7 Effective Ways to Boost Valuable Business Referrals
Client referrals are one of the most powerful ways to build and grow your business. Not only does it bring new clients to your company with a foundation of trust and confidence, but it also generates an encouraging feedback loop from your current clients who have been so impressed that they’ve decided to send their valuable connections to you too. Here are seven great ways to get your customers spreading the love!
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The $242 Billion Business Of Corporate Gifting Pivoted From A Routine To A Priority In The Pandemic
Somewhere between the gratitude of Thanksgiving and the gift-giving of December traditions lies the industry of corporate gifting. Companies can deepen connections, build loyalty, and increase a sense of mutual value with both clients and employees through thoughtful, intentional tokens of appreciation. Here’s an inside look at this rapidly growing business as we head into the business gift giving season.
Read the full article at: www.forbes.com
Seminar: Sales vs. Marketing, Making 1+1=3
Though sales and marketing have a long history of being at odds in many companies, they’re actually two very important sides of the same coin. Identifying the differences between sales and marketing, then finding ways to bridge the gap between them, can create a strong, consistent revenue stream that is greater than the sum of its parts – effectively making 1 + 1 = 3.
Sales Renewal CEO Keith Loris recently presented a seminar to a Vistage group outlining the differences between the two departments, including how those distinctions can be fused to augment each other. The long-term revenue generation focus of marketing keeps the short-term revenue generation pipeline of sales full, while successful sales’ rich data steers the marketing department’s targeting, tactics, and approaches. With clear communication and well-defined crossovers, sales and marketing departments join forces to become a powerful revenue generation machine.
Learn more from Mr Loris as he takes you through tactics, strategies, and case studies to renew YOUR company’s sales numbers through stronger sales-marketing collaboration.
Crafting Products and Services to Reduce Time-to-First-Dollar
We’ve all seen our share of tire-kickers – those would-be buyers who take their time in making a purchase decision, evaluating every detail because they’re in no rush to pull the trigger. This problem becomes especially prominent when your company’s main service or product is a comprehensive, all-inclusive solution since there’s that much more to evaluate.
Good marketers know all this time sitting in the sales pipeline hurts revenue growth, and that’s why it is important to get prospects to buy something as quickly as possible. Sales Renewal has worked with clients in different industries to minimize this so called “Time to First Dollar” by various means ( such as “unbundling” a comprehensive service to create smaller, easier-to-buy services). Learn more about reevaluating your offerings through Sales Renewal’s “Crafting Products and Services to Reduce Time-to-First-Dollar” webinar. You can also read more about specific case studies and our proven track record for putting this and other revenue accelerating marketing strategies into effective action.
Webinar: Crafting Products and Services to Reduce Time-to-First-Dollar
The Problem: Prospects Sit In Your Pipeline Too Long
Many service providers often have a single, all-inclusive service that’s presented as a binary choice: hire us for the whole service or don’t hire us. Because these services are typically important and consequential (e.g., wealth managers help save for retirement, lawyers defend against lawsuits, architects design bridges, …) prospects are typically in no rush to make a decision. They like kicking the tires to be sure you are the right guy or gal and your firm is the best choice for such an important decision.
The end result is prospects sit in your pipeline too long.
This is our recent webinar for USA 500 Clubs, a community for successful Trusted Advisers in which we share and elaborate on this post’s insights.
Targeting & Reaching Your Fastest Prospects
Of course, one of the primary goals of marketing is to move prospects through the sales pipeline as quickly as possible and a tried and true marketing strategy that does this is to define, target and reach your fastest prospects: those who most need you, when they most need you (aka, “lowest hanging fruit”).
Importantly, this focus on fastest prospects accelerates and improves the performance of all lead generation marketing tactics: advertising, email marketing, content marketing, networking, all of them perform better when targeting prospects at the precise moment they have the most critical need for your service.
For example, one of the fastest types of prospects for a wealth manager is middle class, middle-aged people who have just received an inheritance: they probably don’t have a current wealth manager, know much about investing and are highly motivated to put their new money to work for their retirement.
Employing Content Marketing and SEO tactics, you could (1) write a blog post titled “What to Do and Not Do with an Inheritance” (a subject that these prospects would probably be very interested in) and (2) work to have it rank well in search engines so that it’s easily findable and widely available.
Reevaluate Your Offerings
A more fundamental approach to reducing the time-to-first-dollar would be to take a fresh look at your services from a Product Marketing perspective (product marketers are responsible for designing, creating and managing profitable products and services):
Here are two proven product marketing strategies that minimize time-to-first-dollar for service businesses (and that product businesses use all the time):
New services for your fastest prospects: do your fastest prospects need different services than the ones you have now? If you developed new ones specifically for them, would they buy even faster, pay more, be more loyal, etc.?
