Jim Connolly Marketing

7 ways to get more sales leads and enquiries

By |

more sales leads, more sales enquiries, get sales, get leads

Here are 7 simple things you can do, to increase the number and the quality of your sales leads and enquiries. Take a look through this short list and see how many of them you are already doing.

1. Ask

Think of the contacts you have, who already have access to your ideal profile of customer or client.  Are you asking these contacts to introduce you? If not, it’s time to start!  To fully leverage this approach, you will need to motivate your contacts.

Remember, motivation comes from the fusion of two words: Motive and Action.  If you want your contacts to take action (to recommend you) you need to give them a strong enough motive (or reason) to do so.

2. Make it easy for people to contact you

If you want people to get in touch, you need to make it really easy.  Take this blog for example.  The link to my contact page appears in the menu, on every page. On the contact page, you will find an extremely simple contact form. Plus, I list my Twitter account, which is set to receive Direct Messages [DM’s] from anyone.

As a result, I regularly get messages, emails and Tweets from people asking about my services.

3. Just ask for their name and email address

This leads on nicely from the previous point. If your website or blog already has a contact form, how much information do you require from people, before they can send their request to you? All you really need, is their name and email address. Each additional ‘field’ (like their surname, company name, phone number etc), which you ask them to fill in, reduces the percentage of people who contact you.

In other words, you can increase the number of sales leads and enquiries you get, simply by removing these unnecessary barriers! Once someone has contacted you via the form, you can always request additional information if you need it.  It works.

4. Get your full contact details into the ‘signature’ of your emails

Your full contact details should also be visible on your emails.  This way, if someone forwards an email from you, to one of THEIR contacts, that contact will easily be able to get in touch with you, if they wish.  When you consider how many emails you write in a year, this could get your contact details in front of hundreds or thousands of new people.

5. Search Engine Optimisation or SEO

If you have a website or blog and you want more sales enquiries, the best way is to ensure that your site’s attracting lots of targeted prospective clients.  This is where Search Engine Optimisation or SEO comes in.  No, keyword stuffing is a terrible idea, as is 99% of the SEO you see advocated on common websites. That will drive traffic to your site, but when they arrive, the keyword-stuffed-bullshit that awaits them will ensure they leave as fast as they came. I cover this here in my main marketing tips page.

A true SEO expert (maybe 1 in 100 of those who claim to be experts) can help your site attract lots of people, who are searching for your exact product or service.  There’s some great SEO sites, which provide useful tips, but I very strongly recommend you get expert help, if you are serious about getting sales leads from your site.  If you want to know more about SEO, take a look at the excellent SEOmoz blog.

Of course, SEO is just 50% of the online lead generating equation!  You also need…

6. Professionally written copy

This is a no brainer, yet almost every small business website makes the mistake of writing their own wording or copy.  As a result, they get people visiting their site, but very few, if any, leads or enquiries.  This blog generates enquiries on an hourly basis, because it’s written by a professional.  If the copy on your site is not inspiring enough to compel people to click links, email, call or visit you – then why exactly do you have a site?

You can massively increase the number of enquiries you get, with this one simple improvement!

7. Network online

Networking has changed massively over the past few years.  The bottom line here is that today, via a number of extremely powerful online services, you can develop stacks of sales leads and enquiries and make some great contacts too.  I personally focus mainly on Twitter though LinkedIn can also be effective.

I hope you found those 7 ways to get more sales leads and enquiries useful. More importantly, I hope you do something with them.

Marketing tip: The value of feedback

By |

One of the most powerful tools in marketing is also one of the least mentioned. Ladies and gentlemen, I am talking about the marketing value of feedback.

Marketing feedback

The fastest and most accurate way to guarantee you are giving the marketplace what it wants, is to ask the marketplace what it wants! This feedback is gold dust for your business, if you use it.

Of course, rather than actually get a discussion going with their prospective clients or customers, most small businesses simply copy what their competitors are all doing.  It’s easier and feels safer.

Here’s the problem with that approach: It doesn’t work!  You see, the only way you will ever uncover that great niche product or service, which will triple your profits and get you that big house you’ve always wanted, is if you stop copying what the others are doing and start offering what the marketplace actually wants.

The price of success or the cost of failure?

By |

Whenever I ask a business owner, why he or she refuses to get professional help in the key areas of their business, the answer is always the same.  They tell me that they can’t afford it.

This answer is based on a 100% incorrect assumption.

The incorrect assumption, is that by not investing in professional help, a business will somehow be in a stronger financial position. The reality is very different, because the price a company pays for neglecting to invest, is a price it pays over and over again, every day.

