Rethink Labor Day With These Employee Engagement Tactics Posted on September 5, 2016August 31, 2016 by Erin Posey A lot of things have changed since the original Labor Day in 1882. But one thing hasn’t: employees still desire to be appreciated above all else. Employee engagement remains one of the most important and intricate workplace puzzles. The original Labor Day “celebration” was more of an uprising. Laborers took to the streets and staged strikes to express their distaste with working conditions. Labor Day was eventually named a national holiday to honor the “working man.” While we’ve made great strides in the treatment of employees, engagement still remains one of the most buzzed about topics in the workplace. To really engage your employees, you need to be making an effort 365 days a year. The bottom line is that good employees make your small business function effectively, and you have to make a concerted effort to keep them around in a competitive job market. The following are a few ways that you can help your employees feel valued and re-engaged in the workplace. Focus on Wellness (In and Outside the Office) As soon as you acknowledge how much of their time employees are spending at work every week, you’ll be able to understand how important it is to encourage workplace wellness. There are plenty of studies that show how harmful a sedentary lifestyle is. Make wellness a cornerstone of every work day. Friendly office competitions and apps such as WalkerTracker make health and wellness a priority. Focus on Culture Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’re probably well-versed on the different ways to build a strong company culture. But the truth is that every company is different, and every employee has a different preference on what enjoyable workplace culture looks like. Pre-planned group functions are a fantastic way to allow employees to socialize outside of the confines of the office. But if your employees are feeling like work events = forced fun (or maybe don’t enjoy the group setting as much), offer them the option of programs like Dabble where they can plan one-on-one outings with co-workers while trying their hands at potential hobbies outside of working hours. Make Sure Employees Feel Safe It’s important that employees feel comfortable traveling to and from the office. If your employees are burning the midnight oil, make sure they’re able to have peace of mind with an app like SafeTrek (or the good old fashioned buddy system) when leaving the office. Remote working has grown exponentially in popularity, and is a great option if employees are concerned for their safety – for instance if your team has to work after hours. However, managing remote workers comes with it’s own set of challenges that you should be aware of. Encourage Communication (and Feedback) There’s nothing worse than stifled workplace communication. Processes are less streamlined, employees are less happy and companies are less effective. If your employees don’t have a clear understanding of how and who to communicate with (on issues, wins and everything in between), it will have a direct impact on your bottom line. Make sure that you have a very defined system for workplace communication with platforms like Bonfyre or regular surveys through tools like SurveyMonkey. It’ll be beneficial for your employees and your bottom line. Focus on Recognition In a 2013 study by Harvard Business Review, recognition was ranked as the most impactful driver of employee engagement. Recognition doesn’t necessarily need to come in the form of a raise or an award but making sure that employees feel valued is incredibly important. Try finding more personalized ways to show appreciation like a custom gift from Greetabl or enrollment in a program like Good Street where employees can choose a daily charity to donate to. Hatchbuck employees are all enrolled in GoodStreet, and it’s a great way to make a small difference on a daily basis. We all look forward to the extended Labor Day weekend – but if your employees dread getting back to the grind on Tuesday, you’re missing out on productivity and engagement. This year, when you get back to the office, come up with a few ways to make your employees feel valued 365 days of the year and re-engaged with the success of your business.
