Thursday, July 28, 2011

How to Win More Sales with Less Effort

Follow-Up Marketing:
How to Win More Sales with Less Effort


A study done by the Association of Sales Executives revealed that 81% of all sales happens on or after the fifth contact. If you’re a small business owner and you’re only doing one or two follow-ups imagine all the business you’re losing. Not following up with your prospects and customers is the same as filling up your bathtub without first putting the stopper in the drain!

But don’t be disheartened if you’re among the 90% of business owners I talk to that don’t do any follow up. The good news is you have ample room for profitable improvement. Consistent follow-up creates a predictable and profitable stream of prospects and customers that buy. Small businesses that capture leads and follow-up with them enjoy higher conversion rates and a higher percentage of referrals than those that don’t.

After asking many small business owners the reason they don’t follow up I often hear responses such as, "I don’t have the sales staff to chase down all our leads", or "We’re usually too busy to do a lot of follow up." These responses automatically set off red flags that tell me that they lack a systematic process for following up. The problem is not that they don’t have the capacity to follow up with prospects, it’s that they don’t have the systems in place to do it.

What Does a Good Follow Up System Look Like?
A good follow up marketing system should have three attributes.

  1. It should be systematic, meaning that the follow up process is done the same way every time.
  2. It should generate consistent, predictable results.
  3. It should require minimal physical interaction to make it run, meaning it should be able to run on autopilot.

Sounds like a dream come true for most small business owners doesn’t it? Not only can it be done, it’s being done every day. The secret to "follow-up marketing" is to make it automatic so that you don’t have to lift a finger but the job still gets done. With today’s technology it’s simpler than ever. Automating your follow-up processes gives you more time to work "on" your business rather than "in" your business.

Three Types of Follow Ups
There are three types of people you should be following up with, suspects (people in your target marketplace), prospects (people who have responded to your marketing but have not purchased, and customers (people who have purchased something from you.) Each follow up message and offer will be different for each type of person. With suspects, you’ll want to entice them to call you or visit your store / office. With prospects, you need to persuade them to make their first purchase. And with customers, you want to convince them to come back and do more business with you and give your referrals.

Obviously the hardest type of person to follow up with is a suspect because they haven’t shown any interest yet in a pool or hot tub and you usually don’t have their contact information. But that’s not true with prospects and customers. You not only know who they are, but you should already have their contact information. And if you follow up with your customers with consistency you’ll find that they will help you turn your suspects into prospects and prospects into customers for you through referrals.

Your Follow Up Marketing Tools
Your principal follow up marketing tools are the telephone, direct mail, and email. Many pool and hot tub business owners make the mistake of jumping right on the telephone to follow up; however, most prospects don’t want a pushy sales message right away and most prospects have been trained to consider anyone who calls up to be a pushy salesperson. Instead, you should try to develop a relationship of trust with your prospect by quickly sending informational items such as special reports, audio CDs, or videos before you make a phone call.

Remember to always include a "next-step-offer" to accompany your educational materials. If the next step is to visit the store, then entice them with an appropriate offer or if the next step is to call you, entice your prospect to call you immediately. People move through the buying process in baby steps, especially when considering buying high-ticket items such as hot tubs or pools. Your offer should always help them take the next step.

Your Follow Up Sequence
The power of your follow up will lie in your follow up sequence. Your follow up sequence is a series of communications with your prospect that are "linked" together, with each communication building on the previous message. For instance, you might start your second letter by saying, "10 days ago I sent you a letter..." You might also consider stamping the message, "2nd Notice" on the envelope to let people know this is the second time you’ve contacted them. Referencing the previous communication links what you’re saying with what you’ve already said and reminds your prospect that you care enough to continue the conversation.

Usually, when doing direct mail you should include three to five mailings spaced out about seven days apart. When using a sequential autoresponder you can have as many follow ups as you want because using email is basically free (that’s why you always want to get a prospects email address). One of my clients has over 20 follow-ups in his autoresponder sequence that go out over a six month period.

