As I was driving down the highway the other day, I saw many trucks and vans along the journey. They all shared a common theme; all of them had their company name, phone number and/or website. You can argue with me but here is the deal; it all comes down to business cycle. Whether it’s a roofing company, plumbing, food truck, logistics, a law office, school or even ambulance, they use the same cycle: promote, follow up, sell, promote.
Let’s go over these briefly.
Promoting. Any and all businesses need to promote. If nobody knows about them how can people do business with them? During promotion you’re not there to sell your business or service. You’re simply planting seeds out there, so to speak. However, if a prospect wants to buy my product while I am promoting, you bet I will take their money.
Follow Up. When I have a need to fix some lighting issue in my house and all of a sudden I see Joe the electrician’s ad on the road or internet I am going to contact them. The business need someone to answer the call or email. Many times, I’ll request their service then and there, but most of the time people might not be ready to have them perform the job or may forget the conversation after a few days all together. Guess what, the company need to follow up with the prospect, to remind them or answer any questions. Without follow up businesses will leave a ton of money on the table ad waste the advertising dollars.
Sell. Once you follow up and address all the uncertainties of a prospect you can sell and close them on your product or service. This is the most important part of the business cycle. Without sales and close everything else is pointless. In this step the prospect becomes a customer, receives a solution to their problem and you get paid in exchange. Sales drives the entire business and the cycle.
Follow up. Lastly, businesses need to follow up with their existing customers. This is a great opportunity to inquire on issues and address them. This proactive approach will set up apart from the competition. Also, do you think just because they bought from you it would be the last time they did so? What about referrals, upgrades, promotions. These are all excellent opportunities to grow your market share and add to your bottom line.
So many entrepreneurs and businesses complicate things by over analyzing data, running different scenarios and spending days planning and running spreadsheets.
No matter the business you run, always simplify things and break them down to basic doable parts and start doing them.
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