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

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

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