Should you grow your own business?
I’d never heard of a ‘Sales Funnel’ before starting my own business, but then, haven’t we all used this system in some way, without knowing what it was called?
Should you grow your own business using a sales funnel strategy? But really any strategy to grow your own business is some form of sales funnel.
Our targets have been set and we know who we are and what we can do. We have conducted marketing activities and educated customers to our existence and our whereabouts.
The flyers have gone out; we are using social media and advertising our desire to help others in our community. The website is up and running and monies have been spent ensuring it can be found using our best or bought knowledge of SEO techniques or PPC campaigns. Forms have been filled in and returned.
We have generated much needed leads for our business. Finally, we have prospects.
Those clicks and calls are prospective sales arisen from our marketing strategies and we must not lose them, we have to own them by returning contact queries and reaching back out with information about how wonderful we really are. Now is the time to turn that prospect into a positive sale, and of course, this is all about interaction.
Our ‘best’ people are on hand to chat and determine what a client or customer really wants and knowing what can be offered, is crucial at this stage. There is no point in building huge, unrealistic expectations, if they cannot be realistically met. You might have known a pizza business, for example, who, after delivering 20,000 leaflets locally, were so overwhelmed with calls, their phones and website could not cope. They could not be reached, and Pizzas were going out late. Customers never returned, deeming the business inefficient.
We are nearly at the bottom of the ‘sales funnel’ here, so it mustn’t be messed up.
The thing about this funnel analogy is that it makes us think that by pouring ourselves into the top and creating leads, everything will drain down into a continuous flow out of the other end in a controlled fashion of guaranteed work/sales. Yet this is not the case.
What is the case, is recognising each stage of this funnel procedure so that we can identify which stage is working and where it might be getting blocked up. As I said at the start, we have all used the system in some way without knowing what it is called but knowing about it gives us power to clear those blockages!
Do people know we exist? Is our media and Google presence felt? Should we be spending money on this or brilliant marketeers or sales people? Is your product all that it should be because if it is, you need to capture the raptures of your clients with positive ratings?
There lies the answer to the question, ‘should you grow your own business?’
Yes, you will need to pour more into the funnel at the top, but you will also need to recognise what is blocking the flow and recycle what is coming out the other end.
Knowing your business is the key to growing it.
Our business is matching our clients to mortgage lenders in order to achieve a successful mortgage application. We are called The Mortgage Library and we follow all of the stages of the ‘sales funnel’ process, diligently. In this way, we have happy clients and are growing our business.
By Sharon Harris from The Mortgage Library
