Category Archives: On Line Reviews

How To Increase Your Conversion Percentages.

How to close more sales by increasing your conversion percentages.

A conversion meter system is simple, and if you apply these tactics to your product, your sales conversion rate will increase fast.

People and companies buy based on a lack of fear of doing so. Some people call it trust, but you can trust a service or product and still have substantial fear about buying it.

Let me give you an example. Assume I have an old car I don’t use much but keep it around as a backup car for the family, kids, and guests. One day it starts leaking all sorts of fluids. I may trust the company that I am asking to fix my old car that they can fix it, but my fear may be, will paying for the repair be worth the money, or should I just buy a new car. I am not going to hand over the keys unless my concern is addressed. The car isn’t worth all that much any way.

So it’s not about trust, it’s about getting rid of the fear.

A really smart auto repair company would not only convince me I could trust them (using testimonials, and certifications and all that) but they also would be prepared to “step into my shoes” and let me know that even after I spend the $1500.00 to fix the car, that I could still sell it (fixed) for $4500. If I don’t fix the car it’s only worth $1000. So it’s a net gain of $2000.00.

Now I am ready to get it fixed.

So step one in increasing your sales conversion is identifying what prospects fear when they buy from you. This can be tougher than it sounds. And if you are smart you will ask people who bought from you in the past to tell you what they feared, instead of just winging it.

When it comes to SEO (search engine optimization) services the fear is pretty easy to figure out. Clients fear that 1, It won’t work. 2, It will work but they won’t get many new sales to cover the expense. And 3, that they don’t have enough money in the budget to do the program.

So lots of SEO companies guarantee that the site will be on the first page of Google… what ever that means. (You always have to ask, “or what” with a guarantee. Is it all your money back? Is it they will do more work until it is? And if so what time period are they talking about? And then again, or what?”)

But that only helps with the smaller fear. If you want to eliminate, or greatly reduce all the fears you may need to do a performance based pay model, they pay you based on what actual sales come through the program), and a payment plan that fits the clients budget.

The interesting thing about doing all of that to address and get rid of fears is, you will usually make more revenue and profit when you go the extra mile. you can charge more on performance based programs, andyou can charge more on payments plans. So over time, you end up with a higher margin.

Addressing a clients fears will bring up your closing percentage as much as 50%. It’s worth the thought process and time to figure it out. Feel free to email us if you need some help with coming up with these fears, or just want to run then by us.

The next big thing in your improving your closing percentage is talking and presenting the stuff your clients WANT! Selling what they need will kill your sales fast.

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Web Visibility Should Be The Goal, Not SEO

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the process of making sure your website ranks well in the search engine results.  Today, that’s only a piece of driving quality traffic to your site.

Here is a partial list of what areas a good web visibility program will take into consideration when developing a plan to increase your website visitors and the conversion of those visitors to customers. When we provide SEO services we are really providing much more to insure you get results.

  • Untitled designLocal SEO
  • Pay Per Click advertising. (we include this in the majority of our SEO – web visibility programs)
  • Social Media .
  • Should you be on every social network, posting and engaging every day? Probably not, but you should have a profile on all the major social platforms, just from a visibility standpoint
  • Content development and distribution.
  • You Tube channel with educational content.
  • Public Relations.  Yes, both digital and traditional P.R. can be a huge asset to your brand and visibilty.
  • Social Media advertising.
  • Customer reviews.
  • Other web sites. Lets face it, if a prospect searches for your type service and the first result is “yelp”  you should be on yelp.
  • Newsletters and Building an Email list
  • Site promotion on signs, and promotion materials.
  • Online testimonials for other businesses.

Web visibility should be the start of any Internet marketing program. Local search engine optimization is certainly important, but a great program will bring your site quality visitors even with out high individual rankings.  The fact is moving a site up in rankings can take time, so to maximize your investment getting traffic to your site adding and focusing on all of the above will bring in revenue faster.

