Cold calling from the phone book is no longer a sales strategy that generates favourable results. As a consumer, you know that it is nothing short of a pain in ass when someone gets in touch when they haven't been given the "I am interested" okay. It disrupts our days, makes us less productive and can throw a wrench in an otherwise easily accomplished task. So why are you doing it to your prospects?
Here are some of the myths that we regularly hear from business owners that have been in the game for more than 15 years, and we are going to debunk them with an Inbound Marketing strategy that will take its place and be more cost and time effective.
Do you want the cream of the crop doing your sales for you? Give them leads. Do you want to have a high performing sales team that is closing sales? Give them qualified leads. There is no question that a great sales person would rather be handling an overwhelming number of leads that are qualified and regularly coming in through a defined pipeline than sifting through the Yellow Pages for prospects that may or may not be in the market.
Inbound Marketing will give your sales team a new set of sales tools, the opportunity to do consultative sales (the most effective strategy in the marketplace) and regular leads to follow-up with.
Answer 1:
We would hedge our bets on the fact that they are the wrong kind of busy. Bankrolling expensive lunches, high mileage expenses and extremely long sales cycles equals an incredibly high cost per lead. Why bother? You can make your website work hard for you 24/7 to generate the strong leads that you are searching for.
Lets get our analogy on:
Your website is going to start as an entry level sales person that is ineffective and not doing much for your bottom line. If you do nothing to nurture that sales person, it will never perform any better than it is now. If you feed that sales person knowledge, resources for prospects and a robust communication system, it will perform and continue to out perform itself. In fact, it will get so good that you will make it a manager and then work with a series of other sales people, your website pages and blog posts, to make them full time high performing sales people as well.
Does it seem to good to be true? It isn't. It is Inbound Marketing and the reality here is that it works, it makes you money and builds your business. Many of our clients are in a position where retirement is on the horizon. We step in to create a leads pipeline that will generate enough new business to make them a) more valuable for sale, or b) more easily handed down to the next generation. This is marketing as science and math.
Answer 2:
Creating an automated lead nurturing system will educate your leads and warm them up before your sales process begins. Let them get to know your company, build trust through straight forward information (see our post about the Honesty Economy here) and feel prepared to ask educated questions when you do connect to commence the sales process. This equals a much shorter sales cycle and a substantially lower cost per lead.
The opportunity to be effective with outdated sales tactics is a quickly closing window. People are more wise than ever before to the old school sales tricks of yester-year, and the truth is that you can do better. Taking a consultative approach with leads that have been warmed up through regular contact and educational information from your company makes the sales process easier. It isn't a cold call when they are aware of your business, indicated an interest in your service and have exchanged their information for our resources. That is the kind of person we want you to do business with.
If you find yourself falling into one of the excuses above, or you are suffering with an impossibly low number of qualified leads and you can't find a way out you should take a moment to download and read the resource below. As you open your mind to the opportunities that are right in front of you and currently not on your radar, you will begin to realize the dramatic growth potential that getting an Inbound Strategy in place can help you capture. Leave your questions in the comments, we love to answer them!