Unbundle your all-inclusive service to make it easier to become your customer: can you unbundle your service to create simpler, more focused services so there’s less of a barrier to doing business with you? These new entry point services should be less expensive and consequential and should ideally provide a natural upgrade path to the rest of your services.
For example, the first thing a wealth manager typically does with a new client is to create a financial plan. What if instead of insisting they sign on for all your wealth management services in order to get a financial plan, you spun out a new standalone, financial planning service?
There will be more prospects for this new entry point service and they will move much faster through your pipeline because: financial planning can be marketed using traditional lead generation techniques like advertising and is a lot less risky than investment management (the most you can lose with a bad financial plan is its fee, unlike bad investments which can ruin lives).
Importantly, financial planning creates many opportunities for a wealth manager to show off their skills, intelligence and trustworthiness and creates a natural upgrade path. If they’ve been suitably impressed with the development of their financial plan, they will turn to you to implement the plan.
Takeaways
- Focus on targeting & reaching your “fastest” prospects: those who most need you when they most need you.
- Develop new services for your “fastest” prospects
- Unbundle your all-inclusive service to create tiered services with upgrade paths. The entry-point service should be less risky and require less commitment & dollars
Sales Renewal Can Help
Sales Renewal is working with all of our clients on refining their business and marketing strategies for the Covid era. Whether it’s shortening the “time-to-first-dollar”, implementing minimal contact sales and marketing programs, creating alternatives to traditional face-to-face marketing, or revamping communications to earn trust, contact us to learn what we can do for you.
Webinar: Considerations for Adapting Your Business and Marketing Strategies for the New Normal
The New Normal for Business and Marketing Strategies
As businesses around the country try to assess what’s next after the big Shut Down, many are realizing that it won’t be “business as usual”, not just because of the reopening guidelines imposed by the government, but because customers and clients may not feel comfortable reentering the same old economy and now have a brand new set of expectations around service delivery.
Major brands are highlighting their contactless, distanced ways of doing business, even if they’re not so different than they were before. Pizza Hut promises that once your pizza comes out of the oven, the only person who touches it is you; we hope that this was true pre-Covid as well, but conveying that sense of comfort is important these days.
Leading-edge service delivery models, such as purchasing a new car online, may have been targeting early adopters pre-Covid, but are suddenly becoming mainstream. Drive-by document signing is now an accepted way of closing a deal. Even voting by mail is gaining traction since people are wary of physically entering crowded places.
This is a webinar for USA 500 Clubs, a community for successful Trusted Advisers in which we share and elaborate on this post’s insights.
How Will You Adapt?
There is no doubt that the key to winning back customers in the new normal is trust. Trust that you, as a business, understand your customers’ concerns and are doing everything in your power to keep them safe.
While some businesses may need to address fundamental operational and human resource processes, much of adapting your business to the new normal revolves around messaging, positioning, and communication (such as the Pizza Hut example.) In other words, around marketing.
First, show your customers you are doing the right thing. Keep your premises (including parking lots, entrances, and lobbies) spotless and common spaces delineated for distancing. Provide PPE for all employees and ensure they wear it to show your organization is not cutting any safety corners. Enforce all scientific and medical recommendations for safety and physical distancing — not just because it’s the right thing to do but also to signal to employees, prospects and customers that you take their safety seriously.
And then, tell them. Build trust by making sure clients and customers know and understand you’re doing what you can to keep them safe. Messaging, positioning and signaling in the new normal should focus on health, safety, and well being.
Professional Service Firms
Professional service firms have particular challenges in this pandemic environment because of their historic reliance on face-to-face marketing tactics (e.g., networking, events, seminars) which desperately need to be updated for a minimal contact world.
Even more challenging is their tendency to have a single, all encompassing service that is critically important to their prospects, presented as a take-it-or-leave-it offer, which results in very long sales cycles (e.g., signing up for a wealth management service is a very consequential decision so prospects are very careful and take their time).
To shorten the time-to-first-dollar, we recommend “unbundling” services to create tiered offerings that build on each other and provide a natural upgrade path. More on this can be found in Crafting Products and Services to Reduce Time-to-First-Dollar.
Sales Renewal Can Help
Sales Renewal is working with all of our clients on refining their business and marketing strategies for the New Normal. Whether it’s shortening the “time-to-first-dollar”, implementing minimal contact sales and marketing programs, creating alternatives to traditional face-to-face marketing, or revamping communications to earn trust, contact us to learn what we can do for you.
