"Experience has taught us that when managing multiple clients or prospects, it is easy to incur some strategic confusion unless you break your goals down into separate and distinct goals for each sale." Miller and Heiman.
The roller coaster effect
As with any objective, experience has taught us that when you work with many clients, a certain strategic confusion can occur that determines delays, decreases the quality of work and also economic performance.
If you've been in the profession for a while, you may have already seen the effects of the roller coaster process.
If you recognize this approach as your own guideline, you are not alone. Income irregularity in professions of this type is so common that many consider it a kind of natural pattern. As a psychologist told me:
"-Our profession is like this. Customers come when they want. One has no choice but to accept it. ”
But he doesn't say it now. He has understood this very well and is beginning to have a growing and regular income.
Now, more than in the roller coaster effect, the delay compensation principle applies. She is calm but does not settle waiting for clients to come and, most importantly, she anticipates the desired average. Focus creative tension, with multiple strategies, to make the system work.
To establish the multiple strategy, which involves the corrective actions of this approach, keep in mind the funnel metaphor that we see below.
The metaphor of the base funnel of the multiple strategy.
The funnel that Miller and Heiman used for this metaphor is a bit sophisticated. It is divided into three parts that correspond to three different types of actions. The multiple strategy is based on the classification of the objectives in these three actions.
- About the funnel: Rate.
The prerequisite to identify a possible client that we will place ABOUT THE FUNNEL is to possess the data that suggests an adequacy between your services and the needs of the possible client.
The kind of work that needs to be done to place a prospect ON THE FUNNEL is to rate or verify this data. This can be done in many ways. But in this process there is a key element that is essential: you must be able to contact at least one Decision-Making Influence and identify the adequacy between your services and the needs of the potential client.
- In the funnel: Satisfy all decision-making influences.
The prerequisite for placing a sales target IN THE FUNNEL is that you have verified the possibility of a contract.
The kind of work this part of the funnel needs is to satisfy all the Deciding Influences. You must first identify each of them. Then satisfy the adequacy of your services with the needs of each one of them.
Time and uncertainty decrease as the Funnel progresses. Its purpose is precisely to ensure that this continues to happen.
- Few Selected: Finalize the Contract or the Alliance.
The prerequisite for placing a sales target on the FEW SELECT side is that you have almost completely eliminated luck and uncertainty as factors in the final decision.
Since this is a subjective judgment, the dividing line is not very clear. Therefore, the work to be carried out involves basic actions such as final confirmation and signing the contract or verbally agreeing on the alliance.
Another important requirement is that there is a high chance that the contract or alliance will be completed in less than half the normal sales cycle time. The normal sales cycle is crucial to the effective use of the Sales Funnel.
- Your normal management cycle.
The normal management cycle is the time it takes between the initial contact and the final agreement.
Management cycles vary greatly from one type of service to another. For example, from personal to corporate coaching. What interests us here is your specific sales cycle. Although none will move in the funnel at the same speed, most will follow an average of time. This is what we refer to as normal.
How to set work priorities and time allocation?
How to set priorities
Experience shows us that setting work priorities and time allocation is not synonymous. Although many people believe it, when they use the Sales Funnel they are convinced that they are different operations.
The first question for prioritizing work is which of the kinds of work should be done first, which next, and which last to best apply the common ground principle.
Obviously we are not talking about the sequence of work in which an individual objective is developed. All individual targets begin with exploration, continue with coverage, and end with completion.
Instead the answer to the question is in this order:
- Finalize contracts with Poco Selectos.
- Explore and calibrate on the funnel.
- Work the objectives in the Funnel.
A few days ago a psychologist coach told me. When I finished the workshop where we developed this experience a few months ago, I understood what I had been doing wrong for three years. I asked him what will be explained and he said:
“Since I set up my office, I had assumed the irregular frequency of the clientele was an inevitable part of my profession. But after this experience I started to follow a new management system. Every week I spend an entire morning exploring and attracting new clients. It is the priority even if I have more work than I can do. Now I am in the incredible position of having to turn down a customer and for the past few months I haven't had a blank day. ”
This case is very frequent. Since exploration begins on the funnel, the only way to avoid an empty Funnel is to make regular work on the Funnel.
Time allocation
Once you have established the priorities for the three types of work that your objectives need, it is up to you to determine how much time each type of work needs and assign it to it.
This assignment is genuine and dynamic. It is different for each professional and also varies over time.
Notice the difference in the following example:
Pep Anna Toni
About the funnel 6 assign. 20% 20 assign. 60% 6 assigned 20%
In the funnel 15 assign. 40% 3 assigned 10% 18 assigned 50%
Few select 12 assigned 40% 9 assigned 30% 10 assign. 30%
The ideal client: key element for the realization of the marketing plan
It is the fourth part of the Sales Funnel.
With the term ideal client we do not mean a specific client in real life. Possibly you will never find this mythical client. We are referring to a patron client.
When a professional has been treating his clients for some time, he easily understands the importance of this element. He is almost certainly very sorry to have certain customers. Instead he would like everyone to be like one who brings him much satisfaction.
If you have experience in selling your services or products, you will immediately understand that the demographic, physical characteristics that define the buyer's environment, such as economic capacity, professional and even geographical situation, age, number of people, if it is corporate, period of possible work…. They are the ones that influence you the most in the prospect's customer evaluation.
You may not give so much importance to psychographic characteristics, reputation, culture, ethical guidelines, attitudes, openness to innovation, focus on quality rather than quantity, business culture…. Instead, these characteristics are very important for your first exploration of the universe of potential customers that you can put on your Funnel.
In the event that you do not have experience, that you are going to start you have no choice but to do it with prototypes. You will progressively do it with real clients. Possibly very soon if you apply it well at first.
When you have the profile of your ideal client, it will help you to exclude potentially unsatisfactory targets from your exploration. The systemic perspective allows us to understand that the limit of our management processes is time.
Let us dedicate the available time to the exploration and management of those who have more possibilities of winning. Also to eliminate marginal problems and be prepared for the usual ones.
