Categories
Marketing

How to Make Profit in Off Season

?Introduction

  • Do you run a seasonal business?
  • Are you unable to run your seasonal business during off season?
  • Do you know how to make profit in off season?

Ice cream, cold/hot drinks, woolen cloths, summer clothes, agro products, tourism, firecrackers, and colors are among those businesses, which are either fully seasonal or semi-seasonal.

Such products or services are sold only during one particular period or season, while the rest of the time, sales of these products drop so much that merchants find it difficult to cover even their operational cost.

If you are also running a seasonal business, then let’s find out the answer to how to make profit in off season through following ways:

Tip #1: Go Where the Season is

It is the first tip of how to make profit in off season. It means think geographically. Select those places for your business where the demand for that product is, or where you can sell more products.

Example:
A merchant running a business of woolen cloths will find difficult to sell his products during the summer season. He can ’explore hilly places’ to sell his products where there are ’winters for an extended period’. 

Tip #2: Extend Your Season

Seasonal businesses can also be extended by giving off season promotions and schemes to attract consumers before and after the season.

If your business Season is Diwali (Business Period – 1 week)

If your business Season is Winters (Woolen clothes) (Business Period – 4 Months)

You can extend your period by giving off season promotions like Pre-Diwali offers. Add 2 months pre-winter season.
You can extend your period post-Diwali offers. Add 2 months post-winter season.
Extend your season for 2-3 months before and after Diwali. Bring some schemes in pre and post-season months to attract customers
By extending your business season you can increase the size of your business even during offseason.
Tip #3: Contract Manufacturing/Channel Partner
Instead of selling your products with a small brand name and limited reach or customer base, you can make a deal with big brands to sell your products even during off-season through a heavy dose of branding.
It is one of the tips on how to make profit in offseason.
?  Contact with Big brands to sell your products with their brand name.
?  Build business partners in locations where you don’t have to reach.
Tip #4: Serve Other Industries
Even during off-season you can explore the opportunity to sell your products to different industries by creating market demand through marketing and sales strategies. 
Don’t depend only on one Sector or Season to sell your products.
The below example will tell you how to bring customers in offseason of your business. 
Example:
A cracker manufacturer, apart from Diwali season, can sell crackers to event organizers, wedding planners, national festivals and other celebrations. 

Tip #5: Stay on the Top of your Customer’s Mind

Through various marketing and branding strategies, you can influence customer’s minds during the off-season to increase sales.
Make optimum use of ’guerrilla marketing’ to stay on top of customer’s mind via Social Media, Print Media, TV/Radio Ads, and Hoarding/Billboards.
Tip #6: Build a Referral and a Loyalty Program
There are some businesses that run during some specific period or season and remain saturated during the rest of the time such as Aviation, Hospitality, and Tourism, etc.
During the summer season, hotels in hill stations get maximum customers, while their business remains saturated during other seasons.
To know how to make profit in off-season, you should:
?  Build loyalty with your past & existing customers
?  Give them attractive offers and deals through various mediums
?  Try to get the reference of new customers from existing customers
Tip #7: Add Complimentary Freebies Product or Service
Instead of giving discounts during off-season, you can give your customers off-season promotions schemes like ’small freebies along with the main product’ to increase your sales.
You can give exciting offers to your customers like free home delivery, gift & voucher, and extended warranty, etc. These are some of the offseason promotions techniques. 

Tip #8: Focus on What You can’t do During the Season Time

During business season, since you remain too busy with customers and vendors in selling and buying products that you hardly get time to focus on other activities which can increase your sales and stop leakages.
However, you can perform such activities during off season to increase your sales in the upcoming season.
To know how to make profit in off season, you can focus on below given things:
?  Build a low-cost infrastructure
?  Reduce purchasing cost
?  Create web/digital infrastructure
?  Build a digital marketing team  
?  Hire and train better manpower

Tip #9: Build a New Product Line Specifically for Off-Season

You can also bring required changes in your product as per customer’s demand to sell it during the off-season to keep your recurring revenue from fluctuating.
Example:
A manufacturer of blazer can design a light waistcoat which can be sold even in the summer season.
Tip #10: Money Saved is also Money Earned
When there is a slowdown in your sales during off-season, you can work on implementing new ideas to reduce your operational cost by a leakage management system.
It is another tip to how to make profit in offseason.
You can reduce your operational cost during off-season by changing:
?  Supply chain
?  Hiring contractual staff
?  Changing vendor
’Business can be seasonal but commitment should not be seasonal’
Categories
Motivation & Mind Control

How to deal with negative emotions

Introduction

  • Are you suffering from negative emotions?
  • Are you deal with emotions effectively?

