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Small Business: Creating Life Long Customers
| Guest post by: Charly Leetham |
Article Overview: When sales and marketing people talk about the sales funnel, they are really talking about the number of prospects they have that MAY convert to sales. This is a pretty common term in these circles and there is a fairly well defined process of qualification that moves suspects to prospects to qualified buyers to lifelong customers. It's important for all business owners to understand this process - even if they aren't involved in the sales process directly - as they will be able to better support their sales professionals in acquiring new business.
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Small Business: Creating Life Long Customers
When sales and marketing people talk about the sales funnel, they are really talking about the number of prospects they have that MAY convert to sales. This is a pretty common term in these circles and there is a fairly well defined process of qualification that moves suspects to prospects to qualified buyers to lifelong customers. It's important for all business owners to understand this process - even if they aren't involved in the sales process directly - as they will be able to better support their sales professionals in acquiring new business.
Using The Sales Funnel To Turn Suspects into Lifelong customers
The first thing to consider is just who your target market is and to recognize that not everyone will become your customer. This is important as you can spend a lot of time, energy and money trying to convert the 'wrong' person.....
Understanding exactly who your ideal client is will make the conversion process easier and far more cost effective.
The second thing to understand is that people tend to only buy from people (or businesses) that they know, like and trust. Therefore, you need to help your client develop a level of trust so that they are comfortable in spending money with you.
Developing that level of trust may take time to achieve, however during the process your suspect may become a qualified buyer and provide a reasonable level of income for your business. If they don't - then they are not your target market.
A suspect may touch your business by walking in the door of your bricks and mortar store, phoning you or visiting your website. When a suspect 'touches' your business you have the opportunity to determine whether they are a prospect or not.
In an online business, when someone visits your website, they'll take a quick look at what you're doing and generally move on. They may be interested in what you have and consider revisiting the site later - if they remember. In a large number of cases, they forget about your site and buy from the most convenient site at the time. The 'trick' for businesses here is to encourage your suspects to revisit and remind them that your site is around...
A proven method to achieve this is to create a mailing list - of your website visitors - where you trickle feed information to your site visitors and encourage them to visit again. By providing information to your mailing list prospects, you should also be taking the opportunity to allow your prospect to get to Know You, Like You and Trust You. Yes, it can be a slow process - but well worth the effort in the long run.
To encourage site visitors to join your mailing list - you need to offer something of value to them in exchange for their details. People are very savvy - they know that if they are going to give you their contact details, they will receive promotional material from you. Therefore, you need to make it 'worth their while' to give you their details. It is also an great opportunity for you to start allowing your 'prospects' to Know You, Like You and Trust You. Something of value to your suspects differs with each niche - as a marketer, you need to determine what that is. A simple 'newsletter with free advice' is not likely to do the trick however, a free 5 page report that offers advice that can be acted upon immediately may....
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Article Tags: business owners, lifelong customers, new business, prospects, sales and marketing, small business
Referred by: http://www.outrageouslyhealthy.com
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About the Author: Charly Leetham RSS for Charly's articles - Visit Charly's website Charly's expertise has been developed throughout her career that exceeds 24 years. Initially as a hands on 'tech' in the Electronics and Communications Industry (before the IT Industry even existed) and later as a Sales Person, Client Relationship Manager and Contract Manager managing business for employers. In 2004, Charly left her steady, 6 figure a year job to follow her dream of becoming a small business entrepreneur. Her journey has taken her from Retail Store Franchisee, through financial turbulence to a steady and comfortable Home Based Business. Charly shares the experience, the challenges, the realisations and the lessons that she has learnt during her journey to Home Business Entrepreneur. In addition, Charly is Wishlist Member Certified and is one of a few online business professionals who are recommended by the creators of the Wordpress Wishlist Membership Plugin to consult, install and configure Wordpress based Membership and Community Sites.Click here to visit Charly's website   Why Social Network Profiles Are Important Online Suppliers Contracts Digital Signing and more Small Business The Power Of Press Releases Small Business Building Your Coaching Business Is There Really A Difference Between Advertising And Marketing |
Related Forum Posts
My entry
- 1. The Best Business Books Ever: The 100 Most Influential Business Books You'll Never Have Time to Read
- this is a fascinating book about the history of Business theory, and I'd recommend it to anybody.
