A WORD ABOUT CLOSING SALES

If you are working on filling the pipeline or following up, it may have occurred to you to wonder how you are actually going to make a sale. After all, the Daily Actions on your list are all focused on the earlier stages in the marketing cycle.

The key word to understanding the answer is focus. You have chosen to concentrate your effort on a particular stage of the marketing cycle because that is where you are feeling stuck or need more work. This doesn’t mean, however, that you should ignore the routine functions of the other stages while you are doing this. If your pipeline-filling activities turn up a hot lead, follow up immediately. If your follow-up generates a possible sales conversation, schedule it. If your conversation leads to closing the sale, great! That’s what you want.

Your Daily Actions in the program are in no way intended to be a list of everything you must do about marketing and sales for the next month. You need to continue pursuing solid leads with the same energy you always have (or perhaps a little more, because now you have a goal to meet). The intent of the Daily Actions is simply to focus more effort on the area of your marketing that needs it the most.

The Get Clients Now! program should hold the same place in your marketing and sales activities as an exercise program does in your life. You don’t quit walking to the bus stop because you are now doing twenty-five sit-ups each morning, and you don’t stop playing ball with the kids because you decide to run a mile three times a week. Routine life goes on while you are exercising; regular selling goes on while you are improving your performance in the areas of pipeline-filling and follow-up.