“Chala, another one said ‘no’, I’m just so frustrated with this selling thing!” said a business owner friend. She was overwhelmed by how much time, effort and money she had sunk into her marketing and how little it was helping her and her team close more sales.
Little did she know that a recent Salesforce survey says that most businesses are in the same boat. And here’s why…
No Idea About The Funnel
The same survey said that 68% of companies have no idea of what their funnel is or they aren’t tracking their funnel. “What is a funnel?”, a non-marketer might ask. It’s simply the journey you take a prospect from ‘hello’ to ‘how much’. It’s comprised of making the prospect aware of you, then of offering them something of value, then finally making the offer for your paid solution to their problem. Sadly, most business owners are telling me their funnel is entirely through referrals. That’s fine and dandy for them but what if that’s not enough? Then, my friends, you absolutely need to figure out a funnel strategy and to track it to see how well it’s working.
Nothing Grows Without Nurturing
I’m known as the black thumb in the family. I’ve never met a plant I haven’t killed. I just simply forget to nurture them.
So imagine trying to grow a sale from a lead without nurturing it. But 65% of companies have no lead nurture process. My clients and I put a lead onto our marketing train. They get put on our newsletter lists, our social media connections and they get invited regularly to our events around their topic of pain. Our teams reach out to our leads constantly online, on Direct Message, on the phone, on email and in person. To be clear, the outreach is always about something that will help them. It is never about us and our wanting to reconnect to be hired.
Wrong Targeting
Another reason why sales bomb and leads are lost is because they were the wrong lead to begin with. If what you’re selling isn’t that lead’s most expensive problem at that moment, you’ve got wrong targeting. Do the due diligence of working with a strategist to figure out who is your avatar and what is their most expensive problem before you go and bark up the wrong tree.
Wrong Messaging
Wrong messaging is outreach messaging like a voicemail, email, direct message that 1. doesn’t speak to them specifically, 2. isn’t talking about solving their most expensive pain 3. is too generic and blends in with everyone who does what you do. So if you can get your avatar right, then you get your messaging right. Do the research. Talk to them. Find out what they’re bleeding with, day in and day out. Then they won’t be able to turn a blind eye to your messages about that pain.
No Follow-Up With the “No’s”
Most people consider following up with someone who rejected them a pushy thing to do. Sometimes though, the ‘no’ has nothing to do with you. Sometimes, the ‘no’ is only a request to help them through the fear of the decision. Sometimes the ‘no’ is just a ‘not yet’. In any case, if you don’t follow up with these ‘no’s, then as my mentor used to say, you’re leaving a ‘fortune in follow-up’ on the table. Some of the ways I teach my clients to follow up without being aggressive is to put them on the good ol’ marketing train again. Invite them to be on your mailing list. Invite them to be a podcast guest. Comment, like and share their content or news about their company. Send them invaluable news and info about competitors in the industry. Once you develop a process and a cadence, you can regularly reach back out to these ‘no’s and have them turn into eventual ‘yes’s.
Don’t be a part of the overwhelmingly high statistic of companies who lose the majority of their leads before they close. Do at least one of these strategies I’ve listed above and see your conversations start to trend the right way.
Want to reposition your messaging to grow your leads? Follow me on Twitter, friend me on Facebook, watch my Podcast on YouTube or connect with me on LinkedIn –and let’s talk.
