The four major business growth processes for any business involve four words that are thrown around every day within organizations and many times not fully understood or implemented properly.
The first is BRANDING. What is branding? Why do we need it? Branding is raising market awareness such that when an unqualified lead becomes qualified, they contact you. Wow! That would be great if all our potential prospects already knew our name and as soon as they needed our product, they would call us! Branding is tough and expensive. Especially today with all the messages sent to consumers, how can your message stand out? How are you different? Not only does branding involve raising awareness, but it also involves explaining how you are different from your competitors. Not an easy job, but essential to compete. The good news is with more consumers “looking” for services on the internet, we can “pull” them our way through good Search Engine Optimization…and this is where branding turns into the next growth process, MARKETING.
MARKETING is much overused in business today but the function of marketing is actually quite simple; Get qualified leads. The skill of marketing is to find the right formula of tools and strategies that capture qualified leads. This process is very laborious and requires constant fine tuning as new technologies emerge and new targets are discovered. When solid marketing strategies are in place and qualified leads are produced to the sales department, this second business growth process is complete.
SELLING is the third business growth process. Although much of sales success comes from the natural aptitude of the sales person, it’s also just as important for sales departments to be trained on the Top Ten Skills of Super Sales People and follow a sales process. Many qualified leads die when the sales people are not trained and don’t follow up properly.
ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT is the fourth process. The company has now executed three of the four business growth processes flawlessly and the outcome is a new account. Now it’s time to execute services flawlessly, up/cross sell and ask for referrals.
Organizations that develop, manage and execute these four business growth process are positioned for exponential growth!