Your sales conversions are critical to fund your growth
If you are reading this, then it is likely that you are already working hard to grow your business by trying to:
šĀ sell to more customers, or
šĀ sell more to your existing customers, or
š¤Ā both.
But as you try to do that you may find that conversions remain relatively constant and you are not getting the return on your investment of time, effort, and resources because you are either not addressing their real problem, or you are not articulating it in a way that they feel that you understand it and therefore can solve it.Ā
Gain CLARITY by understanding your current state
Having a vague or incomplete description of your clients’ core behavioral drivers prevents you from effectively addressing how you help them achieve their desired outcome in a compelling and action-oriented way.
This results in sales conversations that end with statements like:
š°ļø āTiming Isnāt Rightā: They acknowledge the value but cite timing constraints.
š āNot a Priorityā: They appreciate your offering but reveal itās not currently a top priority for their business.
š§ āDoesnāt Fit Our Situationā: They believe the fit isnāt ideal for their specific context, industry, or operational needs.
š¤ āInternal Consensus Neededā: They promise to discuss it internally and get back to you.Ā
š¤ āWeāll Think About Itā: While polite, this response often signals hesitation or lack of immediate interest.
šø āBudget Constraintsā: The prospect acknowledges financial limitations that prevent them from proceeding.
š āWeāre Going in a Different Directionā: They reveal theyāve chosen an alternative solution or provider.
ā āNot Convinced Yetā: Despite the conversation, they remain unconvinced about the value your solution brings.
Which means you end up wasting time, feeling overwhelmed, and not making the progress you would expect for the amount of work you are putting in.Ā
You know you have solid sales conversions when:
You maintain or grow your conversion rates over time, reflecting a well-optimized process.
You nurture leads based on their specific needs and pain points, guiding them seamlessly to your solution.
You can clearly articulate the value your product or service offers in your messaging.
You build trust by actively listening, addressing objections, and providing tailored solutions.
You are always fine-tuning ā testing new approaches, refining scripts, and adapting to market shifts.
You track metrics beyond revenue ā customer lifetime value, referral rates, and repeat business.
You have happy customers that become your brand ambassadors and their positive experiences fuel your growth.
Can you confidently tick all the boxes?
Increase CONFIDENCE by exploring and documenting your options
The process for sales conversion improvement follows a very similar structure to the one used for helping you define the service or product in the first place. The difference here is that instead of using the data from the Customer Deep Dive to inform the creation of the offer in the Value Map Generation, you use both of these phases to explore in depth your current offer in light of a deeper client understanding to enhance the sales processes and talking points.Ā
By completing this exploration, you will have a comprehensive view of the underlying context in which your clients make their purchasing decisions, as well as the right approach to articulating your understanding of their current state and the complexities associated with the outcomes they are seeking to achieve.Ā
If your prospective clients feel you understand them (because you truly do), it increases their trust in your ability to help them solve their challenge.Ā
Overview of the methodology
Phase 1 ā Customer Deep Dive
The best place to start is by deepening your understanding of your customerās needs, which drive their perception of value and therefore willingness to pay and price range associated with the solution.
At a high level the steps are:
The exploration of the industry ecosystem map allows you to have a full view of all the different interfaces in your customerās operational context. This allows you to better understand the market dynamics and pressures in which they must either obtain value for themselves (if you serve individuals) or provide their own value propositions to their customers (if you serve businesses).
Regardless of whether you sell directly to customers (B2C) or to other businesses (B2B), there is always a person on the other side of the transaction. This step is critical to uncover deeper insights into their lived experience and the problems that they face and need to solve.
This step allows you and your team to really step into the personās shoes so that you can start to understand their decision-making process and the things that would help or hinder them in achieving their desired outcomes.
This step allows you to have a better understanding of their internal process of behavioral change by understanding their perception of value, realize the lengths that they will go to have this problem solved, and define a more complete view of your competitive landscape.
This step represents the convergence of all the key discussion points in the session so that everyone is aligned and clear on what it takes to serve this customer. It is also the input into the next phase of the process, where you will map out and link the value drivers you are targeting and make explicit how your product fulfils those needs.
This phase generates multiple outputs across each step, all linked to a deeper understanding of your potential customer. Most importantly, these outputs provide you with valuable outcomes ā the insights and actions that you can put into practice.
