What Is A Sales Process And Why Should I Care?

Well, I guess if you are not interested in growing your business and making more money, then you may not care. Otherwise, it becomes very important.

A sales process is simply a series of steps that a person goes through before they give you money for your product or service. Many businesses, though, never stop and think about these steps, they just figure that if they advertise, they should make more sales. At least, that is what they have been told.

I did a little exercise the other day for one of my businesses that I found extremely helpful. Then I sent an email over to my partner and told him to do the same thing. He was blown away by the result!

Here is what I did…

I simply drew out the steps that a prospect takes as they hear about and interact with my business. Get out a piece of paper and make boxes and draw out the steps that a person takes on the path that turns them from a prospect to a customer.

Here is what I mean. Let’s say for example that first, you advertise, what happens then? What is your call to action? What happens to them if they contact your business? What happens to them if they buy? Do you have a process in place to sell them something else? What happens if they don’t buy? Do you have a follow-up system in place to convert them later?

See, once you draw it out and can see what action leads to the next step, then it can help you organize your business. You may realize that you have neglected an entire group of people that you could be selling to. You may be missing an entire system in the sales process.

The main benefit, though, of doing this exercise is that it helps you understand what moves people along from one step to the next and then you can improve each step for exponential growth in your business. If you understand what action people take after they see your ad, then it is easier to write your ad. All you have to do is get them to take the next action. And so on until they hand you their money.

Advertiser Missed An Opportunity

I was recently driving home and heard an ad on the radio, now the odd time there are good ads on the radio but often they are not.  In this case an advertiser paid good money for an ad but missed a great opportunity.

It was for a local building supply store who had recently changed their brand such that they now represented a different chain.

The ad, though I don’t remember the actual words, went something like,

“We still have the same friendly service, the same low prices, the only thing that has changed is our name”.

I thought what a wasted opportunity!

Here is a perfect chance to invite people in to the store to see what is different.  Why not project the message,

“not only have we changed our name, but come in and see our new line of…”

“We have recently changed our name and as a result, we now have access to many products we couldn’t get before”

and so on.

You see, if all they do is tell you that they are the same as they were, then why would I go in to the store?  What is the call to action? (There was none in the ad by the way).

The point here is that you need to use every opportunity you can to get people in to your store.  What better time than after a name change, or renovation, or new manager, or whatever.  In fact, any reason you can think of can be a reason to come.  And people like to have a reason.  You give them a reason and they will come.

And the reason should not be “because we are the same as we were before”.

A lost opportunity.

Prospect or Customer?

Often times, you will hear someone talk about getting more customers. The media rep will tell you to advertise “to get more customers”, your business might need more customers.

But see, when you advertise, you do not get more customers. It would be nice if you did. But what you are getting is actually more prospects. You see, that is the difference between a prospect and a customer.

Often times, you will hear someone talk about getting more customers. The media rep will tell you to advertise “to get more customers”, your business might need more customers.

A prospect can be defined (by dictionary.com) as someone who is a potential or likely customer, client, etc.

When someone responds to your ad, they fall into that category. They are a potential or likely customer – or they would not have responded.

A customer (dictionary.com) is a person who purchases goods or services from another, a buyer.

See, the difference is the transaction of actually doing business.

Who cares? Well, it matters actually – a lot! Read on…

It matters because it allows you to separate the two in your mind and in your actions towards each group.

It allows you to look at your advertising differently.

We say there are only 3 ways to grow your business. They are

1. traffic

2. conversion

3. back end

See, getting a prospect, and the act of turning them in to a customer are 2 different steps. Each can be handled, improved, tested on their own.

You can increase your advertising – that will get you more prospects. Chances are, they will continue to convert at the same rate. So if you advertise to 100 people and 10 of them respond to your ad, you have a response rate of 10%. If you want 100 new responses (prospects), then you advertise to 1,000 people.

OK, so lets say that your conversion rate from prospect to customer is 20%. That means that 20% of the people who respond to your ad turn in to buyers. Then, you advertise to 100 people, 10 respond (prospects) and 2 buy (customers).

Why does this matter? Well, because now if you want to double your business WITHOUT spending more on the ads, you have 2 options. You can either double your prospects, or you can increase your conversions. If you can get more people to respond to your ad (by making a more effective ad) then you could get 20 people out of every 100 to respond. That is one way to grow your business. Then if you can close 4 respondents out of 10 (instead of 2), you have doubled your business as well.

