Productivity is critical for any small business. Large firms have whole departments for different functions and have the luxury of moving at a slower pace due to their size and established nature. Small firms, on the other hand, have no such luxury. Small businesses must look for every opportunity to improve sales and productivity.
Here are a few ways small business owners can do just that.
Companies, depending on their size and availability of resources, tend to either lump the sales and marketing functions of their business together or treat them as completely separate entities, funds allowing. In bigger companies, the two are usually separate with a distinct division in the duties and responsibilities of the sales and marketing teams. Despite this, the link between the two is undeniable and companies are more likely to benefit than not from recognising the potential gains to be made from crossovers between the two departments.
Leveraging content marketing is one way you can connect sales and marketing. The Content Marketing Institute defines content marketing as a strategic approach targeted at creating and disseminating valuable, relevant and consistent content which is customized for individual customers in order to attract and retain the target audience and ultimately to improve profitable consumption.
Closing sales is a crucial aspect of your business. Without it, you have no business. However, from a business perspective, the sales process actually starts with marketing.
Marketing can be defined as the business of generating good leads. However, savvy marketers do not rely on slick strategies, gimmicky tactics, or finding a perfect list broker to get a steady stream of targeted leads into a business funnel. Instead, they focus on things that have been proven to work for centuries: effective advertising.
Without marketing, there are no prospects, and without sales, there is no conversion of prospects into customers. So, think of good sales as a team sport where sales and marketing work together like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
With that in mind, here are 10 ways to generate more leads through advertising:
Good sales is a team sport, and working together, sales and marketing can be a powerful force for your business. As a marketer, I’ve helped sales take a corporate account from non-existent to closed in less than two months. I’ve worked with sales to position a product at the forefront of a trend that continues to drive sales today. And I’ve seen the ugly consequences of sales disconnected from marketing.
But working together, sales and marketing are like the peanut butter and jelly of your bottom line, making revenue more frequent and more profitable. The real trick is coming up with effective, non-invasive ways for ensuring this partnership happens. So I’ve come up with a list of tactics I use to get marketing and sales better aligned to boost sales and profits.
The most powerful way I’ve seen sales and marketing work together is by inviting marketing to existing sales status calls to learn and ask questions. For example, a target who was a casualty of the Great Recession was mistakenly kept on the sales pipeline list and sales passed her by, since she was no longer at the company. As a relationship marketer, I asked, “Where did she land?”
This question and a close partnership with a salesperson resulted in a new corporate client in less than two months that would not have happened otherwise.
If you had told me 10 years ago that I’d end up in sales, I wouldn’t have believed you. Even now, seven years into running my marketing firm, I don’t consider myself a salesperson.
But that’s exactly what I am. And if you’re a business owner, you’re one too.
As an entrepreneur, I’m constantly selling both my company’s services and myself. It’s my job to convince businesses to part with money, and to help them consider that expense a wise investment. So here’s what I, as one who once quit a sales job because she hated it so much, have learned about sales.
Fortunately, selling your own company’s services is more enjoyable than struggling to meet sales goals for an employer. But whether I’m guest blogging online, responding to questions on Twitter, or talking to someone in the grocery store, I’m always on. If there’s an opportunity to help a business with marketing, I need to be there, ready to propose how my company can help.
As the owner of a marketing firm, I’m always on and thinking about marketing and how to make a sale. That means if you and I strike up a conversation about business over cantaloupes at the grocery store, I’ll probably end up giving you some advice about how to market your business (whether you ask for it or not).
I am not, however, trying to sell to you.
There are places where it’s appropriate to try to sell to potential clients, and there are those where it is definitely not suitable. Knowing the difference can actually help you increase sales.
Whether you’re tweeting or Facebooking, your goal on social media should not be to sell. You want sales, naturally. But here’s the difference: you’re working to build relationships with potential customers through valuable content and conversation. If you do your job correctly, they’ll want to buy from you anyway. But if you shove your sales message down your audience’s throats, they’ll run screaming.
The same rules apply offline as on. You want to build and nurture relationships at networking events. Prove yourself trustworthy and valuable, and people will turn to you when they’re ready to buy. Ask questions. Connect people. But don’t center your message around how amazing your product is or try too hard to make a sale. Let it come naturally.
Here’s a story. I love sharing stories to illustrate a point.
I received a call from someone who consults for Facebook. Since I didn’t recognize the number, I let it go to voicemail. She wasn’t specific about what she wanted, but it had to do with my husband’s startup. Did Facebook want to buy them? Integrate with them? The possibilities were interesting.
She said she’d email me too, so I went to my email to see what the deal was. She didn’t reveal a lot more in the email, but her signature screamed salesperson. Not interested.
So I emailed her back and told her politely that we weren’t in a position to advertise at this point.
Within the next week, she left three more messages.
Hi Susan! This is X from Facebook, just checking back with you! Blah blah blah.
Clearly, if I was interested, I would have responded by now, right? Plus I had emailed her.
By the third call, I was livid. I wrote her another email, this time with the subject: Please stop calling me. (How’s that for an attention-getter?)
You’ve left me three voicemails after I emailed you back telling you I wasn’t interested in advertising. This is beyond persistent. Please take me off your list. Thank you.