Each sequence should follow a logical argument and you might consider bolstering the offer with each communication using a deadline as a motivator to act now. As an example, in the third communication you could say, "I’m surprised you haven’t taken me up on my generous offer. What’s holding you back?" Or consider saying, "I’ve written you three times and you still haven’t taken me up on my offer so I’m going to pull out all the stops and make you an offer you simply can’t refuse." Notice how the language always links the previous communication and increases the boldness of the offer. It’s the same type of conversation you might have in a regular sales conversation.

How to Put Your Follow Up Marketing System on Autopilot
What I’m about to reveal to you is the key to developing a powerful follow up marketing system because it overcomes the number one reason most businesses don’t follow up. You must automate your follow up system as much as possible so that there are few, if any, physical interactions from your employees with the system. It’s the required physical interactions (i.e. printing letters, sending emails, inputting leads etc.) where 99% of all the breakdowns happen in well-intentioned follow up marketing systems.

To automate your follow-ups you should consider using robotic marketing systems and outsourcing any manual interactions to a dedicated service. For instance, to capture your leads you should consider using a toll-free automated recorded message system that captures your prospects contact information and automatically transcribes it and sends your leads to you in a spreadsheet every morning via email.

If you’re using a direct mail follow up system (and you should be), find a fulfillment house to do the mailings for you. To find a fulfillment house, simply go to your local printer and ask them to refer you to a fulfillment house in the area.

Now step back for a moment and see the power of what I’ve just revealed to you. Imagine running an ad, having your prospect call up and give their contact information via your recorded message system. Then having your leads automatically sent to your fulfillment house via email, after which your prospect receives a five-sequence direct mail package containing your most persuasive marketing message -- without you lifting one finger!

You can set up the exact same type of "hands-free" follow up marketing system using an email autoresponder system. Your prospect will not only be receiving your direct mail messages, but you can insert your email messages in between your mailings.

What About Calling to Follow Up?
You’ll notice that I didn’t say anything about calling your prospect. That’s because you want your prospect to have already received your educational marketing messages and have most of their questions answered before they call you. An educated prospect is your best prospect.

They already know why you’re different, what your value proposition is, and how you’re uniquely qualified to meet their needs. In essence, they’ve pre-qualified themselves before you ever have to spend time physically speaking to them. This drastically reduces the sales cycle and increases your conversion rate because you have positioned your small business to be their only logical choice.

Conclusion
Follow-up marketing will boost your closing rate and dramatically increase your customer satisfaction. Following up with systematic processes allows you to leverage your salespeople’s time and enhance their productivity, which will result in more sales with less effort and isn’t that what you want? Start winning more sales today by implementing your own follow-up marketing system.

Happy follow up marketing!

© Copyright 2003 David Frey, Marketing Best Practices Inc.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Powerful beyond Measure

Powerful Beyound Measure
Very Good Inspirational video.....


کامیابی کے راستے...

کامیابی کے راستے...

29 سالہ Debbie کبھی بے روزگاری کی زندگی گزر رہی تھی.
چھوٹی چھوٹی چیزیں بھی اس کے لیے بہت بڑےخواب سے کم نہیں تھیں.
لیکن آج Debbie  250,000 pound سے زیادہ ، ہر سال کماتی ہے.
GMTv  پر چلنے والی یہ رپورٹ ہم سب کے لیے ہمّت کا ایک سبق ہے.

Friday, July 8, 2011

The Art of Prospecting 01 - نیٹورک مارکیٹنگ اور پرسپکٹنگ

نیٹورک مارکیٹنگ اور پرسپکٹنگ

ایک نیٹورکر کےلیے پروسپکٹنگ سب سے اہم ہے.

اور پروسپکٹنگ کے لیے صرف ایک چیز کی ضرورت ہوتی ہے.اور وہ ہے "بار بار کا تجربہ".

Name List  کا بنانا تو ہر شخص کے لیے آسان ہے. اگر مشکل ہے تو صرف prospecting.


آپ خواہ کتنی ہی محنت کر لیں .لیکن اگر آپ پروسپکٹنگ کے ماھر نہیں تو آپ کچھ بھی نہیں.

اگر آپ پروسپکٹنگ کے ماھر نہیں تو آپ کچھ بھی نہیں کما سکتے.

پروسپکٹنگ آپکے بزنس کا life blood ہے.

