How to use quick wins to show your value

I recently moved into a new rented house. It’s beautiful, homely and larger than the last place we could afford – exciting times! But in order to do this, I had to pay a month’s rent upfront, the same amount of money on a deposit, and nearly the same amount again on ‘admin fees’.

We’ve all been there. Everyone knows houses are a pricey game and there is something especially disheartening about being thousands of pounds out of pocket, before you’ve even moved into your new home. In September, I will mostly be living off baked beans.

What I needed – in an ideal house-renting world (which sadly doesn’t exist) – to help me feel more excited, engaged and positive about the move, was a quick win. In this particular scenario, this might have taken the form of: complimentary van hire to help with the move; early access to the house to start moving furniture in; or an extra pair of hands to help unpack when we arrived. Of course, rental agencies don’t need to sweeten the deal – they know we will move in no matter what – but perhaps your customers aren’t so easy to handle?

Quick wins can be used at multiple points in your buyer’s journey – as we will explore in this post – but the start of a business relationship is a great time to notch up a victory. In offering something that won’t cost you much money or time, yet will excite and engage your customer further, you can help the whole sales process go more smoothly. A simple freebee, extra service or display of ‘going beyond’ can completely swing how a client feels about working with you, leading to trusting bonds, happier working relationships and future buy-ins.

Here we offer some tips about when to use quick wins, why they work and how they can help your business.

What are quick wins?

Quick wins are simple, easy and speedy things you can do to delight your customers. When you start working with a new customer, you need to create ‘purchase validation’; they need to see your worth – and fast. Clients get anxious and might start to question their investment if they have to hang around too long to see results.

Requiring low effort and visible results, quick wins build trust while you’re busy establishing the all-important foundations for your customer. Using their goals, provide them with a success story soon after they’ve bought in, and – without sacrificing the long-term work – integrate a quick-win project into the early days of working together. Make sure you share these results with your customer to communicate the progress you’re making.

How do they show value?

If you bought a £1,000 mobile phone but were told you couldn’t use it for another three months, you’d feel pretty frustrated and angry. It’s the same with clients. If they pay for your services but you tell them it’ll be three months before they see results or receive their purchase (as is often the case for SaaS companies or professional service firms), this could lead to friction and impatience, before you’ve even started working together. The first three months of a sale is a crucial period.

Results take time, as we all know, and it may well be at least three months before the customer starts to see changes as a result of the hard work you’ve done for them. But in the meantime, you need a strategy to deliver quantifiable outcomes and prove yourselves a good purchase for their business.

When do you use quick wins?

The most obvious and essential time to use quick wins is during the first three months of working with a new client. But there are myriad other ways you can use quick wins during the course of your working relationship with a customer. These include:

• When something goes wrong: As a way of resetting equilibrium with a customer after discontent, throw in a quick win to reestablish how worthwhile your product is and to set things back on the straight and narrow.
• When a client becomes disengaged: If you aren’t hearing from a client, they’re not using your product or seem to have lost enthusiasm, crack out a quick win to show them you’re still busy working away and to draw them back into the conversation.
• When a customer is being especially co-operative: Quick wins aren’t only for tricky periods – by letting them know they are appreciated, you are cementing already-successful relationships, proving you’re happy to go above and beyond for special customers.
• An ‘anniversary’ is coming up: Has it been six months since a customer bought your product? A year? Two years? Is it their business’ five year anniversary? Make sure you have their important dates in your diary and celebrate with them by including a bonus quick win – if their successes are yours too, they’ll feel extra appreciated.

How do quick wins work in practice?

It can’t be overstated enough: quick wins have to be aligned to your customer’s goals. This is so important. If your customer was a bride and came to your website seeking a veil, submitted her email address through a pop-up during the search, then all the follow-up emails you sent her were about wedding dresses, she wouldn’t be impressed – it’s not what her goal was. Make it your business to know your customer’s goals and you’ll be able to create quick wins that are targeted specifically to them, aligning your services appropriately.

Best practice is to use what they already have. Don’t start reinventing the wheel – nothing speedy or productive ever came from doing that. First you need to ask: what do they already have? If the bride is searching for a veil as they already have their wedding dress, this is a great place to start: you have a ‘before’ point with which to compare the ‘after’ results you get them.

You could start by doing a quick health check. Find the gaps in their buyer’s journey and try to fill the ones that are simple and quick. For example, your bride has her dress and is searching for a veil; a veil is still an important and pricey purchase to make which she won’t rush into.

So while you send her an email to let her know her appointment to come and try on veils has been made for Saturday, you could also include a link to a blog post you’ve written titled ‘The five wedding accessories all brides forget until the last minute’ with a link back to your website, but this time linking to your accessories page. Including a 10% off all accessories when you purchase a veil offer will sweeten the deal even further.

Remember: quick wins should not take you away from the foundational work you’re laying – your main objective is to find that bride the perfect veil – quick wins are purely to keep clients engaged while the important stuff goes on behind the scenes.

How has ESM Inbound successfully used quick wins?

At ESM Inbound, we’re always on the look out for quick wins for our customers. Some examples include:

• ‘Exit Intent’ pop-ups are a highly effective way to increase website conversions. Make sure that the pop-up is offering something relevant to the page being viewed and will be valuable whether or not they choose to work with you. We’ve had great success with Exit Intents for customers such as Piota and Beat Goes On.
• Facebook’s Lead Ads are another way to quickly increase the number of contacts in your CRM. These adverts remove the need for prospects to provide their details (Facebook pre-populates the form). Combined with a great content offer, you can quickly grow your email list. We’ve found success with this technique for a number of customers including Early MBA and Learning Ladders.

Lead Flows and Lead Ads tend to show results the day they launch, so are really great to show immediate improvements. One of the best things about Lead Flows is they take advantage of a client’s existing traffic and pages – you don't have to promote them in the same way as a landing page or blog post.

So next time you take on a new customer, feel like a customer needs a boost; or you want to reward a great customer, try out a quick win and see what a difference it could make – we really hope you and your customers see fast results and it leads to happy relationships.