Many businesses have characteristics that are similar to any stock market in the world; there are ups and downs. When you experience a downturn, the culprit may be a slow drip of revenue, which means a slow drip of closed business from very few leads. Your goal, then, is to get in front of more leads, convert leads to clients and create systems around making this your business habit. Here’s how you do it:
Not enough leads – This is an issue with visibility. Quite frankly, not enough people know about what you offer and your ideal prospects don’t see you as a solution to the challenges they are facing. This problem is solved by increasing and improving your marketing efforts. This means you need to be showing up where your prospective clients are gathering (online and offline) and engaging them in conversation to understand what they need.
For example, you want to show up at networking events or conferences where your ideal client will be in attendance (not just random events hoping you might stumble across someone who needs you). You want to be active on forums and social media platforms where your audience is talking about your topic! Broad and generic doesn’t work. Be strategic and thorough with your efforts! Figure out where your people are and show up with solutions in hand!
Not enough leads turning into clients – This is an issue with your offerings or your “enrollment” (aka sales) conversation. Either what you’re offering isn’t what your audience is looking for or you haven’t conveyed the value for the price. You may be doing too much talking and not enough listening, and therefore talking yourself right out of a sale.
The solution? Ask your clients what they want and how they want it delivered. Then give them that! Make sure the value of what you’re offering FAR outweighs the investment and offer payment options. Have an audit done of your sales process and sales conversation to get honest, objective feedback about what you need to do to improve your conversions.
Feast or famine (Your work load and income are inconsistent) – This is an issue with consistency. It could be that you market your solutions sporadically or only when you need more business. When you aren’t consistent with your marketing efforts, you undermine your own credibility. Your ideal prospects can’t know, like and trust you when they only hear from you infrequently. They are just as busy as you and it’s not their job to remember that you are there. It’s your job to stay top of mind.
The solution? Stop trying to do so much! Create a simple marketing plan, focused on just 2-3 key activities that you can execute EVERY week, without fail. Set aside time to execute those activities EVERY week and honor that appointment. (Every time you’re tempted to ignore the appointment think back to the last time you were worried about where your next dollar was coming from and how bad that felt. That should get you motivated!)
Increasing your income and enjoying more success in your business doesn’t necessarily require a total overhaul. All you need to do is be honest about what your challenges are and be willing to get to the root of the problem. Then you need to take action on correcting what’s not working. It’s that simple.
If this seems much easier said than done, you don’t have to do it alone. We can actually get clear on what’s holding you back, identify new revenue opportunities and map out a simple plan in just one day.
Join me for our upcoming “Focus & Freedom” Business Transformation Retreat!
Your Action Plan For This Week:
| 1. | Analysis: Look at your current business and pipeline to see if your income will be steady for the next 3 to 6 months. |
| 2. | Choose 2 or 3 marketing activities that you will do on a weekly basis to meet more prospective clients. |
| 3. | Analysis: Review your conversion rate of new business from the past 6 months. Take the proper steps to improve your close ratio and/or increase your number of sales conversations. |
| 4. | Plan to join me for the “Focus & Freedom” Business Retreat on June 3rd! (Got questions? Just email me and I’ll be happy to schedule a quick chat with you!) |
