Increase Your Leads and Close More Business

The strategies working right now to get leads and close more sales are obviously not the same strategies that worked 6 months ago. I talk to many consultants, coaches, and Thought Leaders who were enjoying an abundance of business up until March and now find themselves with little or no revenue.

It’s a tough time for many, but for some of you, opportunities are abundant.

As I talk with business professionals and drill down further with those struggling to generate revenue, what I find is the pandemic is one layer of the problem. The other layer is inconsistent promotion and ineffective (or no) sales strategies to increase visibility and convert sales.

Many people are scurrying to learn ways of doing business by taking every online course in the world to help fix the situation but the single most important issue has not been addressed… SALES activity.

Does this hit a nerve?

The reality is there are clients out there waiting for you, and if they are not there this second, they will be there tomorrow. How do I know? Because I lost all of my contracts in March, shifted my focus and had the four best months in my business (seriously).

The trouble I’m finding is that most of you struggling would rather DIE than talk about sales. That’s because you have some pre-conceived notion of what sales is… someone manipulating you, someone who is pushy and aggressive, someone trying to sell you something you don’t want.

That is not sales. That is manipulation. Sales pros do not manipulate people. They uncover problems and if they have a solution, they offer it. Simple. We are looking for a long-term relationship that’s mutually beneficial. That is sales.

To have more sales activity, you first need to increase your visibility to get leads. What I’m finding are four main activities that work in this environment: virtual speaking, virtual networking, referrals, and social media networking. There are five if you want to ad paid advertising to the mix.

It is possible to grow your business and get new clients now, and virtually you can serve people all over the world.

Here’s what you can do today to help you be successful in monetizing your consulting, coaching and Thought Leader practice:

1) Promotion: if you want to grow your business, you need to have visibility. Best kept secrets aren’t selling anything right now. There are tons of ways to promote yourself, read my article here for 21 Ideas. You can create the best program ever, but if you are not promoting it, you have no-one to sell to. This is partly a numbers game and partly a quality game. You need enough quality leads to have success. If I want 50 new clients in my programs, I know I need to work this math: 1,000 quality new leads x 10% into a sales conversation x 50% say yes. The key to this first step is in getting the 1,000 quality leads. That’s a big number for many people.

2) Pipeline: If you want a constant flow of new business, you must have a constant pipeline of leads and prospects (in my dictionary, leads are names, prospects are specific people you’ve identified that you think will make a good fit). So many times businesses and even pro sales people fill their funnel with leads, then back off and take their feet of the gas. This is like yo-yo dieting, it does not work. In fact it causes more work. Once I get the leads into my pipeline, I need to give them a relevant next step.

3) Path-Forward: maybe you have been promoting yourself, and you’ve been speaking, but you’re leaving with no leads and no qualified prospects. That’s likely because you are not making a strategic offer. You are not giving your potential future customers a Path-forward. They need to be invited, they need to know you are the one with the plan to help them. Leave them to their own ideas about what to do next, and they will figure it out without you (or they won’t figure it out at all and that’s a big disservice).

4) Promise: be clear about what your promise is to your potential customers. It’s easy to confuse people by not having a concise offer for them. Proposals with too many solutions leave your prospects overwhelmed. There’s an old saying “a confused mind doesn’t buy” so be crystal clear.

5) Phone Conversations: does your phone feel like a thousand pound weight when you pick it up to talk to a prospect? That’s probably because you have some other idea of what sales is, as I described above. Sales is about solutions. If you have the solution to people’s problems, then don’t you want to tell them about it? Or, do you want to leave them hanging? Ugh. Pick up the phone and talk to people, be a human. If you want to have a video call instead, that’s ok too… but if you think you’re going to close business with a few social media posts and an email, you’re going to continue to struggle. Unless you have a low cost offer, an active and engaged email list, and a jamming launch strategy, the fastest way to sales is the old fashioned telephone.

Are you going to accept the way things are and continue on the path you’re on? Or, are you going to look for a new point-of-view on the situation and get into action?

I’m here to help you, and if any of this resonates with you, let’s schedule a strategy call (Click here) to get you in the right direction. I’ve done it. I’ve helped clients do it, and if I can help you do it, I’ll let you know what that looks like and you can decide if you’re ready to move forward.

Cheers!

Jennifer