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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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Home > Women-Entrepreneurs > Charly Leetham > Small Business Creating Life Long Customers
Article Tags: business owners, lifelong customers, new business, prospects, sales and marketing, small business
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About the Author: Charly Leetham
RSS for Charly's articles - Visit Charly's website

Charly Leetham is a Business Implementation expert and she works directly with businesses to translate their unique business requirements into a technical specification. Charly then surveys (reviews) what is currently available that will meet her clients needs and presents options for a best fit solution within the clients budget.

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
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