Category Archives: Strategy

Blogs under this category explore strategy in lead generation and the many marketing methods that fall under this term.

Looking for a little inspiration to lift the doom and gloom?

Despite the news overload, it does not feel like there is much progress in our national affairs. Not sure about you, but I have been finding the whole think a little depressing.  When I feel like this, I use a trick I learned in the Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor which is a great book about positive psychology. The trick is to take 5 minutes in the evening and write three things which made you happy during that day. There are lots of versions of this, with some people finding it easy to write in the morning, others using it to express gratitude.  Whatever works for you; the point is to spend some time on thinking positive thus training your brain to prioritise positive over negative and contributing to your overall happiness.

Here are a few things that made it onto my ‘Happy List’ last week:

  1. My beautiful Mothers’ Day present from my daughter which included 10 reasons why she loves me with a few lovely surprises beyond ‘because you cook nice food’
  2. Achieving real clarity on a client’s service proposition which means they are nearly there with going to market
  3. A great referral from my BNI colleague which is exactly the kind of business I am looking for
  4. A client wanting us to increase our work for them as they feel they are getting results

I am sure you can see how doing this might help maintaining focus and keeping you going. I must admit that I did choose my ‘best’ ones for the Blog and often I have to think hard and come up with things like, ‘the sun shone’ or ‘dinner was tasty.’ The point is that it does not matter as long as you practice seeing the positive because I really believe that mindset is everything. Here is an example:

Following up from a very busy start to the year, we experienced a quiet March where we got very little enquiries. The move from too busy, to sort of twiddling my thumbs ,was hard and I found myself holding on to a mindset of blaming overall market conditions which was not helpful to say the least. Once I realised this, I decided I had to change my mindset and work out what opportunities I had, despite, and as a result of, the situation. Here is what I did:

  1. My assumption is that due to uncertain market conditions, companies need to focus on developing new business and growing their pipeline. This provides us with an opportunity to win new work.
  2. Initially we put a lot of effort into drumming this message to our target markets to develop new business though our efforts were met with little appetite.
  3. It felt like many companies wanted to see what direction the UK market will take before thinking of new business
  4. Still, I think that companies need to make a move on their new business sales but rather then hitting our head against a brick wall we chose to get in touch with people who already knew us. This meant contacting all of our ex-clients who we felt might be more open to a conversation at this stage.
  5. This approach was more effective though we have not stopped our new business development activity which is on-going.

 

The moral of my story is that even people whose job it is to develop new business can find themselves at a dead end sometimes. The point is to not let it last for long, take stock and try something else.  If you need some help evaluating your new business development approach, take our questionnaire here.

Staying focused can be hard work these days…

‘I try to stay focused on my creativity,’ said Christina Aguilera. Well, what can I say, me too, how about you?

It might have been mentioned before that we live in a very busy world which makes staying focused very difficult. This affects most people and covers all walks of life, making It one of the biggest challenges we face. Now, I cannot really help you if you are a nuclear physicist looking to get more focused but if you are looking at increasing your new business sales, I might be able to offer some advice;

So, what are the specific issues you face regarding focusing your business development?

As I see it there are three key issues:

  1. Short cuts
  2. Silver bullets
  3. Impatience

I do apologise if this sound a bit like a Haiku but it can be further explained with the following example:

Bob is a Business Development Director who has been tasked with increasing new business sales for his company. Bob has a very busy job and is bombarded with communications about how he could take his company to the next level using the latest trick every day. Bob, like many people, likes to use tried and tested tools, preferably ones he feels comfortable with. What will he do now then? Here are some options:

  1. Bob could look at previous marketing campaigns which may have worked in the past and look to re-instate them, praying they still work
  2. Bob could pursue the latest tool promised to solve all his problems
  3. Bob could spend some time reviewing and understanding his target markets and put together a structured strategy to approach them

Will you be surprised if I told you that any of the above options could still land him with no further sales?

This is the problem so many of us come across, no matter how much thought you put into a campaign ensuring your planning is spot on; you still may fail, in THE SHORT TERM. One of the biggest issues with our busy world is that it is full of choice and so we have become dependant on instant solutions that deliver immediately. But, when it comes to selling, particularly expensive stuff, it’s impossible to get immediate results and you really need to apply patience in order to get any meaningful leads.