Emotions of a person have a significant effect on his personal and professional life.

If you know how to deal with negative emotions, you will grow very fast.

Let’s understand the best techniques to deal with emotions effectively in life.

Tip #1: Every Negative Incident contains Positive Intent!

To know how to deal with negative emotions, you need to understand the new philosophy.

According to the new philosophy, the complaint is a gift and negative emotion is also a gift. Every gift does not come in beautiful wrappers on your way.

Every negative emotion, negative incident, complaint, and even tragedy comes into your life as a gift. You need to find that hidden gift in these situations.

Once you instruct your mind that this is a gift for you, your mind starts identifying how it is good for you.

When you change the way to look at things, the things you look at they change!

Your performance depends on your emotions. You can either be a performer or a parasite in a company depending on the emotional level you are operating at.

When you are operating at negative emotions, you perform far below your potential. But, once you shift your level of negative emotions to positive emotions, you will have much more potential to explore and deal with emotions.

What message a negative incident or negative emotion is giving to you?

Try to identify it.

If your mindset is good, then your skillset will also be good.

Let us take the example of a tree to understand how to deal with negative emotions by empowering your mindset.

For Example:

The part of the tree below the ground is like the belief or mindset of a person while the part of the tree above the ground is like the behavior or the skill set of the person.

If the roots of a tree are deep and strong, then the upper part of the tree including stems and leaves will also grow well.

Similarly, if the belief or mindset of a person is strong, his skill set will be corrected automatically. So, it is important to influence the mindset of the person.

Therefore, you need to Re-develop | Re-orient | Re-think | Re-birth | Re-invent | Reform | Refresh | Re-wire your mindset.

Tip #2: Identify Three Positive Messages in Negative Emotions

To deal with emotions, you should identify three positive messages in negative emotions.

It is the second tip on how to deal with negative emotions.

Write down three positive messages that the negative incident is giving to you.

Imagine how powerful you will become once you find the greatness in your negative incident.

Once you start writing the three positive messages in the negative incident, you will start realizing the changes in your energy.

The main problem faced by people is that some of them are able to identify the positive message while others are not able to identify the message.

As fast as you identify the message, the faster you come out of the situation.

Tip #3: Motions in Physiology Impacts the Emotions of Psychology

It is one of the tips on how to deal with negative emotions.

This point means that your emotions will be corrected when you start working on your motion.

Once your physiology is correct, it will have an impact on your psychology.

It is important to rectify and improve both physiology (motion) and psychology (emotion) to get success.

Correct your emotion and perception first and then take action. This will help you to get success.

Physiology, motion, and action are the parts of physical transformation while psychology, emotion, and perception are the parts of mental transformation.

When physical and mental transformation comes together, they lead to success.

You cannot handle negative emotions while sitting in a room. You have to take opposite actions to handle these emotions.

Negative Emotion   +   Opposite Actions   =   Success

In our holy books, it is written:

हि सुप्तस्य सिंहस्य प्रविशन्ति मुखे मृगा:

It means that a deer will not enter the mouth of a sleeping lion on its own. The lion has to wake up and hunt the deer to catch it.

Every emotion has a message. You need to identify what message it is giving to you. Also, you need to determine how you will shift yourself during that time and how to deal with negative emotions.

Categories
Motivation & Mind Control

How to Control Your Mind

Introduction

  • Do you want to learn ways to how to control your mind?
  • Do you want to improve your performance?

The mind can take you anywhere you want. You can do great things by controlling your mind. So, how to control mind?

Don’t Control your Mind, Just Engage It!

If you have a clearly defined goal statement, and you engage your mind, your mind starts absorbing the knowledge, data, and information.

Because; Mind always needs an engagement, Mind does not stay in a vacuum.

Doctors are using the Placebo Effect to control your mind and help you grow.

Let’s take forward the discussion on how to control your mind with patterns of thinking.

Two Patterns of Thinking

To know how to control your mind, you need to understand the patterns of thinking.

We unconsciously learn a lot of habits. These habits form our thinking patterns.

There are two types of thinking patterns – Structured Pattern of Thinking and Accidental Pattern of Thinking.

Structured Pattern of Thinking

It helps you to get whatever you want in your life. It takes you where you want to be. In this pattern of thinking, people look for learning and edutainment.

Accidental Pattern of Thinking

It gets you what you don’t want in your life. It leads you where you don’t want to be. In this pattern of thinking, people always search for leisure and entertainment.

You are not leading your life; your patterns are leading your life.

