Cultivation. It’s an agricultural term that refers to the active process of managing as many variables as possible to increase the chances of a healthy crop. That includes breaking up hard soil, fertilizing, watering, eliminating weeds and so on.
In the business world, we know that sales and profit depend on how well you cultivate leads, growing them into sales and repeat customers. Too much fertilizer kills, and so does too little. It’s tough to find the perfect balance between too much and too little when it comes to cultivating or nurturing those all-important contacts.
Our clients tell us that it’s far too common to lose sales because of the lack of contact after finding leads. What can you do to avoid those disheartening conversations with cold leads that end like this, “Sorry, I went with the other company because no one called me back.”
How do you follow up contacts that express interest in your business, but aren’t ready to make a deal?
- A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. Even if your company is small, a CRM is fantastic because you can craft an automated system for maintaining touch points that are appropriate and perfectly timed.
- An email strategy that schedules marketing messages tailored specifically to your leads’ interests. Once your pool of perfectly worded emails is refined, you can set up your CRM to send them to specific sets of leads based on criteria you set, and it all happens automatically.
Here’s a real-life example. One of our Larek Point staff met someone who was interested in further training for her customer service staff. We collected her information, and entered it into our CRM in a segment called “Customer Service Training.” Once we typed in her data, the CRM took it from there, sending a series of carefully composed of emails over the course of a couple of months. The emails positioned Larek Point as experts in corporate training and painted a picture of what’s possible with our training programs.
At a later point in time, when it seemed appropriate, we gave her a direct opportunity to become a client. By that time, she knew a lot more about us and what we can do for her business. Trust was built and a relationship with cultivated.
Cultivate your leads; grow them into customers. Look at what their pain points are and schedule contact points that show them solutions, and reap the benefits of your hard work!
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