How to Use IFTTT Recipes To Close More Sales Posted on September 2, 2016August 31, 2016 by Jeanna Barrett Time is money. As a salesperson, wasted hours on busy work means less time and less money in your bank account. To maximize your productivity – and the number of deals you can close – you want to minimize the amount of time spent on sales processes. Luckily, we live in a modern world with dozens of tools to make sales processes more simple. One of the best is IFTTT. IFTTT is an acronym for “If This, Then That”. The tool allows you to connect the technology apps and devices you use regularly to automate processes that not only improve your sales processes, but also help you keep in touch with friends, stay healthy, improve productivity and more. IFTTT works with Facebook, Twitter, EverNote, WordPress, Gmail, Square, FitBit, more than a dozen appliances, and a ton more channels. We’ve gathered a few IFTTT recipes for salespeople that’ll help you crush your end-of-the-month quota: Track Your Leads’ News & Updates If you have top leads you’re tracking in hopes to close a deal, you can use IFTTT to receive alerts about their company news and updates. This will help you write warmer and more personal emails to them when checking in. Create an IFTTT recipe to send yourself an email every time a company is mentioned in blogs or online communities such as Reddit. IFTTT can track RSS feeds of major news aggregators and trigger alerts when there is a mention. Find New Leads Create an IFTTT Recipe that triggers an alert when keywords are mentioned on Twitter. If someone needs help, you can be there first to answer their questions. If someone is looking for a product or service like yours, you can beat out the competition by being the first to offer a demo or deal. Improve Your Sales Process An overwhelming amount of content is produced every day, and it can be tough to keep up with the latest sales trends. Use Pocket – a content curation tool – in conjunction with IFTTT to ensure you’re always learning ways to improve your business. Connect Pocket with IFTTT, and you can automatically save articles from your favorite industry blogs, or articles that mention specific keywords. Next, Connect EverNote with Pocket, and you can save starred items or links from Pocket to your EverNote account to keep track of notes and advice you want to followup on. Track Conversations in Reddit Get advice and updates from your fellow sales colleagues. Reddit has a few great communities around sales, notably the subreddits /Sales and /SalesMotivation. Within these subreddits, you’ll find advice on upcoming sales conferences, salary negotiation, sales software recommendations and more. Connect IFTTT to Reddit, and ensure you’re not missing important conversations. You can create a recipe to save top posts from subreddits of your choice in Pocket so you can remember to read them when the time allows. Improve the Time Spent at the Office Working too much, spending too much time in meetings, or not tracking billable client hours properly? IFTTT can help with all of that. You can track the time you spent with clients by logging office visits in your calendar or Google Drive. Then, automatically mute the ringtone on your phone during a client meeting using an IFTTT recipe. You can also set a notification after you’ve been at work for a certain amount of time, reminding yourself to keep the work life balance that’ll help you be a healthier, happier employee. We’ve listed just five areas that IFTTT can improve your daily sales process, but there are dozens more available within IFTT’s list of sales recipes.
How to Turn Your Employees Into Your Biggest Advocates on Social Media Posted on September 1, 2016March 20, 2024 by Allie Wolff Your best, most influential promoters are closer than you think. It’s no secret that inspiring your customers to rave about you on social media is a great way to build your small business’ reputation. But many business owners aren’t tapping into another group of promoters—their employees. By inspiring your team to advocate for your small business on social media, you can build a strong, positive presence for your brand online. Your employees are reservoirs of company knowledge and champions of your small business’ culture. When they share on social media, your employees can help both attract your ideal customers and recruit stellar team members that fit seamlessly with your culture. Let’s turn your team members into brand advocates on social media. Here are 5 strategies for helping your employees bolster your social presence: 1: Create a Culture Worth Bragging About Before you ask employees to post about your business on social media, make sure you are doing your best to create an environment where they love to work. Ask yourself some key questions: Would you be excited to come to work in your business if you were not the owner? If not, is there anything you can change that would create a more positive