Lead Generation and Sales – Business Skill #3 To Take Your Business To The Next Level

If there’s one business skill that most entrepreneurs I’ve ever met absolutely hate, it’s the idea of selling things.

The idea of selling and feeling sleazy just drives them crazy!

They can love their craft and love what they do, but the very word sales makes them want to run for the hills.

Unfortunately, it’s one of the non-negotiable business skills you have to have and have to develop.

So this is Lead Generation and Sales lumped together. (Note: This is one of the 8 key skills an entrepreneur needs in order to be successful)

Lead Generation

So Lead Generation is how you get the best people to talk to and have a chance to even give your sales presentation.

Conversion Percentage Drop-Off

Now, the first thing to know about Lead Generation is that you’re going to have a conversion percentage drop-off as they go through the steps.

What I mean by that is, let’s say you talk to 100 people, not all of those are going to be a perfect fit.

By the time you’ve talked to them – maybe half of them have been disqualified from moving forward. They didn’t answer back. They were uninterested. They weren’t your exact target market. So you went from 100 down to 50.

At the next step, maybe you’re trying to set an appointment with those people maybe only 10% of those move on to the next step.

Out of those 10% Maybe only half actually show up to the apartment that you sold to them.

So there’s this drop-off that happens.

So lead generation is how we fill the top of that bucket to go through all those steps.

Now, the better your selling and your conversion percentage, every single step, the fewer people you have to have.

You have that same 100 people and you have an 80% conversion rate because you’re having better quality traffic and a more tailored presentation.

Now 80 of those move on to the next step.

So we need a lot fewer leads, the better your sales processes.

Subscription-Based Business Models

The second thing is to have a really good subscription-based business, and this can be anything from a coffee shop, to a plumber to a car repair place. Think of your business as a subscription.

“How many days a month is the average person going to come in and get a cup of coffee from me?” That is my loyal customer. Maybe that’s three days.

Now you can do the math and say

1. “How can I keep that customer happy coming back those three times?”
2. “How can I get enough customers that I have a subscription that’s going to fill the weekly needs of my business’s cash flow?”

Thinking of your business as a subscription business helps. Since you will have some people that come back around again to do business with you, you need less throughput of people.

That’s the basics of lead generation as it relates to sales.

Sales

Now on to the sales part itself.

I’m going to tell a story.

A Common Story

Recently, I saw two cousins who lived in England and had launched a boutique farm fresh flower bouquet service.

Their idea was that they were going to set up these beautiful flower arrangements out of locally grown flowers of each season.

One of the women was really great at growing beautiful flowers.

The other was a great florist. She was a pro at arranging them.

Unfortunately between the two of them, they had zero ideas on how to sell.

They were doing NO selling whatsoever.

So they grew this beautiful field full of flowers.

That was wonderful.

They had a florist who could arrange them into wonderful arrangements.

But they hadn’t even thought about

• a customer
• how to approach that customer
• how to price things
• what the customer even wanted,
• or who their customer even was.

They hadn’t thought about their Product Market Fit at all.

So the sales process is a non-negotiable to be in business.

Hobby Versus A Business

It is important that I think anything you want can be a hobby!

I really push back against this idea that everything you do “needs to be monetized and make” money.

If you like playing guitar and playing in a band, great. That does NOT have to be a profession.

But if you say you’re a professional musician, then the business skills of selling are non-negotiable. You have no choice but to close that gap in your skillset and figure out how to sell.

So if they wanted to grow flowers for fun for their own enjoyment to give to friends and family, because they liked it – it doesn’t have to be a business.

But once you’re saying I’m running a business, then selling is a non-negotiable sales skill.

Run The Play

The final important point here now that I’ve made it clear it’s non-negotiable is that selling is actually really, really basic.

Here’s the thing in different sports, you have “plays.”

In basketball, you’re inbounding the ball. Your team has specific plays that they have set up because this happens over and over and over again.

So why recreate the wheel each and every time?

They already know the general status of how things are gonna go.

Selling is the same way.

There are always the same few steps.

1. There’s the initial contact with the customer.
2. There’s the needs analysis. What is it this customer needs? How do I find that information out?
3. There’s the sales presentation. How I can solve those needs?
4. There’s the closing or the asking for the sale. “Will you give me money for this yes or no?” In this, there might be some objections – people saying, “I don’t think so, it’s too much money.” How you overcome those objections is part of a closing and then once that’s done, the sale is completed.
5. I would consider ongoing nurture and a follow-up as the final part of that sales campaign. This helps maximize the effectiveness of the subscription model I talked about earlier.

So ignoring the business side of things and not doing sales is what’s going to separate you from success and failure.

You have to figure this out.

I promise there ARE ways to sell without feeling sleazy.

If what you provide has true value don’t you have an obligation to get that in front of people who can actually use it and not let them fall for the traps of your competitors?

I think so.

Getting over bumps in the road like resistance to improving skills that make you uncomfortable at first is a major part of Managing Yourself.

If you have any questions let me know in the comments below.

Otherwise, check out the rest of the videos on the 8 Essential Skills you need to be a successful business owner have a great day