Your business could offer the best product and the best service with the best employees. But there is uncertainty in how the economy and businesses will rebound after social distancing is relaxed and businesses return to work. So how will you keep your sales funnel full as states start to slowly reopen?
The first thing you need to accept, if you haven’t already, is that all businesses will lose clients at some point or another. When your business loses clients, you will need to fill those gaps in your pipeline with more leads. It may seem daunting right now, but it is the right time to concentrate on filling your top-of-funnel and middle-of-funnel pipeline.
During a time when you are inevitably going to lose clients, here’s how you can fill your pipeline to set yourself up for success.
Do you have a strategy or priority in place of who you are targeting?
Once you identify your strategy and priority, spend time determining messaging and approach.
Now that you’ve determined your strategy, prioritized who you are targeting, and developed the messaging and approach you want to return to market with, spend some time determining the channel(s) you believe are going to be best to reach your market. Are you trying to bring your clients inbound or target them outbound? To help narrow your options, ask yourself questions like:
Depending on the channel(s) and medium(s) that your target buyers are leveraging, it may require various skill sets and responsibilities. For example:
Based on that answer do you have the right team and tools in place to be in front of these buyers this way?
In most cases, your buyers are not isolated to one of the channels listed above, but rather leveraging multiple. Do you have coverage across multiple mediums? Is your strategy lopsided and too heavily focused on one channel?
With all the above in place, the goal is to ultimately create a healthy list of prospects and leads. However, make sure you don’t stop there and confuse prospects and leads with being ready for the sales team. Once you have an engine that is bringing in qualified leads, you can work on turning them into sales qualified leads (SQLs) by making sales calls to nurture the MQLs, gather additional marketing intelligence, and set appointments. According to TOPO’s 2019 Sales Development Benchmark Report, “SDRs are the most important channel for successful account-based programs. Account based is the most significant strategy for go-to-market teams today and SDRs are the cornerstone of that strategy. Of account-based marketers, 88% cite outbound SDRs as an important channel in their marketing strategy. Because of this success, 41% of organizations have built a dedicated account based SDR team.”
Meaningful conversations are crucial in getting new clients. You should be going full force to have as many conversations as possible. Your main focus right now should be filling your calendar with as many appointments as possible. Start engaging with people now to fill your gaps and fill your pipeline so you can be successful.
Is your organization set up to rebound and attack the market effectively? How will your strategy and coverage compare to your competition? Do you have the team in place to be where your prospective customers are?
If not, is getting there quickly important? Have you considered the costs associated with making this a focus? Have you considered the costs associated with not making this a focus? Is this something you want to do internally, or have you considered leveraging a partner for various areas?