I’m the type of guy who always wants to be prepared. I’d say Boy Scouts taught me that, but I don’t think one summer as a Scout counts. Instead of hoping others have everything under control, I prefer to make sure I do everything within my power to win, regardless of the circumstances. That’s why I’ve found a few methods that help me be prepared, especially when it comes to sales success.
My Favorite Formula
The main reason businesses struggle is because they either don’t understand the fundamentals of business or feel that working on the fundamentals is too basic. I can relate to that feeling. In my 20s, I spent a ton of time looking for shiny objects. In turn, I had limited sales success.
When I started Newsletter Pro, I spent a ton of time making sure that my fundamentals were on point. As the company has grown, continuing to focus on those fundamentals has greatly contributed to the success of the company.
The formula works on those fundamentals, especially Tony Robbins’ principle that it takes at least 16 touches to warm up a lead. Most salespeople quit after 1 or 2 attempted touches. That means you’re spending most of your marketing dollars on finding just a few people out of each hundred leads who are actively ready to buy.
You need to implement a customer relationship management (CRM) system and deploy a variety of marketing pieces across a number of different media platforms. That brings us to the first formula: (NL + LNC + EC) = $$$
New leads (NL) plus a lead nurture campaign (LNC) plus an educational campaign (EC) equals more sales ($$$$)
You need to drop new leads into a lead nurture campaign and an educational campaign immediately. The goal is to build a relationship and educate them about your products or services.
Many people build out these campaigns and simply use email. Big mistake — even if it does technically fit the formula. So few people give out their primary email address anymore, and open rates suck. This is why you need to use as many different types of media as possible in your campaigns. For example, you may use email, texting, phone calls, in-person conversations, podcasts, etc.
Why So Many Media Channels?
The reason for different types of media is that you don’t know which media channel(s) your lead will actually engage with you on. Plus, you have to provide so many touches that you need to use as many different channels as possible so that it doesn’t take 3–4 years to convert a lead to a sale.
One of the most important media channels is normally overlooked: direct mail. The reason direct mail is so important is that it has a near 100% deliverability rate, and that makes it powerful. Most businesses will be lucky to get 20% of the deliverability rate of direct mail. Since you need so many touches, direct mail, when done correctly, can speed up the rate of lead conversion. Also, when you use a newsletter, you can build relationships, educate your audience, and make targeted offers to leads that existing customers won’t see.
Nurture campaigns could take up an entire series of blog posts by themselves, but I hope this introduction is useful. More to the point, I know that the formula will be useful, right out of the box. Give it a try and remember, it’s all about the basics. The formula will get you better sales success, sure. But it’s also increasing efficiency and shoring up your existing success. When you have to make 16 touches to convert leads to sales success stories, efficiency is everything..
