What can you learn from Dave Brailsford transforming the British cycling team into world beaters by using Marginal Gains? Let’s look at his business and then some marginal gains examples in business.
The Sir Dave Brailsford Story of Marginal Gains
You don’t have to be a cycling nut to have heard of Dave Brailsford. He’s one of the guys credited with the exceptional improvement made by the British Cycling team over the last couple of decades.
How did it he do it?
Well, interestingly, it wasn’t some big ‘game changing’ tactic he introduced that did it.
It was through what he calls ‘marginal gains’.
Here’s how he explains it:
The whole principle [comes from] the idea that if you broke down everything you could think of that goes into riding a bike, and then improved it by 1%, you will get a significant increase when you put them all together”.
It makes sense. Make tiny improvements in lots of areas, and the net improvement will be substantial.
Marginal Gains Examples In Business
The biggest impact that you can have positively on your business is to use the marginal gains philosophy to slowly but surely make improvements to your business website.
Most business owners spend far too little time on their website, but if you want EASY CLIENT WINS, more income and more time off, improving your website with marginal gains is the place to be!
The more elements that you can improve – however incrementally – will give you a greater overall conversion, more leads, more sales and more income.
Here is my marginal gains process for you to follow to improve the conversions from your website.
1. Logo/Strapline
You have very little time to let someone know that they have landed in the right place on your website.
Most people mess this up completely.
The good news is that it is an easy fix.
Logo: Ensure this is top left and completely legible (big enough) when they land on your website.
Strapline: This should instantly tell your visitor what you do and how you can help them, so that they know that they are in the right place.
2. Your Navigation
It must be:
- Alphabetical when it comes to your services pages (only logical way for your visitors)
- You must ensure that your visitor can easily access all of the common pages, including:
- Home
- About
- Services
- Team
- Free Enquiry – note this is separate from the contact page for good reason. People get distracted on the contact page. You MUST have a separate Free Enquiry page that you link to from every call to action.
- Contact Page – note this is separate from the contact form.
The On Page Content Required For Marginal Gains Wins On Each Page Of Your Website
Headline.
Relate this to their likely state of mind as they arrive at this page.
What will they be thinking or feeling
Will they be happy, worried or concerned?
Whatever it is, start by talking about this, showing that you understand them from the start.
Include the keywords you are targeting in the headline (the H1Tag) and whenever suitable in the body copy (without cramming it in when it makes no sense to the read).
Introductory paragraphs.
Continue to talk about the position that the client finds themselves in at that moment in time by expanding on the headline above.
See my PASTOR copywriting formula for more help.
Your solution.
Reassure the visitor that you are the right business to help them and deal with the challenge they are facing from the introductory paragraph.
Your expertise.
Expand on your expertise in this area including bullet points explain-ing how you have already helped other people just like them. This applies for B2B as much as B2C as you are selling to people.
Early call to action.
Offer options for the visitor to contact you, including your telephone number (hyperlinked so they can click to call) and a link to your Free Online Enquiry (don’t ask them to scroll back up the page to find it –link to it on its own page (not your Contact page)). Include Live Chat on every page too – it gets you more enquiries (marginal gains).
Review.
Add an early review related to the service you provide immediately after the first call to action. Remember with mobiles if you have reviews on the right that column will not be seen, so
they must be sewn into the content too.
Costs.
You have to deal with the elephant in the room, but if your initial contact with new clients is free, that is all you need to stress at this point. Your only task from this page is to sell the first
contact with you.
More details.
Go into more detail about the services you offer.
Answer the common questions your clients always ask you.
Break up a long page of content with Sub headings, bullet
points and images.
Call to action.
Offer options for your visitors to contact you, including a free telephone or local telephone number, and a link to your online enquiry (on it’s own page not on the contact page
where there are too many distractions).
Ensure you use a ‘talking call to action’ rather than just a button as this will generate you more enquiries.
Review.
Add another review after the final call to action.
Other Points To Include For More Marginal Gains Examples
Images.
Images must have “alt text” and “title text” including the keywords targeted on the page as this helps both organic listings and your Google Ads quality score. See SEO training for more
on this.
Content Guidance.
Break up the content with bullet points –again for your dual readership path, and include the following:
- 750+ words per page
- Don’t use jargon, talk in terms your prospects will understand.
- Ensure you have enough pages for each of your core services (minimum 5 per service) to prove expertise.
- Add live chat to generate more enquiries. Real live chat with real people (but not your people, outsourced people). NEVER a chatbot. Email me for your free, two week trial to see how well it will work on
your website.
For more information, see my More Clients From Your Website book on Amazon and download my book below: