Pete Bowen's site

Is your sales process chaotic?

Chaos. That's a word I heard three times this week.

I've been speaking with small business owners who wanted to see if SalesMotor - the sales automation system I built - was a good fit for their businesses.

I was surprised when three of them used the same word - chaos - to describe how they currently handle leads.

It's overwhelming.

They know they should be responding faster. They know they should be following up. They know that not doing this is costing them sales. But sales is only one facet of the business. Every other facet is also competing for their attention.

I've known two of the three for at least 15 years. I respect them. They're smart, hard working and they've managed to stay in business for many years. They've survived two global economic crashes and a pandemic. They're doing a lot with limited resources.

Nobody starts a business to fast-track a heart attack. So we were speaking because they'd hoped that SalesMotor would bring calm to their chaos.

Two of the business owners saw the potential immediately. SalesMotor allows them to run their sales process the way they know they should, but have been too busy to be able to. With it they can:-

They signed up right away.

The third meeting was different. It was with the business owner and his IT guy. The owner seemed to get the potential, but the IT guy was disappointed.

He wasn't interested in anything except 100% automation of everything. For example:-

The longer the conversation went on, the more obvious it was that he wasn't going to settle for anything that didn't do everything. I wasn't surprised when they told me they would "think about it".

I don't mind not making a sale if we're not a good fit for each other, but I felt sorry for the business owner.

You see, the 100% everything system doesn't exist. It will have to be custom-built. That's going to take forever and it'll cost a bomb.

The business will still be chaotic in a year's time. Can you imagine how much another year of missed sales is worth?

50% better today beats 100% perfect never.

The truth is that when it comes to improving the sales end of the business 50% better today beats 100% perfect never. And while I understand the dream of a fully-automatic sales machine the simple fact is that you’ll make more sales today if:-

You don't need perfection. You just need something that helps humans do better.

Need some help with this?

I offer 1-to-1 mentoring and consulting. You’ll get help, advice, support and answers without having to commit to a long-term contract. Details here.

95% of leads never turn into customers. Want to fix that?

Over the last few years I've done deep work with a handful of clients to increase the number of sales they made from their Google and Facebook leads. I've put what I've learned into a 9-lesson email course.

You’ll learn:-

  • How to identify opportunities for improvement.
  • How to generate more than enough ideas for improvement using the 2-magnets concept.
  • How to apply those ideas in your business.
  • How to measure the results of your work (so you can do more of what's working and less of what's not).

My experience has been that it will deliver more sales if:-

  • Your business receives leads from online advertising like Google or Facebook.
  • Your sales process happens offline. A lead arrives and there is a quote, assessment, demonstration etc before the sale happens.
  • You have the capacity to handle a few more sales in the short term without having to hire or invest in new equipment.
You're already paying for leads. Now turn them into sales.
Privacy policy. Unsubscribe at any time.

Related articles

Why we lost sales. Losing potential sales always hurts. But, if you know why you lost the sale you can make changes that'll help you win more sales down the line.

"Forget about reducing the CPC" In money terms my client paid Google about $1 400 per client he contracted with. He could live with spending $500 per new client. Here's how we're going to hit that target.

What to do if leads don't answer when you call. Last month a client got 4 150 leads but their sales team was unable to contact 1 277. Here's how we're going to reduce the number of non-contacted leads and help the client make more sales.

An easier way to sell services. Bigger value projects take a lot of work to sell. You have to have the discovery calls, meeting notes, customised proposals and quotes. And, you often need several follow-up meetings. There is another way.

Why I don't just delete fake leads from my inbox If the only thing you do with fake leads from Google Ads is delete the lead delivery email you risk getting swamped by fake leads. Here's why and what to do to improve lead quality.

Why I never use reCAPTCHA on Google Ads landing pages Nobody wants an inbox full of spam, but preventing fake leads from submitting your form is wrong if you’re paying for online advertising. Here's why...

What to say on the first call to an internet lead. Calling leads back fast is the best way to ensure you get a sale if there is one going. Here's what to say on that call.

More sales are lost because of inertia than price. Most of your potential clients want what you sell but haven't handed over the money because they've run out of steam. Here's how to keep them moving towards a sale.

How to win more quotes without lowering your prices In a perfect world you'd win every quote but the reality is that most quotes don't turn into sales. It is possible to turn a lot more quotes into sales without lowering prices. Here's one way.

You could be shooting yourself in the foot if you send quotes in Excel or Word. There is a problem with emailing quotes in Word or Excel: There is no guarantee that the quote will look like it should.

The weak link that might be causing you to lose leads Some of your leads never make it from your website to your inbox. And, there is a good chance you don't know about the missing leads.

Leads ghosting you? A business owner complained that his leads were ghosting (ignoring) him after initially showing interest. As we worked together we uncovered a mismatch between lead temperature and his response.

60 leads a week and no sales Their first instinct was to change the adverts. It sort of makes sense. Adverts aren’t producing sales so the adverts must be broken. Fix the adverts and you'll get more sales. But, they could change their ads, spend a load more money and get no sales. This is because the adverts might not be the real problem

Google Ads delivers leads not sales What’s the most important problem in your industry? In my industry the most important problem is that Google Ads delivers leads but doesn’t deliver sales. Here's what I've been doing about that...

How to get leads from different sources into your CRM automatically I’ve got a client in the motor trade who gets about 2 000 leads a month from 22 different online sources. Here's how we put them into his sales engine automatically without expensive computer code.