How To Ensure You Generate Enough Business For Your Website

Apart from pay per click advertising, search engine optimisation, exploiting social media such as LinkedIn YouTube Facebook etc. What else can you do to ensure you generate enough business for your Website?

Perhaps a better question is what should you do to generate enough business in total?

Smart online marketers; combine both online and offline marketing tactics and strategies to generate leads and sales for their businesses.

Then you are into a whole realm of different possibilities.

A great place to start is to work backwards from your annual sales objective.

How much turnover do you need at your average margin?

How much of your business is repeat business?

What is your average sales value?

How many customers stop using your services a year?

How many referrals do you generate?

These types of questions feed into your sales plan, which is concerned not only in answering them, but with the number of new leads required, to meet your annual objectives taking into account how many enquires you convert into sales; your closing percentage.

This could be via salespeople or on your website the same principles apply.

When you’ve figured all of this out, you will be in a position to know; how many leads a week, a month, a quarter you need to keep your business viable and hopefully growing.

When constructing your lead generation plan, some common situations to avoid include;

Having your ‘eggs in too few baskets,’ this is having too much business with too few customers or clients. The acid test here is; if you lost one or two of them what would happen to your business?

Not having enough lead generation methods in play - For example you rely on Pay Per Click and don’t do much else. More competitors enter the market, the price goes up of the Pay Per Click, followed by the quality and volume of leads go down. What would happen to your business, if this was your only lead generation strategy?

Spray and pray lead generation - Do a bit of everything and hope something sticks. This can be a very expensive way of marketing, it normally occurs when a business owner has not developed a marketing strategy, which should include a lead generation plan. All marketing can be and should be measured with returns on investment monitored.

Ineffective lead generation - This can occur when any of these situations are wrong; the message, (which could be the sales copy and the design) the offer, your USP (unique selling proposition), the correct medium, the target audience (The quality and responsiveness of the list).

Just one element being wrong can result in ineffective lead generation for example; if you have the best design, great product, a good offer and great sales copy, but you select a bad list, then it all starts to unwind.

Often when business owners suffer from ineffective lead generation, we hear comments such as ‘direct mail does not work, we’ve tried it,’ or ‘email marketing is a waste of time, it’s the spam filters,’ or ’nobody clicked through the website.’

There are plenty of examples of companies that use either of these mediums and make them work. Their lead generation efforts, using these methods are successful, because they have people that work for them, with the right skills.

I hope you’ve found this brief article thought provoking. If you’re not generating enough leads now to meet your sales plan, what’s been covered should help you pinpoint potential problem areas to avoid.

Beyond that, further help can be provide by our inbound marketing services at Integrated Marketing  who can help you put together strategies and provide agency services to work with you to generate more leads and sales. 

Should you wish to consider outsourcing parts of your lead generation strategies or explore how we can help you with practical ideas, call us during normal business hours on 01623 720022.

Take Care 




Regards 


Integrated Marketing  Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved

If you don't tell them how will they know?

I was talking with a web business the other day that got some great products, web based applications.

Most of their business was gained via networking, and selling,  which is great, but they weren’t getting much business off the site.


The products were really useful, I cannot tell you too much, because I don’t wish to reveal the identity of the company. The problem was the sales copy on their website. For example, it was silent on the free offer that they were running and it did not tell the reader much at all.


These were a few pointers that I went through with them, about sales copy.


There should be a headline to draw the reader into the copy.


The copy should answer the question 'What's in it for me from the reader or listeners point of view.'


When you write copy put yourself in their shoes, asking yourself questions such as; why should I care to read this, how will this product or service  benefit me? What do I need to do to take advantage of this offer, what problems does this product or service solve for me? How will it make my life better, more enjoyable easier, more fun? Are these people genuine is it worth building a relationship with them?


Does the copy explain the features and benefits of the product or service?


What will your call to action be? (Fill in the form, the coupon, sign up for the teleseminar, webinar, call the special number etc).


These are a few of the questions that I would focus on when writing sales copy. These same principles and questions apply tor a website, email, brochure or a script, for a video or audio.


Testimonials should echo what's being said and ideally (for business products and services) denominate the benefit, in terms of time saved, money saved or money made. ROI is useful as well.


Before and after is another useful concept to use.


If you don’t explain or demonstrate what your product or service is about, don’t expect many sales.


If you need help with sales copy you have my details.




