3 Simple Steps to Increase Impact and Revenue

Are you ready to reach more people and increase your impact with your business?

I hope you said “Yes!” After all, that’s why you’re in business, right? To help people.

When you’re looking to increase your impact, it’s important to first recognize where you’re currently at with your business, so you can make sure you’re focusing your time and attention on the action steps that are the most pertinent to your business.

A common mistake most companies make is that, when they want to increase impact, they jump right to lead generation.

Now, I know you’re like, “Shannon, you’re a marketer. Isn’t reaching more people about marketing more?”

Yes, and no.

Yes, marketing will help you reach more people. But no, it’s not where you should start.

Why?

Because most businesses aren’t ready for massive lead gen.

Take a look at the following steps to get an idea of what your next step is to increase impact.

1. Create a retention strategy.

How many of your customers become long-term customers? How many of your clients renew their subscription or service?

If you don’t know the answer, this is a good place to start.

If the answer is “not many”, you’ll want to start here as well.

The reason is simple: The easiest way to generate revenue is through repeat customers. (Repeat customers also tend to be satisfied customers, which contributes to your word of mouth referrals and good reputation management).

Starting here will allow you to get the most value out of new leads you acquire and convert.

Need help with this step? Check out this article on Retention Strategy 101.

2. Develop systems for converting leads to customers.

Once you have a new lead in your pipeline, what do you do?

How do you nurture them? How do you take them from interested in hearing from you to interested in buying from you?

If this part of your marketing funnel isn’t clearly defined, no amount of new leads is going to generate more revenue for you, because they’re either going to stay leads, or they’re going to go to someone else who’s able to better convert them into a paying customer.

Similarly, if this whole process is done manually, that’s going to bottleneck the sales process, and you won’t close as many people as you were hoping to.

If this is where your business is at, look at ways you can streamline lead nurture and the sales process process, removing as much need for manual work as possible.

3. Generate new leads.

If you have a healthy business full of new and returning customers alike, along with systems to simplify conversion, now you’re ready to talk lead gen.

What that looks like will really depend on your business. Who’s your audience? What mediums are they using to communicate, connect, and engage? How can you engage with them on those platforms?

Focusing on these top of the funnel marketing channels is great for lead gen, but not productive until you have the first two components under control.

Where are you at in your own business? It’s perfectly OK to be at any of these points! You can only start from where you are, amiright? :)