experience for your team? Even making a few small tweaks to how you run things can amplify the level of genuine enthusiasm your team has and set the tone for positive posts on social media in the future. Try something new, like: Creating a communal workspace Gifting them useful company merch Asking team members to choose a charity to sponsor, or Catering lunch in the office on Fridays It's Pancake Friday at @getHatchbuck HQ! Nothing better than a team breakfast to start the weekend! #TGIF pic.twitter.com/86KuwsOJRO — BenchmarkONE (@Benchmark__ONE) August 19, 2016 One of our core values @getHatchbuck is #MakeADifference – How are you making a difference, #SmallBiz? https://t.co/HItRuzvWbr — Lindsey Stroud (@LindseySBeth) May 13, 2016 Give your team something to brag about on social. 2: Start Bragging About Your Team. Employees may be shy about posting about their workplace on social media if they don’t see you doing so, too. Get the ball rolling by sharing news about your team on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram or Twitter on a daily basis. Love our onboarding team – @LindseySBeth getting ready to send warm fuzzies to her @getHatchbuck clients ✍️ pic.twitter.com/Y1WGZInYE7 — BenchmarkONE (@Benchmark__ONE) July 20, 2016 If you’re more inclined to snap photos than write posts, open an Instagram account and share pictures from company events and daily life at your office. Whether you announce an employee of the month, include a team shot at a fundraiser for a local charity or post words of praise for an employee who just ran a marathon, you’ll give your team something to comment on online and share with their followers. And, bonus, you’ll boost morale along the way. 3: Tap Their Ideas Social media platforms are changing quickly which means that some of your employees may be more privy to the next Snapchat or niche sites in your industry than you have time to be. Engage your team by asking everyone for ideas on the best channels to post about the company and how to post on them. If an employee has special expertise with a particular platform, ask them to help you craft a plan for building out your presence there or even let them take over an account for a day to help followers get to know your employees more intimately. It's Monday, time to start a new chapter…… #mondaymotivation #quote #business pic.twitter.com/VfZj8h04OB — Jonathan Herrick (@JonathanHerrick) August 29, 2016 Many small businesses don’t have the budget for an in-house social media specialist. Your team can be instrumental in helping to share the load and fill the social void. 4: Facilitate a Monthly Brainstorm Set aside an hour once a month where you encourage employees to think up relevant posts about your company for different platforms together. If you run a professional services firm, Twitter or LinkedIn may be a good place to post relevant articles. At a more customer-focused business like a restaurant, you might focus on Facebook or Instagram. Offer a prize to the employee who comes up with the best post of the month. It’ll be a great way to build up your social content calendar and to highlight team wins. 5: Embrace recruiting sites. If you’re trying to attract talent, encourage your employees to post reviews about your business on sites such as Glassdoor. Many job hunters (and prospective customers) check out the reviews carefully when deciding where to apply – and where to buy. Before you ask your team to post reviews of your workplace, you want to be sure you have a pulse on employee engagement. Give everyone a chance to rate your company culture and voice concerns through an anonymous survey. If you receive negative feedback, you can make changes to boost employee happiness before sending them out to review your workplace. Then, build out your Glassdoor profile with photos of company gatherings and other events that really showcase your company culture. We recommend asking employees to review your business anonymously so they feel they can be candid. The more genuine the comments, the more valuable they will be in attracting your ideal candidates. Asking employees to share open job postings through their personal accounts can be another effective way to spread the word and to tap into a pool of qualified candidates who may not know about your business yet. If employees love where they work, they’ll be more eager to share openings with friends and followers. Hatchbuck is seeking a driven, passionate Social Media Content Manager who wants to make an impact each and every da…https://t.co/yvDRrStUMM — Nicolette Troiani (@niccitroiani) June 3, 2016 Putting together a plan for engaging employees as advocates on social media is a great opportunity for you to take a step back to survey the current state of your business. When executed thoughtfully, employee engagement on social can be incredibly valuable for driving traffic to your website, attracting talent and most importantly, boosting your company morale.
