Do you have feast and famine months in your small business?
Times when you’re so busy you don’t know where to turn and then
times when it’s so quiet that you’re desperately willing the phone to ring with
a new customer?
Avoiding the feast and famine cycle is one of the hardest parts
of small business sales and one of the key early focuses of my small
business coaching.
It’s hard because in the famine times:
·
you’ll be frustrated at the lack of activity
·
you’ll doubt your ability and business idea
·
you’ll waste money with knee jerk advertising
But I’ve got some good news for you.
I’m going to show you exactly why the feast and famine cycle
occurs and how to rid your business of it forever.
Building a Sales
Pipeline
The key to ending the feast and famine cycle is to build a sales
pipeline.
Like the pipeline that comes into your house to carry water.
If your water supplier has a problem, and the water stops
flowing through the pipe, your supply dries up and nothing happens when you
turn the tap.
That’s the feast and famine cycle in a nutshell.
You have to ensure that you feed your sales pipeline with a
constant flow of new opportunities.
The more opportunities you have coming into your sales pipeline,
the lower the risk of famine.
How to Find New
Opportunities
I suggest that you pick five small business marketing activities
that you focus on every day to pro-actively add opportunities to your
sales pipeline.
Such as building a blog for of compelling relevant content,
connecting with people who could use your services via LinkedIn, using small business email marketing visiting
local business in your town or city to start relationships. The list is
endless, hence why you need to focus.
Why five?
It’s not a magic number but if you do less than five you risk
not having enough new opportunities coming into the sales pipeline, and if you
do more you risk getting overwhelmed and not doing your best at any.
Building a Small
Business Marketing Mix that Works
Consider these three questions to help you pick your five
focused small business marketing activities:
1. What’s already working?
How did you find your current or past customers? Take a
look at all of your current and past customers and review how you found them.
Review any activities that worked for you previously, has anything
changed, have you stopped doing something? Can you make that activity
work for you again?
2. What can you start today?
Don’t pick things that will take a long of time to get started.
If you’re already in famine you need to get opportunities into
your sales pipeline quickly, don’t wait two months to get your website
redesigned or to go on a course about how to use Twitter for business.
Focus on things you can start today, when you have opportunities
in your sales pipeline you can easily review the results of your marketing mix
and decide if you should add something that will help you build for the future.
3. What do you enjoy?
It’s no good having an activity in your small business marketing
mix that you don’t enjoy, you’ll put off doing it and hate every moment of it.
That isn’t the best way to build your sales pipeline.
Focus on marketing activities that you are willing to commit to
100%, that you’ll be motivated to spend enough time on to get results.
Don’t Copy Your
Competitors
Notice that I didn’t say “look at what your competitors are
doing”. That’s because you need to stand out from your competitors
and pick five methods that you are happy with.
It doesn’t matter what your competitors are doing –
build a small business marketing mix that you enjoy and that will work for you.
Get Help to Fill Your
Sales Pipeline
You don’t have to fill your sales pipeline on your own.
It’s good to have five focus small business marketing activities
for continually adding new opportunities to your pipeline, but you can get
other people to help you – more hands to the pump as the
saying goes.
Remember to ask past customers, colleagues, friends and family
if they know anyone who could use your products and services or if they have
requirements themselves – you’re looking for new opportunities, not always just
new customers.
One of the reasons you should build customer relationships is that customers
who are willing to be advocates for your business can spread the word and help
build your sales pipeline.
Never Turn off the
Supply
The two dangers with the feast and famine cycle are that you are
not proactive enough to constantly fill the sales pipeline and that when you
get too busy you stop.
If you stop adding to the pipeline the supply will go dry,
contacts will go cold and sooner or later you’ll be in famine.
Always ensure that you keep adding to the sales pipeline.
Find ways to be more efficient with your small business marketing
when you’re busy but never stop your focus activities, the more
opportunities you have in your pipeline the better.
Summary
To end the feast and famine cycle in your small business you
need to be constantly proactive, focus on a small number of marketing
activities and never stop filling your sales pipeline with fresh opportunities.
Have you experienced the feast and famine in your own small
business? Please leave a comment and let me know how you’ve coped with
it.
By: Robert Peters
Robert Peters is a Small Business Advisor, Coach & Consultant who helps grow sustainable and profitable businesses.