اگر آپ پروسپکٹنگ کے ماھر نہیں تو آپ کے بزنس کے پاس" سا نس " نہیں.

Network Marketing  کی دنیا میں لوگ اس لیے ناکام نہیں ہوتے کہ انکو  business  کا پتہ نہیں، بلکہ اس لیے ناکام ہوتے ہیں کہ انکو Prospecting کے آداب کا پتہ نہیں.

لوگ دراصل Network Marketing کے کاروبار میں ناکام نہیں ہوتے بلکہ وہ تو اس کی پہلی منزل، یعنی کہ Prospecting میں ہی ناکام ہو جاتے ہیں.

ناکامی دراصل کاروبار کی وجہ سے نہیں ہے، بلکہ اس کی پہلی سیڑھی پہ ہی منہ کے بل گر جانے کی وجہ سے ہے.

اگر آپ گاڑی خرید کے لے آےہیں تو اس کا مطلب ہم یہ نہیں لے سکتے کہ آپ اچھے driver بھی بن گے ہیں.

اسی طرح Network Marketing  کے کاروبا میں شامل ہونے کا مطلب قطعی یہ نہیں لیا جا سکتا کہ آپ کامیاب بھی ہوں گے.

Network Marketng میں کامیابی کے لیے آپ کو بہت کچھ سیکھنا ہوگا، Prospecting ان چیزوں میں سب سے پہلے آتی ہے. اس سیڑھی کو پار کیےبغیر آپ اگلی سیڑھی پہ قدم نہیں رکھ سکتے.

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Importance of Network

The Network Is EverythingChances are, your connections don't go far enough and you don't contact them enough. Here's how to change that.

URL: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/217315
Hollywood producer Jerry Weintraub recently published a great memoir called When I Stop Talking, You'll Know I'm Dead that illustrates the power of the network. In it, he tells story after story about how a relationship, properly maintained, brought him further along in his business than anything else.

But people rarely tell you how to build a network, or how to maintain relationships, or what will matter on the way up. And they don't give you any shortcuts that you can follow, either. Me? I'm all about the shortcuts and the help.
Understand Dunbar's number
British anthropologist Robin Dunbar said you can maintain only 150 close social connections. This isn't a software limitation--it's a number culled from research that says we humans have a hard time keeping everyone top of mind. With technology, we are able to stretch that number, but it requires consideration and tuning to maintain your 150 and to grow.
The 150 people you spend most of your time communicating with are:
  • Relatives
  • Colleagues at the same company
  • Customers or prospects served by that company
  • Schoolmates from the good old days
  • Geographic connections
It's easy to predict this, as most people network the same way. It's also a negative toward your potential future growth. Think about people who lost their jobs in the Detroit region. Relatives, colleagues, customers, schoolmates and geographic locals couldn't help one another, because they were all in the same boat. Let's fix that.

Be part of different 150s
There are many ways to consider whom you should stay in closest contact with. My take is that you should consider diversifying by location and by industry, for starters. One way to maintain a diverse and useful network is to branch out and then "feed" your network better. Let's start with expanding your network.
Pull out whatever you're using for contact management and look at the total sum of people you know how to reach. Can you find people via your networks who are in similar industries but different verticals? Maybe you sell houses. Find a real estate professional on the other side of the country, or maybe in another country. Start getting chummy.
Find people from different industries and connect. Our real estate professional could make friends in the local art community, then help artists place paintings in each house sold. Get the picture?

Deliver useful contact often
The best advice I can give you is to be helpful. There are two ways that I do this, and maybe you have others. First, I share useful information when I find it. If I see an article about the restaurant business, I send it to Joe Sorge in Milwaukee, who runs AJ Bombers and three other restaurants. If I've got something to share with Government 2.0 types, I'll tell Alex Howard, who covers the future of government for O'Reilly Media.
The second way I help is by connecting people together for business. Every time you can tell someone in your network that you have someone they should meet--and that meeting amounts to business value and/or money--it's a beautiful day for all. Be at the elbow of every deal.
Exercising our networks and connecting to important people are meant to be a part of our daily business rituals, not an add-on. It's work, but it's work that pays off.