As patience really is a virtue these days, most people abort business development campaigns too as soon as they feel they have had no results and start again on another old initiative or a different silver bullet and so on and so forth. Now that sort of thing really does not help your focus or your new business sales, does it?

I don’t think there is one answer to this, as it will make me another business person offering silver bullets. All I would say, is that every business has specific needs and details make all the difference. If you want to look into this further, click on this link (preferably on your mobile) to fill in our questionnaire and we can get back to you with some ideas.

 

About making a choice

We recently asked a carpenter to make us some shelves for our kitchen.  In the process of discussing our requirements, we went from having a few shelves for our cook books to having a floor to ceiling unit in the corner of our kitchen. That took some careful measurements and calculations then off he went to make our unit.

Some time passed and he came back to take some final measurements. It was Monday morning and I had about a million things to think about but it was then that I was asked to make a choice between a corner unit or a straight forward shelving unit. What I should have done was to ask him to leave it with me so we could discuss it but instead I felt compelled to make a choice there and then. I chose a corner unit, which came out completely the wrong shape and size for our kitchen. Not a good outcome; luckily it sorts of fits in our living room.

At this stage, I think it’s important to mention that there is never just one choice.  However, if you need to make one, here is what I learned:

  1. Immediate choices are not a must. Some things are better off being carefully considered.
  2. Making the right choice takes specific skill and knowledge. Sometimes it’s wise to involve other people who are better placed to make a particular decision.

Your business development strategy, just like many other elements, involves making choices. In order to make it work for your company, you need to consider a variety of things, such as:

  • Who are you targeting?
  • In what order?
  • What is their key issue?
  • How can you solve it?

Once you are clear on the above, you can work out what tactics to use to better connect with your target markets.  At this stage, your choice should be based on where your target markets search for helpful information. This will almost certainly not be based on one tactic, or platform but rather on a variety of tools which fit together.

Simple, right? WRONG!  Doing this right takes some skill and research. It might take some time to put together and you might have to ask an expert. But done correctly, it will work much better than applying the latest craze which everyone is talking about.

Our Big Ticked Lead Generation system was designed to provide a means which may be right for you if you operate in the B2B market and have a complicated, long sales process.  Check our website for more details or give us a call to discuss further.

One trick ponies and comfort zones

Our fixation with not being a ‘one trick pony’ in business, is apparent in the examples below:

  1. Famous last words: Some of you may remember Stuart Baggs, ‘The Brand’, who famously told Lord Sugar during the Apprentice show in 2015: ‘I’m not a one-trick pony, I’m not a 10-tricks pony. I’ve got a whole field of ponies, waiting to literally run towards this job…’ This approach kept him going for quite a few episodes until Lord Sugar decided to fire him.
  2. Synonymous with failure: According to an article I read in The Story Telling Blog, in the 1800s small travelling circuses without big headline acts or a menagerie of exotic animals were known as dog and pony shows. The very average acts on the programme were derided as ‘one trick ponies’

No one, it seems, wants to be a one trick pony, with only one talent, one skill and one way of standing out.  I would go further and say that in our fast-developing world, it is very hard to keep growing your company based on a very limited offer. This is why so many companies look to acquire additional talent through acquisition and joint projects. Appealing to new markets and developing new products all depend greatly on demonstrating relevant skills and knowledge. In the world of business, ‘a field of ponies’ is therefore definitely better than a ‘one trick pony’.

Why not apply this to your marketing strategy, then?

In my experience two main factors affect your marketing strategy:

  1. Looking for the magic bullet: so many people I come across look to over-simplify their marketing approach by believing that they must choose one discipline to promote their organisations.
  2. Staying within your comfort zone: Knowing what you are good at and how you wish to come across, is very important. Still it’s easy to confuse this with only choosing marketing strategies we relate to and understand.

It might surprise you to consider that the important choices to make in your marketing strategy relate to your target markets and the priority in which you want to approach them. The tools and platforms you wish to use can vary and are driven by where your target markets choose to consume information, and not the other way around.