How to Navigate the 3 Challenges of B2B Social Selling Posted on August 31, 2016August 31, 2016 by Jonathan Herrick One of the biggest changes to B2B selling over the past few years is the emergence and growth of social. It enables salespeople to build better relationships, increase credibility, and creates a faster way to connect with potential customers online. But these changes in the sales landscape don’t come without a few pitfalls. Think of “B2B Social Selling” like manning a ship. A stronger sail could get you to your destination faster, but running into choppy waves could cause you to capsize. With the right marketing strategies for B2B social selling, you can overcome some common challenges to make your online selling smooth sailing. Problem 1: Using the Wrong Channel All social networks are created equal when it comes to driving sales for your business. If you’re focused on B2B, then chances are the channels may be quite a bit different than if you operate a B2C business: With so many options out there, a big challenge for most small businesses is deciding which social platforms to spend time and resources on. To start off, it’s important to understand who your ideal buyers are and where to find them online. While Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram have their place, according to a study by The Content Marketing Institute (CMI), Linkedin and Twitter were a top the list of sites for B2B sales and marketing: The reason? Both platforms have a large user base (LinkedIn alone boasts over 400 million profiles) yet they both enable sales to connect to prospects on a one-on-one level. By using their search function, you can filter based on role, company and even the groups or hashtags your prospects engage with. As you narrow your list of ideal prospects, the next step is to engage in a two-way conversation with them. Remember: it’s better to give than receive. Begin engagement by sharing and liking posts/tweets from your prospects – it helps to foster goodwill and build brand awareness. Once you have established trust with your audience, reach out and make the connection. Problem 2: No Customer Value People want to do business with people they know and trust. That means publishing irrelevant, self-serving content online without insight into customer interests will leave you missing the mark: There is no better way to turn a new contact off than to give them an immediate sales pitch. So in order to make B2B social selling work, you need to shift from a selling first mentality to that of a thought leader–providing useful resources that solve your customer’s greatest challenges. In fact, according to the B2B Buyer Behavior Survey, 71 percent of buyers cited the importance of relevant information from sales professionals. To change the conversation and add value to your audience, you can use tools like Linkedin and Buffer to help you to capture data on your audience’s interests and track engagement: With real time insights, you’ll know what topics they are talking about on social and can better align your sales strategy with appropriate, valuable content. The more you can make your social content more audience-centric and less sales-centric, the greater chance you have to see a return on your sales efforts. Problem 3: Lack of Tracking A big stumbling block for B2B selling on social is the inability to track how all their online activities are converting into sales. It is not enough to just measure likes and followers. To truly determine the effectiveness of your social efforts, you need to dig deeper. Metrics such as the Linkedin SSI score can be a good early indicator that your sales team is active and finding success with social selling. A study by LinkedIn found a strong correlation between sales reps with high SSI scores and their ability to exceed quota. Another way to track social ROI is to use technologies such as a sales and marketing automation software. Marketing automation enables sales reps to capture online prospects, segment them, then nurture connections with relevant content based on where they are in the buying process. It also gives your business tools to grow your social relationships and visibility into which connections are visiting your website and converting into sales opportunities. When you put a sales and marketing platform in place, it gives you insights into which social channels are converting and which ones aren’t: B2B social selling is an effective way to boost your conversations and bring in more sales. In fact 78% of social sellers outsell peers who don’t use social media. By finding the right social channels for your small business, adding value for your audience and tracking your results, you’ll be in better position to navigate the social seas.
