Make 2017 the year of ‘marginal gains’ and watch your profits soar!

Wouldn’t it be great if there was just one strategy, a magic bullet if you like, that we could deploy to take our businesses to the next level in the coming 12 months?

Sadly, you and I both know it doesn’t exist. 

Or does it?

You see, I know that a strategy called ‘Marginal Gains’ works extremely well and it’s a very simple approach to adopt. It’s all about making small improvements to all facets of your business and when you do, the combined effect can be, and often is, massive.

Psychologically, it’s a great feeling knowing that in order to totally transform your business, all you need to do is make small marginal improvements to each part of it.

Here are the key areas to look to

improve first…

· All your marketing pieces. Improve or add headlines, benefits, offers, call to actions, etc.

· Your sales system. Improve or add guarantees, closes, number of touch points, etc.

· Maximising customer value. Improve or add up-sells, cross-sells, product/service of the month, price increase, etc.

Think about it…

If you improve the headline on your website and it gives you a bump of just 10%, you go from say, 2% conversion to 2.2%. And you add more benefits and this gives you another bump of 10%, and you add a more powerful call to action, giving you another 10% bump... you’ve gone from 2% to 2.6% in a flash. That’s an improvement of some 30% but all you’ve done is tweaked a few elements on the page.

Imagine doing that across your entire business and you can see how the improvements can add up to a significant difference.

...and that’s what marginal gains is all about. It works for any type of business. You just need to take time to make the improvements and then measure the results.

If you have staff, get them involved in the whole philosophy of marginal gains and just watch the impact it can have on the business. They’ll love the fact that you’ve empowered them to make improvements (no matter how small) and then you’ve got a team of people focussed on making enhancements.

Just think how much more successful you’ll be in 2017 with this simple approach.

I look forward to hearing how it goes!

Michael Carthy

Director