Wouldn’t it be nice if you could rely on referrals forever and still grow your business the way you want? You do good work, clients spread the word about you, and you win more work. Easy peasy, right? But at some point, those referral relationships likely won’t generate as much business as you need. You’ll eventually squeeze out all of the opportunities from them. You need more leads (input) to win projects (output) that sustain and grow your business.
The problem with referral-based selling isn’t that relying on referrals is a lousy strategy. Research often suggests that referrals are one of the most effective sales strategies. Instead, this strategy stalls when there isn’t a consistent, disciplined approach behind it. If you’re going to rely on referrals, you need to understand some numbers:
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What’s your close rate when a prospect comes to you from a referral source?
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What’s the average revenue value of a prospect that comes to you from a referral source?
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How many referrals do you need to win enough business to meet your revenue goals?
For some digital agencies, the math above works out. They continue nurturing and engaging their referral sources, generating enough business to hit their revenue targets. But if you’re like most, you eventually need to supplement your referral strategy with inbound marketing and outbound sales activities. Just like with referrals, to understand which marketing and sales activities are best for your business, you need a plan, goals, and consistent tracking against them.
Driving the right opportunities with the right activities
Winning good, consistent work requires regular investment in the right marketing and sales activities to drive the right opportunities into your sales funnel. Knowing which activities are the right ones for your business isn’t easy. There are many different channels to choose from, and measuring their effectiveness means adopting habits that require work, discipline, and process. Here’s a sampling of just a few tactics you could invest in to generate leads:
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Inbound marketing tactics: Blogging, resource centers, webinars, social media, subscriber-based email marketing, and referral networks (some of our favorite networks are: Bureau of Digital, Nostos, and Ops Conf. We highly recommend checking them out!)
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Outbound sales activities: Paid email campaigns, cold calling, pay-to-play tradeshows & conferences, and advertising (e.g., display, paid social, or search engine marketing)
You could choose to invest in any of these channels, but with limited resources, it’s important to know which ones pay off and bring you the best work for your business and employees. Gaining this insight requires you to adopt a sales planning and forecasting process.
How to build a consistent sales funnel
Creating — and sticking to — a sales plan will help you build a consistent and reliable sales funnel. The first step to building a consistent sales funnel is to adopt sales operations best practices that set your team up for success. These operational processes are foundational, but alone they won’t generate consistent work. You also need to know what you’re working toward and how you’re performing to make strategic decisions about what you need to do to hit your goals.
Here’s how to use sales planning and forecasting to build a consistent sales funnel:
How Parallax helps with sales
Agency leaders wear many hats. They’re responsible for operations, financials, staffing, workplace culture, and more. One hat that often goes unworn is their sales hat (which is why the default sale for agencies is often referrals). Neglecting your sales hat makes it difficult to figure out what marketing and sales activities to invest in to hit utilization, project margin, and revenue targets.
Parallax makes it easier for agency leaders to give their sales funnel the attention it needs and deserves. The product gives your team visibility into pipeline and revenue data and helps you establish good data habits and win the best clients for the business. Parallax makes your goals more visible — and holds everyone accountable for meeting them.
Set up a demo today to learn how Parallax creates a shared perspective across your team — aligning the ambition of your business with the ambition of your people.
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