Are you staring at your bank account wondering how to get more customers?
Like many business owners or sales professionals, you may be looking at your sales process all wrong. Usually, the conversation starts with, “How are we going to get x more customers this week or month?”
The reason this thinking is flawed is that getting customers and revenue is a simply a result of the right activities. I put together a quick video to help you break it down. And I found some cool disco music for my intro, so you at least gotta check that out!
This is especially helpful if you are a coach or you provide services, as that was what I based the discussion around.
(Click here or the video below to watch how to get customers today)
Keep in mind that, even though this is a very simplified description of a sales process, it is the foundation for even the most complex businesses. When I work with large corporate clients who have long sales cycles, this is most often where they are missing steps.
It’s natural to want to chase new business and try to get the instant win. But, to succeed long term, it is absolutely important that you know what your highest value activities are.
I decided to also add this to the podcast, so check it out here or click below:
The 80/20 Rule: Spend Your Time Wisely
You most likely know of the Pareto Principle or the “80/20” Rule. Simply put, it is that 80% of the results come from 20% of the activity and 20% of the results come from 80% of the activity.
This has long been a standard in sales training where we explain that 80% of the results come from 20% of the reps and vice-versa.
I want you to think about your own days. Take a hard look at how you spend your time and ask if the activities you work on every day actually lead you to results. When I work with someone and we break their days down, most often we find that they are wasting countless hours on tasks that don’t matter.
No wonder everyone seems so overwhelmed and busy!
When you bring it back to basics like in the video, it should start to become more apparent to you that when you focus your energy at the front end of the funnel and your first point of contact, the rest of the results will follow. Get ridiculously good at working with new leads and moving them to become the right kinds of qualified prospects. That will fill your calendar with the activities to drive your business.
If, on the other hand, your days are filled with non-stop follow up (chasing), or absurd amounts of not reaching people, then it’s time to refocus your efforts.
The Sales Funnel, Simplified
In the video, I break it down for you, but let’s look at your customer stages for a moment.
People buy in stages, and at each stage, you have to know what value you offer in exchange for what you ask from them. Again, this doesn’t matter how complex or simple your offer is.
To get someone to take action, you need to challenge their comfort zone (agitate), disrupt their thinking (intrigue), and create a compelling reason for them to do something (value).
In terms of comfort zone, you want to push them just outside the comfort zone into the learning zone, but not so far as to create anxiety. (see image below)
To disrupt their thinking, you need to understand how their brain works and tap into that limbic system to get their attention.
And to create value, you simply have to have something interesting to offer the to take a step forward.
Here are the stages:
- Unknown: They haven’t heard of you yet. All you are doing with people here is trying to get their attention. Get them to take a look at you or your marketing materials and go, “hmmm…”
- Lead: Now they see some value and at this stage they give you their contact information to learn more. They may fill out a form on your website, give you their number at a networking event, or call your hotline.
- Prospect: The goal at the prospect stage is to just get them into a conversation. To move them from a lead to a prospect is most often the challenge we see. To get someone to have a conversation, you need to sell them on the VALUE of a discussion with you.
- Qualified Prospect: At this stage, you’ve had a conversation, have uncovered the gap between their current and future reality, and you have determined that you are a good fit. Now you make an offer.
- Proposal/Application: Here you’ve given them an offer with a price and are awaiting them to make their final decision. You want to work to get as many people into this stage as possible! As I mention in the video, when you only have one or a few proposals out there, it can get stressful.
- Customer: Someone has given you money.
- Referral: Your delivered on your promise and have built trust. Your customer believes in what you do so much that they are willing to transfer that trust to someone they know.
Know Your Numbers
In the video, I break down a sample conversion funnel for making $5,000 a month as a coach, so take a look at that. Essentially, you just need to know your current conversions at each stage and work your way backwards to how many conversations you need to have at the beginning of your funnel.
For example, if you want to make $1M in a year on $10,000 products, you may have a funnel that breaks down like this:
- $1M divided by $10,000 equals 100 units
- To get 100 sales, assume you convert at the proposal stage at about 80%, so you need to have 125 proposals
- If you get 80% of your qualified prospects to say yes to receiving a proposal, you need 156 qualified prospects
- If out of the meetings you have, about 50% of them are actually qualified, then you need to have 312 meetings
- And of the people who inquire with you, 40% set up meetings, then you need to have 780 leads
- If you break that down monthly, you need 65 leads per month to make $1M
Now you go and find those leads and let the funnel do it’s work. If you are struggling to get customers, you should take a look at each stage of your funnel and know your numbers.
If you want to increase revenue, you can do three things:
- Increase the $ per customer
- Get more customers (more leads)
- Improve your conversions.
So go take action and simply talk to people and move them to an initial meeting. Get the funnel started.
BONUS: Check out the Sales Hero Academy at 75% off!
This is only a sample of the training I have been building in the Sales Hero Academy. I have been putting together templates, videos, tools, and a bunch of resources to make sales training super accessible. There is also a great online community and I am pumped about this platform!
And since I run the site, I can make coupons, so I decided to open up space for TEN people at 75% off. It’s currently at $279 for lifetime, so you would get it at $70.
I am about halfway through the first series of courses, and they should be all finished by the weekend, but if you want early access at a crazy price, go to the site here and enter the coupon code SNEAKYBETA75 at signup.
I will be building a ton of resources and growing this platform, so this deal is actually pretty mental. But I need people to test it, so check it out. For a post like this, I will have the reporting tools and templates so you can actually track your numbers. Everything you will need to be a Sales Hero!
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Okay, so that should give you a good sense of how to get more customers
Remember to like and share this as well as post comments below.
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