5/8/2013
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At the end of the day, there are only three ways to grow your RTO. You can get hung up on fancies and bogged down in trying to reinvent the wheel, but at the end of the day, it comes down to these three areas. What you need to do first is work out which strategy you’re going to undertake and which strategy is right for your business at this present moment. This doesn’t mean you need to be locked in to one strategy forever, it just means you need to be committed to the strategy whilst you are investing time and resources into it.
Strategy number one is increasing your footprint.
This relates to having a bigger footprint in the areas that you’re currently training in. This is more likely to be a geographical notion than increasing your scope of registration. How do you increase the size of your footprint in your current geographical area?
Strategy number two has the same footprint in other areas.
With the development of robust systems, you should be able to replicate what you’re doing in different locations. This could be intrastate or interstate. There is no reason why you need to focus just on one little area if you have the systems in place to be bigger.
Strategy number three – Have a different footprint.
This could mean expanding your scope of registration to include a horizontal integration of what you’re doing, or by partnering up with other organisations to increase your ability to market effectively to various business sectors (or to maximise the return from your existing client base).
In my experience, too many registered training organisations have a scattergun approach to how they’re going to grow their business. As a business owner or as a sales manager, having a clear direction of how you’re going to grow the business is absolutely essential. I know that is not a newsflash however, before undertaking any growth of your training organisation, it is important to have some key metrics in place to start with. Infinity Sales Training and Consultancy Services can assist with setting up these metrics, we can assist with developing the strategy that you choose, and can assist in helping to manage the sales team to achieve the results desired.
The metrics you put in place must be leading indicators to a sale and must start at the beginning of the sales cycle.
If you know the answers to all of this you are certainly in the minority however these metrics are absolutely crucial to understand your efficiency. Let me give you a real example:
For more information, contact Travis Latter. Infinity Sales Training Consultancy Services.
A Real Example…
We have just started working with an RTO in the manufacturing sector. They wanted to simply grow their business. We started with looking at how many sales they make a week, and the figure was ten. At $5,000.00 a sale, some RTO’s would consider this good. Some RTO’s would consider it substandard. This particular RTO felt that they had true points of difference in the market place, and felt that they had something to really offer their students that was different to other RTO. I, actually, agree with them, that they did.
We then looked at how many inquiries they’re getting per week. And, they were getting 85 inquiries per week. So, the conversion rate was a low 11.7%. They had never actually done the sums on how many sales were slipping through their fingers.
Interestingly, this was the first time that the RTO had conducted the exercise of looking at how many inquiries to how many sales were being made. The observation, straight away, was that they were leaking sales and leaking badly.
Every single person that contacted them or every single person that e-mailed them wanted something. This particular RTO simply failed to acknowledge that, just as many RTOs fail to remember this. They simply failed to understand what each customer was potentially wanting at that stage of the sales cycle. The sales cycle has to continue to move forward, not sideways and definitely not backwards. If you remember that every single person that rings or e-mails wants something, then you do approach it in a different way.
We then started to have a look at the sales process, starting from the initial phone call. What we found was the administration staff who answered the phone, were not equipped with the right details and the right message to pass on to the customer. (They lost 30% of all sales at their reception point).
We then followed the sales cycle all the way to getting a referral from an existing student. And, it was a bit like Swiss cheese. There were holes everywhere. By tweaking each of the stages in the period of two weeks, we increased the conversions to 16.5%. This meant an increase in business of over $20,000.00 each week or $1,000,000!!
Equally important, was the different mindset that each of the staff now have and how they look at every single inquiry with. They are now acknowledging that every person who e-mails or phones is actually wanting to do business with them. They have made adjustments at key stages.
The above is very common and in most cases it is easy to remedy.
Here are five questions to ask yourself about your sales process.
Number one… How do the reception staff answer the phone, and when is the last time they were mystery shopped to check?
Number two… Is there a consistent message being passed on at every stage?
Number three… Does every stage of the sales cycle push the sale to a close, or does it leave it hanging?
Number four… What are your true points of difference to your competitors, and how are these expressed every single time?
Have you got sales scripts for your reception, your sales staff, and your trainers?
And, number five… Do your staff know how to ask for the sale, and do your trainers know how to seek referrals? By analysing the responses to these five questions, you’ll be able to have a better sales process.
For more information, contact Travis Latter. Infinity Sales Training Consultancy Services.
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