preference for a more personalised approach.

First, we explore the concept of a personalised sales approach. Australians have shown a preference for tailored media and advertising, and generic sales pitches have proven to be ineffective. We emphasise the importance of understanding and adapting to your target audience in order to connect with them on a deeper level.

Next, we delve into the topic of customer segmentation. We discuss the three types of customers that businesses should break down their customer database into: current customers, past customers, and inactive customers. Engaging with past customers is crucial to encourage repeat purchases, and businesses should avoid sending generic newsletters or emails. Instead, they should engage with customers individually based on their engagement and usage.

Lastly, we explore subscription models and their importance in understanding customer needs. We discuss the need to identify and engage with inactive customers to prevent churn. Proactive communication with customers about payment problems is also crucial in maintaining a strong customer base.

To implement these strategies, we assign tasks to different teams within the business. All team members are responsible for breaking down the customer database into three types: current customers, past customers, and inactive customers. The marketing team is tasked with defining when a customer becomes a past customer, while the sales team is responsible for identifying engagement strategies for past customers. Lastly, the customer service team is assigned the task of developing personalised communication for inactive customers.

Tune in to this episode to learn more about the importance of a personalised sales approach, customer segmentation, and subscription models in improving sales and customer retention.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

I hope you’ve had a chance to listen to part one of this interview on Biz Bytes.

Stay tuned now for Part 2.

Welcome to Biz Bytes, brought to you by COM together helping businesses like yours build their brand through telling amazing stories to engage and grow audiences on multiple platforms.

I think it’s so true and we’ve been sold to to use a phrase I think this very generic sales type approach and it it hasn’t ever really worked in Australia.

I don’t think and in fact I’ve seen it be a miserable failure in many cases because and we don’t like being sold to as a general rule and part of that as well is because we’ve become more and more accustomed to something being more personal.

And and what I mean by that is I’m always a believer that the media is often a step ahead of where we should of where we are.

And if you take a look at you know for example subscription TV, it used to be you know those of us will remember the days of there were you know three commercial stations and two, two other stations that you could watch.

Some even remember when there was only one of those and and so showing my age a little and so you would you know that was your sum total of choice.

Then subscription TV came in and it was still fairly high level and generic, but now it’s got to the point where you know you don’t just choose the lifestyle channel, you can choose the food channel or the renovation type channel, You know the home improvement or whatever it’s called.

It can.

It’s getting more and more specific and we’re used to advertising through you know, through the through the likes of Google and all and Amazon and everyone else listening in to what we’re doing to direct things more specifically at us.

So when we have a business that is coming out and speaking generically, we’re you know in a sales environment even if they are speaking directly to us, but it’s a very generic sales pitch then you’re operating from a long way behind because it it, it immediately stands out like a sore thumb in a country.

And and I’m talking about Australia here and I know we’ve got listeners everywhere, but in Australia certainly we’ve always reacted I think fairly negatively to the art of being to, to the idea of being sold to.

Culturally, we’ve been quite different to the US who who were I think a little bit more accustomed to that idea than than Australians ever were.

And so this really fights with it big time.

So having that understanding and being able to adapt to the people in front of you, it’s just a huge game changer.

It is just being able to talk their language and often this this visual clues and the person and all these different person, you know, profiling tools that do that.

But again, when I’m working with businesses so often they don’t, they don’t break the database down.

I say there’s three types of customers and on many customers you have the one who’s buying from you now and then you’ve got one I call the past customer, which just sounds pretty obvious.

But for many businesses, they can’t define when a customer becomes a past customer.

Say I was paying you for your marketing services.

When I paid you for your marketing services, you did the things and then you, then we stopped.

Therefore, at that point, until I bought something else, I’m no longer customer.

But if I’m paying monthly like a subscription, then I’m a customer until I stop paying.

The subscription comes to an end and then you’ve got to convince me to come back with past customers once they’ve stopped.

If you look at a real estate agent, once they’ve bought the house and it’s settled, they’re not a customer anymore.

They’re now past customer who you’ve got to get them excited about using you to buy investment properties, to buy another second property.

Property for the kids, maybe whatever.

And they know that they’re going to buy, on average, another 2 1/2 to four years.

They will buy a second property, and then we’ll buy a second property if they’re ever said.

Generally graphic, but you’ve got to If you’re going down to your database and saying, hey, we’ve got this house, why would they buy the house?

They’ve just bought a house.

They’re not really in the mind.

Think about.

It it’s it’s absolutely so true with that kind of stuff and I think it’s even even I think the mistake is made in subscriptions because if we put aside the subscription TV service where most of us, if we’ve bought a subscription to ATV service, we’re we’re we’re using it on a daily or weekly basis at least.

But how many of us in business, for example, have subscriptions and even personally have subscriptions to things that we thought were a good idea at the time and they renew monthly, annually whenever they do and they’ve been set and forget.

And I would argue that in many of those, we’re already a past customer.

We’re not current because they’re not.

