Louise Pengilley helps JRA Cars go the extra mile to win new business
JRA Cars – Background
JRA Cars (JRA) offers executive car and chauffeur hire within the Guildford/ Camberley area, as well as London and surrounding airports. With over 20 years’ experience, they provide cars and chauffeurs for every occasion, predominantly business travel and airport transfers.
JRA Cars has grown organically since its inception in 1993, with business growth mainly from referrals and word of mouth. They have a solid base of corporate clients who mainly use their services for business travel. In 2018, Wendy Moffat bought the company from her former employer and now runs the business with the support of her husband, Kevin.
Challenges faced
Wendy had reviewed the overall business processes and their pricing models, then planned to concentrate on their business growth strategy in 2020. This started with work on their brand strategy, vision and values, with the next phase being to create and implement a sales and marketing plan.
However, when the Coronavirus pandemic hit in March, JRA Cars was significantly affected as business travel essentially came to a standstill. Wendy had to quickly re-evaluate JRA’s objectives and turn the long-term plans into a short-term strategy, to find innovative and tactical ways to create new revenue streams.
Wendy had met Louise Pengilley, a sales coaching and business development consultancy, at a networking event in 2019. She had instantly warmed to Louise when they met and her straight-talking, pragmatic approach, so reached out to Louise Pengilley for help with business growth during the COVID-19 lockdown.
Business development strategy
JRA Cars reiterated that any investment with Louise Pengilley had to add immediate value in the form of revenue: if Louise’s services didn’t deliver increased revenue in the first month, they would have to stop.
Louise initially carried out a comprehensive Business Development Review, from which it was clear that when JRA Cars were taking new, ad hoc client bookings, they were not maximising on sales opportunities. Whilst they have built very strong, loyal relationships with their clients over time, JRA needed to develop new sales strategies to turn one-off bookings into repeat business. They were advised to implement a process to proactively find out about any other client requirements and to potentially upsell and increase revenue by explaining the full range of services on offer.
After the business development review, Louise Pengilley developed a high-level plan around JRA’s objectives, which was to be measured by achieving a set amount of increased revenue each month. Louise advised on the sales tactics to optimise these figures and Wendy from JRA delivered them.
Louise helped Wendy define their target audience and identify their most profitable clients, as well as increasing their sales pipeline and conversion rates. Wendy needed support to develop a more sales-focused mindset and Louise gave her tips and advice on structuring sales calls, so she had increased confidence when having a conversation with a brand new prospect. Louise also reviewed Wendy’s 60-second business introduction that she used at networking events, honing it down to be more specific and targeted, with the aim of attracting new clients.
Impressive results
After just one month, Louise Pengilley had helped JRA Cars achieve their turnover target, which had been set out in the plan, which they also reached and exceeded over the next two months. JRA Cars have been so pleased with the results that Louise has been retained in a consultative capacity, supporting them to grow and expand.
Louise Pengilley has also helped JRA implement a structured process to optimise fares. These results have been incredible: one fare revenue even increased more than five-fold as a result of the new process.
Wendy Moffat, owner of JRA Cars, said,
Louise has helped me enormously with the Sales and Marketing functions of the business. My requirements were tough and I made it clear that any investment in business strategy had to produce immediate ROI. Louise took this in her stride and applied her ‘laser focus’ to guide and support me with business growth. Louise has helped me to break tasks down into tangible chunks, starting with a short-term plan but now looking at our medium and longer-term sales and marketing strategy.
Louise Pengilley, Business Development Consultant added,
I listened to JRA Cars to fully understand their business challenges, then I used my experience and expertise to define their target market and implement appropriate strategies to suit their requirements.
Many of my clients have been hugely affected by Covid but I demonstrate to them that, once they implement focus, structure and processes into their strategy, they can successfully increase their revenue and improve sales conversion rates. I am delighted that JRA Cars put their faith in my services and have seen such positive results to justify the investment.