If you would like a free 30 minute consultation on how visible your business is online, please call us today at

(720) 254-1234

Mike Bayes

 

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Visitor Value and Bounce Rates for Local SEO

Visitor Value and Bounce Rates for Local SEO.

When it’s all said and done, the ultimate score card in a  SEO program (or web visibility program) is quality visits on your site. Those being visits that result in some predetermined action on the visitors part.

1 + 1 = 2Actions might include a request for an appointment, request for more information, to be added to your newsletter, downloading a free piece in exchange for their email address, and many other possible desired results from the visitor to your site.

This is where bounce rate can be a very interesting factor.

It’s clear that the higher the bounce rate on a site, the less valuable the overall visitor traffic is (with some exceptions).  But you need to know how valuable your quality visitors are to understand how your site is performing.

That’s why we use a visitor value formula to determine the quality of traffic to a website, as well as the standard formula which is just actions as a percentage of total visitors.

The reason we look at it this way, is your site may be attracting a large number of visitors from searches or referral sites that are unintended traffic. You can’t control what odd terms Google may rank your site for if you didn’t pay very close attention from day one of the loading of your site online. So after a few years, you may be seeing a group of traffic that has low value, and is very difficult to manage.

This is Important! >>>>>
This is Important! >>>>>

An example of this is we have a client that ranked on the first page of Google for the term glass bar, and a third of the sites traffic came from searches for, you guessed it, “glass bar”.  They don’t sell glass bars. They just happen to have a picture of one on the site that had that term in the alt. tag.    So it’s not really fair to calculate those visits into a value visit. And because the vast majority of those visits end up as bounces, you will get a better picture of how a site is converting visitors (who find the site through the intended search terms or categories) by weeding the visitors who bounce out.

It’s pretty simple, and can change your perception of how your site is performing.

Calculate Value Visitors

Take your gross number of visitors in a given period (week, month, year).  Reduce it by your bounce rate percentage,  then use that number to calculate the conversion percentage for your site.  That being the number of value visits that end up taking an action. This is the number that you want to see as high as possible, and will vary depending on the action you are calculating, and the industry you are in.  For many of our clients we would like to see a 7% to 10% value conversion of the “value visitors”  and for this purpose won’t pay much attention to the gross number of visitors or the conversion percentage associated with that group.

Lets use  a simple and real example of two sites looking for the same result  (A request for information) with the numbers adjusted to make the math easier but still reflective of the real numbers.

Site 1.1 + 1 = 2

Visitors per month. 300

Bounce rate  is 15%.    Value visits = 255

Requests for Info is  20 which is 8%  of value visits.

This site is hitting it’s goal of converting value visits into actions.  And also has a very good over all bounce rate, indication that the content and web visibility program is doing it’s job.   To be honest, we’d like to see a higher bounce rate with  more traffic. Maybe the SEO is to focused and not casting a wide enough net.

Site 2.

Visitors per month 1000

Bounce rate is 60%. Value Visits = 400 or 40%

Requests for information is 16 which is  4% of value visits.

This site has good traffic numbers, but isn’t converting as well even for the “value visitors”. In this case you need to ask:  why aren’t we getting visitors who stay on the site and view several pages, to take an action?  There can be many causes, page design, no call to actions, content geared towards education and not conversions and many more.

With site number 2, the cause is actually pretty interesting. This site’s center piece is a fairly advanced cost calculator,  that is intended to “weed out” prospects who don’t have the budget, or are looking for a low cost company. So in this case, even some of those “value visitors” are not the ones we want to take an action, and therefore a 4% conversion is doing it’s job.

Okay… I m started to feel like Vizzini in the Princess bride, so I will end this for the moment.

If you would like more information on how to determine how your website is performing give us a call, or feel out the contact form below. We offer free 30 minute consultations.

Mike Bayes

720-254-1234
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SEO Is Just A Google Popularity Contest

Search Engine Optimization is a Google Popularity Contest. (Updated 02-20-15)

Last week I was asked by a new client “Is search engine optimization really that hard?”… Well… no.