Take Care 




Regards Mark 




CONSULTING RECRUITMENT MARKETING SALES


MARK WHEATLEY associates provide business improvement services to help businesses and practices increase sales and profits. Services include Sales and Marketing Recruitment, Marketing Consulting, other Marketing Services, Sales Consulting and Performance Improvement.  They are based in Nottingham in the East Midlands UK.

A results driven approach to your business success


http://www.wheatleyassociates.org/ Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved

Reduce your working week

Do you want to reduce your working week?

Or do you want to simply want free up more time 'to work on the business.'

If you are time pressured at the moment, I want to give you one way of lifting some of the pressure that you might be under.

The only condition is, you have to be prepared to change something yourself to free up some time. 

The trick is leverage; how do I leverage myself how can I automate, how can I get other people to do my work? People that might work for you that you employ or independent contractors that work for you.

Concentrate your efforts on where you add the most value, outsource or train other people to complete the tasks that are low value which are stopping you doing the work where you make the most profit or value added to your business or organisation.


Take Care

Regards Mark

Integrated Marketing  Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved

Get More Comments On Your Blog

I've been scratching my head on this one for a few weeks.

At the time of writing this post, I've had very few comments on my blog. I am not complaining, but sometimes its worth airing your problems, to explain what not to do, as well as what you might do. 

So on the basis that someone is going to comment on this, here is one stupid observation and some ideas.

My stupid mistake was not having a visible comment box (idiot). Now I've fixed that I might stand half a chance!! 

Here are some other ideas.

1. When someone makes a comment answer when you can

2. Ask for readers opinions and ideas

3. Offer something in return reciprocity

4. Every comment is a good comment, don't put people down

5. Thank people for their comments

6. Ask people for their examples of similar experiences

7. A bit of self-deprecation - like me pointing out, I made a basic error with the lack of a comment box

8. Have a rating system for your content (I am working on that one)

9. Regular interesting posts (Yes you can comment on that)

10.Moderate comments quickly

11. Ask for help

Tell you what................... why don't you add some of your own ideas to this list? Can you help me build a bigger list??

All comments welcome!!!  

Take Care,

Regards

Mark

Integrated Marketing  Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved

Do you have a referral system?

Apart from networking organisations that you may belong to like BNI? Do you have any other referral systems? Or do all your referrals come from word of mouth?


If you had four solid referral systems working in your business, what might happen to your sales? 10% -15% increases are easily possible.


Systems that allowed you to ask for referrals without feeling awkward that encouraged the giver of referrals to easily come up with them.


Sounds  great doesn't it. There is however  a problem why many companies and practices don't get any referral systems operating. 

Its not that they are not bought into the subject, there are a few reasons why referral systems don't get developed or they simply fail.


Many of the reasons are found in my implementation posts that I wrote some time ago.


The word is 'system' many companies simply don't create them properly, they don't test it, they don't train their people and they give up too soon.


Let me give you something from some training I provide on networking strategically.


Almost every small to medium sized businesses that I come into contact with, attend lots of different networking events in search of referrals. Have you ever sat back and asked yourself questions like these?


What do I really want to achieve from attending these networking events?


How does it fit into my marketing strategy and business plan?


What am I going to do before during and after the event to achieve my goals?

Who should I try to talk with?

How can I get to speak to these people?

How much time have I got for this?

What pitfalls should I avoid?

How am I going to get people to deal with me?

How can they help me?

How can I help them? (To motivate them to help me).

What kind of follow up system do I need to build the relationship? 


The purpose of asking these questions is to have a purpose to your networking, to develop a strategy that will tie into your overall business goals.


There are over 65 different referral strategies in our results driven marketing system.


Here are some things you can do; promotions cards, coupons certificates gifts or discounts, make referrals a condition of business.

Here's one I got from MTV and Virgin in Time Square. A simple coupon was presented to me in MTV offering a discount redeemable in the Virgin shop, how simple is that.


For my readers in the UK, in the East Midlands there is a training grant available which could be used to develop and implement two referral systems in your business. It maybe available in other areas as well, I would have to look into that.


For any of my overseas readers, happy to discuss creating referral systems for your business or practice as well. It can all be done via the telephone and the internet.  


Take Care


Regards


Mark

Integrated Marketing  Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved

Add more value to your offer, don't get beaten up on price

If you are up against it on price, try to think of ways of making your product or service different.

Differentiation is relatively easy with services, but with products its more expensive. You can of course improve the services that surround a product to differentiate it. Examples could be; a longer warranty, faster service back up, a replacement product and so on.

