I had big dreams for my business when I first started. My vision was to help accountants, coaches and other professionals see the bigger picture and live the life they want, by creating businesses that supported them. In the process, I could start living the life I wanted – more quality time with family, friends and my health. I thought that by getting out there and spreading my message on stages all over Australia, and working with clients personally I could achieve this vision.

Today, I still have big dreams for my business. But I’m much more aware of what it takes to achieve it.

For a long time my revenue came in from only one place – me. It was also ME who had to deliver the work. And if I went on holiday, well, the business came to a halt. Sure, I have assistants and consultants I work with, but I had set up the business so I was the bottleneck, instead of empowering my team and set up the right systems to grow the business with me. Does this sound familiar?

When I got back from the world cup in Brazil last year, it felt like I had to push a steam train to get the business running as it was before I went. And it happened again when I went to Mauritius for one of the best holidays of my life.

I knew things had to change. Because working crazy hours wasn’t what I wanted when I started the business. And the honest truth is, if the business stops when I’m not there, I’m not really helping as many people as I could and my business vision would just be a joke.

So I got back down to basics. I looked at the things I was doing to help my clients become successful and I started creating it for myself. Yes, I know what you’re thinking – do what I say, not what I do (sometimes…)!

I started creating my own sales funnel.

Within a few months, my database grew and leads increased 3 fold. Some of my clients have tripled their $$ return on investment by building the sales funnel using the method I teach.

Important Business Tips 

Here are the 5 things I’m doing to build the sales funnel.

The process represents the phases of decision making our clients go through in deciding who they want to work with, what they want to buy and how much they want to pay. These next steps will help you understand how you can be the one they choose.

1. Target individual audience segments

Knowing what the different segments within your target market are will help you focus your revenue growth efforts.

2. Create awareness products

Have you got any “products” that will help more people become aware of you? An example is this blog post – it’s a product. Videos are a product, as are ads. You need to decide what’s the best way to invest your time and budget. The next thing you need to do is test which products get the most engagement. An example is that I know that blog posts, pictures and videos with a human interest element in them get a lot more engagement than if I just talk about business.

3. Create curiosity products

Curiosity products are designed to help you qualify leads and capture information about people who are curious to find out more about what you do. Do you have products that do these two things for you?

4. Create appraisal products and packages

Services are an inherently risky purchase because there’s no try before you buy. So give your clients the opportunity to have the experience of working with you without forking out the big bucks. Do you have introductory service packages your clients can buy?

5. Streamline your existing services for appreciation

Clients who appreciate your value will want to work with you properly. So make it easy for them to buy the right services, the full range they need and at the right price. Many service providers make the mistake of selling clients a basic service package and hoping to upsell them later on. This approach makes life much harder for yourself because:

1. An upsell is having to sell AGAIN
2. Clients prefer to have certainty upfront about how much it’s going to cost to get an outcome they want instead of having to buy more later
3. You’re always having to change things to adapt to clients wishes as you work together, instead of agreeing upfront what you’re going to do – this makes delivery so much harder.

I’ll share more about streamlining service packages for appreciation in my next article.