All selling activities are meant to help you move potential clients or opportunities forward in your Sales Funnel.
Activity 1: Make potential clients aware of you
Being visible and letting potential clients know who you are and what you offer is critical to bringing in new clients and deepening business with existing ones. Scheduling time to keep your site updated, your samples relevant and creating content to increase your traffic will keep new opportunities coming. These activities are all about increasing visibility and educating potential clients about what you provide.
Examples of actions: Building websites and social pages, videos and portfolios, contribution in social media and groups, connecting on social networks, face-to-face networking, cold calling, ad and marketing campaigns, speaking engagements.
Activity 2: Qualify the people who are interested and explore potentials
Not all opportunities that come along are the right fit. Dedicating time to researching and following up with prospects to assess the quality and the fit of leads will ensure you aren’t missing out on a good opportunity. At this stage it’s also good to find out who the buying influencers are and whether you are the right fit for what they are looking for. These activities will help you avoid wasting time chasing business that won’t be profitable.
Examples of actions: Reviewing company websites, researching contact profiles on LinkedIn, follow-up calls and coffee meetings, reviewing competitor offerings, hosting online forms for lead capture.
Activity 3: Follow-up to help them with their decision
They’ve seen what you have online and you’ve met with them, but that’s often not enough. Stats say that a buyer needs to connect with you no less than 7 times before they consider buying from you, so follow-up activity is critical to convert leads to sales. You want to find and help bring clarity to their situation by asking open-ended questions and following up with activities to provide information, whether it be pricing, breakdowns of services without jargon, or samples for previous projects that match their needs.
Examples of actions: Holding project need and scope meetings for deeper needs discovery, assembling pricing, service breakdowns, portfolio and case study prep.
Activity 4: Move them to action so you can close the sale
Your clients aren’t likely to be creatives, so putting together a quote, proposal, or presentation that answers their needs in language and structure your customer will understand takes time. Scheduling time to simplify your proposals, eliminate jargon, edit presentations, and review contracts will convert your leads into clients.
Examples of actions: Estimating and quotes, assembling and presenting proposals, contract review.
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