In an earlier article I wrote about catering and categorizing your sales leads. This is somewhat an extension of that article insofar as we’ll address a few simple ideas to help you nurture your sales leads; particularly those you got online.
One of the biggest mistakes I’ve seen across the country is that businesses rely on their product or brand to sell itself. This is most prevalent at two stages in the life-cycle: start-up, and at the top of the slope when the business is at its peak and staff tends to go into auto pilot and/or become complacent (if you’re ever complacent in your business, it’s time to sell and start a new one).
You know what…? You, your business, and your product are not that memorable to most people in this world. You must remind prospective clients who you are, why you are, and how you’ll fill whatever void exists in their life for which your product is designed.
To keep things simple (we’re assuming you’ve gotten the “catering” and “categorizing” aspects locked down from the last article), lets simply target some keywords that we can post around the office to help remind us that we need to remind our customers how much we rock.
1) Give: find something – anything – that you can actually give to your sales leads. Be it free information, an invitation, or guidance for related services. The key here is GIVE. Not offer, and not exchange. An un-selfish, no obligation gift of “something” that stands on its own.
2) Update Volley: Updates should go both ways. Give your lead some news about your business or anything relating to it, and ask them for updates as well. Encourage interaction – active interaction, not just you sending newsletters one-way.
3) Offer: (NOW you can entice with an offer or two.) If something free coupled with the update volley don’t result in beginning a sale, then now you can entice with an offer (a product discount, a bundle, whatever has best been proven to work given the lead’s category based on their original referral source and medium).
4) Give Space: If you’ve completed the top three activities, but the momentum to purchase hasn’t increased at all, then it’s time to back off a little. Let them mull it over in the back of their heads. Set up a reminder in your CRM for another contact in a couple weeks (depending on your service/product/etc.).
Many, many times I’ve seen leads get turned off because of overly zealous attention, and just as many times I’ve seen giving someone some space to mull it over (almost subconsciously) helps close the deal – this is giving space to et comfortable with their own purchase decision. Particularly noticeable behavior for higher priced items.
