I joined a meeting with a fantastic cohort of business leaders recently. One of the attendees ran a research firm in the medical industry and was a medical doctor and researcher by trade. What struck me most about him was how he brought everything back to the patient or medical service provider. It wasn’t about sales or revenue, it was about how it would affect the patient.
It got me thinking. Sometimes in sales and marketing, we are guilty of thinking too much about how to get a client through the sales process or the funnel and not enough about the client experience.
That recent experience reminded me that we should be putting ourselves in the customer’s shoes at all times. As revenue leaders, the question we should be asking is ‘if I was a buyer, how would I like to buy?’
A great illustration of how to put this into action is the Hubspot flywheel.
It is telling that venture capitalists note the leading indicator of if a start-up will be successful is a high NPS (net promotor score) – the best measure we have of if a customer is honestly happy with our product or service.
With monthly and quarterly scorecards, even the most well-intentioned sales and marketing leaders can get distracted and focus too much on the next sale rather than if the experience they are providing is truly what the customer desires.
But it’s a false economy. We know, as the image above suggests, that if we provide an amazing experience we will create promotor clients who will help us find the next client and the next.
For those in software, while within your CRM the sale is CLOSED/WON once the contract is signed, to the client, the buying process only ends when they are onboarded and know the product well enough to receive real value.
When it comes to the services industry, it’s no different. Completing the service is not enough. What you do after the delivery of your service is complete matters just as much. For example, in real estate or in mortgages, it’s not when you sign the mortgage application or contract of sale, it’s when the keys are handed over after settlement that the process is done in the client’s eyes.
By using this flywheel approach, not only are you creating happier clients but it makes commercial sense too. Happier clients mean less money spent on PR, customer service, lead generation and marketing and ultimately higher revenue growth.
Always focus on the customer first and the sales will follow.
To read more about the Hubspot flywheel click here
#growth #businessgrowth #growthstrategy #saas #proptech #realestateagent #mortgagebroker
#financialadvisor #executivecoach #coach #leadershipcoach #clientfirst #clientexperience