Coronavirus Shut Down the ‘Experience Economy.’ Can It Come Back?
Large-scale gatherings are on hold for the foreseeable future. That is taking a toll on the live events industry and society at large.
Source: www.nytimes.com
Large public events and trade shows will probably be on hold for a long while. “Curated” events may be a very viable replacement: regional, Minimal contact events with invitation-only participants in brand name venues and controlled environments.
Secrets of the Trade(show): 9 Ways to Use Marketing Automation Before, During, and After Events
As you plan your 2020 tradeshow season, this article will prove helpful to ensure you are getting the most out of the tradeshow. Defining and executing on the right Marketing Automation, before, during, and after the show is critical to getting the most bang for your marketing dollar. This is a rock solid plan on letting your future customers know you are going to the event, capturing leads at the event, and targeted follow-up after the event.
Sales Renewal Joins SBANE Exit Planning Panel on June 22
Sales and Exit Strategies
Thursday, June 22, 7:30am, SBANE Headquarters, Waltham, MA
Sales Renewal is pleased to join SBANE‘s interactive panel discussion, Sales and Exit Strategies, which is the final installment in the Lifecycle of an Innovative Company and caps the series of events that highlighted key issues in growing a successful business. The presentation will be a lively and interactive session with 5 seasoned experts who will be able to answer and discuss the key risks and issues that come up in managing a successful exit.
SBANE is pleased to have Tony Boschetto of CliftonLarsenAllen, Tom Camp of Camp Corporate Law, Ryan Kim of Castle Island Partners, Keith Loris of Sales Renewal and the panel will be moderated by Ralph Verilli of Madison Park Group. These individuals represent an invaluable set of experiences in managing the pre- and post- complexities of a business exit.
Price: Member $40; Non-Member $60
PURCHASE TICKETS HERE
Moderator: Ralph Verilli, Madison Park Group
Presenters
- Tony Boschetto, CliftonLarsenAllen
- Tom Camp, Camp Corporate Law
- Ryan Kim, Castle Island Partners
- Keith Loris, Sales Renewal
Location
SBANE Headquarters
1601 Trapelo Rd.
Waltham MA 02451
Sales Renewal’s insight:
Sales and Exit Strategies
This interactive panel discussion is the final installment in the Lifecycle of an Innovative Company and caps the series of events that highlighted key issues in growing a successful business. The resentation will be a lively and interactive session with 5 seasoned experts who will be able to answer and discuss the key risks and issues that come up in managing a successful exit.
Sales Renewal Teams Up with MassMEP for a 4-Part Marketing Workshop Series
Sales Renewal is pleased to present this MassMEP workshop series, which was developed to provide Massachusetts manufacturers with an overview of how to grow their top line sales by implementing effective marketing plans.
Topics to be discussed include; Cutting Through the Marketing Clutter, What Most Manufacturers Get Wrong About Marketing, The Power of Integrated Marketing, and Growing Revenue Before Selling Your Business.
Workshops are geared for manufacturers and are free, but registration is required and space is limited.
Marketing Workshop Series Details
Cutting Through the Marketing Clutter
The marketing essentials every business needs to grow their sales.
September 22, 2016, Time: 8:00am – 10:00am. Location: Taunton (TBD)
What Most Manufacturers Get Wrong About Marketing
Why integrated marketing is better and more cost effective than single tactic marketing.
October 6, 2016, 8:00am – 10:00am. Location: Taunton
The Power of Integrated Marketing
A multi-channel approach to leveraging your marketing assets for a better ROI.
October 20, 2016, 8:00am – 10:00am.Location: Taunton
Note: While October 6th and 20th seminars are stand-alone, participants will benefit most from attending both seminars.
Exit Planning Truth: Growing Revenue Before Selling Your Business is Critical
Learn how integrated marketing can help increase your odds of success and deliver a fantastic ROI.
November 11, 2016, 8:00am – 10:00am.Location: Taunton
If you are unable to attend, or would like Sales Renewal to work with your business or organization, please contact us here.
Sales Renewal’s insight:
Sales Renewal is pleased to present this MassMEP workshop series, which was developed to provide Massachusetts manufacturers with an overview of how to grow their top line sales by implementing effective marketing plans.
Topics to be discussed include; Cutting Through the Marketing Clutter, What Most Manufacturers Get Wrong About Marketing, The Power of Integrated Marketing, and Growing Revenue Before Selling Your Business.
Workshops are geared for manufacturers and are free, but registration is required and space is limited. Continue reading for program and registration information.