Business to Business sales for Kiwi businesses

I am currently working with a company that is selling high value marketing solutions to corporates, Government and New Zealand businesses.

The interesting thing we have discovered is the length of the sales cycle from Go to Sale. This is measured in Months when we expected Weeks. The great thing we have done during the process is to capture and build a great database and stay in regular touch with prospects for getting them over the line and future product releases. By doing this we are of course building a valuable relationship based database

The following article written by Gianfagna Strategic Marketing outlines some best practice which I think will benefit those selling B 2 B in New Zealand.

Jeff Smith – Boost Business Coaching

6 Steps for Successful Lead Conversion

Business purchases typically involve multiple decision-makers who can take weeks or even months to select a vendor. Since leads may need to be nurtured over time, you need to build a relationship with these prospects.

Your sales team will make frequent contact with prospects during the sales process, but marketing can play a pivotal role, too. Following these six steps can help you create a successful lead conversion marketing strategy.

1. Capture Contact Data to Facilitate a Dialogue

During lead qualification, capture the contact data needed for an ongoing sales dialogue, especially e-mail addresses and permission to send e-mails. One way to get this data is to require it for fulfillment of your original direct mail offer, such as a product sample, free trial of your product or service, or a premium.

It’s also a good idea to ask prospects to help you identify other team members who will have a role in the purchasing decision, so you can reach out to influencers, authorizers, and end-users.

2. Develop a Data-Driven Contact Management Plan

Use prospect data to build a contact management program, a carefully planned series of regular touches with prospects to keep them interested, keep your product and company top of mind, and create additional opportunities to generate a response.

Use data such as company size, NAICS code, industry, geography, or future revenue potential to group prospects with similar characteristics into segments. Then, develop a marketing communications plan for each segment that regularly delivers information tailored to prospects’ interests.

Most B-to-B marketers try to reach prospects at least quarterly. For others, a bimonthly or monthly contact is appropriate. A mix of tactics and channels, such as direct mail plus e-mail, can help you keep in touch with hard-to-reach business executives.

3. Send Information that Helps Prospects Make the Buying Decision

Your goal is to persuade prospects to make the buying decision. Send information that facilitates that decision, such as:

- Product samples;
- Newsletters about industry trends or product usage, such as new applications, peripherals, upgrades, or enhancements;
- Case studies showing how others are using your product or service;
- Customer testimonials about your company.

4. Tailor the Marketing to the Prospect

Nothing turns off a prospect faster than feeling like you don’t know them. Thus, it’s vital that your lead conversion marketing campaigns reflect your prior contact and the budding relationship.

A data-driven sales/CRM system can help you track contact with prospects and tailor future initiatives to each individual. It’s also smart to customize communications to various individuals within a company according to their level of authority and their role in the buying process.

5. Treat Top Prospects like they’re Already Customers

Even among qualified prospects, all are not equal. Move your very best leads – those with the greatest likelihood of converting to a sale or offering the highest potential revenue – into a preferred contact queue that treats them like they’re already customers.

Send these prospects higher-end, highly personalized direct mail and consider offering them, for a limited time, select advantages only your customers receive, such as special offers, preferred pricing, new product previews, or private invitations to customer-only events.

6. Create Opportunities for a Face-to-Face Dialogue

The Holy Grail for most business-to-business sales reps is an in-person meeting with the prospect. Identify potential opportunities for face-to-face contact and use direct marketing to promote them. Invite prospects to events, seminars, or educational programs, or encourage them to meet with you or attend activities you sponsor at trade shows.

When They Still Haven’t Said “Yes”

Be realistic about the timeframe for B-to-B lead conversion. What seems like a long time to you can seem perfectly appropriate to the prospect. Keep your best prospects on your contact list, be sure to keep the list current, and continue sending marketing messages to prospects that clearly have a need for what you sell. Communicate regularly, stay on the prospect’s radar screen, and your next marketing initiative could be the one that finally results in the sale.

Jean M. Gianfagna is a strategic marketing consultant and the founder and President of Gianfagna Strategic Marketing, Inc., a consulting firm in Cleveland, Ohio that provides marketing strategy, direct marketing, and creative services to leading business-to-business and consumer marketers.

Jean has been creating and implementing successful, integrated marketing communications plans and programs for more than 30 years. She founded Gianfagna Strategic Marketing in 1992. Jean’s blog, Smart Marketing Strategy, provides marketing insights and ideas to help marketers generate a higher return on their marketing investment:http://www.gianfagnamarketing.com/blog.

