Creating a profitable business online is a process, just
like creating any other business. Regardless of what it is
that you're offering, your cash flow is based on your
sales. Once you know and implement the online business
sales cycle (which anyone can follow), you'll be able to
create consistent cash flow for your business, too.
Here are the six basic steps in the online business sales
cycle:
Step 1. Choose Your Prospects
"Prospects" is basically business-speak for potential
clients and/or customers. So, who is the person who is
ideally suited for your product, program or service? Who's
your ideal client or customer? Who makes up your target
market? Is it parents, health professionals, copywriters,
dancers, artists, entrepreneurs, boat owners?
It's critical for the success of any business to choose a
group of people to work with, even if that group is very
broad at first. As you become more and more aware of what
kind of client or customer shows up for you, you'll be able
to more narrowly target that portion of the market, which
will make your marketing a lot easier and bring you cash
flow a lot quicker.
2. Invite Them into Your Funnel
Once you know who your prospects are, you'll want to invite
them into your Marketing & Product Funnel by giving them a
free taste of what it is that you offer in exchange for
their email address.
There are many ways to do this - using your email
signature, offering free introductory teleseminars,
speaking, co-registration programs, Google Adwords, writing
and submitting articles, listing with directories,
participating in discussion lists, etc.
3. Keep in Touch
Once your prospects are in your funnel, you'll want to keep
in touch with them on a consistent basis. Common marketing
knowledge tells us that it takes a minimum of 5-12 times
for your prospects to see your message before it even
registers. That's why so many direct marketers will send
you postcard after postcard with the same offer. They know
that the only way to get you to take action on their offer
is to expose you to the same or similar message over and
over until you're ready to hear it.
A very effective way to keep in touch with your prospects
then is via an ezine. Because following up with your
prospects is vital to making sales from them, publishing an
ezine on a consistent basis does this work for you. The
bonus is that you can follow up with all of your prospects
at once, instead of one by one, which leverages your time -
something you should always be striving for.
4. Make Offers
And because we want to leverage our time, if we're putting
in the work to write and publish an ezine regularly, then
we want to make sure that we are getting a return on that
investment. To do so, you want to make at least one offer
in your ezine that can result in sales for you.
You want to be sure to provide valuable content, but you
also want to make sure that you invite people to take
advantage of one or more of your offerings in each issue.
If you don't make the ask, you won't make the money. So, if
you're uncomfortable asking for the sale, my best
suggestion is to get over it fast if you want to stay in
business for the long haul.
5. Master the Upsell
It takes most new small business owners awhile to grasp the
concept of an upsell, but once they do, it takes their
business to a whole new level.
Once you have one offering to make to your prospects, start
putting together your next offering. You always want to
have a place for them to go to next, always have something
else to invite them to or to take advantage of. Find out
what else they want from you, then create and offer it to
them.
The more products you have to offer, the more sales you'll
make because, instead of having to find new people all the
time to buy your one product, you can upsell your current
clients and customers into your other offerings. And
selling to people who have already bought from you is much
easier than converting new prospects all the time.
6. Repeat the Process
The online business sales cycle is pretty simple really.
Once you've done it once, it's very easy to repeat. As
you're creating your own sales cycle, I suggest documenting
what you do as you go along to make it that much easier to
duplicate the next time around. Each time you repeat the
process, your list of prospects will grow and so will your
income!
----------------------------------------------------
Alicia M Forest, MBA, Multiple Streams Queen & CoachT,
founder of ClientAbundance.com and creator of 21 Easy &
Essential Steps to Online Success SystemT, teaches
professionals how to attract more clients, create
profit-making products and services, make more sales, and
ultimately live the life they desire and deserve. For FREE
tips on how to create abundance in your business, visit
http://www.ClientAbundance.com .
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