I meet loads of business owners and very often the conversation turns to sales. A classic question that I invariably ask is “Do you follow-up on your proposals?”. Most business owners say “No” to this one. My next question is then “Do you track your enquiries, proposals and active clients?”. The reason I ask this is because most small businesses don’t. Some may have in the early days but then stopped as they got a little bit busier and felt they could do it in their head. Combined these two questions cover a really fundamental activity that far too many business owners overlook which is managing your sales funnel.
Your sales funnel should be central to your business because:
- It helps you keep track of your enquiries, proposals and successful deals. This data will show you how well you are converting enquiries into sales, whether certain pricing strategies are better than others, which products/services sell best and what seasonal variation you see. That data combined is hugely valuable as it gives you the ability to improve, to capitalise on what is working well and to strengthen the weaker areas.
- It gives you a way of organising your action to follow up on proposals. Most business owners convince themselves that if people don’t respond to their proposal then they obviously don’t want their product/service when the reality is that they have probably got busy and it has slipped down the things to do list. This basically means that the opportunity is still very real and if you followed up on it you might win it. No-one likes dealing with rejection, and I’m no different, I really dislike following up with people but I do it as I know the majority will actually say yes! Failing to follow-up means you are actually failing to maximise on your sales effort and on your revenue!
- It’s also a great way to keep a focus on your “low hanging fruit”. These are people who may have expressed an interest in what you do but haven’t formally asked for a meeting or proposal. By nurturing this people you will be securing sales for the future.
I haven’t yet met someone who can effectively keep all of that information in their head! You don’t need a sophisticated system to do this effectively as even a pen and paper would do so there’s no excuse!
This week’s action is to write down your sales funnel and to start tracking your sales data.