When considering how to approach your target market, it is therefore very important to keep an open mind and not try to limit yourself to your own comfort zone. Having realised this ourselves, we have joined forces with Make Digital Work to create a cross platform product aimed at starting sales conversations. You can find out more about this here.

Why you should re-invent yourself this winter and other thoughts about common sense

This week I was reminded of a great quote from Voltaire: ‘Common sense is not so common’. I like this quote because you can read it in two different ways,

  1. Most people lack common sense
  2. Finding agreement on the right sense is not common

I choose to read it as the latter and I feel that Brexit is a very good example of it. Talking to people about current events, as I do, I came to realise that there are many ways in which we read the situation. Whilst some believe the economic market will suffer a decline in the short-medium term, others think it will only affect companies trading with Europe. I even heard that some people feel that if we stay positive there is no reason why there will be a recession at all.  Go figure, as no one really knows any of these views could be right, so it becomes a matter of the not so common sense.

So, why do I think you should consider re-inventing yourself this winter?

Here are two good reasons:

  1. According to Harvard Business Review jumping from the maturity stage of one business to the growth stage of the next—is what separates high performers from those whose time at the top is all too brief.
  2. As Matthew S. Olson and Derek van Bever demonstrate in their book Stall Points, ,once a company runs up against a major stall in its growth, it has less than a 10% chance of ever fully recovering.

Both are good reasons because whether you would like to be a high performer business or ensure that your business does recover from an economic downturn in the New Year, you should consider re-inventing yourself this winter.

How do you go about re-inventing your business model?

There are numerous books and articles out there for you to explore but essentially you need to consider two things first:

  • Are you going to come up with a completely new product?
  • Are you going to consider taking your exiting products to new markets?

The answer is very much down to your current business model, your market and the make-up of your company. Whichever way you choose to go, you need to consider two important factors:

  1. Developing new business can take time to mature, anything between 6-12 months.
  2. The longer you leave it the more competition you will have

This is why I recommend that you look into this urgently to make sure that you can start widening your options and developing your sales pipeline. We have recently developed a new lead generation system which we believe can support this process well. In September we run a workshop to share our new system and got some great feedback. Click here to find out more.

 

 

Why you should consider new markets now

You might think that this is a fairly obvious thing to do if you are in business but market research I carried out last year proved that most established companies get most of their business from existing business and referrals; in fact the average was 70% of new sales.

There are many reasons why you should not consider new markets, here are just a few:

  1. Referrals and repeat business work are much more profitable
  2. The conversion rate is much higher
  3. New markets can be risky and expensive to explore

I agree with all of the above and would go as far as saying that if your business does not get at least 50% of its new sales from referrals and repeat business, something must be wrong. There is no denying that when you call a prospect who was referred to you, it’s a much nicer conversation which does not require you to get out of your comfort zone.

So why should you explore new markets this autumn?

I believe that generally, your business always needs to be moving forward because standing still is not an option. But at the moment there is a very pressing reason to consider exploring new markets because whatever you think of Brexit, it will affect the UK market greatly. This may well mean that many companies will have less money to spend and will therefore cut back on purchasing, affecting the rate of your repeat business. This might also mean that by default, you will therefore need to work with more companies in order to preserve your sales revenue.

You might still wonder why this means that you need to explore new markets and you will be right because new business can come from two main sources:

  • Working with more companies in your existing market
  • Working with more companies in new markets

Both will work and both will require you to go out looking for new business you don’t already deal with. Whichever way you choose to go, you need to consider two important factors:

  1. Developing new business can take time to mature, anything between 6-12 months.
  2. The longer you leave it the more competition you will have

This is why I recommend that you look into this urgently to make sure that you can start widening your options and developing your sales pipeline. We have recently developed a new lead generation system which we believe can support this process well. Click here to find out more.

Becoming a clairvoyant, or how to grow your pipeline in a predictable way?

You may have heard of the Maslow Hierarchy which shows how our needs as humans develop as we become more established and comfortable.  In the middle of the said hierarchy, just above food and shelter, sits security which most of us see as key to our lives. We can spend some time arguing about whether we can ever truly be secure, but I wanted to discuss one of the key elements of your business security: your pipeline.

