Why About You, not About Me?
You are the telemarketer, the salesperson, the sales manager, the team leader, the director, the business owner, the email marketer, the pay-per-click expert, the strategist and the executive.
I’ve been all of these things. And achieved success in them all.
So, how can we work together?
The philosophy I’ve developed during a long career in Business Development is a simple one - it’s not about me, it’s about you. It’s not about you, it’s about your customer.
It’s about your customer’s need, about their need or their desire, about their ‘buying state’. Each of these things will determine your engagement with them throughout your relationship.
Optimising each part of the sales cycle will increase your profits, but improving all three is where we can turn your profits from good to great:
Pre-Sales
Getting the right traffic, first focusing on quality rather than quantity. First establishing what works on a small scale, and only then scaling it up. This could be from a Google PPC campaign, SEO, telemarketing or old school advertising, but the right traffic is job #1.
I love Seth Godin’s dating analogy of the sales process. This stage is the, ‘can I buy you a drink?’ and dating stage. You’re getting to know each other and building trust, but you’re not quite ready for marriage just yet.
Sales
So you’ve got traffic, but no sales.
Walk a mile in your customer’s shoes - your site needs to be easy to navigate and use, the communication needs to be clear and compelling and you need to build trust in you and your product or service. Your customer should be clear about what to do next - your proposal.
In Seth’s terms, this is marriage. The consummation of the relationship. But if you propose too early, before your visitor is ready, your relationship will probably end.
Post Sales
Getting the most value from each client is one of the most overlooked parts of business. Not just the sale, but increasing the value of that sale incrementally, or increasing the opportunity for repeat business, or increasing your Return on Customer.
This is ‘the rest of your life’ stage and true to the analogy, there must be continued benefit to both parties, a reason to continue that relationship, good communication and relationship nurturing.