If you just refer to advertising as the act of getting more customers you tend to ignore your closing rate and you don’t isolate it and spend time working to improve it. What if you could do both?

If you advertise to 100 people and got 20 responses (instead of 10), and then were able to convert 4 of 10 into buyers (instead of 2), then now for your same advertising dollar, you are getting 8 sales instead of 2.

So look at both steps in this process as separate steps and work to increase rates of both prospects and conversions to sales. Then watch your business grow.

Have An Impact On Your Business Today

If you have poked around our blog for any length of time, you will have heard us say that there are only three ways to build your business. We usually say that they are:

1. Increase the number of prospects – that is people hearing about your business

2. Turn more prospects into customers

3. Increase customer value by either increasing the size of each sale or getting your customers to buy more often.

Those same three concepts can be summed up into three words:

1. Traffic

2. Conversion

3. Backend

So, those are the three ways to grow your business. Now, if you want to see the three things that can have the greatest impact on your bottom line in order from most impact to least – for the dollar spent. Watch this:

1. Backend

2. Conversion

3. Traffic

It costs you almost nothing (or very little) to increase your backend where as increasing traffic is the most expensive (and least effective for the dollar).

So, how can you increase your backend? Well, first look around and see if there are any ways that you can increase the size of each purchase. Are there products you can bundle together? Can you recommend additional products to customers as they are completing their transaction? Can you partner with another, somewhat related business and get a commission for sending them clients? Are you following up with past customers – make them an offer they can’t refuse, get them back to your business. Increase their value to you.

If your business has been struggling in this economic decline, then start with the cheapest, easiest way and grow your business today.

Lowest Price As A USP

In the absence of any other differentiation, lowest price becomes the deciding factor on a purchase. What that means is that if you don’t give your customers a better reason to shop with you, they can only compare your price against others and go to the lowest price.

This is not a place where you want to be as a business, you will likely go out of business in a hurry. You would be far better to stand out in your marketplace with a different message and change the focus of your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) – that is your marketing message – to something else that matters to your customers. Your USP needs to answer the question “why should your prospects do business with you above any and all other options”. And you need to give a compelling reason.

Lens Crafters will get your glasses ready in about an hour, Wal Mart is the low price leader (one of the few businesses to successfully pull off this USP), Domino’s Pizza was the first to deliver in “30 minutes or it’s free”.

Each of these companies chose a particular feature of their business and decided to become the leader in that marketplace.

Is there a void in your marketplace? What can you do or deliver that no one else in your marketplace can? Then, before you decide on a USP, make sure that it matters to your customers. It might be an acccomplishment to be able to deliver a certain widget in 10 minutes but if your customers don’t care, or that is not what they are looking for, then don’t try to make it your USP. It won’t help you if no on is looking for that feature.

Find some way to stand out in your marketplace. Something that matters to your customers and that is currently not being delivered to them. Integrate that into your business, sales and marketing do deliver the message over and over, consistantly.

If you don’t find a way to stand out, your customers will buy on price and you will either lose customers or lose money.

Capture, Communicate, Offer

Capture the name of a prospect, communicate with them and make them an offer. The three basic steps of every follow-up system – and something that almost every business can implement – but for some reason, many do not.

The problem is that many businesses simply just focus on getting more people in the door. Of course this is the more expensive way to try and grow your business but that is all some people know.

What you want to do is make better use of the traffic that is already comig in your door before you invite more in. If 100 prospects come in contact with your business and 50 people buy, what are you doing with the other 50? There are many reasons that a person does not buy right now. Of course, these reasons will be different for different businesses and in different industries but I bet if you ask some people why they didn’t buy and if you check around, then you can find out. Sometimes it can be a silly reason you aren’t even aware of and by following up with those prospects, you may be sitting on a goldmine of potential business.

First, let’s change our viewpoint a bit and let’s put everyone who comes in to your business into one of two categories. They either buy today and are a customer, or they do not buy today and they are a prospect – someone we expect to buy in the future. If you can first view everyone who doesn’t buy as a future customer, you will treat them differently and begin to view them as ann asset which will gain value in the future. So get their contact information and begin to follow up with them.

