I Doubled A Business in 60 Days to Show It’s Not Luck (Part 1)

Summary

• I discovered issues with one of my portfolio companies and fixed them, resulting in doubled sales in just 60 days.
• Show rate, offer rate, close rate, cash collected upfront, and unit sold are crucial metrics to understand in any appointment-based business.
• We had a problem with a show rate of 49% against our benchmark of 70%, which indicated a 40% growth opportunity.
• Offer rate reflects lead quality, and we were previously showing a low quality with 75% of appointments needing cancellation before even reaching the 49% show rate.
• Low close rate and objections during sales calls were also issues, pointing to the need for better discovery and handling of objections.
• Cash collected upfront was less than half, meaning we had to work on improving sales conviction.
• The unit sold was only 56 per month, far below our potential.
• We started by hiring a new sales director to address leadership gaps and personnel issues.
• We switched ad targeting from optimizing for cost per lead to optimizing for cost per sale to attract the right customers.
• We then optimized sales by reducing the sales team and resetting expectations for better performance.
• Promoted one of the setters to a lead nurture specialist to improve lead management and appointment setting processes.
• We revised our sales scripts, focusing on deep discovery questions and trained the team on resolving objections, known as 'looping.'
• Results: The show rate increased by 40%, close rate improved by 50%, and cash collected upfront nearly doubled, leading to an increase in sales from 56 to 93 per month.
• The next steps include addressing further problems in product and customer success.

Video

How To Take Action

I would suggest starting by looking at key metrics in your business. These include your show rate, offer rate, close rate, cash collected up front, and units sold. If you find that any of these numbers are lower than they should be, that's your chance to grow.

First, check your show rate. If it's below 70%, you've got room to improve. A good way of doing this is to tweak the way you're communicating with customers before appointments. Add personal touches like a video text to remind them of the meeting.

Look at your offer rate next. If you're making offers to less than 100% of your leads, consider whether your ad targeting is reaching the right people. You might be attracting leads that don't actually qualify for what you're offering.

If you have a low close rate, work on your sales scripts. Make sure your team is asking deep discovery questions and not just staying on the surface. Train them to handle objections and 'loop'—address the concern and then ask for the sale again.

Check how much cash you collect upfront. If it's less than half of what you're selling, that's a sign your sales team needs to improve their conviction. Teach them to make the customer believe in the value of what you're selling.

Finally, count the units you sell each month. If the number is low, make sure your sales process is tightened up based on the other metrics we've talked about.

Next, hiring the right people is super important. Get a good sales director if you must and make sure they fit your team culture. Sales people need to understand the customer, so train them well with this focus.

And don't forget, if you have too many salespeople for your number of leads, downsize. Focus on keeping the ones that perform the best and reset expectations to push your team harder.

Improving in these areas should help you increase sales, just as it helped double sales for one of my companies in just 60 days. Remember, you can always find more growth opportunities, like in product development and customer success. Keep looking for ways to improve!

Quotes

"Think about the S&P 500, they're like, we trying to grow 9% a year, it's like boom, I unlock that I get 40% growth, I don't have to do anything else for like 4 years in the S&P, big wins"

– Alex Hormozi

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"The number of sales you make is directly proportional to how many times you ask"

– Alex Hormozi

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"There's nothing that demotivates a high performer like a low performer who's still on the team"

– Alex Hormozi

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"We had better people that's how"

– Alex Hormozi

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"If you have the same problem that has recurred multiple quarters in a row in the same Department underneath of the same who it might not be a what issue it might be a who issue"

– Alex Hormozi