2. The Big Book of Small Business: You Don't Have to Run Your Business by the Seat of Your Pants, by Tom Gegax. Ditto.
3. PADI: The Business of Diving Book
Okay, so this book won't be of use to anyone who doesn't want to start a scuba store, but I did, and this book was of course invaluable to me in reaching that goal.
Top 19 Copywriting books
- 1. Ogilvy on Advertising. David Ogilvy. Wiley.
2. Positioning: The Battle for your Mind. Al Ries and Jack Trout. Warner.
3. The New Positioning. Jack Trout. McGraw-Hill.
4. Tested Advertising Methods. John Caples. Prentice-Hall.
5. How to Make your Advertising Make Money. John Caples. Prentice-Hall.
6. Guerrilla Advertising. Jay Conrad Levinson. Houghton Mifflin.
7. Direct Mail Copy that Sells. Herschell Gordon Lewis. Prentice-Hall.
8. Sales Letters that Sizzle. Herschell Gordon Lewis. NTC Business Books.
9. Herschell Gordon Lewis on the Art of Writing Copy. Herschell Gordon Lewis. Prentice-Hall.
10. Romancing the Brand. David Martin. American Management Association.
11. The Art of Writing Advertising: Conversations with William Bernbach, Leo Burnett, George Gribbin, David Ogilvy, Rosser Reeves. NTC Business Books.
12. Confessions of an Advertising Man. David Ogilvy. NTC Business Books.
13. My Life in Advertising. Claude Hopkins. NTC Business Books.
14. Scientific Advertising. Claude Hopkins. NTC Business Books.
15. How to Become an Advertising Man. James Webb Young. NTC Business Books.
16. The Lasker Story as He Told It. NTC Business Books.
17. Advertising Concept and Copy. George Felton. Prentice Hall.
18. The Copy WorkShop Workbook. Bruce Bendinger. The Copy Workshop.
19. Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This: A Guide to Creating Great Ads. Luke Sullivan. Wiley.
This should keep you busy for at least a year.
Enjoy!
These maybe the coldest franchises out there:
- Here are the worst 15 performing franchises in regards to having the highest Small Business Administration (SBA) loan failure rates. The list is dotted with sub sandwich shops, fitness centers and car shops.
WORST FRANCHISE LOAN FAILURES Failure %
1 OBEE'S SOUP SALAD SUBS 55.56%
2 LADY OF AMERICA 41.94%
3 COUNTRY CLUTTER (BED & BREAKFAST) 41.18%
4 COPY CLUB 36.36%
5 ALL TUNE AND LUBE 35.71%
6 PICKERMAN'S 35.71%
7 PHILLY CONNECTION 35.59%
8 ROLY POLY ROLLED SANDWICHES 34.78%
9 COTTMAN TRANSMISSION 34.48%
10 HAIR COLOR EXPRESS 33.33%
11 LEE MYLES AUTOMOTIVE TRANSMISSIONS 33.33%
12 GODFATHER'S PIZZA 33.33%
13 SMOOTHIE FACTORY 33.33%
14 BLIMPIE 31.39%
15 GOLF U.S.A. (RETAIL GOLF EQUIP.) 30.77%
Source: Small Business Administration, SBA Loan Performance Within Franchise Code for the Period of FY 2001 - 2005
Re: How do you budget your life?
- Here is my financial management categories for today:
15% Long Term Savings;
10% Home Expenses;
45% Business and Marketing charges;
10% Friends (Meeting);
20$ Scientific and Law Books.
But this will change when it is August or September.
Orxan
Exclusive: Interview with Results
- Hi Forum Members,
I'm helping start up a Business Coaching and Consulting company here in Toronto, Ontario, Canada (a Subsidiary of RSC Business in Los Angeles).
As a Research and Development Intern I am required to practice my listening and interview skills by surveying Small and Medium Businesses on thier Business.
This Survey is designed by RSC Business to also assist the Business being interviewed more insight into their own business.
I am looking to interview about 30 businesses across North America over the span of 3 months.
At the end of these interviews I will be publishing a report of the results and they will be made available for free to the Interviewees. The Report data will include responses from a minimum of 100 interviews.
I would like to extend this opportunity to members of the Forum.
If you would like to have this short 20-30 minute interview conducted on your Business and you reside in North America please send me an email or PM.
Please contact me at andy[at]jvprosperity[dot]com to arrange our interview and to get free access to the results when they are published.
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