Create a Sales Process

Watched the video?  Let's set up a call to discuss how you can get started.

Running a scientific company is difficult.

Unlike a home business, your overhead is high because you need trained technicians, expensive instruments, and a dedicated place to put them.

As an Expert in your field, you probably knew a few people who became your customers when you started up.

So you had some revenue quickly, and you’ve been able to find some more - otherwise you’d be out of business and paying the costs of a failed experiment.  

But inevitably you run out of contacts in your network who require your services. And if you want to survive and grow, you have to keep finding new customers somewhere.

Here’s a tough lesson: What worked with your friends will not help you with people who don’t know you.

So, what do you do next?

At this critical inflection point, many leaders make a bold decision to invest more money and effort into professional sales and marketing.  

But how do you market and sell to people who probably don’t even know you exist?

If you’re like most scientists, you’ve never been trained to sell, and you probably would rather do anything but reach out to prospects who don’t know you and try to convince them to work with you.

So…

•        You could hire sales reps who have big lists of new people they can call.  

•        You could hire an agency (who probably don't know much about your science) to create marketing campaigns.

•        You could invest in website SEO and Pay-Per-Click advertising.

All these can get you leads, but will they find you the right customers? Who are your right customers?

To find them, you need to create a sales process. A way to efficiently and systematically brings only the best customers forward on a journey with you - from stranger to customer. 

How do you do this, practically? Here are a few pointers…

•        Define your Ideal Customer.  Stop trying to sell to just anyone.

•        Align your marketing with the ways by which you create value for your Ideal customers.  Note: this is the opposite of marketing based on your capabilities and lilst of services!

•        Create a stepwise process that identifies, captures the attention of, qualifies, and starts a conversation about the problems of your Ideal Customer. 

•        Teach everyone in your company how to describe how you do that, using the same words.

I know – you’d probably rather go to the dentist.

But having a consistent sales process is essential if you want to scale your business.  You should never hire a salesperson without a process for them to follow!

Creating a Sales Process is the second of the Four Value Signals. These are part of the road map to putting your company on a growth track that is independent of the expertise of the founder alone – the map from Expert to Entrepreneur.

Ready to learn where to start in creating your sales process?

Watch the video, then let's set up a call to discuss how you can get started.