Hello Marvelous People:
Today, we have a guest blog post from Brad Heutmaker. I hope you enjoy his tips for creating a sales process.
Peace, Love and Gumbo - Marvin LeBlanc, LUTCF, CNP
Recently I was visiting a client who buys Internet leads from my company. For the past 10 years they have purchased leads and they have seen their conversion slowly drop over the past three years. During the conversation a lot of focused was placed on the Internet lead industry, my company, and the leads we deliver to them.
While they took an offensive approach to the conversation I sat back and listened to their concerns. When they were done I calmly and confidently addressed their issues, and then asked one question. The question I asked them caught them by surprise, and judging by their response they hadn’t considered they could be part of the problem.
The one question I asked them was, “What is your sales process of working the leads we send you?”
After I finished asking my question the room went quiet, and that is when the Vice-President of Sales and Marketing looked at me with a straight face and said, “Well, we hope the lead will call us after they see our logo on your site.”
Let me really tell you what this “VP” said, “We don’t have a process in place, we just hope someone will call.”
Early in my career I was a call center jockey and my sales manager would come by our cubes and “gently” remind us that “hope” was not strategy or tactic to make sales happen and we had to pick-up the phone and speak to someone.
My friends, hoping for sales to happen is not a business strategy, but far too many of you who own a small business have no formal process around sales and marketing. For the most part I bet you have great people in place to handle the “service” that has to be done, but nothing formal on how to grow your business.
If you’re wishing your service people will sell, guess what I have news for you. They won’t! Here are three steps to get your business moving in the right direction.
1. Get the chutzpah to hold your team accountable, and if they don’t come along with you help them find another opportunity
2. Hire a sales person and then when they join your team, hold them accountable to what they were hired to do.
3. Close up shop or sell it and get a job. Seems a bit harsh but in my experience a lot of small business owners are better suited for employment than business ownership.
Happy Selling…
