Sales are essential to the success of every type of business that you can think of.
Whether you're a retailer of consumer products like cars or refrigerators, or you're a professional service provider offering services to governments or other business entities, you have to make sales to be successful.
Absolutely nothing happens, whether in business or our personal life, until and unless a sale takes place. It doesn't matter whether it's the sale of a tangible product, the sale of an intangible service, or if it's the sale of an idea. The fact is, nothing ever happens - nothing is created, nothing is shipped, nothing is purchased, and no income is possible - until someone sells something to someone else.
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Lead Generation
Before anyone can sell anything, the seller has to
1) identify the most probable user(s) of their product or service,
2) locate those prospects, and
3) make them aware of the existence of their product or service and the benefits it provides to them.
Identifying Your Prospects
The first step in generating leads that will result in sales is to identify the most probable user of your product or service. Of the three steps in lead generation, this one should be the easiest and fastest to accomplish because, before when you created what you're selling, you already did this research (or you certainly should have).
So, for example, if you're selling retail products, pretty much the entire population can be your target market.
But, if you sell specialized products such as surgical implements, or if you offer specialized services such as rehabilitating real estate with environmental issues, your target market - being those who are most likely to buy your product or use your service - is going to consist of only the people in those highly specialized fields.
The size of your target market doesn't matter. What does matter is that you know who you're prospective users and buyers are.
Locating Your Prospects
The second step in generating leads to make sales is to identify the location of your target market.
For example, if you're a real estate agent and specialize in leasing retail commercial property, you likely work within a specific geographic area, such as a city or county. Consequently, your target market is likely to be made up of landlords and/or tenants within your geographic area whose identity and contact information can be obtained.
However, if you're a marketing consultant who deals with real estate companies of various types, the prospects in your target group may be strewn across the United States. Regardless, they can certainly be identified, categorized into sub-groups, and their location can be obtained in a variety of ways.
This step in the lead generating process may be those most tedious, but must be done properly to eventually make sales.
Making Your Prospects Aware of Your Product or Service
The last step in generating leads is making your prospects aware of your product or service and tell them how it will benefit them. This part of this process is going to take time to show results; it's not going to generate leads overnight. To successfully obtain leads requires creativity, persistence, dedication, and continual attention.
The most important facts to recognize is that no matter how specialized your product or service, you will never make a sale until and unless
1. your prospects know about you and your product or service,
2. they have an interest in your product or service, and
3. they develop a level of trust in you and your product or service to provide the benefit you claim about your product or service.
There is no single method, no "magic bullet" that can be relied on to reach your prospects and present your product or service to them. That's because your prospective buyers don't congregate in one place.
The only way to ensure you're reaching the maximum number of potential prospects - without going broke - is to develop what I call my "multi-synchronous marketing system."
What is a Multi-Synchronous Marketing System?
A multi-synchronous marketing system is nothing more than using several different types of media to reach your target audience and present your product or service to them. Multi-synchronous marketing is something you've undoubtedly seen virtually every day of your life for the last several decades.
This marketing concept is used by virtually every successful company and individual ranging from multi-national companies to your local real estate agent.
In my multi-synchronous marketing system, I help my marketing clients to reach their target audiences using blogging, videos, direct mail, social media postings (not purchased advertising), podcasting, and email. There are also certain clients who also benefit from text messaging, as well.
Contact me if you'd like to talk about how my multi-synchronous marketing system can help you reach more of your prospects and generate more sales.
