MyMarketingPartner: Experts In DRIP Marketing - e-Tip Sales & Marketing Blog

Friday, 12 February 2010

5 Reasons Why Most Businesses Don't Dominate Their Market

Over the years, I have taken detailed notes on my many conversations with business owners, marketing professionals and salespeople in various industries. After distilling this information down, I have determined there are just a few core reasons as to why many are not leaders in their market. That being said, you will find listed below these reasons along with an applicable solution.

Lack of a Prospecting Database(s)
They Rely Exclusively On Their Salespeople
Somebody Else Is Offering More Value
They Do Not Have A Marketing Strategy
They Do Not Have A Sales Follow-up Strategy

Solution To Reason #1: Lack of a Prospecting Database(s) - Having a well-defined and manageable database is close to 50% of your sales success. That said, make it a point to have an up to date and comprehensive database comprised of your target audience; whether it is your client, prospect, dealer, distributor file.

After getting a list together, you need to secure the contact name of the person you want to sell to, their e-mail address, their mailing address and their telephone number. There are no short cuts to this process, as it requires a lot of hard work by your salespeople. You may want to consider creating a landing page on your website or a low-risk offer that would give people an incentive for someone to give you their contact information).

Solution To Reason #2: They Rely Exclusively On Your Salespeople - Salespeople are only part of the equation to your sales success. Although a salesperson may be good on the phone, they need to know who to focus on and what to say; therefore, you need make sure they are targeting the databases from item 1 above. Additionally, you need to create a suite of presales tools including but not limited to ROI tools and success stories. You also need to have low risk offers to augment their follow-up calls, track their activities and make sure they are always updating their database.

Solution To Reason #3: Somebody Else Is Offering More Value - We are not talking about the price of what you are selling, we are talking about a competitor who is offering more value - value your prospects recognize, which is why they are not buying from you. Although this is simple enough to fix, most businesses do not take the time to innovate their business by asking their target audience what they want and then shopping their competition to determined what they do. Ask yourself this one simple question: If I were a prospective buyer, what would compel me to buy from my business instead of my competitors? For example, would a Service Guarantee or a XX-Minute Callback Guarantee be of value to a prospective buyer?

Solution To Reason #4: You Do Not Have A Marketing Strategy - Okay, so you are done innovating your business and have determined that you are the best value in town. However, do you have a plan in place to present this to your target audience? What you need to do is develop the right mix of marketing campaigns that fit your budget - campaigns built around a solid marketing strategy. You need to not only tell your story well, but also tell it consistently. Like I tell everyone, "If you aren't dripping, you ain't marketing."

Solution To Reason #5: You Do Not Have A Sales Follow-up Strategy - One the biggest failures a business can do is to follow-up on a major campaign. Sure, you can tell your salespeople to call someone, but just because you tell them to do it does not ensure it is being done. What you need to do is to develop a formal follow-up strategy that your sales team sticks to doing. We also recommend setting a dedicated number of days and times for your salespeople to get on the phone and CALL their targeted prospects. Do NOT take any excuses as to why they cannot attend these sessions. This is so simple for a business owner to do, but few companies know that this one little proactive event can skyrocket their sales. Remember this: The troops do what the company commander monitors. If you are the company commander, you need to step-up your game to ensure these selling events are done.

Summary: These solutions may seem simple and brief to you; that is because I am taking the book I am writing about drip marketing and compressing it down to this one page e-tip. But please realize this: The key to effective marketing is to let your target market know in a consistent and compelling way the value you are giving them. And if you have truly innovated your business, then it is just a matter of time before you start winning over more prospects faster and easier than your old way of selling.

POSTED BY: Glenn Fallavollita AT 08:24 am | Permalink | E-mail this

Friday, 04 December 2009

What To Do When A Prospect Tells You To Call Them After The Holidays

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At last, we have reached December of 2009, a time of the year when things start to get frustrating for many salespeople and business owners. This is when salespeople and business owners start to hear prospective new clients say things like:

"Call me after the holidays."
"Our business is slow right now, so we won't be buying anything until after the first of the year."
"We're going to wait until after the first of the year before we change _________."

Unless what you sell can be given as a holiday gift, this time of year presents a unique and difficult challenge for many salespeople. That challenge is not objections, but worse.

Here Are Just A Few Ways To Handle A Prospect Delaying A Buying Decision...

"I understand. Some businesses are putting off _____________ until after the first of the year and because of that, I wanted to see if your company qualifies for our new cost saving ____________ program (or whatever your special offer is called), which has an extra bonus if you sign up by December 30th. This would save you X%."
"I can relate to things being slow right now. By the way, I wanted to share with you a new _______ package to introduce our (insert your product/services here)."
"I can relate to things being slow right now, but tell me, will anything change after the first of the year that will prevent you from starting then?"
"I understand. What day after the first of the year would you like to start your _____________?"
"I understand. We can deliver the products now and bill you after the first of the year. Does that work for you? On top of that, you will save X% by avoiding the 2010 price increase."

What You Say After Being Told "No" Will Prompt A Prospect To Tell You Their Real Objection.

Often times, the reason a prospect stalls their buying decision is because they are afraid of taking a risk. They may be thinking, "Suppose this service doesn't work well for our situation?then I'll be in trouble." In addition to fear, another reason a prospect may be stalling is if their cash flow is off and they are not authorized to make any purchases. Whatever the real reason may be, you need to flush it out and solve it before you move a prospect down the buying process.

If A Prospect Still Says "No" Here Is What You Need To Do.

Like you, I talk to people who want to put things off until after the first of the year. In fact, I spoke with one owner this week from Michigan, Matthew S., about hiring us to handle the marketing for his payroll service. And no matter what we discussed, he still wanted to wait until after the first of year to get started with MyMarketingPartner. To keep Matthew in the sales cycle, I am doing three simple things.

1. Schedule a follow-up call to him for the first week of the year.

2. I place him in my weekly e-tip marketing campaign so my company's name stays in their conscious and subconscious mind.

3. I will be sending him two postcards about our marketing services as well as relevant information about his industry.

See below for some additional ideas:

Postcards that promote special offers on your products or services
Special reports or white papers about cost savings, customer success stories or related customer testimonials.
Buying guides that help them make the best buying decision. Consumer Reports magazine does a great job at presenting this type of data.
Letters from the president of your company thanking them for their past business.
Independent articles that talk about cost saving from your product or services.
Press releases on new clients, customer service guarantees or special interest projects.

Executive Summary: Do not let your sales team be the ones who send out a formal drip marketing campaign; let your marketing team do this for them as salespeople, in general, are unable to implement a consistent series of drip marketing activities. If you don't have a marketing department then be prepared to work double time unless you hire an outside marketing firm like us. Nonetheless, if you do not engage a drip marketing system, I will guarantee that you will miss a number of sales opportunities.

POSTED BY: Glenn Fallavollita, CEO of MyMarketingPartner AT 06:30 am | Permalink | 0 Comments | E-mail this