4 Ways to Host a Can’t-Miss Webinar Posted on August 30, 2016August 30, 2016 by Erin Posey Webinars are an essential tool for establishing your industry authority and increasing brand awareness. The ideal webinar, however, will also reliably lead to significant conversions. Whether you’re brand new to the webinar scene or have held webinars that failed to convert, here are three ways to turn webinar registrants into new and returning customers. 1. Get people signed up and remind them to attend. This may seem obvious, but the most precisely planned, confidently executed webinar will never drive impressive conversions if the signup process is not refined. Be sure to get the word out on your website and on social media — and show would-be attendees that the event will provide demonstrable value. Busy people must be thoroughly convinced that the information they gain will be worth whatever scheduling sacrifices they have to make to be present for the event. 2. Execute a strong opening. The unfortunate nature of webinars is that you are bound to lose leads every step of the way. The first big loss occurs between the initial email invite and the beginning of the presentation — without an email reminder, many would-be attendees are bound to forget all about the event. From there, the next big hiatus occurs as your webinar begins. If participants are not blown away in the first five minutes, they will find a better way to spend their precious time. These individuals will not be nearly as excited about the webinar when the big day arrives as they were when they first signed up; it’s your job to get them fired up as quickly as possible and to demonstrate your value immediately. Grab participants’ attention right away by highlighting an issue to which they can relate and offering a clear solution. It may help to begin with a brief, but detailed story that effectively demonstrates the point you want your webinar to make. Statistics can also grab participants’ attention, but spouting number after number isn’t going to keep their attention long. 3. Provide some benefit to sticking around for the entire webinar. Webinar attendees who manage to stick around for the first five minutes are far more likely to continue listening until the very end of the session. That being said, those who drop out halfway through will be of little more benefit to you than those who depart at the very beginning. Keep attendees glued to the screen for the entire webinar by providing a clear incentive — and reminding them of that incentive once every five to ten minutes. Incentives will vary based on the purpose of the webinar, but could include access to a recorded copy of the webinar, a prize for the participant with the best feedback on Twitter, or access to a complimentary service offered by a partnering company. The sweeter the reward, the greater the potential for conversions. 4. Continue post-webinar marketing efforts with lead nurturing. After leads have been captured via webinar signup, you should continue to market to them long after the webinar is complete. The greater the effort you put into lead nurturing, the more likely you are to emerge with valuable conversions. Marketing automation can optimize the lead nurturing process across multiple channels so your leads don’t go to waste. If executed correctly, a simple webinar could be the highest converting tool in your marketing arsenal. Take some time to implement a seamless signup system and to craft engaging content. The time you invest in planning will strengthen your brand and reputation, eventually leading to significant conversions. Bonus Tips: Add humor when possible. Everyone loves a little personality. Use personal stories to engage the audience. No one can relate to a robot. Don’t hesitate to deviate from your presentation deck when appropriate. If opening another website or app means deeper understanding, make it happen! Always offer Q&A at the end. Follow up with each attendee personally so they feel that their questions are fully answered. No one wants to feel like they’re just another number.
How Does Your Email Marketing Stack Up? Posted on August 29, 2016November 11, 2022 by Jessica Lunk So you’re leveraging email to stay in touch with prospects and customers. But how do you know if your email marketing campaigns are truly impacting sales? And how do you turn small email marketing wins into big gains for your business? As a digital marketer, I’ve sent quite a few emails over the years. When it comes to seeing how your email marketing stacks up, there are some basic metrics to watch. Here is a run-down of key terms to be aware of, how to measure and interpret data, and how to boost your marketing effectiveness as you start seeing success. Open Rate Open rate is the frequency at which unique users open the emails you send them. Open rate is a commonly used way to measure engagement. The first metric I look at when I’m evaluating an email send is open rate. It can help assess a few things: Brand Awareness: Do my recipients recognize my brand? Reputation: Do my recipients trust my brand and trust that I’m delivering valuable content? Subject Line: Is my subject line compelling enough to make busy individuals want to click to learn more? If my open rate is low, I can evaluate the “From” address to see if I need to adjust it to increase email opens. For instance, if I am sending to a list of customers, they may be more inclined to open an email from their account manager than from someone on our marketing team. Then, I take another look at the subject line and brainstorm ways to tweak it to resonate better with my audience. Helpful Hint: While open rate is an easy-to-understand and helpful metric, it’s not 100% accurate. Be aware that a user’s email client may block images and create other mitigating factors that prevent this metric from being 100% accurate. Unique Click-Through The click-through rate (CTR) measures how many unique users have clicked on the call-to-action within your emails. While a higher click-through rate does not replace goals such as customer conversion, it is a more useful and insightful engagement metric than the open rate. Click-through rate helps to determine how effective your call to action was. If my click-through rate is low, I’ll test a couple things: Call-to-Action (CTA) Is the call to action weak? For