Q: After posting strong sales in the first three
months of the year, my homebased consulting firm has hit a wall
and I don't know why. One longtime client has canceled his monthly
retainer, and a major referral source is no longer sending me business.
I'm so discouraged that I feel like closing up shop and looking
for jobs. What should I do?
A: Don't throw in the towel just yet! Like many
small B2B businesses, you're going through a very normal--though
painful--cycle of feast or famine. While most businesses focus time,
money and effort on acquiring new customers, they rarely put much
effort into cultivating the existing clients who represent their
bread and butter. The reality is that the best place to search for
new business is in your own database. Assuming that your clients
have been satisfied with your products or services in the past,
they are the people most likely to buy from you in the future.
Follow these five simple database marketing techniques and break
that feast-or-famine cycle for good:
Practice good database hygiene. No matter how
busy you are, be sure to enter every new customer and prospect name
into your database, along with their title, company name, phone
number, fax number, cell number, postal address and e-mail address.
Then, every time you touch base with a customer or prospect, make
a note in your contact management software program so that you'll
have a running log of your e-mails, faxes and phone calls to refer
to.
Create a prospecting pyramid. To get the most
out of your database marketing efforts, organize your prospecting
list into a pyramid, with the hottest prospects at the top and the
coldest prospects at the bottom. This way, you can devote the most
time to the prospects that are most likely to buy from you and not
waste your time on people who are likely to say no.
Create a sales forecasting pipeline. Once you've
started mining your database, you can start to get a better handle
on which customers are going to buy from you and when. To keep track
of pending sales, simply take an Excel spreadsheet, label it with
the current month and divide the page into 28, 30 or 31 squares.
As potential projects come in the door, type the client's name,
type of project and expected dollar value in the square representing
the day that you think the job will come in.
Send out a weekly newsletter. One of the easiest
and most cost-effective ways to keep in touch with your clients
is by sending out a weekly e-mail newsletter. This newsletter should
go not only to your existing customers, but also to prospects, previous
customers and people you meet at trade shows or networking events.
Make prospecting a priority. No matter what else
comes up, be sure to set aside at least an hour each day for prospecting.
For some people, it's the first thing they do after they finish
their morning coffee. For others, it's right after lunch or before
they leave for the day. The important thing is to pick a time and
stick to it.
While none of these techniques can guarantee you success if you've
got a service that nobody wants or needs, the database marketing
strategy I've outlined above will ensure that you stay in constant
touch with your customers and that you'll have your ear to the ground
to detect the newest trends and changes. Remember that a "no"
could also mean "not now" and that the time and effort
that you spend on database marketing today will pay big dividends
in the future.
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