netrashetty
Netra Shetty
Aaron's, Inc. is a lease-to-own retailer. It was founded by John M. Glenn in 1955.[1] The company focuses on furniture, electronics, appliances, computer leases and retail sales. The company is divided into three major divisions: sales and lease ownership; corporate furnishings; and manufacturing. The incorporation of manufacturing as well as retailing makes the company vertically integrated.
As of 11 June 2010, Aaron's, Inc. has 1723 locations, broken down as follows:
1094 company-owned sales and lease ownership stores
11 Rimco stores
7 Franchise Rimco stores
599 Franchised SALO stores
12 Aaron's Office Furniture
This includes the first company owned Canadian store, opened on April 13, 2007 in Windsor, Ontario.
Aaron's delivery truck
In September, 2008 Aaron's announced the sale of its Corporate Furnishings division to CORT Business Services. The Corporate Furnishings division is made up of the company's residential rent-to-rent business, recording revenues of approximately $99 million in 2007. The Corporate Furnishings division operated 47 stores.
"This sale will enable us to focus our resources and energy on growing the Aaron's Sales & Lease Ownership division. With this divesture, we anticipate the Company will record increased revenue and earnings growth rates in future periods," said Robert C. Loudermilk, Jr., President and Chief Executive Officer of Aaron Rents.[2]
NASCAR racing: Aaron's sponsors the No. 00 "Aaron's Dream Machine," driven by David Reutimann in NASCAR's Sprint Cup Series as well as the No. 99 "Aaron's Dream Machine," driven by Trevor Bayne in NASCAR's Nationwide Series. They also sponsor Ken Butler III, a decision that has been criticized because he is the son of Bill Butler, Jr, the Chief Operating Officer of Aarons. [1]
Aaron's Cycling Team - sponsors both elite men's and women's professional cycling teams that compete on the USA Cycling National Racing Calendar
Football Saturday in the South, a series of pre-season documentaries that are syndicated by Raycom.
As your contacts make their way through your sales funnel, some of them will eventually reach the point where they agree that you can help them and they become your customers.
So what are you going to sell them?
It’s easy to choose a product or service and just pound that one out over and over, handing it to each customer and taking their cash. But you’ll end up putting in a lot of time attracting an audience, generating leads, and presenting to prospects. What you need is a series of products that you can sell to your customers. So how do you come up with these?
I’m going to show you a simple chart I’ve been using. I’ve been using it for a few clients’ businesses, as well as my own business. Now, the process I’m going to show you can be used for any business, although I’m giving you an example of a company that sells info products and does consulting (because that is what a lot of my clients do). However, you can apply this to any business, especially if your existing business is trying to branch into selling info products.
Start with a 2×2 chart, below. I’ve labelled the horizontal line “DIY” (Do-It-Yourself) and “DIFM” (Do-It-For-Me). This spectrum is the amount of empowering advice or “hands-on” help you provide. I’ve labelled the vertical line “Specific” and “General”. This spectrum is the amount of detail you provide.
Once you have this chart built, it’s time to add the products or services you offer (or plan to offer). I’ve given you a typical example of the kind of offerings that a lot of my clients have.
In this example of a “typical” client, they have charted out an ebook that empowers their do-it-yourself customer with high-level but still helpful content. Other products and services are placed in the appropriate places – ecourse, toolkit, coaching, and project management. Consulting is the most detailed and most hands-on of all the products and services offered by this example customer.
In general, customers tend to move from general/DIY products and services toward specific/DIFM products and services. (See below). The general/DIY ones (lower left) are “entry level” while the specific DIFM ones (upper right) are for more sophisticated, successful customers.
That’s the easy part. Anyone can plot their existing or planned products and generally figure out where they should go.