instance, changing call to action text from “Check it out” to a more specific “Download the Template” might boost response. Is the CTA linked text? A linked URL? A button? Changing up the format might entice more people to click. Where is my CTA? Research reveals that as little as 1.77 percent of user clicks in email marketing are on the call to action at the bottom. Most recipients don’t bother to scroll all the way to the bottom of an email – and if they do make it that far without taking action, your message might not be relevant to them. Provide useful information and links near the top of the email in order to pique – and keep – their interest. Body Content Is my email text-based or HTML? For example, if I sent a slick-looking HTML email but got a low click-through rate, I might test sending a text-only email to make it feel more personal to my recipients. Is my messaging resonating with my audience? I might try sending a different variation of the copy. Do images reinforce the messaging and connect with the audience? I can A/B test images to see if I get a lift in click-through rate. Sometimes, just a small change – like the color of your call-to-action button, or shortening the content of the email – can give you a nice increase in click-through rate. So if your initial email has less than stellar results, don’t scrap everything. Run a test or two to boost engagement. Click-to-Open Click-to-Open rate is calculated based on how many unique users opened emails and how many of them clicked on links inside. This metric serves as a useful measurement of how relevant and engaging customers find the content you provide within your emails. If I have a low open rate, I always look to the click-to-open rate to determine where the problem areas in my email are. For instance, if the open rate is low, but the click-to-open rate is high, I know that not many people are opening my email to see the content – but those that do connect with the messaging and are following through on the call-to-action. In this case, I know that if I tweak the subject line to boost open rates, I’m going to see a nice boost in click-through rate as well. Bounce Rate and Spam Complaints A bounce can be caused by a full email inbox or bad email address. Bounce rate measures of the emails sent, how many failed to be delivered. This metric is useful for determining the quality of my email list. If I have a high bounce rate, I probably have an old list of contacts that needs to be cleaned up. Spam complaints measure the percentage of your emails that end up in the spam folder. There are a lot of spam guidelines and best practices you can follow to stay out of the spam folder. But, at the end of the day, the best way to avoid being marked as spam is to send to a list that has opted-in to communication from you. Avoiding high bounce rates and high spam complaints is crucial to maintaining a clean sender reputation and getting your emails delivered to the inbox. Email Conversions Opens and clicks are nice, but they don’t mean much without conversions. Using an all-in-one sales and marketing tool with email marketing and CRM in one app can help you easily track how your email marketing efforts are contributing to conversions. So beyond seeing who opened and clicked a link in an email, you can see how many conversions you’ve had with the lead source of “email marketing.” For instance you could: Build a unique conversion landing page for each email campaign to easily track which campaigns are performing the best. Or Add a tag to contacts that have received a specific email or email campaign and use that tag to segment your customers by lead source. I know from experience that sometimes you can have awesome email marketing metrics that don’t translate into new customers for your business. Linking email marketing performance to conversions can help you determine if you’re targeting the right audience with the right content.
The 3 Non-Negotiables For Building Your Small Business Social Media Strategy Posted on August 26, 2016June 20, 2018 by Allie Wolff It wasn’t long ago that companies would hire an inexperienced intern to manage social media platforms without giving it a second thought. According to BrandWatch, there are 2.3 BILLION social media users in the world as of July 2015. That’s a big audience for your brand; a little too big to trust an untrained intern with. As social has blown up and evolved into the huge resource that it is today, businesses finally realize the value of a strategic social media plan to propel their brand awareness, gather feedback and convert fans into customers. Or, they risk doing the opposite — plummeting into a dark hole of negative reviews, inauthentic posts and spam bots. While social media cannot be the only fuel for your inbound marketing engine, it absolutely must complement the rest of your marketing strategy. The following tips should serve as a foundation for building out a solid social media strategy for your small business. Find Your Voice and Don’t Let It Waver A foundational part of social media strategy (or building a business in general) is understanding the audience that you’re trying to reach. Without a deep understanding of your customer base, you have no business putting together a strategy for your social platforms. At Hatchbuck, we’ve built very clear (internal) buyer personas for our software, and we take that into account when thinking through our social and blog calendars. All of our content (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blog and the like) is specifically