A frequent speaker on developing marketing strategies and campaigns, Jean has taught advertising, branding, direct marketing, marketing strategy, and marketing communications at several universities and professional conferences and authored articles on effective direct marketing techniques in national marketing publications.

Gianfagna Strategic Marketing has won more than 50 awards for marketing excellence and is a nationally certified Women’s Business Enterprise by the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC). Jean also has garnered many awards for marketing achievement and entrepreneurial success.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jean_Gianfagna

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Why most small businesses in New Zealand really suck at marketing themselves and what to do about it

Jeff Smith - Wellington Master Franchisee BOOST Business Coaching

Jeff – The Business Coaching Guy

So what do you do…?

Well  switched on businesses have a Marketing Process where they funnel there prospects through and keep in touch with them until they are ready to BUY….Right.. Yeah right!

95% of businesses don’t follow a process, and most businesses fall down when it comes to “The Follow Up”

The reasons for this vary but you will find the following culprits

• You get busy
• The newer leads are more alluring offering more instant promise
• You don’t have a system, a process or a structured approach to following up

This I pretty dismal however its going to be great for you because you are going to read this and give your business a competitive advantage. The whole reason you have a marketing funnel, database and a process is so you can control, measure and execute your “Follow Up “activity.

And smart Businesses know that they keep following up until either the prospect is ready to buy, dies or says … go away!

Here are some examples of some basic “Follow Up” tactics

• When you are at a networking event or business related function don’t be a prolific ‘card grabber’ – relax and gather cards of people who you think you may be able to assist in the future. This may be help as in provide them products or help as in connecting them with a potential customer or snippet of information. Email them the same night or next day and suggest a catch up. Stay in touch with them at least every 90 days and ensure that you are giving (information, referrals’help)
• If someone gives you a lead ask them to do an email intro for you or introduce you personally. A great way to break the ice and an easy way to start a relationship on a credible trustworthy level and a good way of ensuring your “follow up”
• If you are still at the stage of sending out letters of introduction as a prelude to a cold call only send a couple a day. Follow up in a reasonable timeframe 3-6 days. Don’t send out too many as you will get busy and wont follow up. NEVER – forget to follow up, its bad form
• Calendar and systemise your follow-up calls. Put time aside in your to do list or calendar along with the names and numbers of those you are calling. Do it every day. Make it a habit. Get a good small business coach to assist you with putting in a good follow up programme and hold you accountable.

So the Golden Rule for businesses selling services is not to let any customer, supplier, prospect, past customer go more than 90 days without hearing from you whether that be a call, email, postcard. smoke signal. If you sell services – following up should be an integral part of your business day. If you work for 200 days per year and follow up with 5 people a day that’s 1000 more on your database this time next year.

Start implementing a Follow Up programme today as part of your operations and I promise you will see excellent results if done systematically, regularly and religiously!

About the Author:
Jeff Smith is the New Zealand Master Franchisee for BOOST Business Coaching. He specialises in working with NZ small business who don’t want to be bombarded with corporate speak, buzz words or overpriced consultants who have no empathy for small business.

Email the Author | Visit the Author’s WebSite

Follow up, Follow up, Follow up

A lot of businesses sell services – the only problem is…. Most of the time when you are ready to sell your service to a prospect…. Your prospect is not ready to buy

So what do you do…?

Well  switched on businesses have a Marketing Process where they funnel there prospects through and keep in touch with them until they are ready to BUY….Right.. Yeah right!

95% of businesses don’t follow a process..

The reasons for this vary but you will find the following culprits

• You get busy and don’t follow up
• The newer leads are more alluring offering more instant promise
• You don’t have a system, a process or a structured approach to following up

The whole reason you have a marketing funnel, database and a process is so you can control, measure and execute FU….

And smart Businesses know that they keep following up until either the prospect is ready to buy, dies or says … go away!

If there is one place you can start improving conversions the for goodness sake start with following up.. systematically, regularly and religiously

BOOST Business in a minute are short one minute tips guaranteed to provide you with a common sense approach to BOOSTing, growing and sorting your small business.

Contact BOOST Business coaching for a straight up no nonsense common sense approach to helping you spend more time working on your small biz…not in it

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Register and pay for your BOOST Lite programme

They don’t have a strategy.

To them marketing is the activities that surround random placed advertising. Usually this is poorly planned often carried out on a spur of the moment decision or a ‘once only’ offer through their local paper or radio ad salespeople.

