NABO Helped Boost My Profits 70% In 6 Weeks & Saved Me 28 Hours Work A Week

A few months ago, John Haslam’s business (Jeves Magazine and Leaflet Distribution) had almost no cash flow simply because he was too preoccupied with networking, delivering his product and taking phone calls to send out and chase up invoices.

He was working “eighteen hours a day, six days a week and collapsing on Sundays” running two full-time businesses (the distribution business Jeves and a home-cleaning franchise Molly Maid) but had no time left to follow up the leads he received from attending networking events or to use the marketing techniques he’d found to be successful in the past.

“I was chasing my tail because I wasn’t getting the bills out fast enough. As my other half kept saying ‘If you don’t get some money in soon, it doesn’t matter how much you sell and market, you are going to have no business left.’”

For although he’d had a government-sponsored mentor for seven months, he still didn’t have the tools he desperately needed to market his service more effectively nor the time to put any of it into practice.

“I found it very useful to have a mentor: he made me really sit up and realise that what I had built up was not really very good but the problem was that he wasn’t allowed to give advice so I was still stuck, not knowing how to make things better.

“All he would say is ‘What is your challenge this month?’ because we met once a month and I would tell what it was and he’d say ‘Okay, so what are you going to do about resolving it?’ I’d tell him and he’d say ‘Well, go away and do that then.’ He couldn’t tell me a better way of doing it or give me a way that I hadn’t thought of.

“When I came to the end of his mentoring, I decided I wanted to find a way of getting my businesses to the next stage. I didn’t want to just carrying on working with my own ideas. I needed help from other people who could advise me.”

He then read “The Marketing Secrets of a Multi-millionaire Entrepreneur” by Jonathan Jay, Managing Director of NABO. Inspired by what he read, he ordered NABO’s marketing CDs and DVDs and then attended an introductory Business Building weekend.

It was during that weekend, he made the decision to join NABO’s Advanced Programme.

And that’s when everything began to change.

“It’s as if somebody just turned a tap on,” admits John. “I’ve just had to take on four new full-time staff since I started with NABO because I’m swamped with work.

“I joined the Advanced Programme last November and had the first meeting at the Crowne Plaza in London with NABO’s PR Expert Paul Green. We spent the first couple of hours describing our businesses and where we wanted them to go.”

No-one in the room that day could believe that John could manage run two full-time businesses on his own as he had been trying to do for more than 10 years. “Paul asked me how I’d done it. And the answer was ‘Very badly.’

“Paul said ‘You can carry on the way are, basically stressed up to your eyeballs and working eighteen hours a day but if you want to build your businesses, you must change the way you’re doing things.’

“Having spent the money on the Advanced Programme, there didn’t seem a lot of point ignoring what Paul and Jonathan told me so I went away and did what they’d suggested.”

He committed to make three major changes immediately: to systematize and outsource his business procedures; to get an administrative assistant; and to move out of his home office and into a rented office. And he was encouraged by Paul to set himself a massive target for 2010: to double the profits of his leaflet and magazine distribution business, Jeves.

“Afterwards, I sat down and thought ‘How on earth am I going to afford this?’ The problem was that my business was growing rapidly but I had no cash. Fortunately, I belong to a bartering association and I used the bartering credits I’d earned to hire an assistant and to have all the telephone calls about the home cleaning service answered by an agency.

“I don’t get any direct phone calls anymore and that saves me about 16 hours a week. And now I have someone who can take care of all the paperwork for both businesses. She does all the billing, the admin, and that has freed up another 10 to 12 hours a week of my time.

“Apart from the fact that I am no longer exhausted, I am using my brain now. I am actually at long last working on the business instead of in it.”

Moving into a rented office has also helped boost his productivity, he says. “Although I was pretty disciplined about working from home because I had done it for 15 years, it was all too easy to waste time without realising it. I’d go for a quick cup of tea and a sandwich and it would turn into a 45-minute break, even though I hadn’t intended to take so long. It is amazing how much time you waste when you work from home.