This week one of my clients added two processes to their service offering that were not anymore expensive to deliver and they closed an order, 30% higher than their competitors, who were not offering the same level of service, provided by my client. 

People will pay more if they can see the value. 


When your offering is difficult to compare to your competition, your product/service will be less of a commodity, making price pressure easier to deal with.


Let me give you a practical example; years ago I owned a concrete company, now that's a commodity business! We were one of the the first companies to offer  2 metre capacity trucks. We did not charge surcharges for small loads like the bigger operators and our trucks could access areas where the big trucks could not go.


It was a nice little business that we sold to Tarmac in the late 1990's.


Within our Results Driven Marketing coaching system we have 31 different strategies to defend price.


The question to consider is; where can you be different?


Take Care


Regards


Mark 

Integrated Marketing  Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved

Your Business Model

I was at a meeting today discussing a new business opportunity and discussed different aspects of the business model that was being proposed for a start up.

A key point was that two elements must exist for me to get involved. 


In fact these two points are important to any would be business owner or existing one for that matter. Regular repeat sales and the ability to scale the business up easily.


A final point was that the business would need to be attractive to purchasers in the future. The objective being build it and sell it.


Do these points exist  in your business model? If not what can you do about it?


A short post today check out tomorrows.


All comments welcome, what do you think are the important aspects of a business model?


Take Care


Regards


Mark 


Integrated Marketing  Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved

Managing Your Sales Numbers

This post is relevant to anyone that uses the phone to follow up leads.

Unless you manage your activity, you won’t know how many calls you need to make a sale. 

The cornerstone of face to face selling is making enough calls.

There was a brilliant book written in the 1930’s by Frank Bettger “How I Raised Myself From Failure To Success In Selling” In it he wrote this;

“You can’t collect the commission until you make the sale,

You can’t make the sale until you write the order,

You can’t write the order, until you have an interview

You can’t have an interview until you make a call.”

Frank was making cold calls, there's nothing wrong with cold calling apart from many people don't like doing it. There are plenty of ways of generating leads without cold calling. 

All of the lead generation that I advocate is direct response marketing. Where you are making an offer and asking for people to 'put their hand up' to show you they are interested. What that means is; they fill in the coupon, or go to the website, call the special number etc.

If people have given you their number and expressed an interest, you've got a legitimate reason to call, particularly if you have made it clear that someone will be calling them.

To achieve a certain level of volume in sales you need to create enough activity to hit your target. Kind of obvious that one, but why not take a look at yourself and ask yourself  the question. Am I doing enough to hit my  sales target?

Selling is a process which tends to follow a sequence, a typical sequence could be:

1. Sales Letter
2. Letter Follow Up Introduction Call
3. Presentation
4. Proposal
5. Order
6. Sale (The first invoice)

Consider your own sequence and determine how many letters, emails etc, are required to  and  to hit your annual target?’

Your answer will depend on the number of letters, emails, and follow up phone calls required to get an appointment and the number of appointments that turn into sales.

           

You could be getting plenty of appointments, but not enough sales. This would indicate that the improvement area is somewhere in the presentation and proposal stages.

  

The point is by monitoring your numbers, it tells you where you are successful and where you may need to improve an aspect of the process or your technique. Its the early warning system of a sales slump!

Take Care

Regards Mark 




Integrated Marketing  Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved

People The Biggest Barrier To Growth Part 2.

There has been quite a lot of interest in my original post, 'People The Biggest Barrier To Growth.'

The idea for that post came from a friend, who told me that he was employing people in his company, for the first time. Moving from 'one man band' to a man with people management responsibilities.

Which was when I remembered the research that I did, on what stopped SME's growing. People being the problem, that was singled out as the biggest barrier to growth.

Anyway my friend asked me, what was the best strategy in overcoming that problem?

This was my reply.

There is no one answer to that of course. In my experience it’s attracting and selecting the right candidates. For example, the selection process that I use on salespeople for clients, has a number of elements designed to sort out the 'wheat from the chaff.' That’s the starting point of getting it right.

Beyond that, it’s the right conditions, pay, commission, training, their role and responsibilities. being clear, along with performance expectations being set.

The quality of the product and service the company provides has to be right.

Good leadership and fair management, are essential. Creating an environment where there is a lack of office politics, which can destroy organisations is vital.

People being valued for their contribution, some kind of review process, to get two way feedback on progress.