Regardless as to whether you run your own business or the sales team within a bigger company, developing your pipeline is key to both your security and growth:

  • Without a pipeline, you will struggle to forecast the future of your sales which affects all major business decisions
  • Pipeline development helps you tackle your growth strategy, from immediate to further opportunities, existing and new markets

Despite its importance, many of us treat our pipeline development rather carelessly, leaving most of it to faith. Typical approaches include:

  • Relying solely on repeat business and referrals
  • Frantically looking for leads only when levels of sales have reduced dramatically
  • Running a variety of lead generation tactics without focus or strategy
  • Trying to convert any business that comes your way

This approach will either leave you with a small pipeline covering only immediate opportunities or a very large one full of long-term possibilities and pies in the sky. If you wanted to truly use your pipeline as a tool for growth and development, you need to have one which includes long term suspects which are being nurtured and developed into mature prospects, which will turn into customers. To achieve this, you will need to establish three things:

  1. Have a good understanding of your target markets
  2. Create continuous, relevant communications to create interest
  3. Follow up with your suspects and prospects continuously

Follow this, and you will end up with a funnel shaped pipeline like this one which is aimed at creating new opportunities in your desired markets and developing them into sales. You may already be doing this or a part of this but now is a good time to review your process and ask yourself if you and your team are getting it right. Economic uncertainty, like that which we are currently facing, can change market conditions, meaning you end up with less repeat business and referrals so make sure you are developing a strong pipeline to tackle it.

As always, we are happy to help and discuss your individual circumstances so get in touch.

Have you got a plan B?

I have recently found myself in need of plan B since the last quarter has not gone as well as expected. Whilst the first two quarters of 2018 were very successful for us, we found quarter three to be slow. There are many factors that may have affected this but identifying these did not change the fact that I needed an alternative plan and I did not have one.

To aid my thinking, I put plan B into Google in the hope that some helpful plans might come up, only to discover that Plan B is actually an English hip hop recording artist from the 80’s. I looked further and found lots of advice on how to construct your business plan including doing your market research, checking out your competition, getting your financial information right etc. But nothing about constructing a plan B; I guess it might not be such a priority in business planning.

You’ll be happy to know that after some careful research, I did find interesting advice. Here are a few examples:

  • The hip voice:

Don’t expect things to go to plan and you will always be ready to shift your plan is the main advice from David Kadavy of the Mission Podcast. According to David, ‘Things almost never go according to plan—and that’s okay.’ The solution, according to David, is to ‘remember things won’t go as planned. You can make it part of the plan to not have a plan.’

Whilst I agree that not sticking to your plan at any cost is a good idea, I found this approach a little too relaxed and acknowledging my anxious composition I looked for alternative, more ‘old school’ types of advice:

  • The sensible voice:

The Dummies Blog seems to deliver on this front and suggests considering three areas of change in your business focus:

  1. Redefine your product by re-assessing your product concept and the benefit it brings to your target market. This process could mean that you bring out a new product to attract a new market or make some shifts which will help you target your current market better.
  2. Move your business to another dimension or location. This could mean that you move your showroom to another area or make it easier for people to approach your business on-line depending on your specific circumstances.
  3. Revamp your operation and processes through considering whether you need new equipment, skills or staff. To me this area of focus must first and foremost include an assessment of your sales process, lead generation and conversion rate. This is because without new sales, your business growth will be threatened.

Whether like me, you found your business has slowed down recently or you were getting nervous reading that 77% of SME’s are not ready for Brexit, I think we all agree there is a change afoot early next year. If there was ever a good time to construct a plan B, it’s now.  Check out how we might be able to help your lead generation and sales strategy refocus here or get in touch to discuss further.

 

 

Quality over quantity, top tips to building your new business database

Good old Emil Zola must have seen a glimpse of the future when he said, ’If I cannot overwhelm you with my quality, I will overwhelm you with my quantity.’  I am not entirely sure what he meant by it but these days we see plenty of examples of people trying to impress us with their quantity, rather than quality.

2018 has seen the data debate take to centre stage through the introduction of GDPR, which was introduced to stop the unauthorised use of personal data. There was much talk about the change it would bring beforehand, but we hear very little of it now. Dare I say that not much has changed in terms of B2B e-mail in my in-box. Even so, assuming that, like me, you think that communicating to a smaller but engaged audience is better, you might want to consider how you build this database in the first place.

