Launch - Spring 2008 - (Page 23) Lead generation techniques that work include: Good Use 30 seconds to sell 10 minutes, 10 minutes to sell one hour, and one hour to close the deal. When you call on someone remember you are interrupting them. Don’t try to meet with them right away; use this 30-second call to ask for a 10-minute meeting. Prospects will attend meetings if the topic or agenda feels timely, relevant and actionable. Create a meaningful 10-minute “mini-conference” and invite them to “attend.” During that call you present, ask questions and ask anyone who qualifies for a one hour follow-up meeting. Better Work your network. Twenty-five percent of the people who bought from you in the past will buy again. Fortyfive percent of the people currently buying from you will buy more and 60 percent of your referred prospects will buy from you today. If you have a solid list of current and past customers, call each one and ask for more business and for a reference or two. Best Nothing is more important for your startup than a solid sales strategy. Too many entrepreneurs focus only on product development early in their company’s existence thinking a sales plan can wait. Few entrepreneurs claim to have overestimated the time required to ramp up sales. Most will tell you to plan on twice as much time and money than estimated. To help you formulate or enhance your sales strategy, launch asked four local startup executives to offer tips and tricks in five different key areas to establish and maintain an effective sales team. Change your logo, tagline and content to be focused on getting the phone to ring. Remember that your target customer has a problem they are working on solving. Your logo and tagline should make them think, “That sounds like someone who can help me fix this problem.” Prospects who call you close at a 60 to 80 percent rate. ninja Lead Generation By Matthew Lampros HitYourQuota.com President Ninja Change your company name or DBA to an action phrase. We changed ours from eLampros to HitYourQuota.com and saw a 400 percent increase in leads. This works with all three methods above. When you call someone and say, “I’m with HitYourQuota.com and I’d like to set 10 minutes to talk to you about a research project we just finished with Duke University on advanced closing techniques,” they take the meeting. When you call past and existing customers and say, “We’ve changed our name to HitYourQuota.com” their interest is piqued and they offer more referrals. Finally, when someone sees your billboard with an action phrase company name, they are significantly more likely to remember your name and to call you. Sales is often referred to as a numbers game — it is. The two numbers that matter most are the number of prospects you are working and your close percentages. Target customers buy more often (10 percent) than non-targets (1 percent) and people that come to you buy more often (60 percent or more) than anyone else. First things first; remember that lead generation is the act of finding a target customer with symptoms of the pain you solve. If you find those prospects, you generally close those prospects. Lead generation is not the act of convincing the known universe to visit your Web site and view your demo. Instead, be willing to spend the time hunting through the pile until you find a good prospect. Don’t be worried about the word “no” unless a target customer is the one using it. launch spring 23 http://HitYourQuota.com http://HitYourQuota.com http://HitYourQuota.com http://HitYourQuota.com
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.