There is more of course, but getting those right is a good start.

A good book on managing people is the one minute manager. I recommend it to all my clients that want to learn some practical methods of managing people. The big bonus of this book is that; the style its written in, makes it an enjoyable and easy read.

Day five of my 41 day blog challenge, all comments questions and observations welcome.


Take Care 




Regards


Mark 


P.S. Guest Blog writers welcome send me an email.




Integrated Marketing  Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved

What is the link between Rudyard Kipling and Consultative Selling?

Let me explain the link.

One of the aspects of consultative selling is uncovering the problems of the prospect, finding out what the real problems are. 

Seeking to put a value on what the current position is for them  clarifying what your solutions would mean to them if they invested in them, its a particularly useful approach when selling business to business.

The link is is from the poem  'I KEEP six honest serving men.'

I KEEP six honest serving-men

(They taught me all I knew);

Their names are What and Why and When

And How and Where and Who.

What and Why and When and How and Where and Who are the consultants questions.

You will never be stuck in a sales situation when you use them. 

Take Care

Regards Mark 




Integrated Marketing  Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved

More On Sales Objections

There are a number of techniques that you can use to deal with sales objections.


Provided that a sales lead, is a qualified lead, its possible to sell to anyone. That assumes that you are selling something worth buying of course!


A qualified lead is a decision maker, who can afford what you are offering and can buy within a reasonable timescale.


It helps, if you think of objections as being unanswered questions.


There are several techniques you can use to handle them.


When I work with companies in the area of sales training, I ask them prior to the course to write down all their common objections. We work together at creating responses for them during the training.


There is however a different approach to having stock answers to objections. 


That being pre-empting the objections.


The idea is to bring up the objections yourself in the sales conversation.


For example, if you were selling cars and the particular make, had a bad resale value because  of a quality problem with a particular car, that had tainted the brand.


You might say; ''one of the problems you can have in the future with any car is a poor resale value, even when the sales price and the deal on your own car is favourable, you can loose money when you trade the car in. 


To stop this happening we've got a contract purchase option that guarantees the price of your car, when you trade it in, say in three years time.''


This has dealt with the potential objection before it was raised.


Its also worth mentioning that it has been known for prospects to tell lies or just avoid the truth and don't even raise the real objection! They can give you a false objection or an excuse to leave, which is why raising them yourself, does help deal with these unanswered questions.


I could go on there are a number of other techniques that you can use. 


I'm happy to deal with any comments on the subject.


Regards


Mark 


Integrated Marketing  Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved

Do you bring your presentations to life?

Some people take laptop's to make presentations to the their prospects, personally I used printed pages from 
a PowerPoint presentation.

There are a few reasons for doing this, the first being communication.  A leading university concluded that up to 93 percent of communication effectiveness is determined by nonverbal cues. Another study indicated that the impact of a performance was determined 7 percent by the words used, 38 percent by voice quality, and 55 percent by the nonverbal communication. 


By having photographs, samples, graphs etc. It helps support what you are saying verbally and improves communication. Which if I recall is defined as sending and receiving information.

In terms of believability it also helps when your visuals have independent information from reliable and reputable sources.  The reason I use printed pages rather than a presentation on a laptop is; I can close the book and move on, if my prospect understands the point that I've made and they want to ask me some more questions.


 If you don't use visuals, why not develop some and try them out, to see how they can help you support your sales presentation.


I would be interested in hearing about what you take to presentations, what works and what doesn't.  


Take Care.


Regards



Mark 


P.S. If you want to be a guest blog writer on this blog let me know.


A Results Driven Approach To Your Business Success


Mark Wheatley associates is a business development company that specialise in low risk sales and marketing helping medium sized businesses and professional practices grow through coaching training and consulting services. Based in Nottingham in the East Midlands UK. www.wheatleyassociates.org Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved

Does yours stand out? Image from Glastonbury

Anyone for tapas?

 I took this photo at Glastonbury last month.

Its a very large flamenco dancer promoting the sale of tapas.

It certainly got my attention.

The question is; could you buy or make something a little wacky like this, that you could use? Something along similar lines to get your business to stand out?

It does not substitute for signage and clearly space is an issue, but for a retail or restaurant business with a little room outside, well its a possibility!

If you have seen anything similar send me your photo's and I'll put them on the blog giving you a mention of course. 

All comments welcome.

Take Care 


Regards Mark


Integrated Marketing  Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved