A sales process is simply a series of steps that a person goes through before they give you money for your product or service. Many businesses, though, never stop and think about these steps, they just figure that if they advertise, they should make more sales. At least, that is what they have been told.

I did a little exercise the other day for one of my businesses that I found extremely helpful. Then I sent an email over to my partner and told him to do the same thing. He was blown away by the result!

Here is what I did…

I simply drew out the steps that a prospect takes as they hear about and interact with my business. Get out a piece of paper and make boxes and draw out the steps that a person takes on the path that turns them from a prospect to a customer.

Here is what I mean. Let’s say for example that first, you advertise, what happens then? What is your call to action? What happens to them if they contact your business? What happens to them if they buy? Do you have a process in place to sell them something else? What happens if they don’t buy? Do you have a follow-up system in place to convert them later?

See, once you draw it out and can see what action leads to the next step, then it can help you organize your business. You may realize that you have neglected an entire group of people that you could be selling to. You may be missing an entire system in the sales process.

The main benefit, though, of doing this exercise is that it helps you understand what moves people along from one step to the next and then you can improve each step for exponential growth in your business. If you understand what action people take after they see your ad, then it is easier to write your ad. All you have to do is get them to take the next action. And so on until they hand you their money.

But see, when you advertise, you do not get more customers. It would be nice if you did. But what you are getting is actually more prospects. You see, that is the difference between a prospect and a customer.

Often times, you will hear someone talk about getting more customers. The media rep will tell you to advertise “to get more customers”, your business might need more customers.

A prospect can be defined (by dictionary.com) as someone who is a potential or likely customer, client, etc.

When someone responds to your ad, they fall into that category. They are a potential or likely customer – or they would not have responded.

A customer (dictionary.com) is a person who purchases goods or services from another, a buyer.

See, the difference is the transaction of actually doing business.

Who cares? Well, it matters actually – a lot! Read on…

It matters because it allows you to separate the two in your mind and in your actions towards each group.

It allows you to look at your advertising differently.

We say there are only 3 ways to grow your business. They are

1. traffic

2. conversion

3. back end

See, getting a prospect, and the act of turning them in to a customer are 2 different steps. Each can be handled, improved, tested on their own.

You can increase your advertising – that will get you more prospects. Chances are, they will continue to convert at the same rate. So if you advertise to 100 people and 10 of them respond to your ad, you have a response rate of 10%. If you want 100 new responses (prospects), then you advertise to 1,000 people.

OK, so lets say that your conversion rate from prospect to customer is 20%. That means that 20% of the people who respond to your ad turn in to buyers. Then, you advertise to 100 people, 10 respond (prospects) and 2 buy (customers).

Why does this matter? Well, because now if you want to double your business WITHOUT spending more on the ads, you have 2 options. You can either double your prospects, or you can increase your conversions. If you can get more people to respond to your ad (by making a more effective ad) then you could get 20 people out of every 100 to respond. That is one way to grow your business. Then if you can close 4 respondents out of 10 (instead of 2), you have doubled your business as well.

If you just refer to advertising as the act of getting more customers you tend to ignore your closing rate and you don’t isolate it and spend time working to improve it. What if you could do both?

If you advertise to 100 people and got 20 responses (instead of 10), and then were able to convert 4 of 10 into buyers (instead of 2), then now for your same advertising dollar, you are getting 8 sales instead of 2.

So look at both steps in this process as separate steps and work to increase rates of both prospects and conversions to sales. Then watch your business grow.

You see, basically, there are only 3 ways to increase your business…

1. Increase the number of customers
2. Get your current customers to buy more often
3. Get your current customers to spend more money (larger purchases)

Most advertising just focusses on #1 and then they stop. Newspaper, radio, TV, print ads, etc all just focus on getting people in the door. Let’s say for example that a business owner know that for every 10 people that come in his door, he will sell 1 item. So when he needs to make more sames, generate more business, what does he do? He buys advertising. So now he gets 100 new people in the door and makes 10 more sales (hypothetically speaking). Not bad. But what about the other people who didn’t buy?

See, I am going to wager that with a good follow up system in place, he could easily double the number of sales per 10 visitors up to 2 and definitely increase the odds of turning a customer who purchased into a repeat customer. Getting them to purchase more often.

So, what do we mean by a follow up system?

Well, basically, any kind of mechanism that you purposely put into place which will allow you to collect contact information from your clients or prospects and then allow you to contact them again in the future. Some ideas for this might be to offer your customers a monthly newsletter. You can put articles in there that relate to your industry, products or services. You might offer a coupon for a special deal or annouce upcomming events relating to your business.

Why? The point here is to build and nurture a relationship with your contacts. You see, people are more likely to spend money with someone they know. So, get to know them. Invite them to take part in special discounts or put on a customer appreciation event for your regulars.

How do you set this up? Well some of it will depend on the nature of your business. Some businesses have no problem getting contaact info from their clients because they need it for their records. We spoke once to a massage parlour who automatically takes mailing information for each client who visits. “Great,” we said, “then what do you send them?”. “Oh, nothing” was the reply! “we just need it for our records” Of course, I am off to the side banging my head against the wall Why not send them a note thanking them for coming out today? When was the last time you purchased a product or service and got thanked by the vendor? If it has ever happened, you probably remember it – that is the point!

