We all would like a line of prospects waiting for their opportunity to buy from us, but many times companies just throw money at marketing and hope something sticks. Our guest blogger this week, Peter Sylvester, shares some valuable tips for creating the waiting list of customers we all want.
In any given industry some people struggle to get enough customers while others have more than they can handle. In any given market, some companies chase for clients while others are lucky enough to select who they want to work with and turn away the rest.
So – how do they do that?
Ask yourself…
Are you running a “busyness” (where you are continually chasing your tail and chasing more individual orders)?
Or are you the leader of a Campaign Focused business, which creates a queue of ongoing prospects?
Great companies often start with great campaigns.
Coca-Cola, Nike, Apple and Virgin all started (and continue to thrive) using campaigns to get their customers. Once you understand how great campaigns are constructed, then you can see how these great companies refine their messages to hit different target audiences – with different behavior styles.
Here is a great example of a “Relationship” campaign run by Coca-Cola…
Coke had fantastic success in the UK when they put individuals names on their bottles – people went out and bought bottles of Coke with their friends names on it, and presented it to them as a “gift”. Friends used the bottles to build relationships – not with Coke, but with their own friends… And Coke helped them achieve that deeper friendship.
And the result was that a growing population of people tried Coke, and built an ongoing relationship with Coke.
It was part of their “Share a Coke” campaign, and – on a purely transactional basis – it meant that buyers went out and bought two or three bottles at a time – not just one.
Lets Do It Again
And now (June 2017), they are replicating that now by putting the names of big cities and holiday destinations on their bottles. Whats the betting that they will become “souvenir gifts” for friends and families – or just great memories from the Summer of 2017. Keep an eye open for that this Summer.
The skills and strategies for running a Campaign Focused business are not just restricted to larger companies – they are transferable to all companies – and that means YOUR COMPANY…
If you want to expand your business, without it becoming a busyness, then the key to scaling your business depends on intelligent campaign thinking.
One at a time..?
Most businesses set themselves up to win clients one at a time, and service clients one at a time.
This is really hard work. It is also unsustainable and causes people to grow bored or to burn out.
This approach doesn’t work in the longer term for the business owners (who exhaust themselves fast and can’t scale up into increased volumes and into different geographical locations)
And it doesn’t work for the clients (who don’t get the energy and ongoing support that they deserve) They just feel like a one-off transaction, which is what they are. They have no “connection” with you, because your run a busyness.
5 Key Steps to Increased Sales Velocity
It’s incredibly difficult to create the sales velocity required for fast growth without building relationships and running ongoing campaigns.
There are five phases to building a successful campaign:
1. PLANNING: You must know your capacity and who it’s for. You need to know the point where you’ll actually be oversubscribed and which clients deliver the most value in that available capacity. This is vital.
2. BUILD-UP: Explain your process and your terms in advance so that the market can prepare itself. Tell people what’s going to happen before it happens. Don’t ask for the sale; ask for the advance signal.
3. OVERSUBSCRIBED RELEASE: You become oversubscribed when more people want your product than you can deliver it to. The purpose of being oversubscribed is so you can be selective with whom you’ll work with or sell your product to.
And remember, you should “rate” your potentials not just as one sales transaction – but as a potential for multiple transactions on a recurring basis. These are people who you should cultivate long term relationships with.
4. DELIVERY & FOLLOW UP: People talk. Today a dissatisfied customer will tell a thousand friends on Facebook and several hundred Twitter followers, and their negative review of your business could haunt you for years. So give them something to talk about..! And make sure it is positive..!
5. CELEBRATE AND INNOVATE: Tell your stories, share the numbers, issue reports, capture the magic moments and spread the word about your campaign’s achievements. Learn the lessons, make changes and renew the process before repeating it.
Every lesson is Good Learning – ignore it at your peril.
About Peter Sylvester
In his 10 years as a Senior Vice-President of Harley-Davidson internationally, Peter established 17 joint venture arrangements in the UK, Europe and Australia, and worked with 700 businesses to establish their successful business plans. He has now used that expertise to combine the power of emotion branding (Harley-style) with robust, proven business planning processes to create the INTEGRUS techniques - based on high levels of INTEGRITY - which can be applied to businesses large or small, on a worldwide basis.
For more information about Integrus Global, you can visit their website by clicking here.
Comments