Your unfulfilled desires and your past experiences have settled inside as patterns in your life.

How to Control Your Mind by changing Patterns of Thinking?

To know how to control mind, you need to change your thinking patterns.

Always remember, you continue with your same patterns until you create a new pattern to actually develop a pattern.

To put it another way,

You are programmed until you program a new program for yourself.

So, your psychological-neurological system is actually working with the programming that you have created.

This is called “Neurological programming” that you have developed for yourself. And, this programming is leading your life.

So, what you are looking for? Are you looking for leisure or learning?

This you need to decide to understand how to control mind.

Replace Entertainment with Edutainment

To know how to control mind, you need to replace entertainment with edutainment.

A man with a structured pattern of thinking will replace edutainment with entertainment. He will look for great learning.

Remember: “If you want to double the rate of your growth, just triple the rate of your learning.”

Iconic leadership is not about entertainment, it is about edutainment.

For making structured patterns, you just need to replace, reinforce, and reinstate your old patterns.

Meaning ABCDE model: A – Analyze | B- Brainstorm | C- Create | D- Deliver | E- Evaluate your old patterns.

According to Chapter 6, Verse 26 of Bhagavad Gita:

yato yato niscalati, manas cancalam asthiram,

tatas tato niyamyaitad atmany eva vasam nayet

It means, in an accidental pattern of thinking, your mind will go wherever it wants because it is unsettled and restless. But, you have to bring this unsettled mind under your control if you want to grow.

If you want a revolution, then you first require the evolution of your mindset. You need constant learning if you want iconic growth in your life.

Categories
Marketing

10 Employee Retention Strategies

Introduction
  • Are your employees leaving your company frequently?
  • Are you unable to retain your manpower?
  • Do you implement employee retention strategies in your organization?
The two most important problems in any business are ’competition’ and ’attrition.’ Competition is outside, while attrition is inside.
Attrition means how many employees leave your company.
Usually, top companies worldwide don’t give high salaries, but ’dole-out ’Maggie’ in the form of various perks and benefits’ to retain employees.
Now, let us understand innovative employee retention strategies used by big companies to keep their attrition rate very low compared to others.
#1: Accommodation and Pick & Drop Facility
It is one of the most creative employee retention strategies to retain employees. It won’t cost much to the employer as part payment is deducted from the salary of employee itself but it ’gives a sense of pride and convenience to the employee’.
#2: Tea, Coffee and Snacks Counter
Apart from providing free tea, coffee or other snacks, some companies also provide food at a subsidized price. It also acts as innovative employee retention strategies.
#3: Timely Salary, Bonus, Appraisal and Promotion
It has been seen in various new companies and Startups that they don’t provide a salary to their employees on time.
The employer needs to understand employee’s expenses like- EMIs, Bill payments, Groceries, and Pre-planned monthly expenses.
It is also an innovative employee retention strategies.
#4: Insurance
In addition to salary, if the employer adds insurance into it then gross salary increases automatically.
Due to the sedentary lifestyle and unhealthy eating habits, every now and then new diseases come into existence.
It is advisable that employer provide health insurance of at least Rs. 1-2 lakh to its employees by selecting a good insurance company.
Again, it won’t cost much as the part premium would be deducted from an employee’s salary.
It is also one of the most creative employee retention strategies to retain your employees.

#5: Work from Home or Flexi-Schedule

Among the most important creative employee retention strategies is a flexible working environment.
There are some departments in the company where performance is easy to measure and they have less dependency on other departments.
If there is any such department in your company, you can give employees the flexibility to finish 9 hours of their shift, irrespective of check-in and check-out time.
For Example
You may allow your employees to work from home or can give flexibility in office-timings, which increases their productivity and performance.
It will decide whether your employees will live and grow, or they will leave and go.
#6: Kanyadaan or Scholarship Scheme
Another most innovative employee retention strategy is providing scholarships to children of employees. 
You may propose to your employees that if they stay for 5 years or 10 years in your company, you’ll add some specified money into Kanyadaan or scholarship fund every month, which will ’help in their child’s marriage or education in future.’
#7: Free Grocery to Blue Collared Employees
Apart from the regular salary, if you ’provide grocery bag worth Rs. 2000’, to your blue collared employees like driver, peon or office boy, it will act as a ’comfort factor’ for such employees. 
Hence, it is an easy and innovative employee retention strategies to retain blue-collared workers.
#8: Benefit against Contract
If your employee requires any expensive items like a car, bike, laptop, etc., you can give it to him/her against a contract.
Now, the item will be purchased on the employee’s name, and the company will pay the price, provided that employee shall remain in the company for next 3 or 5 or 10 years, depending upon the item purchased and policy of your company.

