Category: Business Growth Strategies

One of the single biggest mistakes people make in sales is not following up at all or not following up enough.

Over the years I’ve personally sold over $890 million worth of products and services.

I can only think of a few times out of over 290 projects that I sold to clients where they bought on the first presentation. In almost all cases it took quite a few followups to close a sale.

To drive home this point I was attending a marketing conference several years ago. The conference had about 400 people attending pay around $5,000 per person.

The speaker asked all the attendees to stand.

He then asked how many people responded to his first email. A few raised their hands and he asked them to sit down.

He then asked how many people responded to his second email. A few more people sat down.

This went on until he asked about those who responded to his 7th email.

Then he asked us all to look around and see how many were still standing. There were about 1/2 the group still standing. Had he stopped at 7 emails he would have lost over $400,000 in revenue, which was nearly all profit since the facilities had already been rented for the weekend and there were very few incremental costs with the additional people.

So whether your selling online or over the phone or in person, be sure to follow up at least 15 times before giving up.

The single fastest way to grow your business is to acquire other businesses.

There are many ways to grow a business including:

• Great marketing
• Improved sales
• Compelling offers
• Plenty of referrals

But growing through acquisition can be the fastest and the greatest.

I’ve helped a number of companies grow very fast through acquisition.

Examples

• I helped a dentist double his revenues by acquiring other dental practices
• I helped a service company double by acquiring his largest competitor
• I helped a high paid executive acquire a company for no money out of pocket and she increased her income 1,000%
• I helped acquire a company with some great talent to help us develop a new product. It resulted in $1,000% growth within 12 months growing to over $100 million

What kinds of businesses can you acquire?

• Competitors
• Suppliers
• Distribution channels
• Companies with needed talent
• Companies with complementary products to cross-sell to each other’s customers

But I/we can’t afford it

How would you like to acquire a business with little or no money out of your pocket?

I helped a service company acquire its largest competitor with just a few thousand dollars out of their pocket for legal fees. It added over $3 million a year to their revenue.

Where can I learn more?

If you would like to pursue acquiring another company or a series of other companies, go to our contact page to ask for help.