10 Costly Sales And Marketing Mistakes
Most Businesses Make
By Glenn Fallavollita, CEO – SellMorePayroll.com | Author | Keynote Speaker
- Word Count: 657
- Time To Read: 2.6 Minutes [Based on 250 Per Minute]
In the past 10+ years Drip Marketing, Inc. has helped thousands of business owners, sales leaders, marketing pros and salespeople become more effective sales and marketing machines. Not only have we watched many companies grow, we have seen a number of companies stall and falter. And as you can imagine, you start seeing a pattern as to why this happens.
To help you avoid these same pitfalls, I have listed some of the top sales and marketing mistakes companies make.
Mistake #1: Having A 'One And Done' Mentality When It Comes To A Marketing Campaign - To succeed at marketing, you need to target the most qualified prospects on a continuous basis - especially since 97% to 99% of your prospective buyers are NOT ready to buy what you are selling.
Mistake #2: Keeping Poor Performing Salespeople On The Company's Payroll Too Long - It will behoove you to provide your salespeople with a written goal of what they need to produce in sales to be employed at your company. Although this can sometimes be a grey area, you do need to provide salespeople with written guidelines to help set their expectations (and to light some drive in them too).
Mistake #3: Not Building An Accurate Database Of Customers, Past Customers And Prospects - Successful businesses know that having an accurate database of prospective buyers to target will give them the greatest ROI on their sales and marketing efforts.
Mistake #4: Not Creating A Business Development Center For Your Salespeople - Salespeople need to not only have ad slicks and brochures at their fingertips to send to a prospective buyer, but they also need sales tools like whitepapers, articles, press releases, customer testimonials, success stories (cost-saving or money-making), etc. That said, create an "electronic" folder they can all tap into for this resource.
Mistake #5: Not Creating A Hunter's Mentality For Your Sales Team - There are many elements that go into creating a hunter's mentality; however, one of the best things you can do is to give you salespeople a high commission/spiff on a new sale.
Mistake #6: Not Focusing On A Niche Market - One of the best things you can do for your sales and marketing team is to focus on a specific vertical(s). Do this, and you will be surprised to see how quickly you can increase your sales.
Mistake #7: Not Having A Sales Follow-Up System In Place - Companies that have the most sales success have a formal follow-up system in place - a system that integrates both their sales team and their marketing campaigns.
Mistake #8: Not Measuring The Right Sales Metric For Their Salespeople - It is not all about measuring the number of telephone calls or appointments a salesperson makes, it is more about measuring the events, e.g., webinars, demos or decision-maker meetings, that trigger the sales process.
Mistake #9: Relying Upon Salespeople To Stay In Touch With Their Database Of Prospects - Our research has proven that 50% of all salespeople stopped contacting, for at least 9 to 12 months or altogether, a prospective buyer after their FIRST unsuccessful attempt at getting the sales process started or moved forward. This number skyrockets to 99% after their third unsuccessful attempt. If you are the sales leader for your organization, don't think YOUR salespeople will perform any differently.
THE #1 MISTAKE YOU NEED TO AVOID IS THIS:
Mistake #10: Not Willing To Change Or Modify Their Current Sales And Marketing Strategies, Tactics And Behaviors - If you, or someone you know, are called Ms./Mr. Stubborn when it comes to implementing new marketing initiatives, don't expect to see things change in a positive direction any time soon.
Executive Summary: There are many costly sales and marketing mistakes that ALL businesses make -- including yours and mine. If you take a really close look at your organization, you will see how you can overcome a lot of the challenges listed above.
About The Author
Glenn Fallavollita is the President of SellMorePayroll.com, a Division of Drip Marketing, Inc. He founded Drip Marketing, Inc. in 2002, and serves as CEO, lead copywriter and strategist. He is also instrumental in developing the curriculum, format and expansion of Drip University - the training arm of Drip Marketing, Inc. and SellMorePayroll.com. His work, insight and creative talent has been the catalyst for the delivery of more than 35 million e-mail campaigns on behalf of his clients.
To learn how we can help your payroll service increase its sales with our payroll marketing system, visit us on the web at www.SellMorePayroll.com or call us directly at (856) 401-9577.