#9: Interest-Free Loan for Emergency and Adversity

A person remembers only two types of people, one who was with him in his good times and the other, who was with him in his bad times.
Your number 1 customer is your employee; if you support them in their adverse time then they will never leave you.
? You don’t have to earn interest on that loan.
? Don’t fear that he will run away with your money.
Giving a loan of amount 3 times his salary won’t affect much, provided he spent some time in your company.
#10: Additional Week-Off with Every Year Completed
Tell your employees that:
  • If they complete 1 year in the office, they will be given 1 Saturday off.
  • if they complete 4 years in the company, they will get 4 Saturday off.
  • After 4 years, they will be eligible for gratuity.
This motivates them to spend many years in your company.
By applying these ideas you may not need to give hefty hikes to your employees as they are complacent with the security and safety provided by you.
These are the 10 employee retention strategies which will help you retain your manpower. You may think it will cost you dearly but in reality, it won’t.
Categories
Marketing

How to Build Brand Loyalty

?Introduction

  • Are your customers not buying your product?
  • Do you know how to build brand loyalty among customers? 

’Brand Loyalty’ and ’Customer Loyalty’ are two strong points in any business. So, companies are focusing on how to retain customers and build brand loyalty.

Today, every big brand and small company is continuously creating brand loyalty to retain their customers. 

You need to have a customer loyalty department whether you are running a small business or big to retain your customers.

Now, the question arises ’what is loyalty?’ and how to build brand loyalty? 

Understanding Loyalty

To know how to build brand loyalty, you need to first understand what loyalty is.

Loyalty is a bond between you and your customers. It is different from customer satisfaction.

Customer satisfaction is more like a rating system, wherein your customer says, ’I’m 10 out of 10 satisfied’. But this doesn’t mean that he is loyal to your brand. 

This is because a satisfied customer can move to the next product or services on any day at any time.

For Example

It is not necessary Apple’s customer is satisfied with Apple mobile, but he is brand loyal and will never leave this brand.

Harley-Davidson – Customer won’t like to switch from this brand to Hero Moto Corp.

Thus, loyalty is an emotion tool which can be built step by step. Every businessman can create brand loyalty and their customers will never switch from their brand on any condition.

Loyal Customers is Your Promoter!

A loyal customer starts spreading about your brand through ’Word of Mouth’ marketing.

In effect, he is not just your customer, but he becomes a Promoter to your company and generally works like an unpaid salesman.

If you can retain 5% of the existing customers then your profit will increase from 25% to 95%.

– Harvard Business School

’Foundation of Loyalty is TRUST’, where trust is more Likelihood, Likeliness of business increases many folds. 

Thus, loyal customers:

?  Increases your brand equity.

?  Brings down your cost almost by 7X.

?  Increases Repeat and Repurchase.

Now, let’s see how to retain customers and build brand loyalty.

How to Build Brand Loyalty?

#1: Point-Based Loyalty

It is one of the ways to how to build brand loyalty.

By giving, points on each shopping one can generate online conversion and in-shop experience.

It will ’increase the engagement of your customers with your brand’ and they would like to redeem points on their next shopping. 

For Example

Amazon Prime has become ’King of Brand Loyalty’ through Impulsive shopping, Value for Money, Exclusive deals and Free Videos.

Nowadays, social media has emerged as a big platform to increase loyalty on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram.

#2: Customer Referral Program

It is another way how to build brand loyalty.

If you have a platform where you can increase customer engagement then it will lead you to more customers. In this, the customer becomes your partner in the customer acquisition process.

You can give some benefits or perks to your existing customers for making new customers.

For Example

Ola and Uber give free rides to their customers on referring their App to new customers.

#3: Data Analysis

Try to analyze the data history of your customers through Electronic Virtual System (EVA). Based on this data, try to interact with your customers and make them loyal.

You can also increase involvement through Whatsapp for business, chat, messages, which could ’involve your customers emotionally’ or solve their problems.

#4: Omni Channel Strategy

It is the fourth way to how to build brand loyalty.

It is a very important and successful strategy. You just try to touch your customers emotionally by using one of the following tools-

  • Social Media
  • Mobile
  • Online Sites
  • Physical store
  • CRM and big data

You need to make them feel special by –

?  Wishing your customers on Birthday.

?  Offering coupon or discount voucher

Always follow 80:20 Rule
– It says if you send 8 messages related to awareness for customer’s benefits, then only send 2 messages to ask them to buy your product or services.

You can adopt these strategies of how to retain customers and build brand loyalty and achieve great success in business.

