The Importance of Honing Your Business Development Skills

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The Importance of Honing Your Business Development Skills

Business development is an ongoing skill business owners need to continually refine in order to keep their sales pipeline full. Unfortunately, when times are good and customers plentiful, it is easier to push this important task to the side.

While business development seems like a straightforward task that is not always the case. To be effective, it must be done correctly, otherwise it can backfire and do more harm than good.

In almost all cases, the most important business development tool has nothing to do with interacting with customers. Before you can hope to attract more customers you need to find out what your competition is up to so that you can set yourself apart.

When you are one of several companies selling a similar product or service, emphasizing what you do differently is critical to your success. And you can’t know what those differences are unless you carefully study your competitors.

Here are some other important things to keep in mind when planning your business development strategy:

Focus on adding value. While it is gratifying to make a quick sale, that is not the job of business development. Instead, provide your customers and prospects with things that money can’t buy. These include outstanding customer service, information that solves a problem or makes their job easier and taking a real interest in their success. Doing these things helps to build trust and when people trust you, they are much more likely to do business with you in the long-term. Remember, however, adding value takes patience.

Tailor your testimonials. When using testimonials, make sure those testimonials are tailored for your specific target audience. Small companies do not want to hear how your product worked for a multi-national company and vice versa. Throwing testimonials out haphazardly is rarely a good idea. Further, a poorly written or token review can do more harm than good. Make sure the testimonials you use are heartfelt and compelling, remembering that it is better to have a few outstanding testimonials than a glut of averages ones.

Monitor online reviews. Always keep track of what people are saying about you online. Online reviews have a huge impact on whether someone decides to do business with you. If you receive a negative review, respond carefully and in a helpful manner. It may not erase the review but those who read your response will view you as really caring about the customer experience.

Maintain healthy relationships. Don’t ignore your current customers in an effort to gain more. Repeat business is much easier and cheaper to garner than new business so don’t let relationships with your current clients to fall by the wayside.

Six Ways to Use Inbound Calls to Drive Sales Conversions

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Six Ways to Use Inbound Calls to Drive Sales Conversions

If you own a business, inbound calls are an invaluable resource. Not only do inbound calls have extremely high conversation rates, they provide critical customer information that you are unlikely to get anywhere else.

Many inbound calls originate when people visit your website and then call for more information or make a purchase. But how can you glean information from these calls that will help you drive even more sales? Here are six important ways:

  1. Classify the lead. Decide if the caller a qualified or unqualified lead. By doing so you will know how to nurture that lead.
  2. Refine your message. What promotions or projects led to the most sales? Use those promotions in the future to drive even more sales.
  3. Check the competition. Do callers mention a particular competitor or a competitor’s product? If so, you need to figure out how to set yourself apart from the competition.
  4. Talk the talk. Listen for how customers or prospects talk about a product or service they are looking for. Try to use that same type of language in future scripts.
  5. Compare scripts. Use scripts that emphasize different product points, discounts or other incentives. Determine which scripts led to more sales and use that script for future calls.
  6. Identify keywords. When people ask about a product or service they found on your website, what words on your website do they use? By tracking keywords you can discover which ones resonated the most with callers and incorporate these words into future marketing materials.

Sales from inbound calls are great but the information gleaned from these calls can be just as, if not more, important. Telemarketing doesn’t exist in a vacuum so by monitoring what happens on calls you can improve your online and offline marketing techniques, business development efforts and drive sales conversions, as well.

Making data-driven marketing decisions involves connecting the dots between all customer interactions. Rather than guessing why a customer called or decided to make a purchase, analyze the data from that call and find out for sure. Even better, you will be able to parlay calls into more leads and a higher number of sales conversions.

The Importance of an Effective Business Development Strategy

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Many small-and medium-sized businesses fail to implement a business development strategy. Often this is because they believe their strong base of loyal customers is all they need to ensure future success.

However, as almost every business learns, no matter how many customers you have today, it always pays to be looking for new ways to attract additional clients. If you are looking to implement a business development strategy for your business, the first thing you need to realize is that business development is not the same as sales. Business development extends across a variety of departments and allows these departments to work together for the good of the business. In other words, business development makes a business better. While this can include (and often does) increasing sales, it is much, much more.

Business development is the process of identifying and executing new areas of business. The goal of business development then is not just increasing sales but uncovering new markets, new channels of distribution and, in some cases, new products to bring to market. Here are some of the other tasks typically undertaken as part of a strong business development strategy:

  • Understanding your company’s current position and determining where your business is headed. This involves things like conducting market research and a competitive analysis as well as assessing relationships with current clients and reaching out to new clients through networking events, seminars and trade shows.
  • Enhancing your company’s image. How your business or brand is seen by different audiences is critical to its success. Your website and marketing materials-brochures, catalogs, press releases-must all reflect your brand image and place your business in the most flattering light possible. Your image also must properly represent who you are and what you do.
  • Increasing market exposure. It is imperative that have a strong online presence that is helping to grow your business and build (or maintain) its reputation as an industry leader. This involves monitoring all online activities and developing an active presence across a variety of social media platforms. It also involves employing the most effective SEO techniques to increase your online visibility.

Business development can be difficult to define and a challenge to implement. However, it is imperative that you put a strong emphasis on business development activities. Failing to do so will mean maintaining the long term value of your business or brand will be especially difficult.

Follow-Up Calls Can Help Improve Direct Mail Results

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Follow-Up Calls Can Help Improve Direct Mail Results

Direct mail is an outstanding marketing tool for companies of all sizes. Unfortunately, many direct mail campaigns fail to yield the desired results because no follow-up occurs.

One of the simplest, and most effective, ways to improve the return on investment of any direct mail campaign is to pick up the phone and call your prospects after they have received your direct mail piece. That’s because even if a prospect did not respond to your call to action, that doesn’t mean they aren’t interested in your product or service.

Many individuals, especially business owners, simply put things off because they are so busy. They may even have planned on responding to the direct mail piece but have not had the time.

While follow-up calls may seem intimidating because they feel like the dreaded cold call, they are not cold calls because you have already made a connection with the prospect. Therefore, you already have a purpose for your call-finding out if your direct mail piece was received.

Once you have determined that the prospect has received your mailing, you can ask them the following questions:

  • Do you have any questions regarding the letter, promotion or offer?
  • Do you currently use the referenced product or service?
  • If so, who provides you with that product or service?
  • Would you be willing to sit down and talk about how we can better serve you with our product or service?

Follow-up calls are an excellent way to personalize and reinforce your brand. After all, nothing helps to build trust like speaking one-on-one with a prospect. And when trust is developed, the chances of closing a deal are greatly increased.

Marketing experts will tell you that the more personalized your direct mail piece, the better response rate you can expert. It makes sense then that a personalized follow-up call also will increase response rates. It is important, however, that not too much time lapses between when the direct mail piece was received by the prospect and when the follow-up call is made.

Unfortunately, many businesses do not have the time or resources to make these follow-up calls in a timely manner. This is especially true if a large number of direct mail pieces were sent. In such cases, it makes sense to outsource these tasks to a telemarketing firm that specializes in business to business telemarketing services.