Small businesses and solo practitioners have to be jacks of all trades, including sales. Large companies can depend on sales departments to handle their marketing, but as a small company, you usually have to do it yourself. Taking a little time to understand the mechanics of sales can help you focus your efforts and improve the results for your home services business.
Basics of the Sales Funnel
The sales funnel is a tool that has been used since the 1800s to help businesses attract potential customers to their products or services and turn them into purchasers. Sales funnels can be effective for large and small businesses — from one-person law offices to multinational corporations.
A sales funnel can include as many levels as your company wants or needs, but the typical structure has four basic levels: awareness, interest, decision, and action.
Awareness
Your potential customer must become aware of your product or service, which is typically achieved by advertising and maintaining an active website. At this top level of the sales funnel, potential customers learn that your service exists and may want to learn more.
Interest
After becoming aware of your offerings, customers can begin to generate further interest. Some potential customers will take time to investigate your company and its services or products, however, not all prospects will make it beyond this stage. For instance, if you are a law firm, customers looking for a medical office will not be interested.
Decision
Once a customer establishes interest in your company, they have to decide if what you offer is what they need. The decision level is where the customer seeks specific services and products, looks at options and prices, and decides if your offering meets their needs.
Action
In this last stage of the sales funnel, the customer acts on their decision. They can either make a purchase or look elsewhere. This stage is where your approach can be evaluated. You will either make this sale and hook the customer for future home services sales and referrals, or you can use the lost sale as a learning opportunity to revise your strategy.
Analyzing the Sales Funnel for Your Business
How you set up your sales funnel will depend upon the nature of your home services business. To establish the proper funnel, you need to know your business well and the type of customers you want to attract. In today’s highly saturated market, you can’t afford to simply promote your brand and hope for the best. You need to aim for the kind of clients and customers you know your company will attract.
Contact Your Existing Clients
You should already be asking your clients how they found you and why they retained your services. If you are not, it’s not too late to start. Ask your clients where they first saw your company advertised and what prompted them to contact your office. Find out what made your business stand out from others in the same field. If they learned about you through referrals, ask those referrals the same questions.
Highlight Your Company Offerings
Look at similar companies in your area. See what they’re doing to attract customers to their businesses and compare it to your customer feedback. Different businesses use different tactics to catch potential clients’ eyes. Some legal firms use informative blogs to advise clients, while landscaping companies have websites showcasing their best work.
Highlight information that addresses consumers’ needs, and present it in a way that holds their attention. Whatever will highlight your company’s strengths and hook your client’s interest is ideal for you.
Testimonials and Reviews
Testimonials are narrative reviews that discuss a particular issue you helped your client with. For instance, a personal injury attorney might request a testimonial from a satisfied client after helping them with an insurance settlement.
Positive reviews and customer testimonials should be part of your sales funnel. These help personalize your site and increase the chance your customers will move from the awareness stage to the interest stage. If you don’t have any reviews yet, ask your existing clients to write one.
Making Contact
Your sales funnel should always end with a way to complete the sale — called a “call to action,” or CTA. A CTA should appear in everything you post, and it should link to your website or your contact page to encourage traffic to your company. The contact page should request your potential customer’s name, phone number, and email so you can reach out to them with your offerings.
Troubleshooting Your Sales Funnel
If you have created a sales funnel and it doesn’t seem to be working, here are some common issues and possible solutions:
Your CTA doesn’t call customers to action. Make sure your call to action inspires your prospects to contact you right away. Also, ensure all of your CTAs have links to your contact page.
You need “lead magnets.” A lead magnet is a free item that encourages people to leave their email or contact information. Downloadable PDFs or free templates are common lead magnets.
You’re not capturing your audience’s attention. Sales funnels help guide customers to the right actions, but you need to engage the right customers. For instance, a customer who needs a personal injury attorney after falling needs a different service than one who needs an attorney for a motorcycle accident. Take the time to create different funnels for each category of client.
Improving Sales Beyond the Sales Funnel
Once a customer has decided to purchase your company’s products or services, your job is not done. This is when the real work begins. You have to satisfy the customer’s needs the first time to encourage them to return and inspire them to refer their family and friends to your business.
Return to the Awareness Level
Once you’ve converted a potential customer into a returning customer, they become part of the awareness portion of your sales funnel again. Maintaining contact with these customers is important, whether through email follow-ups or other measures. Some businesses still send snail mail thank-you cards. Depending on the nature of your business, you might consider discounts or coupons for referrals. All of these things improve your customer base.
Continue Monitoring Your Funnel Performance
A sales funnel is not a “fire and forget” system. You must continue revising and refining the elements of your system. For instance, if you maintain a blog on your website, you must regularly update your content to keep your readers engaged. Legal firms should make a habit of informing their clients about new legal developments that might apply to them. Other services might want to provide holiday discounts or other sale offers.
Maintain Your Social Media Presence
Social media platforms are great places for the awareness stage of sales funnels. If your business has a social media account, you must keep it active and up-to-date. Monitor your social platforms regularly for negative content, new activity, and new potential customers.
Summarizing the Sales Funnel
The sales funnel is just as useful now as it was a hundred years ago — even in today’s digital age. The sales funnel is simply a method for companies to focus attention on potential consumers and customers, and ensure that time, funds, and effort are all spent efficiently. Attracting people who don’t want or can’t use your company’s services is not a successful business model, and it can cost you money. Sales funnels foster happy customers and improved sales for your business with less wasted effort and expenses.