Categories
Marketing

How to Build Customer Loyalty

Introduction

  • Is your customer loyal to you or feel connected with you?
  • Do you want to know formulas to calculate customer’s loyalty?
  • Do you want to know how to build customer loyalty? 

Getting a customer is easy, but getting their loyalty is the difficult part. To make your customer loyal, you first need to do his purchase analysis.

Whenever a customer comes to your store, you need to observe which kind of products he is purchasing and in which kind of products he is interested.

If you incentivize the products in which he is interested, he will buy your products and become your loyal customer.

To know how to build customer loyalty, you need to understand the customer loyalty formula. 

Following are the 5 important loyalty formulas on how to gain customer loyalty.

Formula #1: Repurchase Rate

The repurchase rate is one of the formulas to know how to gain customer loyalty.

Repurchase rate = (Number of repurchases/ Number of unique purchases) x 100

For Example:

10,000 people purchase your product. Among them, 1000 people came again to purchase something from you. In this case, your repurchase rate is 10%.

Once you got the repurchase rate, it becomes easy for you to increase it.

Formula #2: Net Promoter Score (NPS)

NPS is also one of the ways to know how to gain customer loyalty.

NPS is the rate to which your customers are satisfied with your products and services. NPS is calculated as follows:

NPS = Promoters (Highly satisfied customers) ’ Detractors (Dissatisfied customers)

You can determine your number of promoters and detractors by taking customer feedback on a scale of 1-10. Different ratings on the scale have different meanings like:

Rating 1-6
’ means customers are not satisfied with your products or services

Rating between 7-8
’ means customers are neutral about your products or services

Rating between 9-10 
’ means customers are highly satisfied with your products or services

Let’s talk about customer loyalty example:

If 100 people visit your restaurant in a month and 70 people gave you either 9 or 10 rating, 10 people gave you 7-8 rating and the 20 people gave you a rating between 1- 6, then your NPS is:

Net Promoter Score (NPS) = 70 ’ 20 = 50

Formula #3: Up-Selling and Cross-Selling Ratio

To know how to build customer loyalty, you need to first determine the up-selling and cross-selling ratio.

Suppose, you have a fast food outlet and a customer buys a burger from you.

Can you sell something else with the burger like a cold drink or ice cream?

If yes, then you can create a meal for him like McDonald’s does.

If a person comes to buy a particular product but he buys some other product as well, this is called cross-selling and up-selling.

Up-selling and cross-selling ratio:

= (Number of customers buying more than one product/Number of customers who bought a single product) x 100

For Example

If 5000 people are buying 1 product from you and among them and 1000 people bought more than 1 product, then your upselling and cross-selling ratio will be:

Upselling and cross-selling ratio = (1000/5000) x 100 = 20%.

Now, you just have to increase this upselling and cross-selling ratio and your turnover will increase drastically.

Formula #4: Frequency and Recency

Frequency means how frequent a customer buys your product, whereas recency means how recently the customer bought your product.

Calculate the frequency and recency of a loyal customer.

You need to know whether the customer is coming to your shop because he loves to shop there or he is coming just because the other shop is closed.

Formula #5: Redemption Rate

Give free coupons to your customers and ask them to redeem it on their next visit. This will encourage the customer for repeat purchases.

Soon, he will become your loyal customer as he is getting extra benefits from you.

Redemption rate = (Total loyalty points issued by you/Redeemed points) x 100

For Example

If 10,000 loyalty points were issued in a month by you and about 5000 points were redeemed, the rate comes out to be 50%.

All the above formulas will help you in understanding how to build customer loyalty efficiently and effectively.

An increase in customer loyalty will not only increase your customer base but will also grow your sales and profit.

Categories
Sales

How to increase sales by 10 times not 10%?

??Introduction

  • What kind of Growth are you looking for – Incremental or Exponential?
  • What kind of approach do you adopt – Sales or Consultant?
  • Do you know how to increase sales volume? 

In ’incremental growth’
, you can grow by 10% while in ’exponential growth’
, you grow by 10 times.

Through this article, we will share a few ideas on how to increase sales by 10 times by which you can too experience exponential growth in your Business.

Whether you are doing MLM sales, B2B/B2C sales, corporate sales, Institutional sales, Individual sales, direct/indirect sales or channel partnership, the principle is same and that’s what we are going to discuss.

To know how to increase sales volume, you need to first understand the difference between salesman and consultant.

Who is better ’ Salesman or Consultant?

Salesman and Consultant both are doing the same job but their approach is different.