These businesses may or may not know who their target market is but they don’t show it in their advertising message. They don’t follow the true tested Problem+Solution+Target Market formula and therefore throw away a lot of their resources and advertising budget.

They are generally all over the place with their medium, method and message instead of being focused on one target market and one problem and one solution at a time

They don’t know that advertising is not marketing

Yes I know Mr. Marketing Student 101 the 4ps are Pricing, Promotion, Product and Place. However promotion is only one element of the so called 4ps marketing mix. The reason that a lot of New Zealand small businesses concentrate on the advertising and gimmickry is because it’s the ‘sexy’ side of marketing.

They don’t have a big picture view of marketing and don’t start with the basics first i.e They don’t look at their positioning and targeting strategies based on their product or service and ideal customers. This way they don’t let that direct their pricing, promotion, and distribution strategies.

They are not different on purpose

Many New Zealand small businesses copy the same old rubbish that everyone else uses. This way they are guaranteed to get the same bad results. Even if the marketing is good for one business, it’s probably not going to be that great for their businesses. These businesses forget that they are not the same business so their goals, objectives, target audience, capabilities, etc. are not the same. Secondly – ‘me too marketing’ – does nothing to distinguish their businesses from their competitors. Why would someone buy from them if they are no different than their competitors?

Most New Zealand small businesses forget to give their customers compelling reasons to buy, by not demonstrating that they have something that their competitor does not. Be different on purpose. (Otherwise start the price battle!)

They are amateurs and DIYers

Small New Zealand business people are good at their craft. They are great plumbers, doctors, lawyers, store owners, beauticians, chefs, dry cleaners, accountants. Most of them don’t know anything about marketing- and don’t have the time or patience to learn. And that’s ok. It would cost them more to learn and do it themselves than it would to pay someone competent to do it for them. I don’t want to fix my own broken pipes, or operate on my own heart. I’m no good at it. But other businesses are. That’s why I pay them to do it for me. However, most Kiwi Businesses insist ion doing it them selves. They don’t learn the basics of marketing and don’t start with understanding their marketplace, or find a profitable niche, or define their product or service to serve that niche.

If they did this right, they would either find themselves with no true competition or you they would stand out head and shoulders above their competitors

Small businesses think they can have the same marketing impact as Coke and Macdonalds put together

The problem is most Kiwi small businesses don’t have the money to market like the big boys. The big companies can run branding campaigns and hire expensive Ad companies to produce visually entertaining and stimulating masterpieces that make you almost drool for that new Big Mac or the latest Ford Focus.

NZ Businesses cant can’t afford to run image only ads. Funnily enough, aggressive newspaper advertising departments tell them they can. They don’t realise that their ads have to work hard to create awareness and generate sales or leads.

Unfortunately most small businesses dont market wisely and don’t test and measure to ensure that every dollar they spend is an investment that will produce a measurable return.. NZ Businesses are especially hopeless at using ads that have a call to action to spur a visit to their shops, their websites, or generate phone calls.

Most of them don’t realise until its too late that to do anything else is to risk losing money and ultimately fail in business.

Its all over the place

They are trying random things not really knowing why or they are dabbling in marketing with no real goal, process, or system. As a result their marketing strategy and tactics are not connected to each other or working together in harmony. In fact, they might even be working against each other.

For example running a discounted promotional offer to their prestige clientele using their prestigious services

Tactics must be aligned with strategies and support your goals. Every piece of marketing communication must be integrated with your brand and marketing strategies to be consistent and produce desired results.

Its all over the place part 2 – No system, no processes

Most small businesses have no system in place for marketing. There is no plan for properly evaluating the marketplace and finding profitable niches. There is no system to help position or reposition their products or services to serve those niches. This is especially devastating when their marketplace is changing at a hundred miles an hour every day.

There’s no F.U.

Many Kiwi small businesses, have leads that go un-nurtured and un-converted. Not because they are bad leads but because they don’t follow up.  Chances are, if the lead was not ready to buy right then or at least have a sales person talk or visit with him right then, the lead was pushed to the back burner and evaporated into space.  Or the customer that visited their store once, or even purchased once, never returned and was never contacted with any type of follow up marketing by the business.

Kiwi Businesses don’t realise that if their business relies on generating leads to turn into clients/customers, then they need to have an automated follow up system in place. Most of them haven’t implemented a system to capture their contact information to send them follow up emails and newsletters and contact them by phone or in person to keep in touch with them and nurture their relationship.