Friday, July 1, 2011

The Art of Follow-Up

The Art of Follow-Up



What's the most important marketing skill? You might be surprised at the answer.
It's not having a great marketing message, powerful marketing materials and a bullet-proof marketing plan. All of those are certainly important but not as important as...





***Follow-up***

But people want to believe that myth, so they spend forever trying to perfect their message. Look, all your message can get you is some initial attention. That's all.
And virtually every single marketing action after that is follow-up.
When someone shows some interest in your services (when you deliver a decent, but not mythical, marketing message), you need to follow-up with some more information.
Once they've read that information, you need to follow-up to determine if there's a deeper interest. And if there's a deeper interest, then you need to follow-up to set up an appointment.
But it doesn't end there.
Once you have an appointment, you need to follow-up to confirm that appointment (yes, people flake out). And once you've had the appointment you need to follow-up with a proposal or to close the sale. Follow-up never ends.
Follow-Up Secrets
Here are some follow-up secrets I've learned over the years that are important to understand and master if you're going to attract more clients.
1. Know where you are in the game
When you follow-up with someone, the purpose is to move the prospect from one base in the marketing game to the next base. If you try to jump bases (or move too fast), you tend to get rejected by the prospect. If you move too slow with your follow-up, you loose the interest you've generated up to that point.
2. Don't move too fast
When you get someone's interest (say at a networking meeting) and then say you'd like to call back to talk with them, that's fine. But when you make that call and immediately try to set up an appointment, you'll likely get some resistance. Remember, people want more familiarity and some information before they meet with you. So your follow-up system needs to build that in. One way to do this is with pre-written emails and links to articles or to your web sites.

3. Don't move too slow
If you give a talk and get cards from people who are interested in knowing more about your services, how soon should you follow-up? The very next day. For each day you don't follow-up, interest wanes. If you have only a few follow-ups, use the phone. If you have many, send an email to set up a time to talk in the upcoming week. Stale follow-ups are just that. They've forgotten what interested them in the first place, so when you call back after several weeks it's like starting all over again.

4. Balance fast and slow
The key to effective follow-up is balancing the fast and the slow. Fast to get back to someone when they show interest; slow to get to know them. Fast to provide information requested; slow to discuss what this information means to their business. Fast to get a proposal in the mail; slow to discuss the details of that proposal.
5. Watch your assumptions
What if someone doesn't get back to you? You've followed up promptly and you don't hear back right away. What does this mean? Only one answer: Who knows? It could be anything.But we are quick to jump to the conclusion that it's bad news. Not always. They might be very busy with a big priority or could even be out on vacation. So don't jump to conclusions. Just keep following up. Just watch that you don't sound desperate!

6. When to stop following-up
Let's say you have a prospect you've either met with or done a proposal for. You thought everything was going well, but they aren't returning your calls. Do you keep leaving messages or do you give up? What I recommend is leaving one last message that goes like this:"Hi John, I've been trying to get back to you about the project but haven't heard from you for a couple weeks. I don't want to keep pestering you, so if I don't hear back from you, I'll assume you don't want to move ahead. I'll leave the ball in your court. Please call if you want to take the next steps, but this is the last message I'll be leaving. Hope to hear from you. My number is ..."
This approach works. If they actually are interested, they'll call you back. If they don't, well there's your answer. It's time to move on.

7. Create follow-up systems
To streamline your follow-up, create systems you can use over and over again. A follow-up system consists of specific steps you take each step of the way.
It might work something like this:
a) prospect learns about your service and visits web site
b) prospect fills out form on the web requesting more information
c) prospect receives an automated email from you with web link
d) you send out personalized email requesting an appointment
e) you follow-up by email until appointment is set
f) you meet with prospect by phone
g) after phone appointment you send agreement
h) after a few days you send another email
i) after a few more days you leave a phone message
j) prospect ultimately gets back to you with a yes or no
Once your follow-up system is designed and fine-tuned, you can use it reliably to turn many prospects into clients. This is exactly how I built my business. It didn't happen by chance.
I invite you to use it to build yours.


*

The More Clients bottom line: The skill of follow-up is the glue that holds all of your marketing together. It's what bridges the gaps between initial connections, information, meetings and proposals. Make it a priority to master this skill as soon as possible.