Let’s discuss the difference between both approaches:

Salesman Consultant
A salesman comes with a product. A consultant comes with a solution.
Salesman works on his greed. A consultant works on the client’s needs.
A salesman speaks 80% and the client speaks only 20%. A consultant speaks only 20% and the client speaks 80%.

To know how to increase sales volume, you need to consider the following points:

? If you focus on your greed, then the need of the client and your greed both will not be completed.

? If you focus on the ’need of the client’, your greed will automatically complete because the need of the client is completed.

Take the approach of a consultant and not the salesman because the client does not want a product, he only wants a solution. 

Customer doesn’t want to be sold, he wants to be helped.
 

You have to work with the ’consultative approach’
. Now, what is the Consultative approach?

It means you have to act as a consultant by asking a lot of ’solution-oriented questions’ to the client.

What type of questions are these?

For such questions, you have to conduct a N.I.C.E. analysis.

Needs ’ Interest ’ Concern ’ Expectation

To know how to increase sales volume, you need to first understand N.I.C.E. analysis.

When you understand the Need, Interest, Concern, and Expectation of the client, then what you actually showcase to the client, he will buy it.

But, the problem is that you are focusing on selling the product you have brought and not focusing on the need or problem of the client.

How to Implement N.I.C.E. Analysis?

To know how to increase sales volume, you need to learn how to implement N.I.C.E. analysis.

For implementing the N.I.C.E. analysis:

  • You need to first understand what, why, when, where, and how of the client.
  • You need to find out:

       1. What is going in the life of the client?

       2. Why is it going?

       3. Since when this is going?

       4. Where and how it is going in his life?

A consultant actually identifies the ’latent need’ of the client. After that, he shows his product as a solution to his need. With this approach, the product gets sold double, triple, and quadruple times.

This leads to ’10 times sale growth’, not 10%.

How to Increase Sales by Asking the Right Questions?

Conduct N.I.C.E. analysis of the client not by speaking but hearing the client. You have to hear the client, understand him, and acknowledge him sometimes.

To know how to increase sales volume, you need to start ’parroting and paraphrasing’.

For Example

If the client says, ’I am going through various problems in my life, how I will buy, now?’ you need to say, ’Oh problems are going on, I would like to understand what problems you are facing.’

Basically, you have to ’enter in his shoes’. But, before entering in his shoes, you have to first ’take off your own shoes’.

Put aside your product and try to understand the client’s situation.

How to Ask Questions?

You can ask the client some thinking questions and current reality questions. When you ask him some questions, he will start speaking out. Then, you can ask him some vision questions and goal-oriented questions.

Understand his goal, his vision and then again ask him the current reality question.

For Example

If a client’s goal is to reach at 8/10 and he is currently at 4/10. You need to understand where the client is right now (this is the client’s assess) and what his vision is or where he wants to go (this is client’s aspire).

The gap between assess and aspire of the client is architect. You have to help the client to ’architect this gap’. Now, you become the partner of the client and you are no longer a salesman to him.

To know how to increase sales volume, you need to understand what type of questions you can ask from your customers. You can ask the following types of questions to your customers like:

  • Problem-oriented questions
  • Solution-oriented questions
  • Probing questions
  • Leading questions 

The answers to these questions will make you understand the problems of the client. During this time, when you say:

You:
  ’Oh… You are going through so many problems, you are facing these problems from so long’my lord! So, how much it is necessary for you to solve these problems?’

Client:
’It is very important for me to solve these problems.’

You:
’How much you are committed to solving these problems?’

Client:
’Very much.’

You:
’Do you want me to help you with this?’

By asking Solution Oriented Questions, you become the client’s gap partner and you can offer your product as a solution to his problems. He will immediately buy your product. 

How to Increase Sales through Consulting Approach?

In any conversation, the person who is asking questions leads the conversation and not the one who is giving answers. You will become the leader and control the complete conversation and this conversation will go in your favor only.

If you want to grow 10 times, leave the approach of a salesman and become a consultant.

Some of the sample questions you can ask are:

  • Where do you want to reach?
  • What do you want to do?
  • Which type of life do you want to live?
  • How can I help you?
  • How much committed are you to improve your life?

The three main questions that should be asked to the client are:

  • Where you are right now?
  • Where you want to go?
  • How you will go?   

You can ask these three questions in detail. You can help the client in reaching his goal by becoming his gap partner.

Categories
Finance

How to pay loan faster in 8 Easy Ways

Introduction

  • Are you facing problems in paying off loans?
  • Are your loans taking away all your savings?
  • Do you want to know how to pay loan faster?

