amp,#39,Numbers,Game,Three,yea business, insurance It's A Numbers Game

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Three years ago, Paul left his corporate job to launch hisfreelance writing career, and he’s done relatively well. He hasa group of regular clients that keep him going, and they arehappy with his work.When he first called me, he expressed concern over thesustainability of his business. “Even though I’ve got greatrelationships with my clients, and they send me enoughassignments to keep my business going, I have this naggingfear of losing them.If I lost one or two at the same time, I would really be introuble. I really don’t like feeling this vulnerable. I don’tfeel like I’m in control of my own business.”“Okay, let’s say that happened,” I prompted him. “Howlong would it take you to get each new client to take theirplace?” “I’m not sure,” he stammered. “I don’t reallykeep track of those things. I’m scared to even thinkabout it.”“But that’s why we’re working together. So you can lookat these aspects of your business. So you’ll be preparedfor the unexpected. I know it can be scary, so let’s lookat it together.”Paul and I continued to discuss this topic during our nextfour coaching calls. During that time, he plotted out hisprospecting process, developed a system for trackingleads and prospects as they traveled through the system,and created a spreadsheet that showed him the statusof each prospect at any given time.With these figures, he was able to calculate how many leadshe needed to generate in order to meet his sales goals.As a result, he now feels much more in control of his businessand knows exactly what he must do in order to ensure hisbusiness’ survival.None of us can predict when a client will move, lose moneythey budgeted for our services, take our function in-house orchoose another vendor, but we can prepare ourselves torespond to these types of things so they have the least amountof impact on the viability of our business.Do you know how many leads you have to generate in order to geta new client? 5? 10? 25? 50? Although industry guidelines may beavailable, what you really need to know is how many prospects YOUhave to approach in order to get one new client.Knowing this number tells you what results you need to be gettingfrom your marketing efforts and knowing that tells you whether ornot your marketing efforts are sufficient to reach your annualsales goals.Let’s say you want to increase your sales by $18,000 over thenext 12 months, and you know that, on average, each clientspends $1200/year with you. That means you have to bring on15 new clients in the next 12 months ($18,000 divided by $1,200).Note that you’ll need to go into more detail in order to calculateyour own numbers since in this scenario the average client spends$1,200/year with you, but if you don’t bring him/her on until 6months from now, you’ll only be making $600 in the 12 monthperiod we’re looking at. But let’s run with what we’ve got forthe purposes of this example.So you have to bring on 15 additional clients. If you also knowthat you have to generate 10 qualified prospects for every personthat becomes a client, then you’ll have to generate 150additional prospects this year (15 clients * 10 qualified prospects).Therefore, in order to generate $18,000 more in sales you needto come up with some marketing methods that will generate150 additional prospects above and beyond those you arecurrently generating.Although this is not an exact science, it does give you somenumbers on which to focus in order to make your progress towardyour goal more measurable. This measurability allows you to chartyour progress throughout the year which, in turn, increases thelikelihood that you’ll reach your goals as you are able to makemid-course corrections.It worked for Paul, and it can work for you!So, now's the time to ask yourself -- are you filling yourprospecting funnel?For the first three years of my web design business, I just tookwhat came my way. I did what I thought would bring inbusiness and waited for the results. I did very little analysis ofthe process, so I was never able to predict what activitiesI needed to do in order to get my desired results.A few years ago, a management consultant introduced meto the idea of the prospecting funnel. It’s a way to track yourprospecting process so you know how many prospects are ineach stage at any given time.Over time, you are able to predict how many prospects youneed to generate in order to produce one new client. Thishelps you set realistic sales goals, plan effective marketingefforts and budget sufficient marketing dollars.On a blank piece of paper, draw a large funnel taking upthe whole page. To the right of the funnel, starting at thetop, write the first step of your prospecting process (forexample, first contact with prospect at networking meeting,cold call, web site query, etc.).Below that, leaving a little space between the two, writethe second step of your prospecting process (for example,scheduling a meeting). Continue writing the subsequentsteps of your prospecting process, one below the other,until you reach the bottom of the funnel. The last stepshould be the one where the prospect becomes a client(for example, you receive the signed contract back witha deposit check).Now, go back to the top of the funnel and for each stagethat you identified, write how many prospects you havewho are currently at that stage. Write these figures insidethe funnel. If you have room, you can write the names ofthe prospects that are at each stage.Now, you may want to create a spreadsheet that helpsyou track when the prospect entered your system, whenthey hit each stage and when they became a client. Youcan use the first column to write prospect names andother columns to write each prospecting step. Then, eachrow, reading from left to right, can show what date theprospect entered each stage of your prospecting process.Over time, you’ll be able to come back to your spreadsheetto calculate the number of prospects it takes to generateone new client and the amount of time it takes, on average,to convert a new prospect into a customer.Once you’ve refined your prospecting system and funnel,you may want to create a giant version of the funnel ona flipchart where you can write each prospect’s name ona sticky note and move them from one stage to the next.It can give you a great visual of your current prospectingstatus and show you what areas need your attention.Happy Prospecting!