And and this is, I think the mistake that a lot of businesses make is that they’re not looking at those subscriptions and working out who’s actually engaging and who’s not.

All they’re doing is sending out the generic newsletter type or e-mail blast to those people all the time without actually engaging them and saying, hey, we’ve noticed that you’re not, you know, not making use of the stuff at the moment.

Can we help you in some different way?

You know, trying to make them active because they’re just counting the dollars and going, oh, well, person X has bought a subscription, They’ve had a subscription for a while.

They’re probably going to keep it for a while.

We’ll just move on to the next person yet if that person realized more value out of it they not only potentially buy more from you but they’re going to talk about it to more people for for you and and building that that is the you know it’s loyalty is built on that not on offering hey get a free this and that you know I I just I I find that tiresome but but I think this fundamental understanding of people and and engaging with them is is so huge.

Oh Anthony, it’s it’s massive and even you take that subscription model, why are they taking subscription?

What’s important to them?

So some people it’s getting the latest movies and you know they’ve got all the latest movies and the biggest and the biggest range selection and that’s the greatest thing since I spread they’re they’re action orientated.

But what about the people who are nurturing and they’re trying to get something for the family.

So make sure that the kids have something that’s appropriate thing, but they might be expanding their mind and personal growth and things like that or they can one of them watch parties so they can link with their friends what’s important to them and study that.

But so often we just let them go And one of those, the third group of customers I like, I call a lapsed or inactive customers, they’re at risk customers because they are not missed their buy cycle.

They’ve missed a payment on their May, June subscription for example, have a 12 month subscription maybe why have they done that?

And most people just say oh that’s a or they send them a generic letter, they don’t do it.

I work with a company and we found that 75% of people had no idea that there was an actual problem with the payment of their bank until it popped up and then they didn’t.

We doubled it the two MO next month took two subscriptions and then they act up because all of a sudden they didn’t have the money while they were short of money into their bank account.

We introduced the service and we reduced those customers by 67% because we told them they had a problem.

We changed how we told them there’s a problem and it made a huge difference.

Imagine that type of money.

We were talking millions of dollars in in, in the year that was affected by that and you can do that in the customer, but it’s going back and understanding them.

You know, we talk about offering them one of the men buy the, the person buy the drills from the from Bunnings.

Yeah, we go back to that old saying he wanted a hole, They wanted a hole.

I know they didn’t.

They didn’t want to hold.

They wanted to put a plug through there to plug in the TV so they could have family time with the family playing games on the TV.

That’s the ultimate aid.

And that’s where I come back to that discussion with us is that we have to understand the customers and treat them as individuals, personal relationship management using the tools.

And we will increase the sales.

If you understand your customers, you can make your marketing more effective because they will respond as you’re talking to their personality types and to what their problems are and you can bring them back.

And if you’re doing that, you’re reducing your costs, your marketing is more effective, your staff are going to be more effective because you’re going to be able to adjust.

They’re going to be just working on those ones.

They’re not wasting time on wrong information and they’ll go back and convert their sales and instead of leaving 50% of them sitting in the follow up fold folder, they’ve only followed up three or four times.

That’s that’s why you do all that I.

I love all of these insights and I know this is something we can keep exploring again in the future.

But I wanted to find a little bit more about you, Ross.

I mean as I said to the audience, Ross and I have known each other for a few years and I know he’s got a great story to tell because you’ve been a bit of a journeyman in in some respects certainly location wise I know welcome to Sydney I should be saying recently moved down here from from from Queensland and but you started off New Zealand, right?

We can Listeners might be attuned to the to the accent a little bit and and picking that up.

You mean I haven’t knocked that out of me yet?

Gee, I’ll have to go down and get some fashion chops.

Yeah, I do.

I come from from Kiwi land and proud of it.

I always like to talk about the L Babies, but we might not talk about the other sports occasionally.

OK?

But I’ve been over here for 20 in Australia for 20 years now and I had some time before that as well.

So my heart, my soul place is actually Queensland.

I’m a Queenslander.

You really got to know.

But I worked in corporate life and I came second for a job when I came to Australia and unfortunately that company, a big company, I couldn’t understand it, couldn’t afford to pay.

You know, you wouldn’t pay me a check and I couldn’t understand.

They could have paid me check for coming 2nd and let the other person do all the work, but that wasn’t going to happen.

My wife wasn’t going to let me sit at home either.

So I decided the best thing I could do is I’m a good troubleshooter.

I’m good for going out and I enjoy it and I’m just so passionate about it.

I love that at home moment when somebody says that’s what I pay you for, that was such a good idea.

And because you’re getting those ahas, that’s what I love and I’ve been doing it all the time.

But as you say, I’m a genuine from the point of view of living in the places, but I’m just loved love for Australia and the places.

My daughter had some wonderful opportunities.

She’s plagued in the age and the Vikings for the Australian team going and went to Brazil and New Zealand doing that and she’s representing Australia to our home country.

So I’ve got some wonderful, you know, feelings for and I don’t think I can.

