Do you need help creating an automated sales funnel to grow your business? Need help getting people through your sales funnel or converting them once they’re in? Dan Portik, best-selling author, founder of BvS Film Productions, and co-author of ‘Your Funnel’ with Tom Hopkins has the answers.
On this episode of the Predictable B2B Success podcast, Dan will share his decades of experience in sales, marketing, and video production to outline three steps to create an automated sales funnel and grow your business now.
First, we’ll learn how to do proper automated messaging and why hard work and elbow grease never fails.
Then, discover the power of videos and why using your face in the video tends to convert better.
Plus, find out how to keep the ball moving in instances with long cycle times and prequalifying customers. So take advantage of this episode!
About Dan Portik
Are you looking for ways to improve your sales funnel and generate more revenue for your business? Then you won’t want to miss this Predictable B2B Success podcast episode! Our guest is the renowned author, keynote speaker, and business owner Dan Portik. With over three decades of experience running successful marketing and video production companies, Dan has sold millions of dollars in advertising and worked with some of the biggest companies in the world to develop and market results.
Dan is also the co-author of Your Funnel and the author of The Secret Online Door, which details the successful online techniques he has used over the years. Tune in to learn Dan’s insights on sales funnels, prospecting, and closing sales,
Why create an automated sales funnel to scale your business growth?
Creating an automated sales funnel is essential for any B2B business looking to scale its growth. Automated sales funnels allow businesses to capture leads and convert them into customers most efficiently.
By using an automated sales funnel, B2B companies can save time and resources that would otherwise be spent manually chasing down leads and trying to convert them into customers. This allows them to focus on other business areas, such as marketing, product development, and customer service.
In addition, an automated sales funnel allows B2B companies to track their leads and customers more effectively. This will enable them to identify areas to improve their sales process and increase conversion rates.
By understanding their customer journey and adjusting their sales process accordingly, B2B businesses can scale their growth more effectively. Automated sales funnels can also target different customer segments and capture more leads, increasing their chances of scaling their business growth.
Here are three important steps you need to follow:
1. Prospecting and closing sales
2. Setting an appointment on a calendar
3. Sending videos to prequalify customers
1. Prospecting and closing sales
Prospecting and closing sales is an integral part of any successful BTB business. Therefore, it is essential to understand the challenges at each sales funnel stage and how to address them adequately.
To start, it is crucial to have an effective prospecting strategy. This includes creating short, two-line messages with a call-to-action and sending them to the proper target groups. Additionally, videos, emails, and other automated messages can effectively convey your message and brand in an impersonal setting.
It is also important to keep the ball rolling with customers by setting up calendar appointments and sending follow-up messages with added value. In addition, long cycle times can be managed by utilizing videos to prequalify customers and by looking at the overall funnel to identify areas of improvement.
Remember that hard work, elbow grease, and proper programming of automated messages can go a long way in closing sales and increasing revenue.
Once the customer is closed, the sales team must take the time to understand their needs and provide a solution that meets their requirements and adds value. A great way to do this is to provide detailed product demos and offer discounts and incentives.
Tracking and using customer feedback to improve the customer journey is a critical part of the process. This way, customers can be sure that their needs are being considered and that their trust in the business is rewarded.
It is also important to remember that closing sales are only the beginning. After a sale, providing timely and helpful customer service is important to ensure customers remain satisfied. This can be done by setting up automated messages, offering discounts, and providing resources to help customers with their purchases. This reinforces trust and helps establish long-term customer relationships, which is critical to success in a B2B setting.
2. Setting an appointment on a calendar
Setting an appointment on a calendar is essential in successfully navigating the sales funnel. It is important to ensure that you do not have to follow up with the customer to keep the conversation going and that the customer is still interested.
To keep the ball rolling, schedule an appointment with the customer. This will help keep the conversation fresh and ensure the customer is committed to meeting again. You can also add a link to your calendar in the follow-up message to make booking an appointment easier for the customer.
You can add a value-added element to the follow-up message, such as a helpful article or video about the discussed product or service. This will help to keep the customer’s interest alive and can be a great way to show that you are genuinely invested in the customer’s success.
