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MenuWhat is the sales funnel involved in pitching corporate retreats to companies?
How do you prequalify them? Can you just cold email/call? Do you get in touch with HR or someone else? What do companies look for in a corporate retreat?
Answers
Hi! Having sold a number of different products and services to companies ranging from one man operations to Fortune 500 companies I believe I can help you get some clarity, despite not being an expert on retreats.
First- I'm willing to bet you have more questions than you listed. Is that accurate?
Do you think it'd be easier to talk it through over a call?
If so, schedule a call, and I'd be happy to talk you through these questions and assist with your whole sales process, your funnel, and goals, as well as the tools and tactics needed. One key strategy is at the end of this answer.
We're missing some key info, including - What type of retreat you're trying to sell, what's the price point, who are the target companies, etc... which would definitely help.
Absent these answers, I'll do my best to address your questions.
- Design the sales funnel after you have a lot more information about your customer and their buying behavior. I’m happy to help with this over a call.
- Prequalifying depends heavily on a lot of different factors we don't have just yet, but here's some general sales insight. The two best pre-qualifiers are: A) can they afford your product/service and B) do they have both an actual and, more importantly, a perceived need for it?
- Should you cold call/email? YES! That’s an emphatic yes. You can and should cold call/email/follow/connect/DM your target customers!
-Who to contact will be something you learn quickly when you get some more info.
-As far as what companies look for in a retreat - I have guesses, but I’m sure you know that answer better than me. Better yet, let your customer answer that for you.
To wrap this up, I’d say there’s a key strategy that would benefit you greatly at this stage.
Do some Sales Dev. Find a number of companies (I’d suggest at least over 100) that you’d believe could be your customers and get the contact info for the key roles that you think would be Power Sponsors or Decision Makers- I can help you with this step if you’d like. The best next step would be to set up calls to get more information (not selling, yet!) and the second best would be to email them a survey/form(I can help you set this up if you need). The goal of this action would be to find your questions above plus get all the extra information that will help you sell. Sometimes just having a contributing voice in a yet-to-be-developed product or service is cool enough to the participant that they don’t need extra incentive. It’s typically best if you incentivize their participation with some type of value add. Examples a % discount off the service when it’s offered, pre-sale discount pricing, access to aggregated information that’s valuable to them, and sometimes even a starbucks or amazon gift card.
Please let me know if this helped. This sounds like a fun and interesting business. I’d love to help out.
Hello
I would say Email Outreach is a good input strategy for your funnel and HR or Business directors are your best bets.
a great sales funnel for this would be
1st level:
Being email outreach
2nd level:
A great visually stunning Landing page with a Facebook pixel
The 3rd level:
Re-marketing Ads to advertises to the interested people who click.
Hope this helps
I have used corporate retreats dozens of times for business lead generation with budget that would run into about a million dollars, and collectively thousands of attendees, and an ROI running into hundreds of millions of dollars of sales closures.
I have also attended and organised corporate retreats for company reviews, training, conferences, annual, and celebration events.
Retreats are also useful in a B2C scenario in addition to B2B. So this is a potential new market.
Before we look for sales funnel we need a proposition and what value will it add to the customer. We need to look at the market, competition, and customer personas.
Then we need translate this into marketing messages, campaigns and plans. We need to identify channels that will carry these messages to the customer, execute the plan, decide how will the response be handled. Cold emails, calls, call scripts etc. are but a small part of such a plan.
It is then that we step into the areas of a sales funnel.
I hope this gives a better idea of steps and processes involved.
I can help in above.
All the best.
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How to write effective follow up messages?
