How sales fit is your business?
“How sales fit is your business?” is a question I asked over 350 small to medium sized businesses last month. Between them, they invest around $7 000 000.00 a year on marketing:
web sites, SEO, Google AdWords, social media marketing, advertising, video production.
All this money is invested to generate leads, to get the phone to ring, their website visited, inviting people into their business.
In this group marketing is their super-power.
Yet after all this money has been invested in lead generation, and buyers are contacting their business how sales fit are they?
How much is being invested in converting these leads into revenue, into sales?
Fifty-one cents a day!
Less than 1% of their marketing investment, 0.0093% to be precise, an average of $186.00 a year.
At a time in human history when business is the most competitive it has even been, when buyers have more power than ever before.
TODAY in 2021 seventy percent of the buyer’s purchasing decision is being made before businesses get a call.
And that is up from forty percent in 2015.
And this is forecast to rise to ninety five percent by 2025
I say that again by 2025 95% of the purchasing decision will be made before we as businesses get a call
And these are number business just cannot ignore, they will scare many.
And rightly so, because you will get once chance to pitch to these buyers so it better be engaging, because when the phone rings, the email pings or the door swings open and your sales team is not ready.
Another deal lost or a buyer bullying you to get a better price or longer terms.
And today in a covid / post covid market look at what is happening..
- Competition up
- Pressure on margins is intense
- Spending on lead generation up
- Lead conversion rates down
- And when you do close invariably it’s a discussion about price
The biggest challenge facing businesses long term survival today is not a global pandemic or a crowded marketplace or how often you post on social media.
The biggest challenge to business today is how sales fit you are, how you pitch, persuade, influence and sell a 2020s buyer.
In a market where buyer has all the power, has seen the same sales technique thousands of times before and knows how to shut you down.
Being Sales fit will be the difference between a business that thrives and a business that struggles to survive.
Which one will you be?
Being sales fit is crucial, because without businesses knowing it the way buyers buy has changed quickly.
The buyers have been in the gym lifting weights and pumping iron for the past 10 years getting stronger, more dominant and businesses have by and large been sitting on the couch with ice packs on all the bruises they get when the buyers come and beat them up wondering, what just happened.
So how sales fit is your business?