Apart from setting up appointments on a calendar, staying proactive in the sales process is important. As the salesperson, it is your job to be the one who is actively driving the conversation forward. This means you regularly contact the customer to check in and meet their needs.
Doing this will show the customer that you care about them and their success and will help to create a stronger bond between you and the customer. You can also use this time to upsell the customer on additional products or services and answer any customer questions. Being proactive and staying in touch is essential to the success of any sales process.
Remember that setting an appointment on a calendar is just one piece of the sales process. It is important to use all available resources and tools to ensure the customer gets the best experience possible. This means using social media, email, and other forms of communication to stay in touch with customers and answer any questions they might have. Doing this will help create a positive customer experience and ensure the customer is engaged and interested in the product or service being discussed.
3. Sending videos to prequalify customers
Sending videos to prequalify customers is an effective way to help reduce the cycle time of the sales funnel. This can be done by creating videos explaining the product or service’s benefits and how it can benefit the customer. Videos can also showcase the company and its values, which helps build trust with the customer.
Videos provide a personal touch that helps create an emotional connection with the customer. This helps make the customer feel more comfortable with the company, which helps reduce the cycle time of the sales funnel.
Videos can also be used to provide the customer with additional information about the company and its products or services, which can help to pre-qualify the customer and help to reduce the cycle time of the sales funnel.
Another advantage of using videos to prequalify customers is that they can be used to provide a visual representation of the company’s value proposition. Showing how the company’s products or services benefit customers can help build trust and create an emotional connection.
Additionally, videos can be used to provide customers with additional information about the company and its offerings, which can help to pre-qualify the customer and reduce the cycle time of the sales funnel.
Finally, videos can provide a unique way to engage with customers. Creating an entertaining and informative video helps capture the customer’s attention and keep them engaged. This helps to make an emotional connection with the customer and reduces the cycle time of the sales funnel. Additionally, videos create an interactive experience for the customer, which helps further engage them with the company and its products or services.
Automated sales funnels are essential for any B2B business looking to scale its growth. From prospecting and closing sales to setting appointments and sending videos, various strategies can create an automated sales funnel and generate more revenue for your business.
I’d love to hear how you apply automated sales funnels to achieve sales success. Leave me a comment on how it went for you, or drop me any questions you want me to answer!
Some topics we discussed include:
- Is there value in building out a customer success program? If so why
- Why is customer success being conducted in at least some instances without any science behind it
- What metrics and science to look at to ensure our customer success program works
- How to unlearn preconceived notions around customer service and success to serve customers better
- How ZapScale caters to the nuances of a particular company and their brand
- How can customer success teams reduce the time it takes to understand their customers’ health metrics and measure customer happiness
- What methods can customer success teams use to understand customer health in an SMB or midmarket context where one customer success person is handling hundreds of accounts
- How can customer success teams use data points such as product usage, ticketing, feature requests, communications, meetings, and NPS to understand customer health better
- And much, much more …
Listen to the episode
Related links and resources
- Check out BVS Film Productions
- Check out Dan’s personal site
- Get a copy of the book – Fill Your Funnel
- Learn more about the documentary on Tom Hopkins here
- Learn from Gianni Cara – What is a Sales Funnel? How to Create a Sales Funnel Model with Examples
- Learn from Dan Tyre- How to Always be Helping to Drive Sales Success And Revenue Growth
- Learn more from Amanda Klitsch – How to Use The Secrets of a Remarketing Strategy to Drive Success
- Learn from Nabeil Alazzam – Sales Compensation: How to Craft Data Driven Plans That Drive Growth
- Learn from Sheila Kloefkorn – How to Make an ABM Funnel That Drives Growth Fast
- Learn from Elias Zepeda – How to Build an Amazing Webinar Funnel From Scratch That Drives Revenue Growth
- Learn from David Ledgerwood – Sales Operations: What it is And How to Implement it to Drive Growth
- Gain insights with Tom Williams – What is B2B Sales and How to Create a Successful Sales Process
Connect with Dan
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