Have you ever figured out how many people you have to contact to get the sales you want? It is not as difficult as you might think.
Step 1: Determine your financial goal.
Once you have calculated how much money you want to make in
a year, then you need to figure out how many clients it
takes to add up to that number. For example, if you have
decided you wish to gross $60,000 in a year, and each new
client brings an average of $1,000, then you will need 60
new clients. Monthly, you would need 5 and weekly you
would need at least 1.
Step 2: Your conversion percentage
How many sales meetings does it take to get one client? If
it takes you 4 sales meetings to get 1 client, your
conversion percentage is 25%. You convert one fourth or
25% of your prospects into clients.
This is a very important number. Hopefully, your
conversion percentage has improved since you started your
business. If you have had your business for less than two
years, you might want to track how you are improving.
Step 3: Getting the appointment
This is probably the most difficult step. You need to
determine how many people you need to contact in order to
get each sales appointment. You will need your calendar
for this one, and you may need to adjust how you calculate
this depending on your type of business.
Basically, you need to look at your history. How many
people did you come in contact with in the last 3 months,
and how many sales meetings did you get? Consider formal
networking in groups, informal networking (just meeting
people in your everyday life), speaking engagements,
internet advertising, print advertising, direct mail -
whatever marketing strategies you are employing. The
number of people you come in contact with is called
‘exposures’.
Once you know how many exposures it takes to get a sales
appointment, and what your conversion rate is, you can then
know how much marketing you need to do in each strategy to
get the gross sales you have projected. Using our example,
let’s say it takes 80 exposures to get one sales
appointment. So, to earn $60,000 gross with an average new
client bringing in $1,000, 60 clients would require 240
sales meetings (60 x 4) and to get 240 sales meetings, you
would need 19,200 exposures (240 x 80).
Continuing with our example, if you are using advertising,
you would not need to advertise in many publications to
achieve these numbers. If you are only relying on
networking, these numbers might be daunting!
The next step is to put all of this information on your
business plan and use it! Look at your business plan a
minimum of once a month to keep yourself on track. This
system will eliminate much of the uncertainty about making
enough and achieving your financial goals!
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Audrey Burton, Small Business Coach, is “The Tigressâ€. Get
her FREE Special Report, “Closing the Sale is Not
Complicated!†and her FREE monthly email newsletter at
http://www.TigressCoaching.com .
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