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Welcome to where the magic happens. Every project, class, system and process I have ever implemented started with a blog post RIGHT HERE. So dig in, there is gold in these electrons.

What Happens AFTER They Become Customers?

This is the $1,000,000 question isn’t it? We spent the last 6 articles talking about everything you can do to generate leads using the S.I.T. Lead Generation System. What we haven’t talked about yet is the next step.

To recap, S.I.T. Lead Generation is a customer engagement system. The ultimate purpose is to deliver an ongoing stream of qualified leads to your sales team.  What makes it uniquely effective is its ability to also deepen the relationship between suspect/prospect/customer and company/salesperson. It has both cumulative and immediate impact in varying degrees based on strategy and tactics. But the key, at its heart, is building real interpersonal relationships.

No matter what sales methodology you subscribe to, you can never escape the fact that sales is rooted in relationships with real people. Essentially S.I.T. is about becoming uncommonly RELEVANT with our contacts to the point where we transcend “basic selling.”

So for the purpose of today, let’s JUMP over the sales process (we will hit it HARD in subsequent articles I PROMISE) and talk about utilizing S.I.T. with the people that we invested all that time in building relationships, our customers.

The Crime

It is a fact, as plain and real as it is ugly, most sales organizations do a TERRIBLE job staying in touch with customers after the sale. I say ‘sales organizations’ because the mind set starts at the top. More often than not, management is more worried with next month’s sales numbers to the exclusion of the relationships you had to build to get last month’s sales numbers.

The truly criminal thing is we have put in a boatload of time and effort to make this system work, but have simply lost the will to maintain it. Why should we essentially CHOOSE to WASTE the fruit of our labor ? If the system is executed properly we can continue to deepen the relationships and mine our current customers for cross selling, up-selling, referrals, networking, industry experience and many other opportunities benefiting both parties.

The Motive

It is always about time isn’t it? “I don’t have enough time to reach out to them” or “I know I need to call my old customers but I have a proposal to put together.” These aren’t evil motives, they are just WRONG. You have to program into your daily/weekly schedule current customer touches. Think of it like breathing, you don’t do it you DIE!

It is important to note, these touches can’t ONLY happen when the customer is having problems or that is how they will associate you, with a PROBLEM. Just like in when we began using S.I.T. these touches need to be proactive not reactive.

The Means

This is the beauty part. The essential structure is in place. We are already executing a successful S.I.T. system. We know how to schedule touches, what delivery systems to use, how to build relevant content, and more (all of which can be seen in previous FSF posts here, here, here and here). We just need to re-task and tweak for customers instead of suspects/prospects.

The Opportunity

You have a chance to develop a long-term relationship with your customers that can be rewarding in a number of ways. Developing CURRENT relationships as opposed to building NEW relationships is pretty similar. The difference lies in 2 specific areas:

  1. The Depth: Because of your existing relationship you can go deeper into the what makes the customer tick, finding out even more pertinent facts. They will be much more open and you can really flesh out their profile.
  2. Risk vs. Reward: The people in your existing relationships come to depend on you. They made a business decision to go with you over a competitor, implicitly trusting you. This is why it is imperative to not only keep up with the current level of customer service, but to improve upon it. You don’t want to put the kibosh on all your hard work because of LAZINESS or worse APATHY. Demonstrate how you value your customers by continuing to deepen and strengthen the relationship with them, I promise it will pay back HUGE DIVIDENDS!

The “Beginning”

Just like life, a customer relationship is a journey, not a destination. There will be ups and downs, twists and turns but when handled correctly it will be the most prosperous journey of all!

All righty folks, that puts the finishing touches on the S.I.T. Lead Generation System. I strongly urge you to re-read and/or bookmark the other posts that define the system in more detail. Also, don’t forget to go to my website for more information and you can always email me if you have any specific questions. Next article we will set off in a new direction, but with the same goals, helping to increase your sales revenue and profit while improving your productivity.

Until then remember, you can either make sales or you can make excuses but you can’t do both…. I am outta of here!

 

 

“I Don’t Know Where We’re Going, But We’re Making Great Time!”

One of my favorite euphemisms for ‘man’ not wanting to ask for directions. Unfortunately, it is also true in the sales world. We all want a productive lead generation program, but most of us aren’t willing to invest the time and resources into it.

Lead generation, just like driving to the Grand Canyon, needs to be thoroughly mapped out BEFORE you start the journey. You have to know NOT JUST where you are going, but what is along the way, what does progress look like / can you measure it and you have to be able to answer one of the great questions of our time “WHAT IF?’

