Why you need to treat your business like a baby; with constant nurturing and routine.

I was having lunch with a good friend of mine, Sam, the other day. He was telling me all about his new start up business and the challenge of needing to be everywhere. When I asked him what he meant, he explained that he had spent the past year travelling up and down the country, telling prospective customers about his new venture which is in the technology B2B sector.

He explained that whilst he had received great interest, the interest just wasn’t converting to sales and that for 2015 he was going to ‘try social media marketing.’ Our lunch ended before we had finished eating. ‘Sorry I have to go,’ he said as he busily gathered himself up, ‘ I have another meeting with a prospective client.’ We payed the bill, I wished him well and we promised to catch up soon.

As I walked to my car, I thought about his situation and indeed the situation of many other businesses in his predicament. He has travelled far and wide telling everyone all about his great new technology venture. He has generated some really good awareness about his product, everyone has told him how much they love it, but he isn’t ‘seeing the love’ in his sales figures. At night, he lies awake asking himself, what he’s missed, why aren’t people buying?

Meanwhile, one of his prospective customers, who he met at an ‘innovation conference,’ is staring at her computer monitor, asking herself the same questions over and over, pondering the purchase of this big ticket item and thinking to herself;

I cannot get this wrong – the business can’t afford any bad purchasing decisions in this economic climate.
What if this is not the right product for the business?
What if a better product becomes available after the purchase has been made?
What after sales service is there?

What’s clear here is that this sale is not going to be a quick one. This prospective client is going to need reassurance and education, hand holding and nurturing. I am sure your prospects have many questions, many doubts and maybe even other offers from competing businesses, that you as a business owner need to overcome.

Meanwhile, Sam needs to make sure that he understands what issues prevent a final purchase and what the procurement process involves, so that he can offer solutions to all of his prospective clients concerns.

I know that Sam already has a great website and a small presence on social media. I know that he is putting a major effort into his ‘on the ground,’ face to face networking, but he isn’t linking the two. He is taking the ‘spread the word and see what happens’ approach.

However in his ‘spread the word’ approach, he came, he met and he left, without telling his prospects all about his great e-newsletter and blog and Facebook page. He didn’t invite his prospective buyer to stay in touch, to update them on new products, live demonstrations, webinars and free training opportunities. His approach is haphazard and disorganised – he is not thinking of each phase of the selling process, as part of a larger marketing campaign to really engage his prospects.

Business owner’s work hard, really hard, after all having a business is like a baby that needs constant nurturing. But what a new baby also needs is a great routine, a system if you will, like the ’bath, story, bed’ regimen that all new parents come to depend upon in their early days of parenthood.

Your sales process requires the same systematic approach. By ‘drip feeding’ your client with timely and relevant information, you can build awareness about your product and your company and provide educational insights into your industry, whilst simultaneously building trust.

So, If you are like Sam and need help with your sales process, (or changing nappies), then get in touch, because at Marketing Sense, we understand, that when it comes to converting the sale for your business, having a system really does help.