How To Convert More Of Your Leads Into New Customers

The most important business process is how to attract and retain new customers. Without a steady stream of customers, who remain loyal and bring referrals, your business will struggle.

I personally know too many professionals, who offer great services and products, who barely remain solvent due to the fact that they have not mastered the processes and know-how of marketing and sales.

7 Key Strategies On How To Generate More Customers

1. Fish where the big fish are

Even if you offer the most technically advanced fishing equipment, you’ll leave empty handed if there are no fish in the lake. But if you just have a simple net, and the lake is teeming with fish, your chances of a catch are much greater. Where you cast your line is crucial to catching fish … and the same is also true in business. Successful businesses fish where the big fish are. They talk to customers who are familiar with their product or service, or already use it, or have a high probability of using it. Don’t waste your time trying to convince people who don’t need your product or service when there are customers out there who already know they need what you’re selling … and are thus part-sold before they even see you.

2. Educate by giving reasons why

You’re continuously striving in business to move people first to desire and then to buy your product or service, again and again. For most people, the missing link in this process is to provide your buyers with a complete understanding of the reasons why you do what you do, why you sell what you sell, why your product or service is better than others, why they should act, and why they’ll be disadvantaged if they don’t. The more you help your buyers to understand the tangible, compelling reasons - through great content - why they should take action, the more powerful your positioning, the more people will understand the value and benefits you’re offering, the more they will trust, and the more comfortable they feel with what you’re offering.

3. Increasing Sales Skills

One of the most immediate ways of leveraging your business is to continuously train your entire staff in non-manipulative, strategic selling principles, methods and understandings. Effective selling is not just a matter of learning a sales spiel or having the gift of the gab. The finest sales people in the world are helpful, not pushy. They believe in their product and make meaningful recommendations and suggestions based on their personal experience of what actually works. They provide the buyer with the information they need to make an informed decision … and they know how and when to ask for the order! By training everyone in these skills, you’ll be amazed at the massive compounding impact on your business.

4. Constant follow-up

80% of all significant sales occur only after a minimum of five continuous follow ups … yet only 8% of sales people ever ask for the order a fifth time! Constant follow-ups are an enormously effective way of advancing and building your relationships, developing trust and gently leading your prospect to a purchasing decision. You can get as much as twenty times the sales and results if you constantly following up. When something makes such a significant difference, you owe it to yourself to follow up … and keep following up in a nurturing way. It will make a profound difference to your ability to convert business.

5. Recruit sales superstars

There is a special art to attracting and recruiting sales superstars for your business. They are original, intelligent, innovative, relentless, clever, creative, eager to please, entertaining, persuasive, compelling, highly communicative, learn very quickly and are a pleasure to deal with. Superstars adapt to every situation, never give up and become even more determined when presented with a challenge. Within three months they’ll normally be outselling your best performers. They can form a bond where nobody else can do so and make sales nobody else can get. Sales superstars don’t come cheap. But they’ll improve your conversion rate massively which makes them worth every penny!

6. Qualify Leads better up front

Time wasted on unqualified leads is the No.1 factor that can affect your sales success, because not everyone is a prime prospect for your products or services. You can be “busy” all day talking to people, but you won’t make sales unless you concentrate on qualified prospects, rather than offering your product or service to people who are unreceptive, not ready for, cannot pay for and are disinterested in what you’re offering. You qualify your leads by offering very specific propositions to ensure that the people who respond to your marketing approaches are only those who have the desire, the capacity and the motivation to buy your product or service.

7. Winning Quotes & Proposals

If either your product or your proposal are weak, your chances of a sale are slim to non-existent. If you normally send out single page “quotes,” you’re asking your buyers to make a leap of faith when they buy from you because they really have no idea if they’ll be getting a great service or a lousy one … and you’re inviting comparison with your competitors. If you focus instead on educating your buyers to understand the true value of your product or service by explaining how it solves their major concerns, telling them exactly what you do for them at each step, they KNOW it’ll be great. This will help you to win more tenders, charge what you’re truly worth and increase your conversion rate.