You know, doing business in New Zealand is really difficult for me because I don’t follow.

I follow.

What’s going on here?

Well, I I you know.

You touched on, you touched on there something that’s that’s that’s close, that’s close to my heart as well as those are Hut moments.

Tell me what that is traditionally for your clients where they have that a Hut moment that that in many respects you wish that people out there would know that they’re going to have that moment so that they’ll come and come rushing to you now.

Oh yeah, if only you could predict the at the moment.

I mean I was talking to a client recently.

They were looking at going into a new magazine that had been produced by an existing promotional body that they they they work with closely and and and going to get show you know trade shows with them and things like that.

And they were looking at it and they were offered three choices and they were saying, wow, that was worthwhile.

And I said well, let’s run run through the numbers.

In the end it came down to because I talk about numbers a lot.

We worked through it and all the advantages and what’s in it for them and you know the integration and the other parts of business, sales and marketing.

And when it came back, we said let’s go for the middle category because that will give the best impressions for the bang for the buck, something like $0.03 per impression.

When we talked about all the different ways you got an impression, it wasn’t just a magazine, it was more than that.

And when you looked at that, why wouldn’t he said that’s it, that’s why I do it and they do do that And you.

It’s amazing.

What I heard had another client.

It’s that they trust you to run their ideas past you and 1:00 morning they sent me an e-mail.

I wanted to I’m going to change my strategy, go from multiple locations to one location.

They did that and they’re de stressed.

They they the business has boomed since then and they’ve got more time off, but it’s because they trust you to use your insights because all of us bring it.

And that’s why, you know, I’ve taken you into a client with me because you’ve got the specialist knowledge.

I I know a lot of things.

I’m a dangerous guy because I could pretend.

I know about marketing.

I do know something about marketing, but when it comes down to it, I’m going to get you to do the marketing.

I’m going to get people like Carolyn to talk about fitness and nutritional health and all those mediums of our team, You know Sandra for recruitment.

You know all those people in our different communities are important to us because you can work it together.

But we all give the aha moment, doesn’t matter which speciality that we’re in.

But I love it when people I hear that aha moment or they come to me with their ideas and it’s so exciting.

I just I can’t not do it.

I love it.

I love your enthusiasm for it all as well.

I I wanted to just finish up by asking you one question, delving back.

And we kind of, you know, we touched on the fact that you started out out in New Zealand, but I’m just intrigued as to where did the entrepreneurial spirit start from?

Like what?

What was, what was, what was the goal when you were leaving school?

And, you know, was it, what was the sort of influence that your parents had on on this career path that you’ve taken?

Well, really, the career path, the parents instilled work ethic and doing a good job and that’s that’s stuck with me all all the time.

But I’ve always been.

I’m a guy.

I’m AI, have a strong action personality type as well and I get bored quite easily from the point of view.

I want to move from 1 project to a next, but I’m really good at troubleshooting because I can go into the detail, I can look at the big picture and I can look at the nurturing because I’m a customer relationship, personal relationship management specialist.

Because I can look at all those things and it just seems to come together and being my own business, I can do that and this become very important.

My wife’s been is is really quite sick and so that allows me to take time off to go out and do those type of things.

But it also has allowed me to do the with my family.

When I want to go down for a cup of coffee I can.

But if I want to be on a webinar like tonight, I’m going to be on one from like doing some training from 11:00 tonight till about 5:00 in the morning.

I think it is.

I can do that.

That’s what I love.

And a client actually wanted me to work in the office and that ended in tears because they wanted me there when I had done my work, but they wanted me be physically there and I can’t do that.

I’m really efficient.

That’s what you pay me for.

You don’t want me to see me.

You you go and go and get the the people from the movies and put posters on the wall of your looking good looking people.

They didn’t have me sitting around the office doing nothing.

Get me there.

Get Me Out.

Because you want my value, not my inability to type quickly.

I love that Ross and and I know there’s so much that we’ve unpacked and and delved into here and we’ll we’ll definitely have you back for another episode in the future.

But I just wanted to thank you so much for being generous with your time and the insights and you you’ve you’ve practised what you’ve preached because you’ve just said that you know you you like to come in and give that high level, high level view and and drill right down down to the to the issues.

That’s exactly what we’ve done in the podcast.

So thank you so much for for demonstrating that, even if that wasn’t the plan.

Hey, Anthony, thank you.

It’s fun and I’ve really enjoyed the conversation.

It’s just been a great conversation and we often have those.

But thank you and I hope the listeners will get some value out of it.

Absolutely and everyone we we’ll include as we always do all of the notes on where you can get in touch with Ross.

But Ross and I are also part of a a networking group that we catch up on a fairly regular basis and we have some of these interesting discussions with a whole bunch of other people as well.

It’s not your normal regular networking at all.

And so if you are interested in that, please reach out to one of us and we’d be happy to invite you in and experience it for yourselves and ask us more questions and jump on the podcast and be a guest as well.

So again, thank you Ross for your time and everyone, we look forward to your company on the next episode of Biz Bites.

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