Hard Work – Not automation!

Kiwi Businesses are terrible at making sure that their marketing tactics are not automated where they can be automated. This makes sure that marketing is a drag, a bore, and a chore and pretty soon business owners get so busy following up there is not enough time for doing and managing the rest of the business. These business owners are probably not taking the time to measure the results of their marketing so they don’t know what, results their marketing produces.

They get frustrated, anxious  and wonder if marketing is really helping their business at all. They start questioning their time and effort spent on marketing and pretty soon they are doing no marketing at all. Which virtually guarantees their business will not grow- and makes it highly probably that it will not survive for very long.

Conclusion – New Zealand small Businesses

Tools are available along with the simple skills and rules in marketing to turn your marketing effort from a chore into an automatic measured series of tactics. Don’t delay, educate yourself today or get professional help with a business coach or marketing consultant. Invest wisely and get an ongoing return on your investment

Check out Wellington Business Advice

Want to talk to a business coach without the long term commitment – try our $299 business coaching lite programme. Benefits Here

Yes – I want to trial BOOST  – pay for the $299 Business coach here

Questions Call Jeff Smith BOOST NZ Master Franchisee 021 – 566 – 535

Palmerston North Business Coaching

The Business Coaching Guy AKA Jeff Smith master franchise BOOST Business Coaching says ‘There appears to be plenty of inquiry coming from Palmerston North Businesses looking for simple action oriented Business assistance’. ‘ The thing about BOOST Business Coaching is that we have a reputation for working with businesses on a practical level – in other words we tend to leave the fluff, academics and psycho theory to other business coaching companies to peddle’.

The BOOST Business Coaching programme has been available in Palmerston North and the Manawatu for the past few months however we are now looking to enhance Palmerston North Business Coaching by offering the BOOST system to a local provider or someone looking to join an accomplished company.

We are looking for someone who has previously been in small business and who can talk to Palmerston North Businesses on a one to one ‘down to earth’ level

Jeff Smith says “The Manawatu & Wanganui master franchise is available now and we would love to talk to that special business coach in Palmerston North who has a good track record in growing small businesses rapidly.

Palmerston North Businesses have been especially keen to take on our $299 BOOST Coaching Lite programme which gives small businesses a good feel what coaching can do for them and how much they are likely to profit from having a good business coach on their team.

Contact BOOST Business Coaching

‘Many small businesses tell us that having BOOST Business Coaching on board is like having a bolt on Marketing, Operations and Finance department’

If you are in Business in Palmerston North or anywhere in the Manawatu give us a call and we will get your Palmerston North Business Coach on the job right away.

Palmerston North Business Coaching - $299 BOOST lite programe

Can Palmerston North Business Coaching help me franchise my business?

Palmerston North Business Coach

The Business Coaching Guy AKA Jeff Smith master franchise BOOST Business Coaching says ‘There appears to be plenty of inquiry coming from Palmerston North Businesses looking for simple action oriented Business assistance’. ‘ The thing about BOOST Business Coaching is that we have a reputation for working with businesses on a practical level – in other words we tend to leave the fluff, academics and psycho theory to other business coaching companies to peddle’.

The BOOST Business Coaching programme has been available in Palmerston North and the Manawatu for the past few months however we are now looking to enhance Palmerston North Business Coaching by offering the BOOST system to a local provider or someone looking to join an accomplished company.

We are looking for someone who has previously been in small business and who can talk to Palmerston North Businesses on a one to one ‘down to earth’ level

Jeff Smith says “The Manawatu & Wanganui master franchise is available now and we would love to talk to that special business coach in Palmerston North who has a good track record in growing small businesses rapidly.

Palmerston North Businesses have been especially keen to take on our $299 BOOST Coaching Lite programme which gives small businesses a good feel what coaching can do for them and how much they are likely to profit from having a good business coach on their team.

Contact BOOST Business Coaching

‘Many small businesses tell us that having BOOST Business Coaching on board is like having a bolt on Marketing, Operations and Finance department’

If you are in Business in Palmerston North or anywhere in the Manawatu give us a call and we will get your Palmerston North Business Coach on the job right away.

Palmerston North Business Coaching - $299 BOOST lite programe

Can my Palmerston North Business Coach help me franchise my business?

He is talking about small businesses and the need to have a strong vision. I have previously posted about BOOST s own small business vision and thought it would be good to publish Daves article on my blog as I found that it resonates nicely with my own thoughts

Dave Fingers – OneCoach Denver

I was talking to a small business owner a few months ago about her business in this current economic condition.