Continuing our discussion of S.I.T. Lead Generation, I will be discussing what kind of “map” you need to follow for lead generation, what do the “sign posts” along the way look like and give some samples to use in your sales efforts.

Remember, lead generation is not ONLY for new contacts, but for existing customers as well. We will be exploring how to Stay In Touch with ALL contacts in a way that will demonstrate your dedication to customer service and differentiation from your competition.

The Road Ahead

There is a psychological concept called Self Efficacy. Even when something seems impossible, it is the strength of our belief that makes success possible. The absence of this belief guarantees failure. A strong belief in the mission fuels our ability to focus, put forth effort, and persist. Believing allows us to see the goal (continue in the face of daunting adversity) and break the goal down into more manageable objectives (one evolution at a time). If the evolution is a cold call, it can be broken down into even smaller objectives such as asking good questions. Believing allows us to seek out strategies to accomplish the objectives. Then, when the call is done, move on to the next evolution. Thinking too much about what happened and what is about to happen will wear you down. Live in the moment and take it one step at a time.

Self Efficacy is EXACTLY why we have to keep in mind all reasons this process is SO IMPORTANT.

We want

  • to DECREASE time in the sales cycle and INCREASE closing percentage.
  • to remove the “Ugh Factor” from our phone calls and “warm up” our cold calling.
  • to INCREASE our average sales size.
  • to receive that “magic call” from contacts saying they received our information and THEY want to talk to us (yes this will happen with this system).
  • to have a REAL reason to call our contact and NOT be stuck saying “I just wanted to…”
  • to be a THOUGHT LEADER! Somebody our client turns to when they have questions because we know they won’t be in the buying cycle all the time. Sometimes they just need some info and we want to be the providers of that information.

5 Steps for S.I.T. Scheduling

1) Classifying your suspects, prospects and customers is critical. Not all contacts are equal and you can’t treat them as equal. You want to personalize your touches as much as possible and the variables you must  take into account for that are:

  • newly found or currently existing in database
  • industry/industries that you sell into
  • positions titles and responsibilities by position
  • buying cycle
  • size of business (revenue or employee)
  • Active and Dormant Needs (see description in post at link)

All of these factors are crucial because they will all have their own built in time frames and predilections and they ALL must be taken into account.

2) After you have classified all contacts you must perform what I call ‘Opportunity Research’ using LTLR (see description in  post at link). You have to know everything you can about all these factors and how they effect your contacts. Using ‘Opportunity Research’, many times you will further stratify your contacts leading to even MORE personalization and the possibility of deepening the relationship, ALL GOOD THINGS!

‘Opportunity Research’ will also be different depending on the above variables. You will invest more time in research for some opportunities opposed to others, it only makes sense to prioritize your time, you only have so much of it. A word of caution though for the previous statement, don’t get lazy just because an account “looks smallish.” Run out “ALL your ground balls” and do your research you never know what may be lurking behind door number 2!

3) We have classified and researched our contacts now we can put them into a schedule of touches (click here to see descriptions of touches). Newly found and existing will always be handled differently (at least until the newly found are brought into the cycle). Click this link to see an example S.I.T. Schedule. Customers also need to be touched differently. They should see the ULTIMATE in customization. You should know these folks inside and out, thus they have the most individually personalized touch system possible. Even if your product/service is a one time purchase and you have NO chance of ever selling to that customer again KEEP THEM IN THE TOUCH PROCESS. It is customer service 101 and you never know when they will have a reference for you.

4) Monitor, Measure and Modify: Always know what is going out, to who and when. You don’t want to be caught flat footed if a customer calls to thank you and you don’t have the foggiest why he is doing it. Always know the ROI for your efforts. This knowledge will help you to spend money on the RIGHT areas, not just any area. Always improve your efforts whether it is the timing, the content or delivery. If you are getting a high rate of call ins ask why? If you are not getting a high enough click through rate ask why? ALWAYS LOOK TO IMPROVE YOUR RESULTS!

How Companies Are Evaluating Marketing ROI

5)  Don’t STOP EVER! Once you start this process you can never stop it. Aristotle once said “Nature abhors a vacuum.” If you are providing consistent, relevant content, your contacts will begin to look forward to it. If you stop for any length of time, I PROMISE YOU, your contacts will find someone else to provide them content and that person’s name is COMPETITOR!

That was a lot of info for today. Let’s take some time to process it and give me a call or shoot me an email if you have any questions. Next time in the Forum we wrap up S.I.T. Lead Generation and lay the ground work for your next step on the road to sales success!

Until then remember, you can either make sales or you can make excuses but you can’t do both!

 

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