 Often poor business success can be linked to simply not following established leads.
It is the number one area where people are letting themselves and their businesses down. We put so much money and effort into making contacts, securing leads and getting our businesses known. However, if we don’t consistently include follow-up into our processes it can all be wasted. I regularly have clients come to me, wanting/needing more customers. This is their top priority and their biggest concern - how can they get new customers. They believe more customers will make the biggest difference to their business. More customers are only part of the puzzle, you have to make sure you are getting the most value out of each new contact and not constantly filling a leaky funnel. Most of the people I talk to actually already have untapped business at their finger-tips, they just haven’t realised the potential yet. All of your leads and customers are potential sales - what are you doing to convert them? The easiest way to get more sales - from the customers and contacts you already have! There are a lot of stats floating around the internet about sales follow up but to me it comes down to simple common sense. Follow up with people, be authentic, be interested, get the sale, repeat. Here are 3 things you can do right now Don’t rely on your potential leads – chase them If you want the customers, you have to work to get them. So many times I have heard clients say “they will contact me if they are interested.” Good luck with that! Business doesn’t work that way. You are selling and it's YOUR job to follow up. Be customer focused Being customer centric is critical. "I sent them an email but they didn't get back to me." So what are you going to do about that? Sadly 80% of the time businesses do nothing and lose potential customers. The 20% that are following up are very happy for you to do nothing... Look after your existing customers “ They already bought from me” Ok great but you have other products/services you can offer them. If they have bought once they know and trust you so are are way more likely to buy again AND recommend you - look after these people. The great news is that it’s actually not that hard to make follow-up part of a regular business routine The essential ‘Sales Process’ Every business needs a sales process. This is a basic checklist or set of rules to deal with different situations. You need to ask yourself, what do you do when:
You need to have a clearly defined, simple process for each situation. For example:
“It’s too much – how will I ever remember all this?” Often when I talk to clients about their sales process I get the same response – “I really want to follow-up on leads, but I can’t remember all the details, who to contact when, or what to do next. I just don’t have the time.” This is what CRM’s are for! Every contact/lead is recorded and a follow-up scheduled. A CRM will help you to successfully manage your relationships with current and prospective customers. Why you need a CRM
How many opportunities have you missed by not following up? It’s not hard to make some changes and the benefits are truly worth it.
2 Comments
 Very simply because you don’t want to limit your business by what you can store in your head. A CRM can store, manage and update all your clients and interactions in one place so nothing gets lost - most importantly sales opportunities. You may think you can manage your business with spreadsheets and emails but you will miss the big picture. You need to bring all this information together and get organised to get a clear overview of your business. A CRM is your information center which will let you know what needs doing, when and by whom. It tells you what marketing worked and what didn’t, where your best sales are coming from AND the revenue potential. A CRM is an application that helps you manage your relationships with current and prospective customers Here are some questions to help you decide if you need a CRM.
If you answered yes to any of these questions then you need a CRM in your life... Growing a business isn’t easy but luckily there are great tools like CRM’s available to make our lives simpler and more organised. Being more organised is always good for business and puts you on a stronger path to success. Feel free to ask me any questions, anytime. Check out our $20+gst CRM Training Workshops - Empowering and Enabling Small Businesses
|
AuthorIona Elwood-Smith passionate about growing small businesses Categories
All
|
RSS Feed