Either is building a house, or running a restaurant, or installing I.T. networks or fixing your car. But in each of those cases most people call a “professional “.  The last time I put a new battery in my car I scraped my hands, and lost a nut in the motor, as well as a piece of the wrench I had borrowed to do the job. (That’s a true story). Yes, I am not a mechanic.

To understand what S.E.O. is about you need to think of your web site as a high school kid who wants to be popular.  Because that’s really what SEO is… making your site popular in search results.

Make your site attractive

 

Shovi Websites   Full Service Web Design   Email MarketingSEO is really a popularity contest. Your site needs to get Google’s (and Bing’s) attention. So, just like in high school the popular kids (as I recall) are attractive, unique, and stand for something.  That’s what Google wants in your site. It should be built attractively with out a bunch of nonsense and clutter. Well organized and very clear about what the contents are about.  In S.E.O. we call this part – on site optimization.  And without it, nothing else is going to help your site win a popularity contest.

Get other Sites Attracted to your site (Play match maker)

Google needs to see that not only are you all of that, but other sites are attracted to you. The more sites that Google thinks are attracted to you the better. Then of course, Google does have some standards of who they deem popular, so they want to know that the sites that you are attracting (based on what your site is about) are also popular and trusted sites. These sites are need to be relevant to your site.

So the more friends (other sites) you have (linking or mentioning you) the more popular your site will be in search results. And those “friends” need to be popular and trusted, as well.

Host the party! Get invited to the events!

If you get all that going for you, they also want to see that you are social.  I mean, you can not be popular if you are not social right?  So hanging out on Google Plus, Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, and other social networks is good.  And the rules about Google liking your site then apply to how impressed they are by your social activity.  Who comes to your party, and do they like your party.

Be the Quarterback! Attract a crowd!

 

So is your site the high school Quarterback or Cheer leader?  Or is it the chess club member?  Or is it like I was in high school?  I hung out with just about every group, got invited to a few social events, and spent most my time playing guitar in a garage with 3 or 4 other almost invisible kids.  In the world of Google and search you want your site to be the Quarterback, or Class president.  Every one knows what it stands for, it’s attractive has many

Untitled design (6)

Friends, and is invited and does host lot’s of social events.

Now once your site is attracting the right friends, Google wants to see if they stick around at your “party” or just check it out and leave.  If your site visitors like your site, they’ll stay for awhile, and you won’t see them jumping over to other sites like yours because you have given them what they want to see.

See… it’s easy!  Professionals just know more about how to make a site more appealing to the robots and public, and they know how and where to get the attention of all the other sites that you want to like you.

So as you contemplate all of this, remember,  it starts with your site. Good content that addresses the questions and the curiosity of your visitors.  If you are talking to a SEO firm that isn’t focused on all of the above, and your sites content, your talking to the wrong folks in 2015.

If I can help you with your sites popularity please call me for a free consultation.  303 500 3053 ext 1

Mike Bayes

What’s Your Business Worth?

Answer: Two times cash flow plus or minus some other factors.

You can skip the rest of the blog if that’s the answer you were looking for. Or another formula is, 25% or so of the monthly cash flow multiplied by 60 months. That’s a new formula I just heard of yesterday that makes so much sense it’s crazy! I’ll give you the explanation I heard from Mark Doran ( a client and old friend) who has been a business broker in Denver since 1984

Here’s the background on why I am writing this today.

When it comes to selling a business, there are a bunch of differe
factors. I have had the pleasure (cough) of buying three businesses in my life with values under
$500,000.00 And if you speak with an experienced and honest Business Broker (not that those two attributes are easy to find together in that trade) they will tell you that is about the value of businesses they are going to sell the most.

Why? Because there are an abundant supply of buyers for your business when the price is below $450,000 or so, and they can write a check for half of it and carry the rest. But, when the price starts creeping into the $600,000 or more range, the number of buyers will decrease until you make it well into the area that a corporation may be interested in buying you.

