Today we’re hearing from our friend Chris Steely at GPS Business Group.  Chris Tell and I are making our way back from our Meet Up in Sri Lanka. We’ll have more on that next week…

GPS Business Group was established in 2005 as a comprehensive business training and leadership effectiveness firm, with a focus on showing business leaders how they can free themselves from their daily routine, reconnect with your vision, and build a life and business that works; a business that delivers on time, every time, exactly as promised, balanced with your personal ideals and priorities. Over the past several years, Chris Steely and the team have served hundreds of business owners and entrepreneurs in dozens of countries.

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From: Chris Steely, GPS Business Group

Building and expanding is what business is all about, whether we as business owners do it for ourselves, or for our clients. Your imperative as you grow your business it to be constantly aware of the keys to expanding your business, so that you can continue to effectively serve your clients, and effectively apply these ideals.

1. Find Your Niche

Let’s face it, you’re probably looking for ways to increase your market audience and profit…or you probably wouldn’t be reading this article. Here’s the real facts… you don’t have to find a wider audience to increase you sales.

Chances are, you already have a target audience that you are marketing your solutions to. I recently worked a client is the express shipping industry who insisted that EVERYONE was their potential client (based on the implication that EVERYONE had to get things from one point to another in a hurry as some point in time). Turns out, as we segmented their primary clients, it was determined that their ideal clients were a certain size business, providing a certain product solution, to a certain client base. When we focused on that niche, we were able to optimize the company’s profits by 22% over the course of six months.

Have you noticed similar characteristics that groups within your target audience have in common? Maybe you have a group of businessmen, a group of young mothers, and a group of retirees that frequently make purchases. That is just the set-up I’m talking about.

Pay attention to the individual characteristics of each group, and divide your advertising into similar segments, or niches. Focus on the specific needs of the group in the advertising products you deploy. General advertisements are not as effective as more specific ads. Hey, we all sit up and pay attention to someone who recognizes our specific needs and desires!

2. Create A Unique Selling Point

Why should someone buy from you and not your competitor?

I hate to deal a blow to your ego, but it really has nothing to do with you, your product, or your service. Yeah, its’ a little self-centered, but customers are attracted by offers that point out the things that benefit THEM.

I worked with a business last year whose expressed differentiator was “higher quality and better service,” which is exactly what its competitors were saying. After working through and determining their specific value proposition, they were able to focus that message on their specific niche, and generated 30% more topline revenue in four months.

If you want to stand out from the crowd, create a unique selling proposition that stresses the benefits the customers will receive from doing business with you. Will they get faster service? Go ahead and dramatize it, but keep the customer at the focus…”Get free overnight delivery!” Hey, it tells the customer…you get quick service and a discount on shipping. Two definite benefits in one statement.

Don’t go out on a limb to create new products and services to get attention. Just, add a special benefit to the ones you already have… maybe it’s quicker service. The most effective things to emphasize are benefits that your competition cannot or is not willing to give.

3. Offer Your Way To Greater Profits

How many times have you begun manhunting? Most business I begin working with are all about searching for, ferreting-out, and closing their customers. Sure, as a marketer you scrounge and search for brand new or ancient methods of drawing brand new faces to your place of business. The fact of the matter is that you don’t have to find new customers for your sales to grow.

No, in fact you can take the current business you have and send your profits to the moon with one easy technique… make an offer. Greet every sale with an offer of an item that is related to the purchase. The offered product doesn’t even have to be yours.

The Internet is wonderful for affiliate marketers who can make great profits selling the material of others. Systems such as InfusionSoft have been designed based on very strategy.

Making your business grow doesn’t have to be a stressful, backbreaking or frantic process. Simply implement these three strategies, and watch it boom!

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As business leaders, for more than 25 years, Chris’s team has consulted, trained, and coached business owners to transform their businesses and lives into world-class, inspiring operations. Most business leaders ultimately realize that employees who feel motivated and supported will perform at their highest level, yet not all of those leaders know how to create a proactive environment within their organization. That’s where Chris and GPS Business group can help.

Learn more about their solutions at their website.

– Mark

“Leaders aren’t born they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work. And that’s the price we’ll have to pay to achieve that goal, or any goal.” ~ Vince Lombardi