written in a voice and tone that our audience can identify with. We understand that our followers are visiting our pages and blog for valuable information on how to build, market and grow a small business. Charmin, on the other hand, has a very different customer base who they interact with very differently. The strength with Charmin’s method is not taking themselves too seriously. They understand that toilet paper isn’t the most easily marketable product and having a sense of humor takes away any stigma attached to the product. Figure out what works with your market segment and stick to it unabashedly. Don’t Waste Your Time With Vanity Metrics It is so easy to fall prey to follower counts and number of fans. But if those hoards of followers aren’t engaging with your content, you have a real issue. You’re either attracting the wrong type of follower based on your messaging or you’re not producing content that is valuable to your audience. Either way, you’re most likely coming off as inauthentic and jeopardizing your brand identity. Don’t be #teamfollowback if those followers aren’t genuinely valuable to your feeds. Think carefully about the content that you’re tweeting, posting and sharing. Don’t spam your followers with sales pitches or they may not be followers for much longer. Instead of focusing on quantity, focus on the quality of engagement with each piece of content you’re sharing. Automation is Your Ally When you’re running a small shop, you hardly have time to sit around and find relevant content to retweet, blog topics to write about and posts to share on a daily basis. By blocking off a window of time once a week, you can queue up personalized, relevant content to be shared at pre-determined intervals. There’s nothing less authentic than a brand that starts and stops their online conversations constantly. Figure out the right frequency for your audience and stick to it with tools like Buffer, Tweetdeck and IFTTT to make sure your accounts don’t skip a beat. The tips should serve as the most basic steps to get your social media strategy off on the right foot. Once you’ve put a process in place, the possibilities are endless with your social channels. Don’t overlook the value of social media when marketing your small business.
5 Reasons You Don’t Need a Sales Process Posted on August 25, 2016August 25, 2016 by Jonathan Herrick Small business owners often think that having a well-developed sales process is something left to bigger, more sophisticated businesses. Often times owners are not only the head of marketing but also the lead (and possibly only) sales rep. And almost all small business owners, at one point or another, sold their products or services on their own. But far too many small businesses are haphazard about how they do their selling, and that includes the nuts and bolts: making the phone calls, sending emails, following up, and searching for leads. Research has shown that automating and optimizing business processes—like sales—leads to greater growth and productivity. However, many small business owners don’t feel it’s a necessity. So does an upgrade to your sales process make sense for your business? It depends. Before you dive in, here are 5 reasons you might not want to put a sales process in place. You have no intention of scaling. If you are happy just being the size you are and don’t want to grow, whether that’s revenue, employees, office space… then you’ll be just fine without a sales process. If you want to scale growth and remain vital and relevant, you’ll need to hire new people, train them and grow your customer base. Without a sales process that is well-defined, clearly communicated to your employees and that creates consistency–both in the sales process and the entire customer experience–it’s very difficult to scale. You’re left just winging it, putting out fires and following up on leads inconsistently (or when you have down time). That’s not a strategy for growth. You don’t want measurable results or predictable outcomes. We’re a data-driven economy now and without results that you can quantify and learn from, you’re not going to be able to operate as efficiently—or intelligently—as you could armed with information. With an automated sales process in place you have a way of documenting buyer behavior, for instance, or discovering the triggers that lead to specific outcomes like conversions or requests for more information. When you have a consistent process in place that works, it reinforces your brand and your customer experience. And it winds up a very positive data-feedback loop. You get measurable results for things like sales rep performance, selling activities, specific campaigns, the cost of acquiring customers and so on. This information is then used to refine and optimize the sales process. You don’t want greater staff productivity. If you are content with the revenue your business is bringing in then it may not make sense to upgrade your sales process. However if you looking to get more from your sales staff then a refined sales process could be exactly what the doctor ordered. Automating your sales process so that it’s consistent and repeatable increases productivity by eliminating manual, non-revenue producing tasks. It also improves efficiency by reducing the amount of time you or your sales reps spend on finding and closing deals. For example, at Hatchbuck, when our sales team walks in each morning, they simply login to their CRM to see their hottest opportunities and most important tasks for the day. With a solid step by step