Let’s consider some different methods to building your database:

Method Advantages Disadvantages
Buying a data list -Providing a solid start

-Allowing you to communicate with the right industries and decision makers

– The data is very cold which affects the speed of conversion

-Very niche markets can be hard to identify

Using your own client and contact list -Building on your existing industry knowledge

-Communications will be better received as it’s a familiar audience

– Much of the data might be out of date

-The list may not be very strategic in terms of new and target markets

-GDPR compliance is questionable

Using Social Media platforms to build your following -This is potentially a very engaged audience as they have connected with you

 

-Using this data outside of the specific platform can be difficult

-Many contacts will not appreciate a direct approach

Using digital funnels or landing pages to attract interested parties -As this method is based on targeting people who searched for your product or service it has the potential to provide you with highly qualified leads -Because this method is so specific it can be very slow in terms of building a database

 

Once more we have concluded that there is no one winner and no silver bullet. My advice would be to use a variety, if not all, of the above methods to communicate with your target audiences. The important thing is to create an overarching strategy which governs your marketing and lead generation system thus making it focused and tailored to your business.

This means that you have a specific process in which your funnel works, which involves several activities happening at the same time. Such a system will ensure that you are seen in front of the right audience at a volume and frequency that allows you to develop a substantial pipeline based on your new business conversion rate.

If it sounds interesting, check out  our system here or give me a call to discuss your requirements.

 

 

The truth about making a choice and why would you want to skin a cat anyway?

Many animal lovers hate the saying ‘there are many ways to skin a cat’ but if you actually check its origin you might be even more disturbed. According to Edward Brumley, Buddhist, Vegan and Atheist, ‘The phrase is just a more recent rendition of an older proverb that was expressed in many different ways, in which various animals were killed in diverse and sundry creative fashions. The earliest known version was recorded in 1678 in the second edition of John Ray’s collection of English proverbs, in which he gives it as “There are more ways to kill a dog than hanging… ‘

Let’s move on swiftly but stick with the idea that there is more than one way to achieve your goal. This notion is worth keeping in mind when it comes to your marketing even if it often looks like you have to choose. Well, let me break it to you gently, you don’t have to. To make things clearer, here are the main two choices you have when you consider your marketing strategy:

  • Outbound marketing: This term is used to describe pre-meditated activities you undertake to approach your target markets directly. These activities include tactics such as e-mail marketing, advertising and telemarketing.
  • Inbound Marketing: This term is used to describe the tools you create to help people approach your business when they are interested in your product and service. These tools include your website, referral marketing, content marketing and so on.

In addition, most marketing methods could be divided into the following categories:

  • Offline marketing which can be seen as old school by some, includes methods such as direct mail, leafleting, telemarketing and telesales
  • Online marketing which some will describe as all the rage, includes methods such as e-mail marketing, SEO, Social Media and ad words

Many companies feel they have to choose between the different options. This is sometimes the case due to budget limitations or the marketing company they work with. In my opinion, the choice needs to be down to the various target markets you are after. Here are a few examples to clarify what I mean:

  1. If your target market is stay at home mums who like to shop locally, you may choose to place targeted adverts in Facebook and use local groups. In this case, you will be utilising an inbound digital marketing campaign
  2. If you are targeting Estate Agents in Cardiff, you may choose a direct mail campaign which is followed up by telemarketing. In which case, you will be utilising outbound offline marketing campaign

Now, I am always for being as specific as you can when it comes to your target market. If you can narrow it down to people who only come out when it rains on a Sunday, that is great. However, our reality is made up of a very wide choice in nearly every walk of life, which means that even if you are specific, you still need to consider more than one approach to reach more people. By this, I mean that you need to adopt marketing campaigns that reach out to your contacts using a number of platforms. If you can e-mail, connect on LinkedIn and telephone them all in one campaign, you increase your chances of getting through to more people. Of course, you can choose to place some strategic Blogs alongside Ad Words and landing pages instead.  The point is that the choice is yours and should be based solely on your growth targets and marketing strategy.

As always, I am happy to discuss your specific questions further. In the meantime, you might find it useful to check out how our lead generation system works.