One of the biggest challenges in business is keeping that constant flow of new customers in the pipeline. How you brand yourself and your company is imperative in producing growth and recurrent revenue.
Johanne Wilson is co-founder of a Florida-based design agency called COOL Creative. COOL stands for Create Out of Love. Their branding comes from a creative and design standpoint.
Challenges in salesEvery company experiences challenges when it comes to sales. Understanding those challenges and learning effective ways to overcome them can increase your sales. It can also clarify your target audience and reveal how to best go about reaching them.
Find effective ways to pitch so you can have a healthy flow of clients and client work. When you do, you’ll create active, recurrent clients that return again and again.
From a fashion standpoint, offer enough product and keep it updated and fresh. The customer will keep coming in to purchase product and will create recurrent revenue.
Change product release times and inform the customer of new releases to keep him engaged..
Strive for constant communication with the customer in order to drive sales.
Solutions to challengesMaintain consistent growth within your business.
On the agency side, COOL Creative developed a growth plan that would move the sales needle.
For example, making an investment in the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program provides tools for creating an effective growth plan.
Johanne realized that she was spending too much time on client work and not enough on the sales side of her business. As the business leader, she realized she was spending a lot of time on design because she was comfortable with it. She was not investing enough time in the sales side.
She learned that in order to be a good business person, you have to become a good sales person as well. You must familiarize yourself with the aspects of business that you aren’t comfortable or familiar with.
Prioritizing salesOn the fashion side, pushing more on advertising, marketing, social, communication, and partnerships with influential people like celebrities can all help drive sales. Right partnerships can lead to other agencies funneling clients your way.
Work smarter, not harder. Identify the areas that need more attention and push toward making those a priority.
As an entrepreneur, Donald neglected the sales facet. But once he made sales a priority, everything else fell into place.
As a business leader, sales is a necessity.
Nobody knows your business better than you. Nobody can sell it better than you.
It can be hard to let go of the things that got you into business in the first place. Identify the areas of business that aren’t as strong. Invest more time and energy into those areas.
Business will become healthier and you will be able to serve clients better.
Understand your clients’ issues and the strategies you will use in solving them. Then attach a price tag to those solutions.
When you and the client see amazing results from something you helped him with, it’s rewarding. Bringing a client’s idea to life or bringing a business objective to life makes it all worthwhile. Create Out of Love (COOL) speaks for itself when these instances occur.
Results of changesGrowth is always a good indicator for having made positive changes.
You don’t have to do anything drastic: small changes can have big rewards.
What are you focusing on? If your head is always down working on the deliverables, which is important, you must make sure there is a strong person on the sales side to keep the engine moving.
Speaking to the creative entrepreneur, don’t forget why you are in business. While it is the creative piece that got you started, you have to get good at the business side, too. This includes sales, accurate bookkeeping, and meeting with other professionals to make sure that the business stays in good standing.
"Constant Flow of New Customers" episode resourcesYou can reach Johanne Wilson online at www.coolcreativeinc.com. Here you can link to the online shop, Instagram @CoolCreativeinc, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
This episode is brought to you by the TSE Certified Sales Training Program. If you put in a lot of hard work in 2018 but weren't able to close many of your deals, we can help you fix that. We have a new semester beginning in April and it would be an honor to have you join. Visit thesalesevangelist.com/CST.
If you haven't already done so, subscribe to the podcast so you won't miss a single episode. Share it with your friends who would benefit from learning more.
This episode is also brought to you in part by mailtag.io, a Chrome browser extension for Gmail that allows you to track and schedule your emails. It's super easy, it's helpful, and I recommend that you try it out. You'll receive real-time alerts anyone opens an email or clicks a link.
Mailtag.io will give you half-off your subscription for life when you use the Promo Code: Donald at check out.
I hope you enjoyed the show today as much as I did. If so, please consider leaving us a rating on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or wherever you consume this content and share it with someone else who might benefit from our message. It helps others find our message and improves our visibility.
Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound.
Mentioned in this episode:
HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS
HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com