  • The next time you visit a website that looks like crap; so you leave, never to return – That company is paying the price for commercial neglect.
  • The next time you find yourself reading about how bad a company’s customer service is – That company is paying the price for commercial neglect.
  • The next time you throw a poorly written marketing letter in the bin – That company is paying the price for commercial neglect.

If those people think the price of success is high, wait until they see the cost of failure.

How to sell against cheaper competitors

By |

If Bob is a consultant and he charges £50 an hour for his time, he might cost you a lot more than Sue, who is also a consultant but charges £75 an hour.

That’s because Sue is well organised and very experienced in her field. Something that takes Bob 5 hours to do, can be done to a higher standard by sue, in half the time.

  • Hiring the ‘cheaper’ consultant in that example would cost you £250.
  • Hiring the expensive consultant would have cost you just £187.50 for a better service!

If you offer a great service and charge a higher than average price for it – make sure you explain this clearly in your marketing and in your negotiations.  Once prospective clients or customers are aware that your higher than average price or fee could save them money and give them a better quality service, it’s a lot more likely they will hire you.

If you just quote a higher than average fee in your marketing, you will lose business needlessly!

The hidden cost of cutting your prices!

By |

The current economic downturn has encouraged many businesses to cut their prices or fees, in order to be more competitive.  These price cuts create a number of important, often overlooked issues.

Here are a few common price cut issues you need to avoid, along with some suggestions and answers.

Even small price reductions have big consequences

When a company cuts its prices, it needs to make a significant increase in sales – just to maintain the same profit level it had before the cuts.

For example: A business I studied, which was making around 45% net profit, decided to lower its prices by just 10%, as a way to halt it’s drop in sales.  It then found that it needed to increase sales by 20%, simply to stay as profitable as it was before the 10% price cut!  When you consider that many smaller businesses are cutting their prices by two or three times that much, it gives them a huge mountain to climb!

So, if a company is planning a price cut, it needs a powerful marketing strategy in place; to generate the additional sales required, to cover the drop in profitability.

The great price drop paradox

Consumers have been taught that when prices drop, so does quality.  Because of this, when a company cuts its prices, its customers actually pay far closer attention to the quality of the products and services they receive.  The paradox here, is that by lowering its prices, a company often attracts far more scrutiny from consumers and more complaints; than when they offered the same services at a higher price!

So, if a company is planning a price cut, it needs to pay more attention than ever to customer service and quality control.

Sudden price drops in a recession are often seen as a panic measure

Your customers and prospective customers are all very aware that the economy is struggling right now.  They are also aware that many companies have gone broke recently – many of whom will have cut prices before hand, in an effort to increase sales and turnover.  A company must, therefore, ensure its price cuts are not seen as a panic measure.

So, if a company is planning a price cut, it needs to market the cuts correctly; so as to reassure existing clients and the marketplace.

It’s easy to cut prices but hard to increase them again

Once a business cuts its prices, customers get used to the new, low prices very quickly.  In fact, these low prices stop ‘feeling’ as if they are low and very soon start feeling like the typical, regular price.  This can cause a major problem; when the provider needs to increase prices to their normal level again.  Although they are simply charging customers what they used to, their customers will feel the ‘pain’ of a price spike.

So, if a company is planning a price cut, it needs to have a powerful strategy in place, which includes plans for increasing prices again.

My advice

If you want your products or services to be twice as valuable to your customers and prospective customers – Don’t cut your prices in half!

Instead, find a way to double (or more than double) the value of whatever you provide!

Quick networking tip!

By |

I was just looking at a website, where the owner has a small banner, which pleads with total strangers to join his LinkedIn network.  I checked out his Twitter profile, and he’s doing the same there too.

It’s actually a pretty common tactic among some businesspeople, who think it will help them develop their business.

If they can just get another 100 or 1000 people into their ‘network’, business will start to pick up…..right?

Wrong!

I have been building and studying commercial networks for over 20 years and have personally experienced (literally) life changing results.  In every case, the most valuable networks were always those that were built by people who focused on quality, rather than quantity.  These networks contained influential people, who had credible access to the people or organisations that the networker needed to know.

Low leverage networking

Most networking I see, especially online, is not just low leverage – it’s super-low leverage.

For example, I see web designers, SEO experts, consultants etc who are wasting stacks of time trying to get 1,000 strangers into their ‘network’, when they could get endorsed access to 10,000 or 50,000 targeted businesses or people, via just one influential, well-connected contact.

A network of just 10 highly influential, respected people is of massively more commercial value to you, than a network of 100 or 1000 people with little influence, interest or reach.

Networking tip

Focus on building a new commercial network, with just 10 people, who have credible access to thousands or more of your prospective clients.  These people can help you get the backing, the sales, traction or the audience your project needs.