🔥 Breakthrough Revenue Strategies…

Hi there,

Did you know we recently helped SA retailer Ackermans increase its monthly revenue by 42.86%? Here’s what we did for them.

As always, we’re here to add value at every stage of your innovation journey:

1. Startup Phase

2. Growth Phase

3. Scale/Sale Phase

Filtering New Ideas Fast (and Minimum Risk)

Take a page from former Amazon product manager Enrico Tartarotti and run your idea through the quick 3-point test from this video: 1) Identify the problem you are solving, 2) find the audience for whom that problem is the most severe (even if it’s niche), then 3) interview as many of those people as possible, asking them to explain to you how they normally solve that same problem. Only then do you try creating a quick low-code prototype or even a dummy website, just to see if you get sign-ups. It’s a super quick way to run through ideas quickly and then only take the worthy ones to the concept validation stage once you’re sure they’re viable.

Using Social Proof Effectively

Social proof is a powerful way to fast-track trust when you’re relatively new. Behavioural marketing researcher Will Leach identifies 5 types of social proof: 1) Customer reviews generated by your users, 2) Expert proof when someone with authority endorses you, 3) Influencer proof, 4) Crowd proof if you show how many people have bought your product already and 5) Collaborating and having others talk about you. Then, sales trainer Michael Humblet suggests always packaging social proof by starting with the A) Problem the person had, then B) showing how you solved it and only then C) showing credentials and details.

Choosing the Right Development Partner for You

When building out new solutions, it’s often safer and more cost-efficient in the long run to use a technical partner before you hire an entire team. And almost all of us start by doing some quick googling, just to see what developers are around and available. But then, how do you refine and choose the right one for you? There are so many to choose from – lone wolf devs, agencies etc. Well, if you’re serious about your business, you’ll probably want the best. Here’s how to find it with a guide to identifying your ideal development partner.

Are you in the start phase? Have questions? Hit reply and let us know how we can help.

Harnessing the Power of Community Marketing

In the social age, community remains a powerful way to reach, engage and convert potential customers. But the marketplace is busier than ever, so how do you reach and build a community around your brand? CX guru Tim Salau explains his “PIE” concept in this video: 1) Know and live your brand’s purpose, 2) Take a strong stance on a related topic and make this your focus of influence – talk about it, post about it, podcast about it etc. And then 3) Create experiences where your team and your community can connect, engage and discuss the cause(s) you champion – either digitally or in real life.

Using AI to Enhance Customer Experience

Everyone’s looking to revolutionise CX with AI, and MIT recently held a thought-provoking conference on approaching this holistically. Insights include: 1) Don’t go too advanced, or too fast, all tech takes time to win broader-market user trust. 2) Stay in your lane: the chatbot format tempts brands to try and create “all-knowing” bots when it’s best if your bot sticks to your field of expertise. 3) Don’t over-index on the tech: just because ChatGPT is a chatbot, doesn’t mean your CX unit needs to be. 4) Don’t miss the opportunity to deliver value beyond just getting the conversion, AI allows you to go deeper and truly create a wellness-boosting experience for your customers – so important in HealthTech and FinTech.

Implementing Advanced Analytics for Growth

Granular insights when combined with emerging technologies now allow you to do so much more, faster. Analytics has shifted from a “performance check” to a full-on business strategy role. Once you start collecting data from various sources, organising it into cohorts and using it to inform your customer journey modelling, your data can help drive your innovation. Get insights on using customer data analytics.

Need help growing faster? Maybe it's augmenting your team, or perhaps coffee with one of our growth experts — either way, hit reply and let’s find your solution.

Effective Crisis Management for Scaling Companies

One thing many companies don’t realise they need until it’s too late is a crisis management plan because not every crisis (any event that threatens your brand or business continuity) is big and public – even the smallest thing, like a payroll error, can have huge consequences in the digital age. According to this crisis consultant’s video, your number-one focus in a crisis is 1) achieving and retaining stakeholder trust (internally and externally). This is only possible if you 2) have a crisis management plan in place beforehand, 3) respond quickly and decisively, 4) create a figurehead/leader who will handle all communications and 5) communicate often about the situation and what you are doing to rectify it.

Strategically Expanding Your Revenue

One of the most obvious yet underused methods to increase income is to systematise your Expansion Revenue efforts. Existing customers are easier to upsell than acquiring new ones, so this method looks at expanding the revenue you get from current clients. To calculate your Expansion Revenue Rate (ERR), simply divide how much extra you’ve made out of a cohort of customers by the amount of revenue you got from them last year, times that by 100 to get a percentage. In SaaS, you want maybe 20-30% ERR (here are some guidelines from advisor Ulrik Lehrskov-Schmidt), and in enterprise about 10-15% (here are some insights by sales trainers DSG).  

Reducing Sales Cycle Length

No, longer sales cycles are not a fact of life. As sales guru Dan Martell explains here, it’s all about pulling about your sales process and rebuilding it as you would a tech product. Start by 1) auditing the unit economics and 2) mapping out your entire sales process to look for optimisation opportunities. Then 3) clarify your ideal market, 4) create automation that adds value and 5) always advance the sale by booking meetings from meetings, multi-threading sales if there are multiple decision-makers and opting for smaller-scale proof of concept projects within a division of larger potential clients, before you try and land the big sale.

Want to scale faster? We have people that are comfortable with the discomfort of the scale phase. Hit reply and let us know how we can augment your team.

Have your say…

What’s Happening at Specno

Founders Den is coming to Johannesburg!

Specno’s famous gathering of the best in the ecosystem is coming to Sandton on 25 July 2024 – apply for a seat here.

Hit reply if you think we’ve hit or missed the mark, tell us what you’d like to see or hear more of and, just in general, what would really add value to your journey…

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