Unlike the skyrocketing divorce rate of human marriages in the United States, sales and marketing are the starry eyed newlyweds that have not gone on their honeymoon as of yet. Let's delve deeper as to why these two are feeling such a magnetic pull within the context of Six Sigma.

Six Sigma could be loosely defined as `improving a business process by eliminating causes that inhibit maximum efficiency.' Of course we could elaborate a great deal further, but for the purpose of this article we'll explore the five steps of Six Sigma for improvement and how they relate to my above presumption.

 

I've repeatedly stated that `growth starts with understanding.' But how can you understand something if you have not identified the problem? Far too long have we (small business owners and you CEOs) forced our sales people to bear much of the burden of lead generation while we kicked back and rested on our `yellow page,direct mail,radio ads' marketing laurels. We pondered countless hours as to why our revenue targets were falling short. NOW is the time to admit there is something you can do to help your salespeople become more successful by integrating lead generation and lead nurturing in your marketing efforts.

  2. Measure

If it's not measurable, it doesn't exist is a very wise mantra to Excel (pun intended) in business. More than likely you've measured your sales people by their activity, appointments set (or actualized), and ultimately deals closed. Maybe it's time to start looking at other metrics such as cost per lead. Have you done that lately?  To take this a step further do you understand the full sales cycle from Awareness-Interest-Decison-Action? If you can readily answer these questions, you would be in the minority!

  3. Analyze

 

What is the cause and effect relationship in your sales process? Massive action equals massive reaction is a logical assumption. The more phone calls your salespeople make, the more deals will be closed. However, it's unlikely you are getting the best return on investment (ROI) if your sales person is not sitting at the closing table. You are throwing money away (I'll gladly take some off you hands if you have it to waste) by having them make cold calls. Allocate a larger portion of your budget on the front end with inbound marketing to reap the rewards on the back end.  Simply, adding more people does not absolve the problem.  It is my opinion you should not add sales people if you don't have enough sales leads to keep them busy moving people to action.

  4. Improve

Experiment with different systems. For example, you could turn your website into a `lead generating machine' by creating valuable content that prospects would gladly give up their contact information. If done correctly, inbound marketing can bring in many more qualified leads for your small business for your salesperson to contact and close because they are reaching to prospect at a particular stage in the buying cycle (depending on your offering).

  5. Control

As we continue with using your website as a lead generator theme, make sure you're using a closed loop marking system so you can identify exactly where your leads are coming from so you will know where to focus your future marketing efforts. The old adage of a business making the statement, "we know we are wasting half of our marketing budget, but we just don't know which half" is now obsolete with lead tracking technology and the evolution of our wonderful internet.

Please, email me if you have questions on how you can get your sales and marketing on a honeymoon... teicko@focus2grow.com....If you want to help yourself go to www.focus2grow.com and learn more.