21 Apr The COVID-19 Small Business Rescue Package
No doubt, things are tough right now for many small businesses; but there’s help on the horizon! In this quick 15-minute video I”ll show you how you can move from survive to thrive during the Coronavirus craziness. Watch now!
Transcript
Good morning, good afternoon, maybe I should even say good evening, whatever time it is. Wherever you are right now watching this, thank you. Thank you so much for taking the time to stop by and join me. My name is Paul Barrs from paulbarrs.com. Oh boy, what a week. What a month. What a year, 2020, mind blown. Not what we had planned, was it? I don’t know about you, but when I sat down in December last year, I said, “Yes, this is what I want to happen in 2020.” No, nothing like it.
And you know, I’ve been talking to a whole bunch of my customers and, well, of course they’re all saying the same thing. And some have been hit harder than others in the way that, you know, this crisis, if we call it that, is affecting their businesses. And as a result, I’m putting together this video and it’s going to go for 12, I don’t know, maybe 15 minutes. Somewhere thereabouts. But it’s in response to listening to what people are saying, that I can help you now to put together a marketing strategy to not just survive, I don’t want to help you just get through this, I want you to thrive. And these simple six steps, that you can see on the screen right now, is how we can do this.
And yes, I actually want to help you let’s do it together. It’s difficult to do things on your own sometimes, so if you’re ready, if you are ready to move forward, to grasp hold of, yes, there are some incredible opportunities out there, then let’s get started. Take some notes along we go and let’s make this thing work for us.
It begins here, with our current customers. I want you to start thinking about protecting your current customer base. I mean we all know that new customers, they’re great. Aren’t they? But old customers are gold. How much easier is it to be able to sell your product or your service to someone who already knows you, to someone who already trusts you, to someone who knows how darn good it is? So much easier than somebody new who’s not familiar with you or what you do.
So I want you, first and foremost, to start thinking about your current customer base. And if you haven’t already, get back out there and get in touch with them, reach out to them. And firstly, let them know that you’re thinking of them. Let them know that you care, and then, let them know that you are still there and that you’re able to provide your product or service to them if indeed you can or, if you’re retooling it in some way, how. Because you need to look at what you can offer them to maybe add some value incentives or something which you can include and retweak, retool, whatever. Some kind of offer to bring them back. Because you do need them to come back, they’re your best possible source of income. Maybe you can offer a buy-now-pay-later. Maybe you could offer a monthly payment plan of some sort or remove from hourly billing to package monthly billing. Get creative, get your team together, get a few people together, and come up with some ideas.
And honestly, if you’re in a situation where you really don’t have someone you can reach out for this, get in touch with me or my team. Let us see if we can help you. I’m pretty sure we can. There are so many different ways and I’m looking at the incredible creativity amongst local businesses here, in Queensland. Wow. And I know it’s happening all around the country as well. So that’s my number one thing for you, to protect your current customer base. You’ve got to get out there and make that happen.
Now I want you to take hold of this, the best time to grow your market share, believe it or not, is actually now. You see, when others are falling into fear, you need to work on generating growth. And yes, some of your competition, they’re going to fall to the side. They absolutely will. So you need to be there to be able to pick up those pieces. I want you to maybe jot this down with your notes and think about this just for one moment to understand the concept. I’m going to work in round numbers, do some very basic, some simple mathematics.
Imagine that your current market share is 10%, just a round number, of $1,000,000 a year. Now, that’s $100,000, not much, but 10% of a market share $1,000,000, $100,000 a year. Now here’s the thing. Even though our market has actually shrunk at the moment, let’s say, it’s gone to half, the market has changed from a million dollars a year to a half million dollars a year, your share of that is still 10%. Which now, instead of being $100,000 is $50,000 a year. Just working in these round figures. The point being your market share is X, and the market is whatever, X, Y, Z, though the market has shrunk, your percentage share is still the same.
So I want you to think about increasing your market share. Imagine you were to increase it and work over the coming months to increase it by 25%. So, instead of just a 10% market share, you’re now at 12.5%. Which is actually, instead of 50,000, the 10,000, 10%. You’re now at $62,500. Not much, just another 2.5% added on, but the magic starts to happen when the market rebounds. Because, if your market share has always been 10% and you’ve now increased it to 12.5%, well, when the market grows and rebounds back to the $1,000,000 a year, you’re now at $125,000 share every year instead of $100,000. If the market rebounds up to $1,500,000 a year, you’re now at $187,000 share instead of a $100,000. All you did was increase your market share by a few percentage points. And when this thing comes back, oh boy . . . and it will, I guarantee it, you are in a magical position.
So, with that in mind then, what do we need to do? Well, we need to create an amazing offer. An amazing offer for new customers. Not just good but great. Not just acceptable but awesome. I want you to find a way to make your competitors’ customers go, “Oh boy. Wow,” and then steal them. Yep, that’s what I want you to do, I want you to go out there and steal your competitors’ customers. Something which is low cost for you but huge value for them. Pile on that value of keeping your costs manageable. That gets you thinking, doesn’t it? It does for me and I’ve been working on that. I want to help you do it too. If you don’t already have someone that you can be working with, get in touch, perhaps we can help with this. I’ve been doing this for a long, long time now and I’m pretty sure, as a matter of fact I know, that I can help you with this. Let’s do that.
So how do we do it though? How do we do it and how do we work on the now, the soon, and then, the later? Well, one, two, and three, jot these notes down, there’s the hook, the line, and the sinker. Stage 1, this is the hook, this is the now. It is a bare-bones product offer where you cover your costs or minimal outlay now with the promise of profit in the future. But it’s the incredible low-cost, high-value offer right now that you throw out there, that you get out there to your competitors, customers, and steal them. And you bring them in and they become your customers. And this is you increasing your market share. That’s what I want you to grasp hold of, low cost, high value to your competitors’ customers, steal them, and increase your market share.
