I was thinking about how I communicate to members on my team here at F3. We tend to be very goal driven, whether thats product development or sales enablement.  But end of day the times we are most successful is when we are process oriented.  It keeps us out of the spin cycle that causes us to beat a dead horse or to drop good ideas.  It always helps us to reach our goals faster and more efficiently.  In fact, I started thinking about this more when I realized how that applies to everything we do. 

For example, grocery shopping – if I go to the store with just my goal in mind, to feed my family, I tend to overspend and miss necessaries. When I follow my process – which looks something like 1. Evaluate the fridge 2. Clip Coupons 3. Consider this weeks Diet of choice 4. Make List  - I tend to spend much less and end up with much more.

Just like that silly example,  the same can be said for sales process.  A solid sales process will lead to an effective and efficient sales cycle.  Now more than ever we need to think about our sales funnel and how we can nurture all the opportunities without taking away attention from the hottest of leads.  Process oriented sales drives the market forward for sales sake.  It builds real relationships with our leads which is more critical then ever. 

Think about your sales process. Are you focused on process to meet goals?

Email marketing is great. It’s cheap, easy and provides a way to stay in front of your prospects without being disruptive.  The fact is these are the exact reasons many email marketing “campaigns” fail to create successful relationships.  Isn’t that exactly what we want, long term, fulfilling relationships with our audience that keep us top of mind and create sales?  OF COURSE IT IS!!  Qualifying and nurturing leads requires us to think about the type of relationship we want.

If we are looking to create that beautiful marriage (the sale!) then lets focus on three simple strategic building blocks that nurture the relationship.

1. A Simple, Easy Message Strategy – Successful relationships are based on finding common goals and not straying from those goals.  Lets find our successful messages and nurture them with our prospects.  They know what we want from them and we show them we are consistent in knowing what they want from us.

2. One Clear Action  -  Successful relationships are void of games, so lets keep our prospects from guessing what we are asking of them. Give them one action and they will respond how we want them to without any confusion.

3. Be Timely and Consistent – No one wants an out of date message especially when they least expect it.  Let’s make sure our relationship is built on solid ground by providing consistent information based on our messaging strategy and lets do it on schedule so our prospects do not feel overwhelmed.

What are you doing to create successful relationships with your database?

Next up we will take a deeper dive into a specific email and talk more tactical!