Because of the lack of enough knowledge on how to pay off a loan early, many businessmen in India plunge into long-term debt due to lack of calculation and financial planning.  And due to debts, businessmen develop various health issues like hypertension, anxiety, blood pressure, stress, and depression.

To be happy, you don’t need a piece of finance, you need financial peace. 

You just need to know how to pay loan faster without disrupting your day-to-day functions. 

In this article, we are discussing 8 effective ways of how to clear loans faster that will help you to get rid of life’s tension.

1. List your Debt by Interest Rate

Following significant steps will help you know how to pay loan faster than usual time span:

? List all your loans along with their interest rates either in ascending or descending order.

? Do not give equal EMI in all the loans.

? Complete the loan first that has the maximum interest and pay minimum EMI of other loans.

For Example

The interest rates of different loans are: Home loan – 8.3%; Car loan – 9%; Education loan – 10%; Personal loan – 12%; Unsecured loan – 20%; Credit card loan – 32%.

As the interest rates of credit card and unsecured loans are higher than the other loans, so, first complete these two loans. Keep the payment of other loans at a minimum.

2. Pay Incremental Gain Exponential

Let us know how to pay loan faster by paying more or double EMIs on the loans whose interest rate is high and get exponential gain.

Take the following example to understand how to pay off a loan early.

Parameters
Scenario 1
Scenario 2
Scenario 3
EMI 5,000 10,000 20,000
Time Taken for Closure 41 Months 13 Months 6 Months
Payment 2 times 4 times
Benefit Nill 3 times 7 times
Total Amount Paid 2,05,000 1,30,000 1,20,000

In the above table, you can observe that if we increase the amount of EMI, then the total amount to be paid decreases. In this way, you get the exponential benefit through incremental payment.

3. Sell Unnecessary Items for at least 2 to 4 EMIs

Selling unnecessary items is another way to how to clear loans faster.

If you buy a product but not use it from last one year, then it is possible that it is your depreciating asset and useless for you. 

For example, unnecessary furniture, old mobile phones, bags, books, and apparel.

You can sell the unnecessary items on OLX and Quikr. You can take out 4-5 EMIs of your loan by selling these things.

4. Temporary Downsizing

Temporary downsizing is one of the ways to how to pay off a loan early.

An intelligent person will buy an appreciating asset while a low IQ person will buy depreciating assets or liability or unnecessary objects.

  • Identify your unnecessary monthly subscription services, depreciating assets, and non-value adding objects.
  • Control these unnecessary expenses so that you can make some extra saving, for say 30%. You can use this saving to pay your EMIs.

5. Pay Loans with the Second Income

To know how to pay off a loan early, you need to analyze the total amount of income you have.

? If you have two earning members in your family, then use the income of one member to meet the family expenses and use the income of the other member to pay off your loans.

? If you are the only earning member in your family, then you should plan additional income through part-time jobs like freelance photography, content writing, LIC agent, catering, etc.

  • Identify your passion that will help you to get an extra income.  
  • Use the additional income to pay off your loans.

6. Have an Emergency Savings Fund

You should consider the following pointers to understand how to pay loan faster:

? Maintain some emergency savings fund so that you need not take loans.

? Invest in equity and liquid debt funds that will help you to takeout funds easily.

7. Habit of Budgeting is an Extra Blessing

You need to adopt the following points to understand how to clear loans faster:

? Have a data-driven approach to your spending.

? Keep your intelligence above your emotions while spending.

? Make a budget to control your emotional spending.

Those who don’t manage their money will always work for those who do!

8. Throw any excess cash on your debt

Spend the extra money obtained from any source like tax refunds, bonuses, incentives, etc. to pay your debts.

Do not take loans in a hurry. Maintain your CIBIL score. Spend only when it is necessary.

At last, even if you know the strategy of how to pay loan faster, but you are not implementing then you are deliberately letting your loans eat all your savings and financial growth. 

Hence, implementation is the key to pay your loans off swiftly. 

Categories
Marketing

Is Cost of Customer Acquisition Eating Away Your Business?

Introduction

  • Are you facing a problem in calculating your Cost of Customer Acquisition(COCA)?
  • Do you think that your margins are low because of High COCA?

Many businesses fail because they spend too much on acquiring a client without calculating the cost.

This impacts their margins and profits that hit the company despite the best strategy.

So, it is important to understand and calculate customer acquisition costs.

What is COCA?

The full form of COCA is the Cost of Customer Acquisition. It is the customer acquisition cost, which means the cost of convincing a potential customer to buy/use a product or service.