People buy from people they know, like and trust. Once you start to build a relationship with a prospect, you greatly increase your chances of moving them along your sales process. Many business owners don’t think of building a relationship with their prospects but once people get to know who you are and what your business is about, you will start to see repeat buyers.

The last part of the equation is to make these people an offer they can’t refuse. If you have a list of prospects and are in regular contact with them, make them a special offer. Give them a discount that no one else is getting, add in some personal touch and make them feel a bit special, turn your prospects into an elite little club and make them feel special and privileged to be there.

Once you learn how to take people who are not purchasing from you and follow up with them by communicating and makeing them a special offer, you will grow your business larger and at much less cost than you could just by inviting more people in the front door.

How To Use Information Products To Boost Your Credibility

We are all very familiar with information products (info products). We see them every where, we use them every day. Any time information, content, articles, video, instruction, etc is packaged and sold, you have an info product. A book, the daily newspaper, websites,magazines, dvd’s. They all count. When you go out and buy a book, you are not paying for the cost of the paper and the ink, you are buying the content contained inside of it. That is the part that has value to you.

Did you know that you can create your own information products to promote your own business? First we will look at why, then we can look at how…

There are a couple of reasons that you might want to consider this. First of all, it will give you an instant boost in credibility. You automatically appear as an expert if you publish information. In people’s minds, if you are published, you must be the person that knows something. For that reason alone, it can be worth doing. You can use this credibility to set yourself apart in your marketplace.

Another reason is that, depending on your business, you might find that there are things that you keep having to show people, or explain, the same things over and over again. Maybe you could create a product that would do that for you. A dvd or online video showing “how to” do something. Maybe a short manual, report or white paper that can explain a process or procedure.

The fact that you keep repeating the same things to diferent customers will indicate that they all have similar questions. So by creating a product that answers those questions, you will do three things. You will decrease the time you have to spend on that information with each client because you can refer them to the product instead. You have a great way to generate leads because you can run an advertisement that reads “to solve problem xyz, come to my website for a free video” and you look like an expert becuase you have published information that your client is looking for and know you have just gained their respect.

Yup, all from one measley little info product!

OK, so how do you make this? Well, some of that is going to depend on your business but just look around at the questions you keep answering and see if they can be best answered by video, audio file, or printed information. Then create the product and publish it. There are many self-publishing services online and it is very easy and inexpensive to create a workbook or dvd. A simpler way will be to publish the information on your website itself. Online video is commonplace and you can simply upload your video on to YouTube and embed a link on your site that will display it. Printed material can be released in .pdf format and linked to from your site for download. You can have people download it directly or (the better option) use it at a teaser to collect leads and then follow up by email to close a sale.

If you can have information on a topic that requires updating or is changing frequently, then offer a membership service. Either a website or a program by mail where you can charge people a recurring monthly fee for access to the information. This will add another revenue stream to your business.

Feel free to contact us for more details and help to get started.

What Is The Point Of Advertising?

I was recently looking through some of my local Yellow Pages and also local business websites in my area when I started to think about the purpose of advertising. I get the weird feeling as I am flipping through some poorly constructed ads and websites that some (ok, a lot of) businesses don’t understand the purpose of advertising.

I think that some businesses advertise in the Yellow Pages or get a website or on the radio or on local TV… because they feel they have to. They think that this is the “thing to do”, they do it because it is expected. They also see it as an expense.

Now, this last one blows me away because advertising is not an expense. Advertising is an investment to be made in your business and it should be using a tested and proven method. You should have a good idea what your return will be and it is best if you can turn it on and off at will. If your advertising is costing you money and you don’t know why you are doing it,

THEN STOP!

Because you are flushing money down the toilet.

You don’t advertise when you can afford it, you advertise when you want to produce results (typically sales). When times get tough for a company, they often cut back on their advertising first. Oh dear. How can a business expect to make money if they are not advertising? They should be advertising more to boost sales, revenue and profits.

The problem is that most advertising is done poorly and is wasted money. Poor headlines don’t connect with customers, poor copy doesn’t interest them, poor (or no) call to action doesn’t invoke the driving urge to run to their phone and call you right now to place their order.

If your advertising does not produce a predictable, positive result for your business, then stop wasting your money on it. Get it fixed. And then turn on the tap of new profits.

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