You Cannot Get More Customers (at least, directly)

When we work with business owners they almost always want more customers. The challenge there is that there is no place to buy a customer. Instead, to acquire a new customer you either need to generate new leads (marketing activity) or get better at converting leads into clients (sales activity).

I would encourage you to think about how to increase your number of customers by either increasing your number of leads, increasing your conversion rate, or increasing both at the same time.

Lead Generation– There are some great resources on lead generation at any bookstore or library (see the Instant Series). The main thing to keep in mind about lead generation is that it is not the number of people that call on your business, but the number of them that actually become paying customers. Some other things to keep in mind about lead generation.

• It can be expensive.(i.e. start with improving your conversion)
• Many campaigns will not work. You need to continually test and measure to find the true successes
• You need more than one strategy to keep the lead generation consistent, you need three or more lead strategies. Without multiple strategies, your lead generation will be inconsistent and create inconsistent results.
• Conversion– a great place to start looking for improvement. You already have people calling your business. If you get better at converting the leads you already have your sales will jump dramatically. Things to consider:
• Know your conversion rate today.
• Script your process.
• Learn from your best sales people. Have the entire team do what they do.

Action Tip of the Month- Communication Styles

Communication is one of the largest challenges facing us in every aspect of our lives, including our spouse, our kids and the people we work with. One way to improve the way in which we communicate is to understand how the people we are talking with process words and interpret what we are saying. A popular model for that is called NLP which basically defines people who communicate visually, auditory or kinesthetically.

• Visuals talk with their “eyes” using words and phrases like “I see what you mean”, “that looks good to me” or “I can picture that”.
• Auditory people speak with their ears using words and phrases like “that sounds good” or “I hear what you are saying”.
• Kinesthetic individuals talk with their feelings using words and phrases like “that feels right” or “I am comfortable with that decision”.

Your challenge is to talk with people in the way they process information, which leads to greater rapport with them, and longer more productive relationship for both parties. Read Instant Team Building for a great review of NLP.

About ActionCOACH

Brad Sugars founded the brand Action International in 1993 when he realized there was a disconnect between business advice and implementation. The answer was Action! Brad Sugars created a business coaching company so that business owners throughout the world can realize their goals in business. Today the company is known as ActionCOACH. To learn more about business, visit Brad Sugars Review blog!