The Business Development Blog

The Sales Cycle – Part II Sorting and Organizing Leads

Download the_sales_cycle_part_ii_sorting_and_organizing_leads.pdf

“The Fish in the Sea” – A Short Story by the Business Development Blog

                Once upon a time there lived a fisherman by the sea. Every day he left his small rundown shack rowed halfway across the bay in his leaky rowboat to the deepest spot he dared go. In the wooden sieve that he called an ocean going vessel and he baited his hook with mackerel, dropped a spindle of fishing line over the side of the boat and secured it to the boat by looping it around a notch he had cut in the side of one of the planks, while wrapping the slack he had (all 50 feet of it) between his elbow and shoulder. 4 hours later he had caught 3 cod weighing 5 lbs each; 1 of which was meant to feed himself and the other 2 to be sold at the market to pay for his meager rent with a few cents left over for a couple of extra feet of fishing line.

                One day, the fisherman went out in his rowboat, baited and dropped his line and bailed water to keep his boat floating, when all of the sudden a school of cod rushed beneath his tiny craft and nearly sank it. Several of the cod attacked his hook below ripping the line from his hand and taking his hook and his entire fishing operation with it. Saddened by the loss of his livelihood, yet elated to find such a huge, unknown school of cod, the fisherman rowed as quickly as he could to the dock. When he got to the dock he leapt from his waterlogged boat, ran down the dock, and headed directly to his friend, a banker named Mervin Fishman.  To his friend he stammered, “Mervin, I need to borrow money for a boat and a net, please you have to help me!”

                “Calm down fisherman,” the banker explained, “I’ll run your FICO score and determine whether I can lend you the money. Just fill out these papers and I’ll have your answer in 10 business days.” The fisherman filled out the forms and left his friend, returning to his small shack to wait for his decision. After agonizingly pacing back and forth for nearly 2 weeks until a rut appeared in the dirt floor of his shack, one day the banker appeared at the door. “Hello my friend,” he greeted, “I have your decision.” The fisherman beamed with anticipation. “I will let you borrow the money to purchase the boat and nets you need, but you must pay me back within thirty days, or I will be forced to charge you interest,” the banker explained.

                “That is terrific!” the fisherman exclaimed. No sooner had the banker given the fisherman his loan than he had already purchased a bigger net and a better boat. Sailing toward the same location he found the large school of cod before, the fisherman dropped his nets into the water and to his great satisfaction the nets were instantly filled with dozens of the cod. Upon returning to land, he sold the catch and repeated the process every day until the entire loan was paid off.

                Today the fisherman lives in a 5,000 square foot condominium with marble floors and polished granite countertops. Along with his good friend Mervin he invested in a fleet of boats and nearly fished the entire species of cod extinct while starting the Fisherman & Fishman Fish Company. Today they hold the contract for nearly 90% of the imports of seafood to Japan.

What can we learn from this story?

                When trying to catch fish, or make sales you need to have the right tools, or you are going to starve. Keeping tabs on the status and history of the leads you contact in your head is a lot like fishing with a spindle of line and a leaky rowboat; you are going to be woefully disappointed with the results of your efforts. Managing your leads on paper is another possible way that you can sort out and record where you have been, who you’ve talked to and what they said, but again, when dealing with a large number of leads you are going to be hamstrung by the overwhelming amount of sorting and sifting through every single page until you find the right one. What we suggest at the Business Development Report is to arm yourself with a computer, and beyond that some decent contact management software like Microsoft Outlook, ACT!, or any of the other CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software available. Think of this as an investment in your ability to capture more revenue, and an invaluable asset for any future endeavor you may have as a photographer. The analogy above is an oversimplification of the process, (albeit entertaining) but if you are trying to eat more than just scraps you are going to have to be prepared for high volume.

                To learn how to do this, we’ve created a simple, step-by-step guide to using MS Outlook to manage your leads. To view it you’ve got to download the attached PDF and have MS Outlook. Enjoy!

The Sales Cycle – Part I Introduction

    From first glance, sales can look like a disorganized mess, akin to throwing darts blindfolded at a map and getting lucky by finding someone who wants to buy what you're pitching. While sometimes chance plays a large part in the successful conversion of a good number of sales, there is a method to organizing this madness that can improve anyone's chances of more effectively converting sales than just blindly throwing darts. This method is what is commonly known as the sales cycle or sales process and this week the Business Development Report is putting together an in-depth guide for you to follow so that your efforts are as rewarding as possible.

First, what is the sales cycle?

    The sales cycle is a series of events beginning with the prospecting phase where leads are generated and ending in the agreement and follow-through phase. There are many components to each phase but the 5 major components of the sales cycle are as follows:

1. Organizing and Filtering Leads
2. Initial Contact
3. Negotiation
4. Closure and Agreement
5. Follow-up, Rebook

We will be going into each of these phases into more detail in future articles, but to start, you need to understand that the most important characteristic of the sales cycle is that it is never as effective in partial implementation as it is when all of the 5 major components are involved. That said, there are additional steps that one can implement to augment the 5 core components that may increase the likelihood of converting a sale, but even though conventional wisdom may dictate it sometimes more is not better, it is only more.

How does this apply to me?

    For anyone who has practiced trying to hit a target blindly, you know that aiming and throwing based on intuition alone can produce results, but not nearly as often as if you were to look, take aim, analyze and then execute your pitch. In the same way, targeting sales by sizing up your clients is a better way to have more productive results than simply pitching away at every lead in the phone book. Application of the sales cycle, especially in the initial stages of any sales effort will save you time and resources and ultimately increase your productivity in terms of converted sales.

When does the Sales Cycle Start?

    Luckily, as a sales photographer you have the advantage of receiving intelligently sorted leads that have already been filtered to a certain extent so as to target your efforts. Beyond that, the sales cycle is a constant process that does not follow a linear timeline per se. Once a client has been sold, they are not necessarily signing a lifetime contract or agreeing to always consent to the services that you promised. Furthermore, the services that are provided following the original sales process don't always occur as billed. So, if we define a "sale" as a mutual agreement between two parties to exchange goods or services for monetary reimbursement, the "agreement" portion becomes the dynamic component of that definition, meaning it is subject to change. As a sales person, you are responsible for guiding negotiations to that agreement stage, so even if the client initially agrees to purchase what you have to sell, you still have an obligation to ensure that the deal goes forward, and that a client renews as a result of the product being delivered as billed. In that example you can see how the process can jump around from contact follow-up rebook, to negotiation and back throughout the lifespan of the agreement, subject to changes in conditions of the service or good being delivered within the parameters of the agreed upon terms.

Sounds Complicated, I Already Give Up!!

    Don't lose faith yet, even though there are many advanced explanations for the sales cycle, we're going to stick to the basics for your sake and give you a working guide to apply to real life situations. We will go into detail of each of the 5 stages and give you some important dos and don'ts to follow when you're acquiring clients above and beyond the techniques described in the FotoIllusion Sales Manual. As you go through your training, and even if you're already a seasoned veteran at sales, it is always worthwhile to practice identifying the 5 stages for any prospective relationship or deal you are developing. Think of the 5 stages as your roadmap to a sale and follow them. They will not lead you astray.