What makes a prospect buy from you? And how can your business increase its revenue by converting Leads to Sales? It is a truism that you only have a business once you have customers. It is the perennial challenge of all business owners to engage with prospects in such a way they will want to buy from you rather than your competitors.
To assist you with the process of converting your sales pipeline it is important to be clear about the Customers Journey to YES.
Depending if you have a Business to Consumer or Business to Business model there can be a significant time lag between the decision to offer your product or service to a prospect and actually receiving the order. This will involve time and resources that often goes unrewarded and can have a negative impact on sustainable profitability.
For this reason we encourage our clients to focus on the Return on Investment (ROI) from the sales pipeline when targeting good prospects for their business. The business cost for your people and resources means it is critical to firstly understand the project requirements including the scope of work, how big is the budget and timetable for a decision to be made.
We have created a set of questions to assist you and your sales team to improve your chances of a successful prospect to customer journey.
Converting Leads to Sales: Understanding the Customer Journey
Ask your clients WHY they buy from your business and NOT your competitors?
It is always useful from a business positioning perspective to understand what your competitors are doing – you can gather that from independent research and feedback from the market place.
However, what is much more important in our opinion and perhaps the most underrated business intelligence source I find with SME business owners is to ask your clients and prospects WHY they are buying from you. Most businesses forget to speak to their clients and understand WHY they made the purchase from you – speak to as many clients as you have time to engage with to find out this critical feedback and then make sure you apply these learnings into your sales process.
Do you know HOW your clients currently buy from you?
Are most of your prospects coming from referrals? Did they find you on Facebook? It is important to understand HOW your recent clients found you and to review the process involved before buying from you. These findings should be based on a combination on marketing communications and follow up sales activity.
Are you aware of how many times and contact points you have with clients before they purchase from your business?
Many business owners and their sales people give up way too early when it comes to making a successful sale. The old adage of never giving up applies with every sale when it comes to successful conversion from prospect to customer. Ideally your business needs to make this as short and as cost effective as possible. Having said this if it takes 10 times and multiple layers of engagement with a prospect to assist the sales journey it is incumbent upon you to make it happen.
Does your marketing communication activity support the buying process of your clients?
Too many times we see a complete disconnect between the marketing and sales teams when it comes to positioning your products and services to prospective customers. As an example if you know your clients buy online they don’t need print brochures. The Marketing Plan and knowing the target demographic audience is going to be a critical factor in reaching the right prospects and differentiating your story from your competitors. Only if you get this marketing communication activity right will your sales team and their pipeline effort have a real chance of success.
We have touched on a few of the important questions to be answered by the business owner when defining the journey from prospect to customer. To grow your business the better you manage this sales cycle the greater your chances of long term success.
If you find this blog has inspired you to consider using our team to assist you to grow your business we would love to talk with you about your new business plans.
Does your business need help converting leads to sales?
Call me on 0401 767 639 or send an email to john@lindfieldpartners.com.au.
Good luck with your prospecting and sales conversion journey. It really is exciting when the order book continues to grow and customers are retained long term.