A interview with Hugh Macfarlane with great insights for small businesses sales and marketing
Hugh Macfarlane runs MathMarketing which provides sales and marketing consulting to businesses across Australia and around the world. A key note speaker and author of The Leaky Funnel, Hugh provides some great insights that small businesses can leverage.
Hugh speaks about the customer buying path. How to ask the right questions about which buyers to focus on? How to improve your sales and marketing process and some great free resources on the Math Marketing website to start you on your way. Listen to the podcast here.
Here is a list of steps that small businesses can do to build a process around the sales funnel and management.
1. Position your company as a solution to a particular problem.
2. Once you have defined this problem, then begins the process of finding buyers that are likely to have a problem to you can solve.
3. Get your company on the list on a list of possible companies. Be known.
4.You need to get some of these buyers to recognise that they have the problem right now.
5. Those that don’t have that problem right now, earn the right to nurture them as prospects, so you can be there when the timing is right.
I asked Hugh about how small businesses choose what to focus on?
How am I different as a small service business? Because I can solve these problem better than any other alternatives. Hugh gives the example as a Financial planner who can solve the problem of a single dad and solving his particular problems of raising a family, protecting him income and being able to access money quickly if required. The Financial Planner that can focus on this issue will attract other similar clients that have the same problem. Talk about the problem and your unique expertise and insight into these problems for single dads.
How do you choose what problem to choose?
1. You need to be good at it.
2. It needs to be worthy of focus on it. It needs to be a problem that is pressing.
3. It needs to have fewer competitors
4. You could have choose 20 problems, but you choose the problem that is most attractive, growing, the one you solve it better,has limited competitors. This is the problem that is very likely that you will win the business. Get out of Jail free card, Hugh explains is when you are in front of a client is that you get the chance to solve their particular problem even if it wasn’t the original problem they might have inquired about.
Small businesses struggle to focus. We want to flexible, nibble and therefore we don’t have a consistent single message! Find something that you are uncommonly good at and then say it, solve that problem every day. Focus on this.
Some marketing you can do to create some lead generation.
Hugh explains, that as small businesses we are proud of the work we do. Many small businesses don’t focus on creating new demand. You know the problem.
1. Provide content that is useful to your ideal customer. Don’t call it a newsletter. Maybe it it s tool, download tips, podcast or white-paper.
2. Have a gathering of customers and or partners and have a discussion about the problems they are facing. This becomes content for your blog, etc and sometimes it will lead to a follow up conversation.
3. Engage your customers and prospects rather than pushing. Earn the right to communicate with these.
4. Then you can take it further with the permission to address their particular problem.
Sales Funnel
Most people think of the sales funnel, think of themselves. It should be called the buyers journey.
The buyer is thinking:
1. I recognise that you have a service but didn’t want or need it
2. You sent me something that was interesting. It is worth getting your emails.
3. I feel like a do have a problem, that maybe you can help with.
4. I need to solve this problem now.
5. I think about who can provide me the solution, you and others.
6. Then I think you will assist me better. You have given me reason to believe you will solve my problem best from the alternatives I know about.
How can small businesses provide some tactics around each of these steps to move their prospects to the next steps? Hugh suggests if we map out all of these tactics end to end and improve these stepping stones and touch points.
Here is a content strategy map from Eloqua that I have found useful:
Small businesses should build the plan together for the buying and sales process. You need buy in from everyone and their collective insight.
Measurement.
Have one measurement for sales. Have an input measure. An example is the number of needs meetings with new clients. Meet with three new prospects per week.
Listen to the full interview here.
