Showing posts with label Chasing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chasing. Show all posts

Business Building vs. Opportunity Chasing


A business builder envisions what they want their business to become. The vision eventually becomes a plan based on analysis of personal and competition strengths and weakness, the marketplace, and strategies of ways and means to materialize the vision.

Opportunity chasing is an invitation to under achieve because time is spent looking for and trying out the best deal on the hottest trend instead of building business with strategy focused on product line congruent with per...







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A business builder envisions what they want their business to become. The vision eventually becomes a plan based on analysis of personal and competition strengths and weakness, the marketplace, and strategies of ways and means to materialize the vision.

Opportunity chasing is an invitation to under achieve because time is spent looking for and trying out the best deal on the hottest trend instead of building business with strategy focused on product line congruent with personal values, business growth, and the customer base that drives it. While all these characteristics may be present in any opportunity, analysis of how your time and money converts to Return On Investment (ROI) may not be clear.

With no other test but whether or not it can make some money as soon as possible, opportunists chase the elusive get rich quick easy promotions. Although sales and network matrix building are important business assets, what opportunists tend to overlook are basic long-term strategic plans.

Instead of chasing opportunities, business builders tend to analyze and develop them. Business building whether on or off the internet requires a variety of skills that must be developed for any specialized but profitable segment of a market or niche. Therefore, one main difference between business building and opportunity chasing is how leverage is used.

Opportunity seekers tend to choose offers that appear to be do-able from their personal effort as part of a team or network of affiliates which begs the question, who is leveraging whom? Conversely, the business builder tends to select only product and service opportunities that support a scalable business where personal time and ROI can be leveraged for profit.

Network or matrix marketing is geared to out-task work up and down the lines of the network. While this certainly generates a flow of money for products and services, any real or perceived long term benefit to participants may be significantly less than expected.

In theory, ROI compels many opportunity seekers to do the same thing as everyone else. In practice, they end up trying to do it longer, faster, and smarter than everyone else with a net result of diminishing returns or lower ROI and their expectations shattered by apparent under achievement.

On the other hand, business builders out-source instead of out-task to quite simply continue to add value to their time instead of having it fixed or decreased by matrix limits. The measurable difference between out-sourcing and out-tasking is whether your time produces an increase or decrease of your return on investment. The h4h.biz site was set up to teach business building by involving participants as co-authors in ebook projects.

In theory, ROI should produce a win-win outcome. Unfortunately in practice, it differs more often for opportunity chasers than business builders. Opportunity choosing and business building are both important activities, but one without the other is like a car without gas, a nice ride but doesn’t go very far.

Calculate the Cost of Chasing a Lead. Reduce it by Giving


Have you ever wondered what it would cost you to attract just one qualified lead? You may have lots of inquiries, but not all inquiries become customers. How then would an inquiry be upgraded to a qualified lead? This article examines the effect of gifts in the calculation of chasing a lead







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Premiums, corporate, gifts, premium, malaysia







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Have you ever wondered what it would cost you to attract just one qualified lead? You may have lots of inquiries, but not all inquiries become customers. How then would an inquiry be upgraded to a qualified lead?

Before we can calculate the cost, we need to know what a qualified lead is. A qualified lead will have to satisfy four different criteria.

a) The person must need your product or service. There absolutely has to be a use for the item.

b) The person has to be able to pay for the item.

c) The person is a decision maker. Or at least can exert a strong influence to make a purchase.

d) The person knows when to make the purchase

Anyone who satisfies any of these areas can be a potential customer. And chasing this customer is called lead development. So how much must you spend to generate a qualified lead from among the people you target? Some examples of expenses incurred may be in the form of advertisements, labor, postage, or phone bills. Whatever method of customer interaction you use, they all cost money. If a meeting is required before a lead can be qualified, regard that too as a cost. They can be in the form of transport cost, car parking fees, brochure and calling cards.

Not all inquiries can be qualified. The people that make these inquiries simply cannot be reached. They could be on vacation, ignoring you, too busy, not serious, or just didn't meet the four criteria listed earlier. Assume, about 15% of all inquiries cannot be qualified. That leaves about 75% of the people you can reach. Of this 75% of the people you get in contact, let us assume that the average qualification rate would be about 20%. So we can safely say that 20% of those you interact will become qualified leads.

Example on how your calculated the cost of a qualified leads

Number of inquiries: 100
Number that qualify: 75
Cost of qualifying, per inquiry: $20
Number who turns out to be qualified leads (20%): 15
Total cost of qualifying ($20 X 75): $1,500
Campaign cost of $10,000 + qualifying cost = $11,500
Total cost of $11,500 divided by 15 qualified leads = $766.66

In short, you must invest $766.66 to attract each customer who needs your product or service. This amount varies from industry to industry, but its more a less a very significant amount and it is to your best interest to improve the percentage of qualified leads.

One great idea to improve your percentage of qualified leads is to offer a gift to the people that made an inquiry. Ensure you choose the gift that will enable people to remember you and has your contact printed on it. The gifts need not necessary be expensive as long as they can improve chances of qualified leads.

Assuming you budget $2.00 a lead, and decide to give promotional pens with your logo and contact printed on it. The calculation of cost of qualified leads will now look like this:

Number of inquiries: 100
Number that qualify: 75
Cost of qualifying, per inquiry: $20 + $2 (cost of pen) = $22
Number who turn out to be qualified leads (24%): 18 (Assume gifts improve your chances by 4%)
Total cost of qualifying ($22 X 75): $1,650
Campaign cost of $10,000 + qualifying cost = $11,650
Total cost of $11,650 divided by 18 qualified leads = $647.20

Wait a minute. Cost for 15 qualified leads without gifts was $766.66. Cost for 18 qualified leads with gifts is now $647.20 This is a $119.46 savings with extra 3 more qualified leads!

Now let us consider another angle of calculating the cost of chasing a lead. Suppose we need to qualify a lead by paying a customer a visit. This will incur transport, labor, and car parking cost. It is reasonable to assume that it will cost $50 per trip. Add the cost of the campaign, which includes brochures, marketing materials, samples and the cost of the name card. Assume these materials cost another $30. In total, the cost of qualifying this lead is $80.

If the customer is not sure if he or she needs this product or service, this trip can be totally be wasted. Once you walk away from the customer, your marketing materials may end up in the trash can. Your call card may end up buried under piles of name cards. But the situation can be salvaged when you leave a gift behind. Especially if it is a well chosen and practical gift, it almost never ends up in the trash can nor buried under piles of rubbish. It stays in front of the customer’s desk.

Immediately you chances of this customer turning into a qualified lead somewhere in the future increases! Assuming you choose the same $2.00 pen as a gift. With an extra 2.5% percent of the total cost, you have increased the odds by many times.

There are many angles of which you can analyze the cost of chasing a lead. But when you factor giving as part of your strategy, most of the time, you can drive down the cost of chasing a lead. In a recent American Express Survey conducted by OPEN, budgets for client and customer gifts rose 15% in 2005. This clearly demonstrates that businesses are realizing the value of gifts and are actively making giving as a priority in their marketing strategy.

This is the amazing value of gifts that will help you improve your lead qualification, but your lead generation as well. Practice giving today, and expect it to reduce cost and increase sales. It may just put you in a position never achieved before.