So how do you price your business? When is it to big to sell? When is the right time to sell?

I just had a meeting with a client and another client who is a business broker in Denver, Choicebizops.com . We wanted to understand how they could continue to build their business to maximize the purchase price when it’s time to sell. This is a process I encourage all my clients to go through. The truth is, some day you won’t want to continue running your business due to boredom, retirement, other opportunities, or you’ve just had enough.

So, understanding how to maximize the value of your business is fundamental in running your business. Every decision you make will have an affect on what your business may sell for if
you’re being smart.

There are certain characteristics of a “sellable” business. First it has to be priced correctly.
Second, people don’t buy jobs. Meaning if you are trying to sell a business that the buyers can go get a job and make the same money, without putting out a high risk investment in the tune of $100,000 to $300,000 cash, why would they. Seriously, don’t flatter yourself, your business isn’t that exciting. If they are going to make $95,000 a year owning your businesses, and they currently make $100,000, or have that ability, good luck. Not going to happen often.

Now, if your business can provide the same buyer with a $225,000 a year cash flow, and it’s a better lifestyle than working for a boss, now you have something to sell.

Another principle is you, as the current owner can not be irreplaceable to the day to day function.
(This is of course is in the view of the buyer). You need to be closer to a CEO role than a mid level management role. This can be really hard. But it’s true. If you are making most of your dollars based on you selling, or you being the production person, you may have trouble. If your primary function is leadership, oversight, and senior level, you’re in much better shape. Few will pay $400,000. for a business that they have to answer the phones, and clean the toilets.

There certainly are more characteristics, but lets move on a bit.

So whats the value of your business?

Start with this. Take your cash flow (that’s basically every dollar that you get, one way or another, through owning the business. So your salary, your distributions, your profit, and other little expense items that in fact could be considered income. If that number is $150,000 to $250,000 or so, you may be in the sweet spot. If it’s above that, and lets say $400,000 or above
you may be pricing yourself out of the market. Not that you can’t sell it, there are just fewer buyers for those earning numbers.

Here’s another way to view what your business is worth. This isn’t your accountants formula, this is the best real life view of a small business’s value I have ever heard, and it came from Mark Doran owner of Choice Business Opportunities yesterday.

This is the premise. Most sales of a small business will have terms of 50% cash (ish) and 50% carry for 3 to 5 years for the seller. So the new owner will be paying the seller a monthly sum equal to the carry amount divided by the number of months.

So here’s an example. You sell for $400,000 because you have a $200,000 annual cash flow) you take $200,000 down and carry the rest for 4 years, which is 48 months. So the new owner will be paying you $4167.00 a month to pay off the note. Their monthly cash flow starts at $16667. a month. So there is a very comfortable “cushion” between those two numbers.

With this formula (which will come out to the same amount as the 2 times cash flow) your business is worth about 25% of monthly cash flow times 48 ( may be up to 60 depending on stuff) times 2.

So if your monthly cash flow is $15,000. 25% is $3750.00. Use that and multiple time 48 and you have $180,000 and multiple times 2 and you have your estimated value of $360,000 for a business that cash flows out to $180,000. a year. Hmmm looks like 2 times cash flow.

If your monthly cash flow is $6,000, 25% is $1500 multiplied times 48 is $72,000, multiplied times 2 is $144000.00 value. Two times cash flow
The reason this formula is important is, if you are going to carry 50% (or whatever amount) of the purchase price, you want the buyer to have enough monthly cash flow to be able to pay you, and get through what ever tough periods they run into. And new business owners often will see some revenue bumps as they get behind the wheel. The last thing you want is to take back a crumbling business, or have a buyer who can not pay back what you carried.

So why carry any of it? Because you almost have to. Few buyers won’t want the seller to have skin in the game, and banks rarely will loan money on a small business sale. So let this point sink in, you will in all likelihood be carrying a loan for the buyer.

