By Craig Klein, SalesNexus.com CEO
Have you ever felt aimlessly stuck in your business? It is common for seasoned business owners to feel that something has shifted in their business environment. The smart ones take the time to analyze what has shifted and why things have shifted…then plan how to adapt to those shifts.
You may want to hire a consultant to tell you what needs to be done to evolve with the changing market. That’s not a bad idea. You might want to dig into your Business GPS first. WHAT????
OK – you don’t know what I mean by a Business GPS. In short, it is your “online CRM.” If you have been gathering data about your customers over time, you will find the moves in the marketplace. The CRM will map out your Business Global Position System and it will likely guide you to your next turn. Here are a few things you will discover:
- What lead source brings the most revenue per sales lead? For many, the days of traditional advertising are over. Even Pay Per Click (PPC) has shifted for many companies. After all, PPC is simply traditional advertising in a digital world.
Compare referrals, trade shows, cold calls, web forms, incoming calls/emails, and your outbound email campaign. Calculate costs in time and money and compare it to the revenue generated. To get a really good picture, compare this data to what it all looked like 5 years ago. I am pretty certain you will see differences.
- How many sales leads are unqualified for an appointment with a salesperson? Smart companies have adopted the quick and ruthless qualifying method. After all, consumers want to control the buying process. Until they are ready, they simply want you to furnish them with information. Quickly get those “not yet ready” sales leads into a lead nurturing campaign.
Where are sales becoming stalled within your sales process? The ability to measure the effectiveness of each step of the sales process is a goldmine for improving profits. When you know where the pipeline is leaking, you can investigate what needs to be done to tweak the process.
In Lisa Gansky’s “TED Talk”, she shows us how business is recognizing the need to “define, refine, and scale” their approach to business. She tells about how “Zipcar … understood that they are in an information business, not a car business.” The truth is, all business is in the information business first. The product or service is secondary to the demand from consumers for information. Watch how your customers move through the sales process so you can anticipate what they will want next. It is a fundamental shift in how we must do business today.
- What questions do new customers ask before, during, and after the decision to purchase your product/service? Knowing these important questions will help drive a lot of your communications. You may want to set up an auto-responder library so customer service can answer the FAQs easily. Perhaps more valuable, you can use these questions to create valuable content pieces for your marketing automation.
- What is your 90 day revenue forecast? Again, the CRM can answer that question. When you gather data about steps of the sales process, close ratios, and delivery timelines, it is relatively easy to do accurate sales or cash flow forecasts. The more you measure…the more accurate the forecast.
These accurate pipeline reports are extremely valuable if you need to get additional funding from the bank. According to Jim Wilkerson of “Strategic CFO”, “When you have statistically proven data to support a projection of closing 87%, the banker will have much more confidence than when you project 90% without the documentation. They will have confidence in the number and in you as the person managing the business. A number like 90% looks like a guess.”
Craig is the founder of SalesNexus.com, a leading provider of CRM, Email Marketing, and Lead Generation solutions to business 2 business sales teams.
