Over 70% of your sales leads come from your lead generation network. That is leads received effectively from referrals.
The lead generation network has a structure of 7 related but critical sub markets, network we teach in our courses.
Failure of Companies to launch into new markets can most often be attributed to a failure of one or more of the seven sub markets. This article discusses one part of building a business development solution.
Prospect Buying Process – Research
Prospects often begin their buying process through their own research. Researching questions they have about issues they are experiencing. Such research usually combines online research and questions discussions with other people in their professional network.
The key points are that they don’t start by seeking a buying solution they start by exploring the issue. Secondly they use both online and traditional networks to seek answers or guidance.
Show You Understand the Issues
The long established “90–9–1” rule states that 1% of people create content, 9% edit or modify that content, and 90% view the content without contributing.
That is the opportunity!
Identify the issues your prospects may have, then develop answers or discussions on those issues. Demonstrate that you understand the issues and avoid sales pitches. You want to develop a confidence relationship with the prospect and/ or their professional network. Such that a prospect when discussing an issue with a professional network colleague is told, “oh read the paper by XYZ consulting, they really drilled into the issue, definite must read”.
How
For each identified prospect issue, research and develop a response that shows you understand the issue, then use it to generate online and traditional network leverage:
- Post the article on your website, with keywords related to the issue.
- Distribute via social media, with # tags related to the target market such as twitter or facebook. Also post it as an shared article on LinkedIn.
- Distribute via digital press releases, discussion forums and direct submission to magazines read in the market.
- Meet with related Industry Associations, to discuss your findings on the issue, and ask if they could include your article in their next newsletter.
- Contact organisations that conduct seminars or conferences to see if you can present you findings.
- Even contact thought leading organisations like ours, to see if you can publish your article on our site.
- If you have an email database of contacts in the market, then aggregate your articles into a newsletter and email it to them.
If your article is published by a third party site, eg a news release site or credible related site, then ensure you share the link. Why, because the fact its been published elsewhere helps demonstrates your market credibility.
Couple of other Tips
SEO the article with key words related to the potential search strings prospects may use in search engines. Include those key words in your social media posts, as social media is indexed by search engines as well.
Consider short video to explain key issues. Video keyword optimised can be 50 times more likely to put you on front page of Google, whilst being the preferred medium of social media.
Remember the Objective
The objective is to have presence at the outset, both in the network and online, as the prospect undertakes their research. The effect being that you begin to build a confidence relationship with the prospect through demonstrating your understanding of the issues.
Business Development is a process founded in applying in the right model to suit your business.