THESE NEXT STEPS MAKE ALL THE DIFFERENCE
Price your products with ease
Pricing is your products is now simplified because your products and services tend to increase in price in the same direction that your customers become more advanced. (Not always, but usually). This makes sense: They’re willing to get their feet wet with an early-stage purchase. As they discover the potential value you provide, they’ll be willing to part with more and more of their money while handing over more hands-on responsibility to you. If you know any of your ideal price points, you can work forwards or backwards to help you decide on the others.
Once you’ve decided on a “sales funnel within a sales funnel”, set up your business so that your customers will be naturally presented with the next thing at the right time. For example, at the end of your ebook, put a link to a sales page for your ecourse or for your toolkit (and include a coupon code so they are incentivized to buy!). Or, at the end of your toolkit, offer a link to your coaching and project management offerings (and include a special “2 hours of free coaching or project management” incentive).
Build additional products and services
One of the goals of your business should be to increase the amount of money your customers spend with you. After all, you’ve already done the hard work of selling to them, now it’s just a matter of reminding them the great value you already provided them and letting them know that even greater value is available. (Okay, I’m simplifying it a bit, but it IS easier to sell to existing customers than to existing prospects).
Using the same chart, identify the gaps and develop products and services that can be added.
You’ll notice that there are no products or services offered in the entry-level DIFM area (lower right). Perhaps you would consider a lower-priced outsourced version of your consulting practice, or maybe you might want to licence your system for others to do.
There’s also a big space in the specific DIY area (upper left). This might be a good place to offer roundtables, master classes, and insiders’ clubs.
And there’s a big gap between the project management offering and the consulting offering (upper right). Is there a middle ground you can offer between project management and consulting? Maybe a guided coaching/consulting hybrid service can be added here, where you do some of the work and the customer does some, too.
WHAT’S NEXT
This is a simple tool to use, and it works for new and existing businesses who are trying to figure out what to do with existing products and services or planned ones.
This chart still works for businesses that don’t sell information products. In fact, several types of businesses can use the chart as-is to sell their services and advice. A dentist, for example, would have their dentistry in the upper right corner, but on the lower-left corner they might sell toothbrushes. (Okay, that’s maybe an extreme example but I wanted to show you what I meant).
If you have existing products and want to sell more, or if you are thinking about product development right now, get a sheet of paper and start thinking about your sales funnel within a sales funnel.
As of 11 June 2010, Aaron's, Inc. has 1723 locations, broken down as follows:
1094 company-owned sales and lease ownership stores
11 Rimco stores
7 Franchise Rimco stores
599 Franchised SALO stores
12 Aaron's Office Furniture
This includes the first company owned Canadian store, opened on April 13, 2007 in Windsor, Ontario.
Aaron's delivery truck
In September, 2008 Aaron's announced the sale of its Corporate Furnishings division to CORT Business Services. The Corporate Furnishings division is made up of the company's residential rent-to-rent business, recording revenues of approximately $99 million in 2007. The Corporate Furnishings division operated 47 stores.
"This sale will enable us to focus our resources and energy on growing the Aaron's Sales & Lease Ownership division. With this divesture, we anticipate the Company will record increased revenue and earnings growth rates in future periods," said Robert C. Loudermilk, Jr., President and Chief Executive Officer of Aaron Rents.[2]
NASCAR racing: Aaron's sponsors the No. 00 "Aaron's Dream Machine," driven by David Reutimann in NASCAR's Sprint Cup Series as well as the No. 99 "Aaron's Dream Machine," driven by Trevor Bayne in NASCAR's Nationwide Series. They also sponsor Ken Butler III, a decision that has been criticized because he is the son of Bill Butler, Jr, the Chief Operating Officer of Aarons. [1]
Aaron's Cycling Team - sponsors both elite men's and women's professional cycling teams that compete on the USA Cycling National Racing Calendar
Football Saturday in the South, a series of pre-season documentaries that are syndicated by Raycom.
As your contacts make their way through your sales funnel, some of them will eventually reach the point where they agree that you can help them and they become your customers.
So what are you going to sell them?
