Troy Ingle

top 3 tips on reLating to Your consumer audience to drive resuLts

Driving bottom-line results is always top-of-mind for business owners big and small, and working to set expectations, strategize operations, and garner those desired results can be an overwhelming task. Where do you start? What matters most? What drives your business strategy?

For Air Force veteran Troy Ingle, a Huntington Learning Center franchisee of five years in Fleming Island, Florida, the key to driving results is honing in on and relating to your consumer audience on a deep level. Ingle is coming off the heels of his strongest month in business yet in October 2021. He credits this success to a consumer-centric approach to business. The below tips are meant to inspire business owners in setting the groundwork to drive bottom-line results with a strategic focus on relating to your ideal and existing customer-base.

Focus on Building a strong team to Deliver a memorable consumer experience

The groundwork for success in relating to your audience begins with focusing on the team that is working with consumers directly. Creating a great experience for your customers extends further than excelling in customer service – all businesses can provide good customer service. What sets your business apart is delivering a memorable consumer experience that differentiates from competitors and drives results. Your team’s technical and industry-related skills aren’t all that is needed to create a business environment that is relatable to consumers. Establishing an emotional connection with the customer is critical and something that is often overlooked. More attention needs to be placed on perfecting the personalized interaction between the customer and the team member. Your team members need to be able to consistently put themselves in their customer’s shoes, understand their needs, anticipate future needs, and deliver an experience that not only meets but exceeds expectations. While many franchise brands have made impressive digital improvements amid the pandemic, equal attention should be placed on energizing frontline employees to focus on building the customer experience. Ingle stresses that technical skills and the systems and processes of the job can be taught, but empathy and passion for interacting and helping consumers must be innate. Remember not to lose sight of the value in the human connection and experiences that fuel your relationship consumers and make your business great.

“Consumers seek out your business for a specific purpose. Hone in on the “why” so that you can better understand what leads to sustained recruitment and retention of customers.”

Build relationships with external organizations tied to Your audience

Once you’re confident in your team’s ability to deliver your ideal consumer experience, it’s time to focus on the external environment where consumers are living their day-to-day. For Ingle, the most promising external organization to align with is the local school district, but he doesn’t just focus on the attention of parents – he works to build and maintain relationships with the teachers.

The teachers in Ingle’s local schools are closest to the students currently enrolled in his business, and those who could potentially receive tutoring services from Huntington Learning Center in the future.

In addition to building and maintaining relationships with local teachers, Ingle also focuses his energy on involvement with

other community organizations that tie into his industry. He is an active member of the advisory council for early childhood development at one high school, in addition to participating in the business advisory council at another high school. Not only do these relationships with external organizations allow for exposure of the brand, it also provides Ingle and his business with a pulse on what consumers are focusing on throughout the year and trends in the education industry. This involvement gives his business the opportunity to prosper and deliver on exactly what consumers want and need.

understand Your audience’s Why – leverage this to recruit and retain

Consumers seek out your business for a specific purpose. Hone in on the “why” so that you can better understand what leads to sustained recruitment and retention of customers. You must also commit to actively listening to your customers – whether that be through inperson interactions, surveys, or business reviews. This will allow you to gain a deeper understanding and deliver on their expectations. The students who come to Ingle’s Huntington Learning Center are there to gain confidence in learning new things. Therefore, Ingle makes it his team’s priority to treat students as individuals and tailor the tutoring programs to fit their unique needs, academic goals, and schedules.

Ingle validates and delivers on his consumer’s why - their reason for enrolling their children in Huntington’s services to help relate to his current and prospective audience. Parents are binding factors in reputation and referral, and through the relationships built with them, Ingle is able to both recruit and retain customers.

Businesses that prevail are the ones that truly understand their consumer audience and build strategies to best serve them. With a customer-centric mindset, businesses can strengthen their relationships with customers – in turn, impacting bottom line results. By honing in on his team, the existing students at his franchise, and the community he serves, Ingle has been able to build a strong base that has fueled personal business growth and helped his students meet their goals at the same time.

To learn more about Huntington Learning Center – Fleming Island, visit https://huntingtonhelps.com/center/ flemingisland