Archive for the ‘Relationships’ Category
Listen Up! Marketers talk incessantly about ‘The Funnel’ . . . the iconic image that suggests the ‘Prospect Pathway’ that begins with a ‘lead’ and ends with ::::::drumroll:::::: a customer or client.
The problem is, this is so myopic! The notion of a ‘funnel’ implies that, once you reach the bottom and generate a customer, the process is over. FAR FROM IT!!
The FUNNEL . . . Isn’t Really A Funnel Afterall
In your business the ‘event’ of making a sale to a new customer or client marks the end of the initial ‘chase’. But it also marks (or, should!) the beginning of the ‘real’ relationship between your firm and your new client.
The Story of The Daily Rose
I have a cousin — Bill Murphy of Washington, DC. He’s quite the fellow. His wife, Sharon is quite the lady, too. They have a big, wonderful family and operate a foundation (Mary House) in ‘the city’ that provides homes to families who have been battered by bad spouses or cruel governments (think Bosnian refugees). President Bush even recognized Bill as one his ’1,000 points of light’. So yeah, he’s a cool guy.
But here’s why Sharon and Bill have such a great relationship. Every day, and I mean EVERY day since they were married (and they’re grandparents now, too!) . . . Bill gives Sharon ::::drumroll:::: a single rose.
There’s Light at The End of The Tunnel
What Bill recognizes is that there’s a BIG difference between a ‘wedding’ (one-day, one-time event) and a ‘marriage’ (the ongoing, day-in, day-out stuff!).
Getting married isn’t that difficult. The challenge is to honor the relationship you’ve started . . . so you stay married! Like Bill and Sharon Murphy of Mary House in DC.
The Lesson to Take-Away
Like a marriage, the relationship you formalize with a new client (marked by an ‘event’ – i.e. the first sale) holds the FUTURE POTENTIAL to give you many, many more sales. IF . . . you’ll honor and cultivate the relationship you’ve started with your new client.
That may not require a daily rose (but what a great idea, no?). But it does mean nurturing your relationships with clients, prospects and COI’s, too.
Keeping those who have demonstrated that they value what you offer . . . keeping them thinking of you first, foremost and most favorably the NEXT time they need what you offer . . . is what relationship building is all about.
KEY POINT:
The Duct Tape Marketing ‘hourglass . . . is our image that recognizes there’s far more than a single sale involved . . . there’s a lifetime of repeat sales . . . waiting for you if you just honor the relationships you start.
This is either:
A) a really bad trip on an illicit drug
B) a ‘worm hole’ somewhere in Space
C) what Alice saw upon entering Wonderland
D) a Marketing Hourglass — top view looking down
The answer is . . . “who really knows?”
Personally, I like to think it’s a worm hole in Space!
Like a worm hole, the Duct Tape Marketing Hourglass™ suggests that one side of the funnel, is going to be a mirror image of what you’d find on the other side.
The Traditional Funnel
The typical sales / marketing funnel is depicted as being wide at the top and narrowing at the bottom. That metaphor suggests how you put a lot of prospects in the top of the funnel — thanks to your lead-generation tactics — and then work those leads until you ‘squeeze’ clients out of the other end.
Duct Tape Marketing’s Upper Funnel
In our Duct Tape Marketing hourglass, we have a ‘mirror-image’ or ‘double’ funnel. It recognizes that you go to work getting people to know you, like you relative to your competitors and trust you (your brand) sufficiently to try you — i.e. find a way to work with you at some level involving, initially, no or little risk.
Duct Tape Marketing’s Lower Funnel
Once you have a client, our funnel continues — to expand — suggesting your new client relationship is adding to a growing base of brand advocates and referral partners whose lifetime value to your firm is realized in the form of up-sells, cross-sells and re-sells as well as referrals to others who can best understand, value and afford your services.
Our marketing hourglass vs. the traditional sales funnel focuses intensely on building relationships as well as transactions. If you do that, you’ll generate more revenues!
This approach also requires special attention to the use of systems and processes that move your prospects along the path of know, like, trust, try, buy, refer and return.
In The Last Year . . . Have You Referred Us to Others?
There’s an old adage, “Actions Speak Louder Than Words”. I like this one, too: “Clients Vote With Their Wallets”. Both are very true.
The value of knowing that your clients are referring you to others / others to you is a SYMPTOM or EVIDENCE of how well you’re performing for your clients and how committed your clients are to you.
No business will please everyone 100% of the time. But you can assess your performance periodically and use the likelihood of clients referring you as a benchmark of the experience you offer your clients.
Frederick Reicheld, a partner in the prestigious consulting firm Bain & Company, developed what he calls the Net Promoter Score. This is a metric reflecting the overall effect you’ll enjoy (or, suffer!) based on how many of your clients will (net of those who won’t) promote you and your business to people in their networks of influence.
KEY POINT:
Learn your Net Promoter Score . . . and make it move ever higher!