sales process in place, each member of the Hatchbuck sales team is more productive-spending less time cold calling and more time speaking to warm leads. You don’t want a competitive advantage. If you are in business then chances are you have competitors. In order to say ahead of the game you need to find ways to leverage a competitive advantage. The reality is within your industry there are companies—big and small—using sales process automation. That means they all use a step-by-step process for nurturing leads and converting prospects into customers. If your competition in the industry has an automated process for sales, that gives them an edge over companies that don’t. An efficient sales and marketing process can also increase lead response times and ensure your business stays out in front of the competition as buyers make purchasing decisions. You don’t care about your sales pipeline. A sales pipeline helps companies estimate future sales by knowing clearly which deals are in the process of closing or likely to close, and when. Unless your business is one where people walk in and buy on the spot, it’s rare for a prospect to find your business, check out your product or service and buy, all in one fell swoop. It generally takes several interactions with a prospect before you can make a sale, and the sales pipeline is a key to that. The process is what takes leads through that pipeline (and hopefully they come the other end as a customer.) A standardized sales process helps to bolster your pipeline; your pipeline helps you visualize and optimize your sales process. An automated sales process also lets you train and coach your salespeople so they can be successful, it shortens the sales cycle and allows you to create more accurate sales forecasts. And all of that, in turn, will help you build your business. Of course if you don’t want to build your business, you definitely don’t need a sales process.
It’s Not Business Unless It’s Personal: Tips to Improve the Customer Journey Posted on August 24, 2016August 24, 2016 by Jessica Lunk When it comes to digital experiences for customers, many companies face a kind of paradox. On paper, it seems customers want a relatively “distant” experience – the ability to browse products via their phone and avoid setting foot in a brick-and-mortar store. However, a company that treats them like “just another customer” is viewed by that customer as “just another company.” Marketing automation software lets you and the customer have it both ways: a tailored, personal experience with the benefits of one-on-one marketing and the speedy convenience of online interaction. Here are three reasons to make online business personal and to improve the customer journey. 1: Customers Want a Personalized Experience Marketing automation software is able to provide a wealth of customer data for you to analyze. However, if you’re not maximizing this data for the customer experience, you’re wasting your time (and your customer’s). The key to using this data effectively is making sure that each customer enjoys a unique experience at every step of his journey through your sales funnel. For example, it’s not uncommon for customers to visit your site multiple times before making purchasing decisions. When paired with marketing automation software, your CRM can detect behavior during visits to your website and begin to build a more complete picture of each individual customer. As you learn more about the customer through their online behavior, you can build personal relationships by offering information and solutions that are relevant to the customer’s unique interests. At the end of the day, the customer is impressed that you seem to always know what they might be interested in … sometimes before they do. 2: One-On-One Marketing Doesn’t Have to Mean Brick and Mortar The goal of marketing automation is to take the typical experience of visiting a website (in which the customer is one of thousands of visitors) and make it feel more like they are doing business with a trusted advisor. In this sense, the CRM software and its ability to offer the customer relevant information and related solutions does more than send the right information at the right time. Rather, it lets you both have the best of both worlds: the customer experiences the tailored, one-on-one experience of working closely with a business while enjoying the speed of faster research and purchasing via the internet. Put together, this means customer loyalty … which means, of course, repeat business. 3: CRM Software Benefits Both the Customers and Your Business The use of marketing automation software puts people first, and that experience does not end with the customers. CRM software improves the experience at every level, from tailored communication to interactions with employees who know exactly what the customer wants. This benefits your employees as well: having instant access to organized information about each customer means faster and more fruitful transactions, whether the employee is selling products or offering technical support. And, this personalized, one-on-one approach ends up benefiting your company as well. According to studies, use of CRM software can improve sales revenue by 41 percent per person, improve customer retention by 27 percent, and improve lead conversion by an impressive 300 percent. Making online business personal again is just one step you can take to see your business thrive. Tailored customer journeys are an absolute essential to differentiate your business from your competitors.