As I typically do when talking to business owners I asked her, “how is business?”

“Oh, O.K. I guess”, she replied.

I could hear the defeat in her voice, so I asked a few more questions to get a better idea of what her current struggles might be.

She has had her business for almost 2 years and has just been getting by…some really good months and some really bad months she told me…mostly bad.

As a curious Denver business coach I asked, “Well, what is your vision for your company”?

She told me that her vision was to pay the bills and keep her business afloat.

Well guess what? That is exactly what she was getting.

Many people I talk to think that a vision for a business is something that only large corporations do. Although, large corporations do this, they do it because it works!

If it works for large companies, why wouldn’t it work for small business too?

A small business vision helps to create a roadmap for the business owner. Think of growing your business like taking a journey. You have to know the destination, or you will have a tough time getting there.

A small business coach acts as a trip planner in a way. We help business owners create a clear vision on where they want their business to be and what they want it to look like.

In life, as in business you create what you focus on. So, in the case of the business owner I spoke about above, she was focused on paying the bills and keeping her business afloat…that was her vision for her company. As a result, she was creating a business that was just making it.

If you can not see it in your mind, or you can not define it you can not create it.

In business, you are either growing or shrinking. There is no status quo. Having a clear vision is the first step to growth. Not having a vision is the first step to fading away.

Now something very important to mention here is that your vision has to be followed up with a plan that you implement.

That is why a good small business coaching programs help you to develop a plan and implement it once you have created a small business vision.

What about the business owner I talked about above that had no vision?

She is now going through a Denver business coaching program and has already tripled her income from last year.

Oh yeah…she has a very strong business vision that she thinks about everyday.

BOOST Business Coaching Home

The Program is for Wellington Business to have a taste of the BOOST experience. ‘We are proven with a great business track record in other parts of New Zealand’ says Jeff Smith the Master Franchisee for BOOST Business Wellington. We are keen to roll out our program to Wellington Business therefore what better way than to offer a small taste of our services.

For $299 Wellington Business get;

1. A Fully Structured In-depth Capability Assessment interview on the Business.

 
2. Comprehensive business report outlining recommendations based on the Capability Assessment

3. A Benchmarking report which outlines your competitor’s turnover, Gross Profit, Staffing etc. This is very handy for businesses to compare where they are positioned in their industry

4. An extra BOOST Business Coaching session identifying some immediate actions, tactics and strategies to achieve some early BOOST results.

5. Access to your BOOST coach for up to two weeks.

6. 12 Month access to your own online project space with a record of all documentation, notes, action check lists, templates, your business report, benchmarking report and ‘How to’ manual on any of the strategies or tactics discussed.

7. A FREE USB Stick with Financial Templates such as Break Even analysis, Cashflow Forecasting, Profit & Loss Forecasting etc.

Contact BOOST now. Wellington Business should take advantage now by contacting BOOST Business coaching contact details here.

I was recently involved in rolling out a Business road show in Northland. Ken Wilson from Enterprise Northland and myself on behalf of the local Chamber of Commerce were explaining the “6s for success” programme. This is a 60 minute presentation on concentrating on the basics in your small business to make sure that you cruise through the recession and come out the other side a fit and lean organisation.

320 small businesses from all over the region attended the roadshow. The highlight for me was Ken Wilsons 60 second lesson on Customer Service. He explained that you can get all the qualifications, speak to all the experts and investigate all you want HOWEVER as long as you remember F.A.F you are 95% of the way to being a customer service expert.

F = Fast

Give the customer what they want FAST!

A = Accurate

Give them what they want!

F = Friendly

…And be nice while you are at it!

Next time YOU are the customer put the service you get to the test. It will amaze you how much room for improvement there is out there. Quite frankly – where customers are treated like second class citizens that is where I see opportunity for the competition.

 The best customer service I have experienced in the last year is at the LONE STAR cafe in Rotorua where we went out with our 3 1/2 year old after this years Rotorua Marathon. FAST – They seated us , took drinks order and served our toddler within 10 minutes. ACCURATE – Exactly what we ordered – including an excellent value Kids menu.  FRIENDLY – Even after a glass of water was tossed half way across the room and my pre schooler managed to slam dunk himself onto the floor from his seat our service , food and bill were delivered friendly, humorously and with an attitude that told us that we were very welcome. OH.. the food was excellent as well….

There you have it… Sometimes all you need is a good honest look at your customer service as part of helping your business.