How Grids Made me a ton of money

I'm documenting this for a company I own a stake in as I restructure their sales and marketing efforts. I thought it might be interesting for you all to see it. It's the basis of how I got my offline biz really big. It's basically all the different ways I used grids in the business to give virtual representations of processes in the business, and how I used it to make a ton of money. Whether you're doing this solo or you have 5-10 employees this is what it looks like to run a business through a system.

The first thing I did was use some old Barry Farber techniques. We had a huge wall that consisted of a large grid of our sales process. A rough representation is something like this:



Then we took the companies as they went through the funnel, and wrote their information on biz cards. We'd color code the card based upon the expected contract size. Big contracts would be green, smaller would be red, etc. We also color coded referrals in one corner so we know if it was a warm lead. We filled out their information more or less like this:



Basically it's a very easy way to see where prospects are in the pipeline. As a management tool, we could see where people were having trouble. And you could see in advance when someone wasn't going to have enough business this month or if they were going to be swamped. You start to see the metrics. For instance you know that you have to have 23 contacts in the tail end of the marketing funnel, to get 8 phone presentations to get 6 proposal discussions to sign 2 contracts. Or something like that. You define your own stages, and figure out where you need more contacts. It helps you to keep the business pumping when you keep the pipeline full.

As a management tool as well you can find holes. For instance I found that one day proposals and proposals that took over five days to prepare were much less effective than a proposal created in two days. I wouldn't have known that if we weren't tracking it on these small business cards. I found a salesperson who wasn't that good on the phone but was almost twice as good on the final proposal and getting a check. So his funnel became really flat early on, and then stayed flat. We were able to use him where his strength was, in closing the deal, and he never had to deal with clients early on in the process.

As a team it was great to see this activity. We did it during morning scrums. So that they got the benefit of being in front of the entire group when they finished that activity. Everyone who moved a client to the contract closed part of the wall got a standing ovation. It was the highlight of our day.

Even if it's just you, use this on a bulletin board and see if it doesn't transform your business.

This next stuff comes from Peter Thomson, a very good business growth expert. We used grids to increase customer value. First off, how many of you are selling everything you create to every one of your clients? In this field the things we can offer is almost limitless. There are all kinds of things we can offer our clients. So we use a matrix called the told/sold matrix, and it looks something like this:



Basically you take each of your clients and you make sure you offer/tell them about the other solutions you offer. The red is for told, the green is for sold. The goal is to have the entire matrix filled with red, and hopefully doing well with green as well. If you built a website, have you told them about your ability to do video creation? What you'll find is that the more you offer, the more your clients will buy from you. Stop spending so much time looking for new customers, instead spend your time offering services to the clients you already have, even if you have to do a strategic alliance with another company that offers these services. Once I remembered that I should be doing this, we basically doubled our sales in about 3 months of continuously going to past customers and educating them on everything we offer.

It's also really good at finding things that meld well together so you can perhaps put them in a bundle and sell them at closing. If people always buy these two services together, then why not offer them as an upsell at closing, or as part of a bundle. It was good as well once you get the grid full to brainstorm to see what else you can offer through new development or through a strategic alliance.

Next, another Peter Thomson strategy. The referral matrix.



Basically it's again a two part matrix. Our expectation is that we're going to get at a minimum 10 referrals from each client over time. Not just a name and a phone number, but calling them up and introducing us so they are expecting our call. This is a great warm lead. We put down when we close the deal, and we always follow up with the originating client and let them know what happened, while we ask for new referrals. This system of referrals really skyrocketed our sales as well. We were able to keep our funnel fairly full, and close a fair amount of these referrals.

Here's another Peter Thomson idea. The company fit. Basically the premise is the more we know each other as a company, the more loyal as a client you'll be. If it's just me who knows Tommy at ABC company, then if I leave what relationship do we have. We try over the first six months of our relationship to have our company work so closely with their company that they know most of our staff and are comfortable with them. This file goes in the client folder and gets updated fairly regularly. We had metrics in place to enforce a fit of all clients within 90 days. We found that companies that had at least 10 connections to us were much less likely to leave for greener pastures.



That one is more for when you're a little larger. But still something to keep in mind if you take on a handful of staff. Understand what happens when you combine all three things together.
1. You are communicating with them, and telling them about all of your services. Instead of buying one thing from you, they might be using 2-10 different services you offer.
2. They are on the line as a referral source. They've given you 10+ referrals, they've gotten feedback about how happy their referrals are. It's harder to leave when you've put yourself on the line like that.
3. Their entire company is on good terms with your company. It's not just one person turning their back on one person. It's the 10-20 different relationships that your company has with their company.

Combine all three of these and you've got a killer recipe for client retention(and profitability).

I don't remember where I got this from, but it is our monthly task wall. Everyone is responsible for having a Top 3 task list for the day. This should be achievable goals that will advance the business, and is the most profitable thing for the business that day. We review the tasks in the morning scrum. And you get a color coded box when you complete your top 3 tasks the day before. As long as you have 90% green you get a monthly bonus. This is all about making people accountable to their tasks. And made us a lot more productive as a team. You have to have a pretty good handle of how to put tasks on the list that are achievable, but will create the most impact. Sometimes one of the tasks may be as simple as get a hold of Mr. Smith. If getting a hold of Mr. Smith could lead to a $100k a year contract, you can bet that's going on the top of a task list.



And lastly all tasks and projects we worked on had a project management worksheet. Just in excel basically. It looked something like this:



The point is we want to know at all times where the project is, and what the deliverable times are. We sculpted our client engagement for maximum client satisfaction. Take a look at Paddy Lunds material. We didn't have customers, we created raving fans. We were very clear in communicating our expectations for ourselves and our client. We'd have bonuses for number of contracts closed ontime. It all feeds upon itself. More clients, buying more products, more often and referring new clients.

Anyway, we're putting this into place into a small company I bought a stake in. It's all new to them, so I thought I'd share this here in the hopes that it can help you out too. The more what you do is systematized the greater value it will bring to you as an ongoing concern, and the more value it will have when you sell it. I know it's not very high tech, but it has a better effect not being on a website. When anyone can step into the room and in 2 seconds get a feel for how we're doing, I don't know of any computer system that can do that.

This is why I don't understand the prevalence of trying to figure out new models to get clients. There's a ton more money in cultivating the clients you already have. By getting them to buy more, more often, and refer more. You only need a handful of clients to make all of the money you want/need to make.

Here's a recap:
1. Build a wall/bulletin board. Make vertical lines separating your steps in your sales funnel. Track the businesses as they flow through the funnel by writing their information on the back of a business card.
2. Build a told/sold matrix for your customers. Make sure you list out everything you offer and everything you can offer, and tell all your customers you offer these services, and let them buy.
3. Build a referral matrix. Expect that every customer is going to give you at least 10 fantastic referrals. Communicate that to them all the time. Give them feedback on the wins and losses of what you attempted to sell.
4. Build a contact matrix. Make sure as many of the people in your company know the people in their company.
5. Build a Task matrix. Make everyone put down their top 3 tasks, and then note who completes their tasks and who doesn't.
6. Make a system of every process you do in the business. Document the system and try to steamline. Keep track of your deadlines, and the implications of meeting or not meeting them.

Anyway, hope this helps.