It’s easy to choose a product or service and just pound that one out over and over, handing it to each customer and taking their cash. But you’ll end up putting in a lot of time attracting an audience, generating leads, and presenting to prospects. What you need is a series of products that you can sell to your customers. So how do you come up with these?
I’m going to show you a simple chart I’ve been using. I’ve been using it for a few clients’ businesses, as well as my own business. Now, the process I’m going to show you can be used for any business, although I’m giving you an example of a company that sells info products and does consulting (because that is what a lot of my clients do). However, you can apply this to any business, especially if your existing business is trying to branch into selling info products.
Start with a 2×2 chart, below. I’ve labelled the horizontal line “DIY” (Do-It-Yourself) and “DIFM” (Do-It-For-Me). This spectrum is the amount of empowering advice or “hands-on” help you provide. I’ve labelled the vertical line “Specific” and “General”. This spectrum is the amount of detail you provide.
Once you have this chart built, it’s time to add the products or services you offer (or plan to offer). I’ve given you a typical example of the kind of offerings that a lot of my clients have.
In this example of a “typical” client, they have charted out an ebook that empowers their do-it-yourself customer with high-level but still helpful content. Other products and services are placed in the appropriate places – ecourse, toolkit, coaching, and project management. Consulting is the most detailed and most hands-on of all the products and services offered by this example customer.
In general, customers tend to move from general/DIY products and services toward specific/DIFM products and services. (See below). The general/DIY ones (lower left) are “entry level” while the specific DIFM ones (upper right) are for more sophisticated, successful customers.
That’s the easy part. Anyone can plot their existing or planned products and generally figure out where they should go.
THESE NEXT STEPS MAKE ALL THE DIFFERENCE
Price your products with ease
Pricing is your products is now simplified because your products and services tend to increase in price in the same direction that your customers become more advanced. (Not always, but usually). This makes sense: They’re willing to get their feet wet with an early-stage purchase. As they discover the potential value you provide, they’ll be willing to part with more and more of their money while handing over more hands-on responsibility to you. If you know any of your ideal price points, you can work forwards or backwards to help you decide on the others.
Once you’ve decided on a “sales funnel within a sales funnel”, set up your business so that your customers will be naturally presented with the next thing at the right time. For example, at the end of your ebook, put a link to a sales page for your ecourse or for your toolkit (and include a coupon code so they are incentivized to buy!). Or, at the end of your toolkit, offer a link to your coaching and project management offerings (and include a special “2 hours of free coaching or project management” incentive).
Build additional products and services
One of the goals of your business should be to increase the amount of money your customers spend with you. After all, you’ve already done the hard work of selling to them, now it’s just a matter of reminding them the great value you already provided them and letting them know that even greater value is available. (Okay, I’m simplifying it a bit, but it IS easier to sell to existing customers than to existing prospects).
Using the same chart, identify the gaps and develop products and services that can be added.
You’ll notice that there are no products or services offered in the entry-level DIFM area (lower right). Perhaps you would consider a lower-priced outsourced version of your consulting practice, or maybe you might want to licence your system for others to do.
There’s also a big space in the specific DIY area (upper left). This might be a good place to offer roundtables, master classes, and insiders’ clubs.
And there’s a big gap between the project management offering and the consulting offering (upper right). Is there a middle ground you can offer between project management and consulting? Maybe a guided coaching/consulting hybrid service can be added here, where you do some of the work and the customer does some, too.
WHAT’S NEXT
This is a simple tool to use, and it works for new and existing businesses who are trying to figure out what to do with existing products and services or planned ones.
This chart still works for businesses that don’t sell information products. In fact, several types of businesses can use the chart as-is to sell their services and advice. A dentist, for example, would have their dentistry in the upper right corner, but on the lower-left corner they might sell toothbrushes. (Okay, that’s maybe an extreme example but I wanted to show you what I meant).
If you have existing products and want to sell more, or if you are thinking about product development right now, get a sheet of paper and start thinking about your sales funnel within a sales funnel.