“Now, I have no distractions at all. Last week, for example, I was able to set aside an entire day and go through all the NABO CDs, DVDs and other material and jot down ideas I can use in my business which is something I would never ever have done before. I just wouldn’t have had the time because the phone would have been ringing constantly.”

At his second Advanced Programme meeting, John was advised to reintroduce all the successful marketing methods he’d used in the past.

“Until then, there just hadn’t been enough hours in the day to do it all. I have re-introduced all of those methods. I used to do a lot of cold calls to premises and send out 100 ‘cold call’ letters a week to businesses, offering my services and it had worked very well but I stopped because I found networking to be easier.

“I now know that I made a major mistake in stopping what was successful.”

He’s gone back to sending 100 letters out each week (using the direct response techniques he’s learnt from NABO) and his administrative assistant is in the process of establishing a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system so that the follow-up process becomes automated.

He’s also discovered a way to make his networking more effective.

“In the past, I was going to networking events, getting a lot of leads and interest but didn’t have time to follow up. Now, my networking is becoming more profitable because I am following the leads through. Obviously this is all still comparatively new – it has all happened in the last few months – but I am actually chasing every lead now and then keeping in contact with people who have made a general enquiry.”

The NABO technique that has had the most impact so far however is niche marketing.

“That has been the biggest success of the whole lot. I pick just one industry, think of a reason why I should write to them and then give them an offer they’ll find hard to turn down.

“I’m really just using the techniques that Jonathan and NABO have taught me: I say things like ‘I have only got one space left – if you don’t take it, that space will go to one of your competitors.’

“I sent my first letter to about 56 health clubs and gyms in the Northampton area. I picked up six new clients as a result. The whole exercise took about half an hour of my time; cost me £56  and I made £1,000 profit.

“That encouraged me…so I then did the next one to another niche market and it cost me £30 and so far has made me £700 profit.

“I have just sent another letter out and the mailing cost me £30 and has already brought in two new clients with three more on the go.

“I have just had to take on four brand new, full time staff because I am just swamped with work.”

And these changes have had a cumulative impact on both businesses…

“I set a target at my first Advanced Programme in November and reaffirmed that target at the December Gold Day when we were encouraged to set the bar at 100ft. My target was to double my Jeves’ profit for the year. I have gained enough contracted work that I have achieved 70% of that target and we’re only six weeks into the New Year.

“I expect to achieve my target – of doubling my profits – within another six weeks.” His home cleaning franchise Molly Maid has also grown 5% – impressive for a company that was struggling so much last year because of the recession that John was considering making two staff redundant.

“You look and think that it is not possible to double your business in this current climate and yet I am two thirds of the way towards achieving my target and it’s only six weeks into the year. It’s all about having the tools to make things happen and having the time to think about my business.

“One of the things that I enjoy about NABO is as well as giving you huge amounts of information they make you concentrate on the three or four things at a time.”

The success he’s already achieved as a result of becoming involved with NABO helped him face what might otherwise have been a disaster: in the first week of the year, his biggest client rang to cancel her contract with him.

“My biggest client, who represented 25% of my business in turnover and profits, rang me up and said, ‘I can’t carry on. I’m not making any money so I’ve got to shut my magazine down.’

“I sat down and thought, ‘Crikey. I’m going to lose all that money. Okay, pick yourself up and dust yourself down. What can you do about it?’

“So I rang her back and said, ‘Is there any way we can save the magazine?’ She said unless I wanted to buy it, there wasn’t any way to save the magazine. I made a few calls to friends who own magazines and persuaded one of them to ring her. To cut a long story short, he ended up buying it from her, which saved 25% of my business.

“A few weeks afterwards, I got a phone call from him and he told me he’d decided to double the size of the magazine. Suddenly, I’d gone from struggling and being faced with losing 25% of my business to actually putting on an extra 15%.

“NABO has given me confidence in my ability. My personal confidence has been growing and growing. Before I had ideas but I didn’t know how to make them work. The tools were the bit that I was missing. I don’t think I actually believed it would happen. Now I know I can make it happen… I’m running a business that a few people told me wouldn’t last because of the competition from the internet and now, it’s going from strength to strength and I employ 10 full-time staff.”