With all the buzz we created about my son Michael and his entrepreneurial pursuits, I've had a bunch of requests to follow up with an update.
Michael has held three live computer training events for the 55+ crowd so far in 2013. He's obtained his leads from live presentations to large groups, door to door sales and an ad in the local newspaper. His show rate has been around 40%, which as many of you know is terrible. He's sending reminder e-mails and text messages and making reminder calls the night before each meeting but people always seem to find a reason to cancel the morning of or simply not show.
This leads us to his main issue, economics. Because Michael is only charging $10 for the class he can't afford to offer a gift or premium for showing up like many of my clients do. These days, it's even popular to offer gas cards as an incentive to show for your appointment. We'll call this the ‘carrot' approach. He raised his price 50% just this last week, so we'll see how that affects conversion. He is also brainstorming other ways to improve his show rate and also other methods to deliver his service. But more on that in another post.
So, let's look back at what Michael has done and see if we can learn from it.
Michael identified that he has a show rate issue and has taken some first steps on improving it.
Do you know your show rate? What are you doing to improve it?
Consider how you can offer a ‘carrot' to entice your clients to make their appointments. Are you following up with No Show clients to help them reschedule? Do you have a system in place to track them?
We have helped clients raise their bottom line simply by converting their No Shows. To review, know you are leaving business on the table if you are not working to (1) improve your show rate and (2) follow up with your No Shows.
Read more about Michael's entrepreneurial exploits here.
