Part 3: The One Thing Most Small Businesses Miss

Let's talk about converting a sale into a customer.
This is an expansion on the saying:
“Don't get a customer to make a sale. Make a sale to get a customer.”

The point of an irresistible offer (see Part 1) was to make a sale to gain a CUSTOMER.

A business will not survive off one-time sales.
You need repeat business or a convincing referral who will advise others to do business with you.

Yet, so often, this is how we market our businesses:
We spend our marketing dollars on intensity versus consistency.
We just want the sale (intensity) & give little thought to creating a customer (consistency).

We spend $1,000 on a full page ad in the newspaper and once we've submitted the ad to the editor, that's it – we've done our part and there is nothing left to do but hope it works.

Or, once we've made the sale, we're done and there is nothing left to do but wait for the next one and hope they come back.

But in reality, we do not have to succumb to this powerless “wait and hope” mentality. If you've followed Part 1 and Part 2, the ball is in your court to increase the chances that leads will come in and increase the chances that one sale will create a customer.

The power is in the follow up.
And the follow up can happen before and/or after the sale.

If you're like me, I used to have no idea what follow up meant or that it applied to my business. It was a foreign concept to me that there was a step beyond just “publishing an advertisement.”

But this is why you trade an irresistible offer for customer information.
So that you can follow up with them!

After they've signed up for your offer, give them a call to see how you can better assist them in making an appointment or visiting your business. Shoot them a reminder email if the offer is about to expire or win some extra trust and tell them you'll extend it for one more day.

If they've come in and redeemed the offer, give them a call just to say “thank you” for shopping local. Send them an email with a helpful tutorial or tip relevant to a topic you discussed while they were in your business. Or, call back a week later to make sure they're still enjoying what they purchased.

This is a completely new way to think about customer or potential customer interaction. And here's the thing:

IT WORKS.

Most people and businesses don't do it, automatically giving YOU the competitive advantage to be different, memorable, and more valuable to your customers.

Let's consider two scenarios.

Scenario #1
Imagine for a moment that you were in a very busy high school.
You want to sell your delicious chocolate chip cookies.
So, you pick a room on the busiest hallway, put a big sign on the door about your cookies, and wait for kids to come into the room to buy cookies. You have a cool sign on the busiest hallway. You've done your part. So you just hope and wait.

Scenario #2
You choose a room on a hallway, you open your door, and put up your sign...but you add a tear off ticket for one FREE cookie. You see a couple of kids grab a ticket and go tell their friends. You watch their friends come back to get a ticket of their own.

Now, tell me in which scenario would you be more comfortable “following up” with these high school kids? Which one naturally lends itself to follow up?

In Scenario #1, if you were to venture into the hall and flag a kid down, the only natural question is “Did you see my sign about cookies?”
To which, you probably won't get a high (or enthusiastic) reply rate.

There's no opening to create a conversation.
So your only course of action is to talk about your product.
Which can sound "salesy," or pushy. 

This is what makes scenario #2 different.

Scenario #2 creates an opportunity for conversation.
The kids who have taken your ticket are naturally looking for direction on how to get their FREE cookie. In fact, they'd probably welcome your question:

“Hey, would you prefer to come get your cookie before or after class?”

When they come in to get the cookie, it would be more natural to ask which kind of cookie they prefer or how often they eat cookies. You can easily suggest they try the peanut butter cookie, too. You might naturally sell a box of your cookies because they want to take some home. And they would be more interested in the text you send next week about the cookie delivery service you offer on Fridays.

You just practiced a successful follow up.
The reason it was easier is because the kids were already familiar with you.
They read your sign, took your ticket (offer), and were more “ready” to talk with you about cookies.

All you had to do was start the conversation.

This makes perfect sense when you're selling cookies to high school kids.
Yet, we tend to opt for Scenario #1 when it comes to our businesses.

We put all our dollars into a fancy sign on the busiest “hallway” with little to no focus on creating leads. It's really flashy and really big, but not very effective. Even worse, the only question left to ask is, “Did you see my sign about cookies?” This is what so much of traditional marketing has been like for us as small business owners.

It's all intensity, no consistency.

“Intensity” is trying to get in shape by going to the gym one day for eight hours.
That's not how you get into shape or lose weight.

"Consistency" is going to the gym every day for twenty minutes.
Twenty minutes accomplishes nothing by itself.
But when done consistently, over time, your body changes.

Follow up is consistency, not intensity.
The people who have given you their information are already familiar with you and your offer. It's like walking into that room filled with kids who took your ticket and are ready to talk about your cookies!

The ball is in your court.

Follow up means creating a conversation.
Follow up means writing thank you notes every week.
Follow up means emailing them advice or tips relevant to their needs.

One email, one phone call, one thank you note accomplishes nothing by itself.
But when done consistently, over time, it creates more leads, more sales, and more customers who come back again and again.

If you're looking for a way to create this sort of marketing and follow up strategy in your own business, I highly suggest you check out Main Street Marketing. It is an incredibly powerful, easy-to-use, software system specifically designed for  small businesses just like you.


P.S.
All credit to the consistency versus intensity argument goes to Simon Sinek.
If you would like to hear his full explanation, click here.
I also highly recommend watching his Ted Talk here.