In simple terms, the company incurs a lot of expenses on marketing & advertising its product to reach out to the potential buyer along with the salary of its employees. The total amount spent in this process is called the Cost of Customer Acquisition (COCA).

Once COCA is calculated, we can arrive at the actual Average Cost per Customer.

Calculating COCA

Let us take an example to understand how to calculate customer acquisition cost. 

A businessman spends Rs 1 crore on ’Marketing + Advertising + Sales’ and acquires 100 new customers.

Now, Cost of Customer Acquisition or COCA can be calculated as:

COCA = (Sales and Marketing Expenses)/New Customers Acquired

COCA = Rs 1 crore/100

            = Rs 1 lakh

That is, Rs 1 lakh is spent by the businessman to acquire one additional customer, which is the customer acquisition cost.

Now, your next step is to analyze whether you can afford 1 lakh rupees to add one more new customer or the Cost of Customer Acquisition.

If you have a business of repeat sales i.e. recurring revenue model business, then a new customer can give you good business in the next 5 years.

If a customer is buying only once and cost to add a new customer is more than what you get by selling your product, in that case, it is not a good idea to invest so much in acquiring a new customer/client.

Points to Remember

Business Loss = COCA > Business Expenses

COCA < Expected COCA, here you consider your friends, family & relatives as your customers and once they go away, you find yourself in a tough situation. So, it is important to make some budget for bearing cost of customer acquisition without plunging into the negative margin.

It is important to understand the long-term relational value while acquiring a new customer.

You need to identify those behaviors that are indicative of a loyal customer. And then you need to hold your customers for repeat business.

Retention marketing is a new battleground in the business, where tracking is compulsory.

Categories
Motivational

How to Achieve New Year Resolutions?

Introduction

  • Are you not able to complete your New Year Resolutions?
  • Does your resolution break easily?
  • Are you looking for ways on how to achieve New Year resolutions?

New Year is an amazing opportunity for people to make personal resolutions for self-improvement. You must have made different types of New Year Resolutions till now.

Example: I will save more money this year (or spend less); I will start reading one book every month, or I will quit smoking.

How many New Year Resolutions you have completed? Your answer may be a few or none.

More than 95% of people broke their New Year Resolutions latest by 15th January.

Have you ever realized why we fail to achieve these goals despite so much conviction and clarity about it?

The reason is quite simple!

We make Multiple Resolutions in our mind because we want to improve everything in our life in the coming year starting from our health, finances to our relationships.

The reality is slightly different. Many Resolutions can never bring many revolutions but One Focused Resolution can certainly bring Revolution.

Following are the powerful tips to make your New Year resolution successful:

Tip #1: One Focused Resolution will Bring Revolution

It is one of the tips on how to achieve New Year resolutions.

❌ Do not make multiple resolutions.

❌ Do not change your resolutions again and again.

✅ Make one focus, steel strong, powerful, unshakable and unbreakable resolution.

✅ Make a resolution that brings a major shift and success in your life.

Now, how will you make it Steel Strong?

Simple! You can do this by consciously holding on to your resolution. You need to give yourself auto-suggestions and create a Recall Support Mechanism around it because, “anything that gets out of sight, gets out of mind.”

Ensure that your goal never goes out of your sight. Place your goal on your television, laptop, mobile phone, the dashboard of your car, the main door of your house, at your workstation, study room, etc.

Once you’ve made a Steel Strong Resolution, make sure that you practice it consistently because only Consistency can bring Progression. This is our second tip to how to achieve New Year resolution.

Tip #2: Consistency can Give you Progression

Consistency is the key in making and achieving New Year resolution.

✅ Follow your resolutions consistently.

❌ Do not change your resolution, if you are facing challenges in achieving it.

✅ Change your strategy, if you are facing challenges in achieving your resolution.

Remember, there is no way to get overnight success. You have to work consistently and improve yourself to get success.

If you do not show consistent improvement, then there are lots of people who can replace you anytime from your job, position, or your business.

For Example

In 1916, the average age of a company was 70 years and it has been reduced to 7 years in 2016. This is because replacement is taking place at a high speed. So, you need to improve yourself with the help of your resolutions otherwise you will also be replaced.

Tip #3: Recruit Support

Sometimes, we all need a push from someone and it is alright to take support to complete your New Year resolution.

✅ Identify a super-specialist in the field in which you have taken a resolution. Take his/her support to achieve your resolution.

The super specialist can be a like-minded friend, relative, or mentor. They will give you a continuous hand-holding and implementation support to hold on to your resolution.

For Example

An athlete grows only in the company of other experienced athletes.

Remember, this is going to bring a great shift in your life and will make you succeed with your New Year Resolution.