You will immediately use the insights generated in this step to improve your marketing copy (to increase leads) and your sales processes and scripts (to increase conversions).
The next phase is where you completely close the loop and clearly and directly link these client-centric desired benefits to your offer.Ā
Phase 2 ā Value Map Generation
Once the Customer Profile is complete for a specific customer, we move to the Value Map and expand on the benefits, identify features, and highlight the key criteria for your product or service to be successful with that customer.
At a high level these steps are:
By explicitly outlining how you produce benefits or eliminate or reduce specific pains in your customersā lives, you get a better sense of the features that would be most impactful to prioritize in your sales conversations.
You must be able to demonstrate value early in the discussion. To do this it is critical to plan your approach and identify which elements of the value map represent the most critical features from the perspective of value creation in the eyes of your customer.
The best planned sales conversations are inherently flexible. You might have an assumption of where to begin, but conversations are organic, and you should allow for your prospective client to choose their own adventure in the way they explain what they need solved. This step effectively helps you and your team prepare for multiple scenarios depending on the potential barriers for success that are uncovered.Ā
Following from your list of assumptions, this step allows you to define the types of questions that you will use to test your prospective client’s thinking. This will help you in identifying which benefits to highlight and what linkages to your offer are appropriate to make at each stage of the conversation.Ā Ā
Finally, you collate all the insights from the previous explorations into themes that include common phrases, related case studies, key benefits to highlight, and clarification questions to ask. This helps you and your team prepare prior to any sales conversation, as well as train new team members as you grow. When you are doing this process to inform the contents of a proposal, these will also be used as the central winning themes to inform the narrative across the document.Ā
The outputs of this phase all link to a deeper understanding of your ability to succeed with that customer. One of the key outcomes of this end-to-end process is that it gives you full traceability of your decision-making process, including all the reasons why choices were made at each point based on a systematic exploration.
Take CONTROL by defining your implementation
You have fully explored the values and behavioural drivers of your target audience, and you have mapped them to your product or service in a clear and benefit-oriented way. In doing so, you have increased your likelihood of effectively articulating your value proposition in a compelling way that results in a sale or engagement.
These insights can also be used to inform potential changes to your internal processes, hiring or training needs, and any modifications to your operations, sales, and/or marketing functions.
Documenting your sales process is a key growth enabler, as it will help:
šyour business run itself and allow you to spend more time doing the thinking instead of the doing,
šÆyour team be more effective in their roles given the singular focus and clear way forward, and
šyour profit increase by improving revenues and margins.
Getting potential clients to know about you is half the battle, the other half is converting them to paying clients so you can help them achieve their desired outcome with your solution.Ā Increasing sales conversions for your business provides benefits that extend far beyond the immediate boost in revenue. Some of the advantages of optimizing your conversion rates include:
š°Cost Efficiency: Decreasing Customer Acquisition Costs
Every lead that enters your sales funnel represents an investment of time, effort, and resources. By converting a higher percentage of these leads into paying customers, you effectively reduce your customer acquisition cost. When your conversion rates soar, your marketing dollars work smarter, not harder.
šEnhanced Profit Margins: Balancing Fulfillment Costs
Efficiently converting leads isnāt just about closing deals; itās about doing so while maintaining a healthy profit margin. If you can service the increased demand with similar fulfillment costs, your margins improve. Whether itās refining your product, enhancing customer support, or scaling operations, those extra percentage points in margin empower you to take strategic leaps.
šAmplified Value Creation: Investing in Solutions and Experiences
As your margins expand, so does your capacity to invest. But itās not just about accumulating funds; itās about providing more value. With robust margins, you can channel resources into improving your solution. Additionally, exceptional customer experiences become feasible. When clients feel valued, they become loyal advocates who refer others, creating a virtuous cycle.
āļøCompetitive Edge: Outshining Rivals
In the dynamic business landscape, staying ahead of the curve is essential. Higher conversion rates give you a competitive edge. You can outpace competitors by optimizing your sales process, understanding customer behavior, and tailoring your messaging. As your reputation grows, so does your market share. Itās not just about closing deals; itās about building lasting relationships that withstand market fluctuations.
Increasing sales conversions isnāt merely about boosting revenue ā itās about orchestrating a symphony of efficiency, profitability, value creation, and competitive advantage.
Your turn to take your future into your own hands
If anything on this page resonated with you, reach out for a chat and I can help you explore if this process might be a good fit for you.