Then Stage 2. Once they become your customer, you of course can offer some kind of upgrade, or an ongoing, or a rebuild, or a Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, something where you’re not just breaking even now but also making a profit. This is the one that will keep you going over these coming months. And it’s just that little bit more increases, not your market share because you’ve already taken them as a customer, but now increases your profit.
And then, this is the beautiful part, when the market rebounds, when it comes back to the way it was, and I think it’s going to explode out of the box when that time comes, we’ve got to look at your long-time goal. Because you’re going to see that profit expand exponentially when this is all over. Once the economy comes back, bang, and that’s when you can offer full service at full price and you’ve increased your market share. Boom, and we’re back in the driver’s seat. So Stage 1 gets you through now. Stage 2 just a little bit more, yes, just a little bit more for those who will. And Stage 3 is when it all comes back together and is magic.
So how do we do this? Well, you brainstorm, you get your office together. And I know this is simple stuff, but this one, I got to say it, you’ve got to put it on your website. You’ve got to get it out there on the homepage, as a minimum, and, if need be, an additional page to explain a little further. But what I want you to focus on is just the hook, the initial offer. Initially, just that little thing. Low cost to you, I keep saying this, high value to them. That’s what I want you to focus on. And get that onto your website, and then, get that out to the people. Because this is the truth, folks, and I can’t say it any better than this. The best offer in the world is absolutely useless if nobody sees it. It’s true. If no one sees how good your offer is, it means nothing. So I need you to get it out to the people.
And then, once you’ve got it up on the website, start sharing it out to social, email, etc., etc. But I want you to go old-school here, I want you to go looking for people. Don’t wait for them to come looking for you. You’ve got to take this out to them. So spend some time and identify potential customers. Like I’ve said all through, the goal is for you to steal customers from your competition. So get out there and do that. Go looking for them and present them with your offer. In emails, good. Yes, sure. A letter? Hey, that’s much, much better. Maybe even a phone call, why not? Why not? Now, we used to say, “Walk up on the doorstep because a body is the hardest thing to get rid of,” not today. Not right. Now, email. Okay, click, “Delete a letter.” That’s different actually, you know, land mail letter, handwritten envelope, old-school sales. Or a phone call, better yet the letter and then the phone call to follow up. That’s what I’ll be doing. How about you?
And just remember this, if you’ve never done that kind of sales and selling before, which so many small-business owners haven’t, you need to remember this, jot this down please. Here’s the truth about buying your product. Some will, some won’t. So what? The key to sales success is remembering that some will. You’re with me on that? That’s where the magic happens and that’s what you need to focus on.
So here’s my offer to you. If your .com or .com.au domain name is due for renewal any time throughout 2020, simply transfer it into our internal domain-name management system, exactly the same for you just running through my company, and one, I will renew it for you. Yes, I will pay that fee and renew it for you. Plus two, I will give you 15-months free web-site hosting on my virtual private server, the VPS management, you can see the details there. Now, why 15 months? We’ll simply so that your domain-name renewal, your hosting, and then, your SSL certificate don’t come up for renewal themselves in the same month.
So let me just quickly go through that again. A .com or .com.au domain name due for renewal, simply transfer it into my internal system and we can do that for you with your authority. No effort, no work, no time, no cost on your behalf. Just need your approval and authority to do it. I will pay that reregistration of the renewal of the domain name for you. And then two, I will give you free 15-months website hosting on my VPS server here in Australia. And I will give you an additional 18-months free SSL certificates set up for your website.
We will also transfer your website from your current cPanel hosting to ours, and that can take anything from, you know, 30 to 60, 120 minutes. No cost, absolute bonus, no effort for you whatsoever, just your okay to do so.
Now, that sounds like an incredible, incredible offer but that’s not the good bit. The good bit is that it allows me to then plug you into my custom client training to help you get through this to not just survive but thrive. I want you to come out of this better than you were before, in a position where your business is ready for brilliance. That’s what I want for you and that’s what this offer is set up to position you for. So that is my offer to you.
Let me leave you with a couple of thoughts, significant milestones in business, because whoa, 2020. Yeehaw. But you know what, 20 years I’ve been doing this now, July 1st in the year 2000 I started this, registered paulbarrs.com, got online, started building websites. I’ve been doing it for 2 years before that but this was when it became a business. The very next year, boom, September 11, that was a tough one because the majority of my clients were overseas. So I supported my clients through the 9/11 downturn. The GFC 2008, same thing, helped them straight through it, kept working with them, no problem. Now March 2020, global shutdown began, I will support you through this again. It is a difficult time but I’m going to make it easier for you.
So thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much for watching. What a month, oh boy, in 2020. It’s actually looking kind of exciting now, isn’t it? Yes, there’s all this stuff going on. But if we look to the future, oh boy, there is amazing hope. And I want to help you get through that. All you need to do, transfer your domain name into our system, that’s my offer, get in touch, and we will make it happen. And I should just point out, that is actually a limited offer. I have to cap that around 45 to 50 websites because that is my capability with my staff, at this point of time, and I’m not going to go outside our capability. So you can rest assured good results for you, for your business, hope for the future, and a business that doesn’t just survive, it begins to thrive.
All right, folks, thank you so much for stopping by. My name is Paul Barrs from paulbarrs.com. I hope to hear from you. Send me an email, give me a call. Say hello. Talk soon. Bye-bye.
