Sales can be a long and arduous process that takes up a lot of time and energy. Time is money, and the faster you can close sales, the more profitable your business will be.

Closing new business is a must if you want to stay in business but…….If you’d rather be surfing social media or working with clients than doing sales activities, follow these 3 easy steps.

STEP 1: FOCUS ON MAKING CONSISTENT CONNECTIONS

The three things I hear from most business owners are:

• I don’t want to come off as salesy.
• I don’t want to bother people.
• I don’t want to send cold messages.

I get it. The unvarnished truth – We have to connect with strangers to grow our audience and sell. Period. As much as you want to think ‘if they wanted to work with me they would just reach out’ this doesn’t happen. People can’t buy if you don’t sell.

Only 3% of your qualified leads are ready, willing, and able to invest with you right now. But you won’t know if someone fits that 3% unless you are talking to them to find out. Followers are not leads, people on your email list are not leads.

Cold outreach isn’t as scary when you turn it into warm, thoughtful outreach focused on making consistent connections.

One of the best ways you can do this is PRACTICE! I’d tell you just do this but that can be too overwhelming so think of it as practice. You know that practice makes perfect, right? To become a master at what you do, you need thousands of hours of practice. The same goes for SALES.

• Practice commenting on posts outside of your personal profile
• Reply to comments on your posts, reels and lives (this means they are interested)
• Practice asking questions about THEIR challenges, their dreams and their goals

YOU can do this via DM, voice memo (after you’ve started the conversation), email or phone when you’ve gotten to know someone.

If you’re not sure what to say then write it down. If you don’t like scripts because you feel like it makes you robotic – remember – every movie and every TV show is scripted. The reason you can’t tell – is because they practice. If someone can’t see you they don’t know that you are reading off a paper!

The point is to practice commenting, replying, and asking questions consistently!

Step 2: Organize and Track

The biggest sales blunder is not following up with people. It doesn’t matter if it’s someone you meet at a networking event or connect with online, follow up is a big fail for a lot of people. From experience working with clients, I think it comes down to 2 things:

Thing #1: If they don’t get an immediate response they believe the person isn’t interested.

Here are some sales stats for 2021:

• 44% of salespeople give up after one follow-up attempt.
• 92% of salespeople give up after no sales on the 4th call.
• 60% of customers say no four times before saying yes.

Not sure about you but I get 70+ emails a day and DMs in addition to the ones I’m sending. We are all busy and sometimes tech gets in the way. Giving up after 1 try is a sure way to miss an opportunity and this leads me to…

Thing #2: Lack of organization – it used to be a pile of cards on the desk and now it’s a never-ending list of connections on social.

With your contacts, take time to determine how you will organize them.

• Lead/Prospect, Client, Business Partners
• How did you connect with them? Event, specific social platform, funnel
• Have they downloaded a lead magnet or attended a free workshop? (level of interest)
• Emails, DMs and calls
• NOTES section to track conversations

You have several options to track your connections. I like to keep things simple, especially for my non-techie clients.

You can use a CRM (customer relationship management software) like Agile CRM or Hubspot.

• Trello is a great option for a traditional CRM and they do have a Crmbl option to help you track more information
• Google sheets is a great nontechie option – the dilemma is being able to add tags, do searches and easily determine when you last sent them a message and on what platform.

Personally, I use FG Funnels because everything I need in one platform including paid courses, landing pages, CRM, etc. I would not suggest it unless you are comfortable with tech and need a complete solution.

With your contacts, you’ll want to figure out how you will organize them. The important thing is to decide what you need and use it.

Step 3: Clarify Your Sales Process

A sales process is the steps your business takes to take a prospective buyer from awareness to decision – THIS IS YOUR FUNNEL. By having a process, you can measure and optimize the parts of your sales funnel to increase leads and close more sales.

As much as we’d like to think someone will see a social media post and want to invest with us that’s not the case 99% of the time unless you are running ads for a low ticket offer.

Remember: Your target audience is at one of 5 stages of customer awareness

Unaware – they don’t know they have a problem! You can’t sell anything to a person who is unaware (0nly 3% are qualified leads and ready, willing, and able to buy)

Problem-Aware: Your prospect knows they’ve got a problem. But this is only the beginning of their journey. They’ve got a lot of questions.

Solution-Aware: Good news – your prospect knows the result he wants. Bad news – they still know practically nothing about you or what you offer.

Product-Aware: Your prospect knows what you sell, but isn’t sure it’s right for him.

YOU Aware: They know who you are, they know your product is perfect for them… but they just need a final nudge to pull out the credit card.

In order to create a sales process, you’ll need to determine the steps your business takes to move a prospect from awareness to being YOU aware so they can make a decision. This will help you to measure and optimize your sales funnel, resulting in more leads and closed sales.

By understanding and mapping out your sales process, you can create a system that works for you so you know what needs to be done at each stage of the process.

There are 3 components to a sales process and these are critical parts of your FUNNEL

• Lead Generation: This is how you will find prospects who might be interested in your product or service. Examples are social media, networking events, or online ads.
• Lead Nurturing: Once you have a lead, you need to nurture them so they are more likely to do business with you. This can be done through email marketing, providing valuable content, or staying in touch through social media.
• Closing the Sale: The final step is to close the sale and get the prospect to do business with you. This can be done through a sales call, an in-person meeting, or sending a proposal.

ACTION: Think through each of the areas and put it on paper so you know exactly how you will attract and nurture your connections as they move through stages of your funnel.

Sales can be a long and arduous process, but it doesn’t have to be. By following these simple tips, you can streamline and speed up your sales process while still closing more sales. Implement these tips today and see how much time and energy you’ll save.

P.S. For additional tips, resources and AI prompts to help you make an impact with your brand, your offers, and the funnel you need to close the gap to get more clients online, get on my email list…

I’D LOVE TIPS & RESOURCES!