And finally, why is this important in your day to day life? Some of it is simple, this is why you do all that heavy lifting building a business. This is the pay off some day. If you plan for it, and make decisions based on a certain targeted cash flow, total revenue, and business structure you are far more likely to get there, and not overshot the goal, or have a harsh reality hit when for some unknown reason you decide to sell. Another good idea is that when you are a few years out from selling, all new revenue to your bottom line is worth double when you sell! If you can add $40,000 in cash flow, you’ll see an additional $80,000. in the selling price. <<<<<<<<<<<<<<

So investments in marketing programs that work, make even more sense as you begin the thought process of selling. SEO, advertising, sales help, all can be a huge return during that period.

Although the meeting I spoke of yesterday was only an hour and some minutes, I could write a book on what we heard and learned about selling a business. Needless to say, everything in this post is my non professional opinion, and just what I thought I heard. Some is from the practical experience of buying 3 small businesses in my life as well, but if you are looking to sell, get to a well qualified experienced business broker. If you are on Denver or Colorado, I’d clearly recommend my client.

Marketing and sales is a part of every decision you make as a business owner in one way or another. That’s what makes our service unique. How many marketing, or SEO’s have asked you about your exit plan, and helped you understand what it takes to sell your business when it’s time?

By: Mike Bayes.


 

Why SEO Programs Fail So Often.

Why SEO Programs Fail So Often.

It’s math.  Really, think about the numbers for a minute.

Lets say you are an accountant that offers bookkeeping and tax preparation.  You want to get into one of the top 3 ranking spots on Google for “bookkeeping (in your city)”.

1 + 1 = 2

Why one of the top 3 spots ? Because those are the positions that will actually deliver traffic. The rest will at best bring in a dribble of visitors.

Okay, so how many businesses in your city offer bookkeeping (or whatever you do). ? Maybe 500 have web sites that google has indexed. So your odds start at 1 in 167 that you will be in one of the top spots. Based on that it’s not a bet you want to take.  And these numbers don’t even start weighing in the advantages many websites have over yours before you even get to the starting line, such as, the fact they have had a site indexed and well-respected by Google for maybe 10 years.  Huge advantage to the competitor here.

Now, how many of those other businesses have used an SEO or worked on their site to improve its ranking or traffic? I don’t have the answer to that, so lets just assume that all the other 499 business owners receive just as many emails and phone calls about Google rankings as you do every month, and that they, like you, eventually will give in to the constant buzz and give it a go.

The point being, a bunch of your competitors have already made the original journey down the SEO path, and in maybe 200 of 203 cases are NOT in the top three.  Also add in the reasonable assumption that the businesses currently on the first page, and especially in the top positions, have a good SEO firm they have been working with for years.

One of those 200 is most likely the one I will here from to get help. Why?  Because I rarely work with a business who hasn’t tried SEO, and realized all the unfulfilled promises. They’ve spent  $350 to $500 or more for a year with the constant hope that traffic and sales will start coming, and yet, very little has. Why?  Because of the numbers I just mentioned (the odds), the inherent disadvantages their site had to start and needed to overcome, and possible a SEO firm that was overly optimistic based on 1 or 2 success stories they are part of in an unrelated Industry to yours a few years ago.

Hey…  if you track rankings like we do, you will notice something incredible important.  Rankings don’t change much, or quickly for the top ranked sites under competitive keywords (and this seems to hold even more true for “local” sites).

So, now you have a sense for why most SEO programs fail to delivery the anticipated results. My intent here believe it or not, isn’t

 

to dissuade you from engaging in a SEO program, it is to simply educate you on the odds of success.  There truly are real opportunities to leverage your web site as a lead generating and prospect conversion tool using SEO and other marketing programs, you just need to understand the odds, and be prepared to face those odds with an experience partner, who has proven results as well as utilizing other forms of traffic generation for your site, of which there are many, and some that you may find a far better investment in the beginning as you build a long-term SEO program.


 


Mike Bayes

 

 

 

Is Local SEO The Right Tactic? Only When You Do Ready Right.

Ready Aim Fire. If you do ready right, the rest will fall into place.