What can you send out as part of your follow up system? Here are some ideas:

• A newsletter
• Product offerings
• Coupons
• Updates on the business or industry
• Invitation to special events at the business
• Anything to make the people feel special and appreciated

How do you send this out? The point here is not necessarily to make way more work for yourself so you have to do what you are comfortable with. I am going to suggest that you send out emails that link back to a page on your website that contains that issue of the newsletter. If you are not comfortable with that, you can just send out plain emails. Actual mail can work too – though a bit more expensive. People still appreciate getting something in the mail and they are less likely to discard it than they are to delete your email. Also, if they leave it laying around (which they are more inclined to do if there is valuable information on it), then others are likely to see it and ask questions or come by your store or office.

How to collect the contact info? Well, you could just ask for it. That will get you more than not asking When someone is checking out, ask them to write down their email address or soemthing. Better yet is to offer them something right there in return. Offer them the opportunity to receive updates or a newsletter, offer them “access to VIP discounts”. Give them a card with their receipt that invites them to go to your website to sign up for great offers. Ask for their business card – if you are a restaurant, maybe hold a draw every week for a free dinner – get people to put their business cards in for the draw. I have seen that a time or two. There are a number of different things you can do – again it will depend on the nature of your business and what you are comfortable with.

The main thing is that you do follow up – and on a regular basis. Maintain the relationship and develop yoru customer. Then you will have no problem getting them to spend more money and make larger purchases.

I was recently talking to a client of mine about a marketing campaign he was interested in running.
This client is a computer networking consultant. He does on-site visits to service business’s computer networks.

So, he calls me up and said that he needed more clients and so was going to run some advertising. He mentioned 3 mediums – (bulk) postcard mailings, billboard ads and Google Adwords. He was going off in all different directions and I started asking him a couple of simple questions. Once he couldn’t answer them, I just said, “Ok, stop. Backup. What is your sales process?”

His reply – “What do you mean, my sales process?”

I said, you are a long way from talking about advertising. You aren’t ready yet if you don’t know your sales process. Before you spend any money on advertising, you need to have some things in place.

The first is a defined system for closing sales. You see, marketing should be about controlling an known entity. It is something in which you invest in order to gain a return. It is not (or should not be) something that is done by random chance in order to “see what happens”.

To define your sales process, you must think about the steps that potential customer or clients go through before they hand over their money to you. How do they get from not knowing you to becoming a paying customer? Then, you simply create a path for them that makes it easy to follow from one step to the next and then promote it.

For example, my computer consultant client… We had a good discussion and I asked him how he gets his clients. What is the step before they contract you to work in their office? “Oh”, he said, “that is easy. We set up a meeting with them. If I can get in their office for a meeting, I will close a good majority of prospects.”

Great.

See, now we know what we are selling. Any of the advertising that we do does not sell the consulting service. Advertising should be the start of the sales process and should follow like a chain. Any ads that we put out for his service only have to sell the potential client a meeting. If the consultant gets into a meeting, he will close the majority of the time.

So, do we run ads that sell the meeting? Well, we could. However, there is even a more effective way. Think for a minute… wouldn’t it be better to go in to the meeting as an “expert”? Wouldn’t it be better if the potential client already felt some respect for the consultant? It would very likely increase the close rate. How do we do that? Well, I suggest adding an extra step to the sales process.

Take the opportunity to position yourself as an expert.

We’ll call it the two-step method. Introduce yourself to your prospect via an information package. Or through a free trial of your product/service. Or with a free consultation. Something that will let them feel comfortable with you before you ask for the sale.

I have suggested to my consulting client to offer a free info package. Maybe a report he is writing regarding monthly computer maintenance tasks. It could be a free site visit and inspection of their computer network. He could actually go and offer some kind of network security analysis – after which, he could identify to his prospect certain areas of their security that could be enhanced or maintained.

The point here is that if you have a clear, defined sales process, it is easier to do advertising. All that your ad has to do is ell the next step. So with our consultant example, here is one proposed scenario:

1. Advertisement invites readers to go to a website and learn how to maintain their computer network monthly for maximum performance.
2. Website requires visitor to exchange their contact information for a free report on the topic.
3. Consultant follows up, using contact info to set up a free consultation.
4. Free consultation leads to identifying flaws in the company network security.
5. Now the consultant has something to sell – a specific solution to a problem he has already identified for the customer. Why wouldn’t the prospect buy?

See, by now, the consultant is already an expert. He has already proven that he knows his stuff (free report), he has been in to the office and identified issues that the prospect has. If he is smart, he takes a minute to explain why each issue he has identified is relevant to the security of the company. This also proves him as the expert and builds trust from the prospect. Now asking for the opportunity to fix these problems is easily done with a high rate of closing.

Some extra notes:

Some of these steps could be changed. For example, the advertisements could offer a free consultation directly and eliminate the free information product. It may depend on what you are more comfortable with. It may also depend on the complexity of what you are offering or your area of expertise. One thing to keep in mind, though is that you will very likely get more people asking for a free report or free information than you will for a free consultation. You should test this of course, but free information that is sent over is less threatening. Your goal here should be to generate leads and a prospect list with which you can follow up later on. A few follow-ups will greatly increase your close rate.

The main point here is that whatever you decide your sales process is, know what it is. Write it down and make it step-by-step so that it flows. Have one step lead to the next so that when your prospect enters your “sales funnel” (i.e. Sees your ad), you are leading them along to the finish line (turning them into a client).

More importantly here is that you even know what your sales process is (many businesses don’t have a defined sales process or even know how or why they get customers). This way, it is easy to know how to advertise – just start at the top of the sales process. One step sells the next until you have a repeatable, defined sales machine.