B.O.B -The sales funnel
A good marketer knows to adjusts to the ever-changing terrain of marketing without losing sight of what needs to be done to get people’s attention. Marketing is no longer a numbers game, but it remains a funnel. We are going to take you through the key steps that you can use to drive people down your sales funnel. The five below steps are pretty much straight forward and practical:
1. Contacts
Part of the marketing process is to make contact with the potential clients. Where ever you go, make sure to engage with people so that you can create contacts.
2. Categorize
Categorize people accordingly. Not everyone is a potential clients, but you need theses people because they might know someone who is a potential client, so you must be able to identify those and categorize them accordingly. Another category of people is those that can be customers but are not sure and ready yet. The last category is the hot customers. These are the customers that you must have immediately! They are ready, they know their needs and need your services. Sign them up today.
3. Clarify
Clarify your contacts. Make your contact details clear and what you offer clear to your clients. Send them your information. Clarify their needs that your company can meet.
4. Convert
Converting can be a lengthy process depending on what your organizations is doing. You can’t magically make it happen. You have to work on and be strategic about it. Encourage those visiting customers to engage with you on the various social platforms, the most prominent being Facebook or website.
5. Conversations
Building relations with your clients is key in marketing. It could be over lunch, via emails or wherever, make a plan to capitalize on the conversation that has been started by your client.
Watch the video on the sales funnel below:
The State Of your Business Affairs – SOBA
There’s been serious economic changes that have occurred recently, and that calls for a lot of things to change in business. Entrepreneurs sure must do things differently in order to survive. Everyone must change, especially small-business owners. The good news is while change is good; it does not mean that what you have been doing all along is bad. Change can be leveraged to keep up desired progress, saving cost and eliminating duplicative efforts.
With the rand becoming weaker and weaker every day, it cannot be a surprise that the confidence of many business owners is in tatters. Actually, everyone’s confidence is torn into pieces. Therefore as a business owner, you need to have strategies in place that are designed to work in a changing business climate.
Constantly check the state of your business affairs. Adjust, confront and conquer.
In tough times such as these, advisors are crucial because you need people to bounce ideas off, inspect what you’re doing, and push you to greater accomplishments. And always keep in mind that this isn’t about you; it’s about the business. Keep your emotions aside.
Being an entrepreneur is your choice, so make it work. It can be done. You can survive, emerge and succeed in this downsized economy, if you follow the right path.
5 steps to make you stick with your marketing plan
It may be tempting to abandon your long term marketing plan when you do not see it working immediately. Don’t! Stick to it and work on it every day. Be consistent in implementing it. Give it time to work.
These 5 steps can help you make the most of your long-term marketing plan:
- Focus on your niche.
Become the expert in all things involving your niche. Don’t limit your knowledge to the services you offer. The more you know about your niche’s priorities and challenges, the more valuable a resource you can become to them. Become familiar with other professionals who can assist your niche with challenges outside your expertise. When you’re tempted to work with clients outside your niche, make sure the time and payoff will be worth it and won’t draw you away from your commitment.
- Stay close to your ideal client.
Networking, surveys, online community forums, trade magazines, and associations are all great ways to keep sharp about the things that matter to your ideal client. Also, stay on top of the news, and ask yourself how your client’s needs will be affected by changes in the business and world environment.
- Keep your eyes on your competition.
If your clients stop thinking that you offer a competitive advantage in addressing their needs, you lose and the competition wins. Don’t be the last to know what your competition is doing.
- Make sure you’re positioned to win.
If you’re doing the first four steps, you’ll know when it’s time to change your tune, tweak your message, and speak a new language that’s more in tune with what your ideal client needs. Ask yourself, “Is my unique selling proposition still unique? Does anyone do it better? What one thing can I do to serve my clients better?” That’s how you stay unique.
- Take action every day.
Follow your schedule. Complete the actions you say you’ll complete in your daily schedule. At the end of the week, give yourself a grade for effort. Then give yourself another one for accomplishment. If you’re getting A’s for effort and C’s for accomplishment, troubleshoot.
FREE Marketing workshop
You are invited to attend one of our next FREE, no-commitment required, Entrepreneur Look-In Sessions, where you will have time to share and network with others at the same business development stage as yourself, and listen to some of our ideas. We have programmes on offer that will assist you to get your business on track and steaming towards success.
We have two sessions this week with places on both:
• Wednesday 10th February 17:00 – 18:30
• Thursday 11th February 12:30 – 14:00
Remember: “Growing your business is our business”.
BOB 14 – Sales Cycle
A lot has been written about the attributions of sales cycle. It really is a simple step by step process.
Here are the 5 steps of the sales cycle:
1. Inform
You’ve got to inform your customers about your product. Inform them that they have a problem. inform them that they need it. create awareness.
2. Educate
People need to be educated before you can call them potential client. Educate them about your product or your service offering. How does your product solve their problem? Educate them about how it works, where it works. Do some educating marketing.
3. Sell
Don’t jump into selling unless you’ve informed and educated. Do selling campaigning.
4. Re – selling
Remember it’s 10 times easier to re-sell to an existing client than to sell to a completely new one. Re-sell should be your strategic part of your marketing.
5. up-selling
This is about the other complementary services around your product or service offering. What else can you plug in to the initial product.