The Importance of Business Process

Guest post by: Cliff Sutton
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The Million Dollar Message for New Sales Managers - By Cliff Sutton

The rationale goes something like this. “I know all this stuff. I know some people who could use my stuff!”

“Most of all I have to get the message out, find some people to buy my services so my business is successful. So I can go on doing what I love doing”.

So we typically find a few things we do, like particular advertising, building some referral sources and collaborating, however much of our business comes in randomly or when we are in a cash flow pinch and turn on the emergency selling process.

How do you know when you have a process? You know when you can measure the action and result of each marketing/sales initiative over time.

A classic example is the funnel. Advertise to a demographic, in a newspaper for example and measure the number of leads, then the number of sales that result.

When we get busy it may become,

“Hey, that ad worked pretty well. Why don’t we run that ad again.” And if that is working for you, don't stop!

With a process it could look like

Write and save the ad
Measure the leads (for example asking “Where did you hear about us?” with all new calls.)
Keep track of all new contacts who were interested (potential buyers)
Send thank you note/card/email to potential buyers and start an auto responder series/newsletter/regular contact
Include an incentive or simple request for references
Complete all immediate sales – close them – and keep track of the numbers
Ask for references directly or in follow up
Follow up with each new sales for service and cross sell/upsell
Start newsletter/email with new customers

This creates the funnel. Here is an example from LinkedIn:

2 days advertising exposure: 1,720,000 members demographic

17 clicks

3 enquiries

2 webinar sign-ups

Peripherals – received one direct email and one LinkedIn contact as a result of the ad, 2 references. One started business discussions and did not close. The other is still in process. Webinar is being re-scheduled.

Cost: $40.00

By varying factors such as writing a different ad and varying the demographic I can test to see which works best. The process means I can measure my return on investment and know how to bring in business regularly.

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The Million Dollar Message for New Sales Managers - By Cliff Sutton

About the Author: Cliff Sutton

RSS for Cliff's articles - Visit Cliff's website

Cliff Sutton is a sales specialist.

He has just launched his Inbound Sales Program. The focus is on helping businesses close more ad response and call in contacts.

Success in sales is based on meaningful contact with the right people. His clients range from small and medium sized businesses to Edward Jones and HSBC Bank. He has a track record of over $70 million in personal sales.

His Sales philosophy is bring customer value and the sales will follow. I am always delighted to share how this works.
His CD, "Get Sales Connected" is all about business success through relationship building. He has developed additional Sales Training Programs for Baxter Corporation and Hemacure Corp.

Cliff is A Certified Self Management Trainer and a Certified NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) Practitioner. He holds a BSc. from Trent University and an RT (Nuclear Medicine).

He lives with his wife and son on Lake Wilcox, Richmond Hill - a little 'country' in the city.

Contact Cliff for 15 minute no charge inbound sales consult at info@getsalesconnected.com or directly at 416-930-6165

Click here to visit Cliff's website.

More from Cliff Sutton
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