I am going to begin my answer to this question not talking about writing emails at all, but rather getting at the true source of the problem. Then we'll talk text. The problem with "follow up" messages is they illuminate something is missing in your sales process. Most people fly by the seat of their pants on sales process anyway, believing that only big companies need one. But *everyone* in the field of selling needs a consistent sales process. "To manage we must measure" is a process improvement maxim...and if we aren't consistent in our behaviors, how can we measure? How do you know why you lose some orders and win others? Do you just assume it's your personality, or your price, or your brand? That would be crazy!--and what salespeople do every day. You have given us a single sentence to work with (industry, paths to market, what prospecting/qualifying method you're using now, and other facts would have been helpful). So I don't know anything for certain about your sales process or lack thereof. However, the fact that "following up" is included in your steps and vocabulary indicates to me you are having conversations that go nowhere. If you had a conversation with a prospect and it didn't result in a clear understanding for BOTH salesperson and prospect what the next step was...your process failed. That's what leads to having to "follow up". Every time I see "follow up", the first letter of each word jumps out at me, and that's what I hear it saying directly to me. "FU, Jason. You screwed up." Determining what the next step is, and ensuring it is ultra-clear for both you and your prospect, is YOUR responsibility. It needs to be built right into your consistent sales process. Do it automatically, every time. Otherwise, you end up in this "mutual mystification" situation you're in, where neither you nor the prospect knows what's supposed to happen next. Leading to the plaintive, "Are we there yet?" email. No, we are not. We are nowhere near there yet. If in your qualifying conversation with the prospect you did not uncover the urgent reason they want to buy, do you think you are going to discover it in a "follow up" email? If you didn't find out how important (or not) moving ahead was to them in your live, interactive, back-and-forth dialogue...what makes you think you're going to get the answer in a dull, one-way, inert email? Doesn't that sound ridiculous? Having to "follow up" means you're chasing prospects. Stop doing that immediately, and work on qualifying more effectively. Is this prospect In or Out? A Fit with us or not? Do they have an urgent, important reason to work with us now, or not? Uncover this, and you won't have to "follow up". Most of the places selling falls down are where the salesperson and the prospect have left things in this state of "collective confusion". Each believes they understand what the other means and intends...but the truth is totally different. When a prospect says, "Leave it with me and I'll get back to you," at the end of your meeting, what does that tell you? Me, it tells me NOTHING! Except that I'm being "niced out" of the door. These are times to be a little assertive: "I appreciate that. How long do you think it'll take for you to have a look at it? When should we book a talk to discuss your decision or any questions you have?" Don't leave it to chance. In fact, your sales process ought to have you laying out this as part of the ground rules right up front: "Ms. Prospect, we'll meet for about 40 minutes, that's typically what these conversations are, and I'm sure you'll have some questions for me. I'll definitely have some questions for you, because I want to find out more about your operation and determine whether we're really a good fit for you. At the end of that time, we'll know whether we're a potential fit or not. If not, no big deal. No one will get mad at anybody. If we are a fit, we'll figure out what that next step looks like then. Make sense?" And if the prospect wants to add anything into the agenda, they can. Most salespeople never even lay out these simple ground rules. A consistent sales process is a series of steps. At the end of every step, either it's over or it continues. If it's over, you know why: it's not a fit for a specific reason (no need, the problem's not big enough for you to get involved, or the prospect has uncontrollable anger issues, for example). Over is not a bad thing; it keeps you out of trouble and away from The Client From Hell. If you goof up--and I certainly do from time to time, even though I work with this stuff every day; it happens fast and there's a lot to keep in mind--and you must write an email, you must get the train back on the rails. Let it read like this: Mr. Prospect, I appreciate you meeting with me on (date) about (topic). I forgot to make sure of something at the6 end of that conversation, and I'm hoping you can help me out. Turns out you and I didn't figure out what our next step will be. Now you've had some time to go over what we talked about. At this point, there can only be three possible outcomes: 1. You've reviewed everything, and it's just not a fit for you at this time. 2. You have looked everything over, but have more questions that need answering before moving ahead. 3. You are delighted with the idea and want to move forward, and were just waiting for me to give you this quick reminder of the project. Let me make this super-easy. If the answer is the first possibility, will you reply to this email with the digit '1', and I'll know you're no longer interested? If you want to talk further, please reply with '2' and I'll call you about the further questions you have. If you are ready to go ahead now that I've brought this project back on your radar, please call me at ### so I can get things started ASAP...or reply with '3' to this email, and I'll know to call you so we can begin. Thanks again, YOUR NAME ** This message doesn't chase. It gets things back on track. If your prospect ignores it and you don't get an answer, you can safely assume it's '1' and stop trying to "follow up". In sales, "Yes" is good, "No" is good, but "I need to think it over"--making you have to "follow up"--is torture.JK
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