He built a unique training and development business with his father, took it to the top, struggled, bankrupted it….. and built it back. Vulnerable. Authentic. Smart. Productive. Successful. These are the words that come to mind when thinking of Greg Schinkle, President of Unique Development Leaders in Front Line Leadership Systems. Today, he is very successful and he has landed three, million dollars training contracts and several $100,000+ contracts. Greg and his team train supervisors in manufacturing to be better leaders so they can improve safety quality and productivity by engaging their team members.
He started the CAPS Convention 2017 with Supersize your Business Pre-conference session with these high valuable insights:
NICHE
The more you go down into specializing, the more you get away from competition. Find what you like to do and what comes to you and focus on it and chunk it down until you find your niche.
You get rich in the niche. – Greg Schinkle
GET BUSINESS
His ways to get business: past clients, referrals, google search: where you would type: supervisor training manufacturing, organic results online, and target the human resources or the operations manager, the ladder being the ultimate buyer.
Have a product all packaged and easy to buy. Surveying, Measuring, Reporting and Follow-up. Offer a complete solution instead of just a problem solving and band-aid business. Differentiate to justify the premium and why you are the only company who can do what you do. Have a video.
Position yourself as a premium and unique product as opposed to a commodity. Have a high strategic impact with your offer instead of a “feel-good” discretionary band-aid.
Describe your product as a SYSTEM.
1: Set expectations
2. Build skills
3. Measure the impact – journal, reporting system, tracking
4. Sustain the change – follow on sessions, e-learning, video libraries of learning tools
MONEY CAN BUY HAPPINESS
Money can buy happiness in the way you should outsource what you don’t want to do to someone who loves doing it. You will always get more profit if you focus on what you are really good at. It is worth investing in someone that knows what they are doing.
PRICING
Instead of charging fixed fee for the day, charge a fee per person instead. The more people they have, the more profit you generate. The base fee needs to be per person. i.e. $750 per person. as opposed to $22,000 package. Add each component and divide it per person so that they can budget depending on how many employees they will send to your training. If you were told you were training 30 employees and 100 show up, or if they ask you to multiple sessions, you will be compensated accordingly.
Greg recommends these books: “Employees not doing what you expect” “Fusion or Fizzle” “What great supervisors know” “Built to sell”