Now a days it can take upwards of 12‐15 touches with a prospect before they choose to buy your product or service. You must be persistent and consistent in your message without being a pest. Most small business owners will give up after three. Be prepared for this and develop a series of touch points that will continue to nurture your relationship with this prospect at every touch point. You want to be adding lots of value at ever touch point, thus raising the “temperature level” of a prospect until they decide to buy. Obviously you cannot just keep calling them or leaving a voice mail every few days. One of the most effective methods is a weekly e-Zine, Newsletter or a Blog. Make sure your target audience wants to receive your communication by having them opt in to receiving your message. They’ll buy when they are ready, not when you are ready. Your job is to cultivate this relationship with the value of what you do until they say, “yes, I’m ready”. Remember: everyone wants to buy something to solve their pain, but nobody wants to be sold.
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The economy is facing some challenges, no doubt about it. But now is not the time for small-business owners to develop a “recession” mindset. Here are five tips to help you create your own success while everyone else is expecting the worse:
1. Start spending: It may sound counter-intuitive, but hard times call for you to increase some of your expenditures. For example, if sales is the lifeblood of your business, you should consider adding to your sales team by staffing up or investing in a product that could make your sales process more efficient. Or, you could boost morale and positive energy within your sales team by raising commissions for top performers, or giving them gifts that they will appreciate, such as tickets to a sporting event or a concert.
Obviously, this does not mean you should increase spending across the board. Rather, make spending decisions with your customers in mind. For example, if you run a coffee shop, consider going from two baristas to three because your competitors are likely trimming their staff, and you could gain customers who don’t want to wait in a long line.
2. Make friends: A friendly phone call or two to your vendors and creditors is very important at this time. Building rapport and camaraderie with your suppliers can be crucial if your own customers are slow to pay. If you have built a solid working relationship with vendors, in some cases you could ask them to lengthen your payment cycles from 30 days to 90 days, or renegotiate rates.
Keep the phone lines open to your bank as well, and be sure to have a plan in place if you need loans in the near future. If you don’t already have a strong history with your bank, it may be to your advantage to take out some small loans and pay them back on schedule to strengthen your credit.
One of the most popular observations I make watching small business owners is the never-ending spiral of trivial activities that they undertake day after day after day. Though most of these seem important and URGENT at the time, most are low leverage, meaning in six months it wouldn’t have made a difference whether they were done or not. We seem to focus on the trivial many versus the critical few.
Before you start another day in this overwhelm consider how the 80/20 rule plays a role in your business. The Italian economist taught us that 80% of the affects come from 20% of the causes. While you probably can already confirm that 80% of the time you wear only 20% of the clothes in your closet, consider that 80% of your results are coming from 20% of your activities in your business. So what are those activities? Most likely they are one of three things: attracting more clients, generating more revenue from existing clients or increasing profit margins. Start looking at your moment to moment activities and question yourself on their impact. By the way, you might also find that 80% of your sales are coming from 20% of your clients.
Rick Lugash