I’ve worked with 100’s of businesses on marketing and sales campaigns, and I have time and time again found that mid market and small business owners have a tendency to approach new sales and marketing campaigns based on what marketing companies, or other business owners suggest or steer them to. This of course can be a disaster. Here’s why.

Add text

Lets say Jim owns a Auto supply company, and is in the same networking group as Mark, who owns a semi truck mobile repair business. They get along well, and one day Jim mentions that his local SEO campaign has brought in a ton of business, and Mark likes what he hears.

 

So, Mark calls Jims local SEO company to find out more.  The sales representative does a fine job of using all the current Internet vernacular and quotes the normal research on how “people” use the Internet to buy stuff, and that Jim is not taking advantage of this gold mine. Well, heck, it worked for Jim,  maybe it is a good idea.

You see all the issues already I am sure, but I am telling you almost half of the business owners I speak with found me through this type path, and would be an easy sell, if I ddidn’treally have their best interest at heart, or was just so inexperienced that I thought one tactic fits all.

The truth is you have to have a prospect that is online and searching for your service for any SEO to make sense.  So in Mark’s case, I would ask this question first, and if he didn’t have the answer I would say – let’s figure that out before we waste a lot of time and money.

The question is, where do your prospects find services like yours?  Now, having worked with a mobile semi truck repair business, I have pretty good insight into this, and it’s NOT through internet searches. I won’t go on how that buyer finds those services, because every industry and business is different.  It’s the question and answer for your business that counts.

So,  Mark was using the AIM FIRE approach.  The problem is he would be aiming in the wrong direction, because he wasn’t ready. Ready means doing enough research and analysis to understand where you need to be to be found by a prospect.

Abe Lincoln was quoted as saying if he had 8 hours to cut down a tree, he would spend 7 hours sharpening the blade.

If you do ready right, the rest will fall into place.

So you may asked, why don’t marketers and salespeople suggest more “ready” solutions, like research, before they make a suggestion. I assume its one of several things.  They don’t have a ready solution to sell, or they make their money selling what they sell so a ready solution would kill the sale because they are afraid that the research of thought process will end up pointing a different direction than what they offer. Or..

young sales professionals often just don’t have the experience to understand this. Their trained to sell a product, not assess its value.

Take your budget for the next month or two, and spend it on research and analysis just like the really large companies do. They do it for a reason, it just makes sense.

I’ll go into more detail on how and what research and thought process you can use to get ready, and have a successful campaign in the next few blogs.  Until then, don’t FIRE until you are ready.

Mike Bayes

 

Google Hang Outs Now Available From Your Web Site

This is Important! >>>>>
This is Important! >>>>>
Google disrupts customer service industry

Did Google just disrupt the disruptors?  The
 tech giant recently announced that it is 
offering the technology for a button that will launch a Google hangout directly from a 
company website.  

 Hangouts is Google's name for its 
videoconferencing service that allow several 
people to join the same video chat from multiple devices, including smartphones. 

  A related service, Hangouts on Air, allows a video conference to be recorded directly to 
Youtube.   Originally a part of its Google+ 
social network, it has since spun off into a standalone service.  

The service was announced on the official 
enterprise blog for Google posted by Stephen 
Cho, Head of Google Apps and Hangouts Technology Partnerships  "With this new Hangouts 
button, apps everywhere will let colleagues, 
partners, and customers meet face-to-face
 anytime, anywhere, and work more effectively together with just one click" Cho explained, "A number of our early partners have already 
enriched their applications with Hangouts".   He specifically mentioned several of their 
partners in the sales and customer service space, "Sales reps working in Salesforce.com can automatically kick off a Hangout with their 
account team through Esna; in myERP, a sales 
rep can start a video meeting with any 
customer prospect.    Zendesk helps support
 agents start a Hangout to consult with other agents and internal staff, while Freshdesk lets a customer service agent Hangout with a customer to quickly resolve support issues".

The hangout start button can be configured by any moderately skilled developer and let you 
specify if it starts up a text chat, a video 
call, a video conference or a recorded on Hangout on Air.   Since the customer has control
 of their own camera settings, this 
essentially allows for deployment of an Amazon Mayday- like customer service button on any 
website or app allowing customers to see and 
communicate with the representative, whether they are using their video camera or not.

It seems that Google has once again put a 
disruptive game-changer on the market.   
As described by the CITEworld blog  
http://goo.gl/KlurVp "Pretty much everybody 
has access to Google Hangouts, and Google is
 letting anybody embed the button. Obviously, you lose some of the really deep functionality for customer service agents to go hands-on 
with customers that Salesforce offers, but 
it's definitely more lightweight and almost 
certainly easier to deploy in an application. 

  There's a move towards using collaboration 
and chat technology for better customer 
service. It's going to be really interesting 
to see if Google Hangouts gets further built
 out as an enterprise offering with that kind of service as the focus".

What will this free application do to the 
large number of startups and small software 
companies have developed similar fee-based 
applications?   No one really knows, but the 
news can't be good.   They will likely either have to either adjust and offer more value
 added services, or incorporate the technology into their own offering.   Clearly this is a development in the customer service technology industry that cannot be ignored.

Companies like www.teledini.com, a client of 
ours seem to like the news.  It will bring 
further viability to WebRTC  and Video applications.

Want To Sell More? Look To Product Development First

Sales is not about convincing people who do not want your service to buy it. Sales is about finding the people who do want your service and letting them buy it.

Odd that this premise is so overlooked in business. I’ve worked with 100’s of small and medium business owners or senior managers who really didn’t get this. And it can be a fatal flaw to a company.

Sales

There is a complete misunderstanding of what a salesperson/group/ division is capable of. I’ve worked with owners of multimillion dollar companies, who really think the simple act of hiring a professional sales person means that sales person should now be able to convert most (or at least a decent amount) of prospects by using the magic they have learned throughout their career, no matter how good a fit the service or product is, no matter the position of the product in the marketplace, no matter the branding of the product. In the mind of the less informed, a sales rep can sell anything.

Add to that the natural and common tendency for owners to have a higher regard for their offering than the market itself, as well as the common optimistic early sales projections and outlook communicated by the new sales force, and you have a disaster waiting to happen.

I should note that I have worked with sales people who can sell anything, but they are very rare, and they generally produce much lower customer loyalty. Perhaps these are the salespeople owners are thinking of when their expectations are that a “sales person” can sell anything.

The solution is a well thought out sales and marketing assessment before you go and buy the farm. And this is tricky, because the reality is marketing is primarily responsible for identifying the target market (People who will like your service) finding out how to reach them , and then attracting them to your sales group or funnel.

Yet most companies I have worked with don’t have a budget or an understanding of how these two key disciplines must work together to achieve success. So they put all their dollars in one or the other, or severely under budget one.

So if you buy into this premise, the fundamental success of sales for you company starts with product development. A good sales rep can’t sell a product that is hard to use, or poorly designed. A good sales rep can sell a product that is easy to use, and has a clear advantage for their target market.

So working relentlessly on improving what you sell, will do more for driving sales than anything else you can do.

After that, you must have a marketing machine to get the service in view of the right buyers. Once that is accomplished, sales comes into play. Sales is the last piece of the sales process, following product development and improvement and then marketing.

So if you’re struggling with sales, perhaps where you should be looking for answers is in your product or service offering, or are you asking your salesperson to be both your marketing department and sales department.

By: Mike Bayes

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Lead Generation Is Easy (Not)

Building a Lead Generation Program Is Easy (NOT).

So… I’m asked all the time how to build sales for a business. Should I do Social Media, SEO, Advertising, Direct sales, all of that.

I think the first point to start with any “sales” program is the understanding of one very important principle. So to get to that lets start with this question which is this: Sales starts with and goes no where without what?

There are many good answers to this, you might say..

– A great product, – A sales person, – An offer, – Marketing dollars, and on and on.

But the pragmatic answer is this: Sales go nowhere without “leads”. A lead is a business or person who has been qualified as a prospect AND expressed interest in what ever it is you sale.

This is Important! >>>>>
This is Important! >>>>>

Lead Generation is hard

Now here is the second principle you must understand….Lead Generation is hard, expensive, and can be very painful. That’s why “inbound Marketing” has become such a big tactic. Inbound marketing whispers the promise of easy leads being sent to your inbox, ready for your sales rep to close.

The mistake in this concept is that Inbound Marketing is HARD, expensive and can be painful. like any other form of lead generation, it just has a prettier face.

So if you want to build sales, you have to understand, it’s going to either cost money, or it’s going to take all your time (if you’re a small company).

How much money depends on your service or product, and market. To get the picture on how you should budget (or spend) on sales (and 30% to 50% of that should be in lead generation) you need to understand there are different type sales strategies and customers. Depending on your growth strategy, and your tactics have a everything to do with the cost.

If you’re in a sustain mode, relying on referrals and luck, then your budget is tiny because it costs very little to acquire referred customers.

If you want new “open market” customers, that’s a completely new game. And these new customers are your growth group. You have to sell to them in a completely different way. They don’t know you, so you have to establish trust in the relationship. That takes time and money.

So here is a simple formula you might consider. A new market customer will cost you at least 15% of your Gross revenue. So if you sell $2500. Web sites, a new market customer will cost $325. Also understand that that’s 15% of a new sale, not 15% of your gross revenue. If your revenue is evenly split between referred customers and open market customers (a nice healthy mix), your budget is 7.5% of all revenue. That’s why the first few years of a business is so tough! Your cost of sale is twice to three times what your established competitions is.

The thing that really stops most companies from investing that 15% is the fact that it’s money up front, and it takes time to get the return. If you want 10 new customers in a quarter (or a day, its all just math) you are going to have to invest $3250.00 , it may take 6 months to see the total first stage results (First stage is the original prospect buys, second stage is when they refer others).

So if you have an ongoing program, you’re into the budget $3250 time 6 months before the first months return is final. Ouch! That’s why most start up sales programs don’t have a positive return until the 9th month.

if you do it wrong (which is easy to do) it’s throwing your money away. So you can start to see the pain… it’s hard, and it’s temporarily expensive. Not only that, but if you do it wrong (which is easy to do) it’s throwing your money away. And the first way to do it wrong is by NOT focusing on lead generation first.

For small companies without a sales department or person, you are going to have to outsource your lead generation. Sorry, no choice if you want to grow. You’re also going to need to put some dollars into it. So if you don’t have 15% of the expected new revenue ready to spend, your not ready. If you want to add $1,000,000.00 in sales in the next 3 to 12 months, you need $150,000.00 in funds. Sorry, that’s the truth. And of that 30% to 50% should be in lead generation.

The bottom line in a successful lead generation campaign is this: If you don’t have the money, it’s not going to work 95% of the time.

So if you do have the money or time where should you spend it for the best return on Investment? Well, that’s a whole new subject, which I will write about soon. But, here’s a big hint, you should start with Lead Generation.

You can generate leads with:

Social media campaigns managed by a professional firm with a great track record.

• Search Engine Optimization
• Email campaigns that drive qualified prospects to euth your site, or your online presentations
• Advertising on any media
• Trade shows
• Direct sales
• Co-op marketing
• Networking
• Referral programs

And a bunch of other tactics. All of which, falls under business development, because any of those tactics have to be implemented well, and will need to be integrated with other parts of your business to be successful.

That’s what I do with companies. What I call business development. And that starts with assessing budgets, strategies and tactics to be uses, and finding decent measurement metrics and tools.

It’s hard, it’s expensive, and it’s painful at times. It’s also the way 95% of businesses grow, and owners become wealthy.

Your choice is to recognize the challenges, and do nothing, or boldly go where few small businesses go, which is find the money and courage to grow.