Hi guys, Adam, from the authentic sales training academy, I hope you're having an amazing day on planet earth, um, coming to you today with this video, which I think is really timely. And it's been on the back of several conversations that I've had this week, several meetings that I've had. Uh, after the development of my, um, recession proof sales blueprint, a as well. And, um, one thing that I'm seeing happen more and more in the marketplace is, is how we're attracting our leads so that we can obviously make more sales now. Yes, we need to have leads coming through the door in order to make sales. That's a given. But the way that that's done now is changing. And, um, I've made videos and I've done blog posts and all sorts of stuff before on touchpoints. Why touchpoints have gone through the roof? I'll re reiterate that for you, the average, um, and it changes depending on which marketing company you're talking to as well, but the average person needs 21 touch points. That's 21 times they need to hear from you or see you in order. To, um, be comfortable, you know, going to that next step, but that next step is having seven actual interactions before they're comfortable enough to buy from you. So we're now talking 28 different touch points. And, and to me, that's a ridiculous amount of time and energy and effort that's just wasted in, in generating leads. So. It got me thinking. And I did a little bit of, uh, Googling, um, on this yesterday and listen to this. According to Google, um, sales costs for new leads versus existing leads. So somebody that we already have, uh, in our network, um, that can cost up to five times more. So it can cost you five times as much to get a new lead than what it. To resell to your leads with retention, um, increasing customer retention. Now, how do we increase customer retention? Well, obviously it's simple. We over deliver on what we promise. We solve their problems better than they expected us to. And we did it in a way where they just want to stay with us, that they trust us enough to keep coming back. So if you can increase your customer retention by 5%. You will then increase your profits by 25%. Now think about that. We're coming into a recession. There's no two ifs or buts whether you see it or you don't, it's gonna happen. If it's not happening now, it's gonna happen soon. So, how do we make more sales in, in a recession? We make more sales by focusing on client retention by doing the right thing at the beginning, with how we market did you know that business to business companies who work on referral business have a 70% higher conversion rate on those leads that are coming through the door than a cold generated lead 70%. It's insane. They also have these leads a 69% faster closing time. So if you're thinking about the amount of time, energy, effort, resources, money, phone calls, emails, all that stuff that's involved in closing a sale. Imagine being able to close a sale. 69% faster than doing that as a new lead. And the reason for that is that 92% of people that are referred to us, trust us more than any form of cold marketing. So I look at all these different methods of cold marketing that companies are employing, and they're engaging all these marketing companies. They're spending tens of thousands of dollars to do all these new campaign. To generate leads that may not even buy from you. And the reason that those leads won't buy from you is that 60% of the marketplace that you direct market to are not looking for. What you've got 60% are not looking for what you're trying tolog them. So if we're wanting to increase our sales, We have to get better at our marketing. We have to get better at connecting with the right audience that want what we have now. 71% of that audience that are out there have already done their research. They know what they want. That's the market that we talk to. So if we're moving into a recession and we're moving into times that are gonna be tricky for many people to actually spend many businesses to spend because of budgets and so forth, we've gotta refine the way that we're doing it. In my mind old school marketing does not work that smash and grab approach does not work. You can't just keep throwing good money after bad money at marketing campaigns, just to attract leads. You need to nurture them. You need to funnel them. You need to create an authentic connection with your clients before they buy. So what I would encourage you to do is, uh, is we've, I've spoken about this before. and I learned this in, in a previous business that I had was to establish four four different legs of marketing leading into this recession. We need four legs simply because a table and chairs are more stable when there's four legs on the ground than one. Talk about that with your marketing strategies, the amount of people that I talk to don't have a marketing strategy for generating. And put all of their eggs in one basket, they focus purely on SEO or they focus purely on Facebook or they focus purely on whatever the case may be. If you focus purely on one area and something happens with that platform that you are marketing on, your whole business is gone. I've seen it happen. Over and over again. So get really strategic on who you are. Nicheing down to who your target audience is, what their real problems are, what their needs and wants are so that you can deliver on that. If you can deliver on that. So the way that we move from old school marketing to new school marketing, and we're setting up four different legs, so that we've got a nice solid table. Is this. Firstly, you need to start working on strategic partnerships. I spoke about that before. Find out who you can strategically go to the market with and collaborate with. You need to set up referral programs where you're connecting with people where you can refer to each other and you can have an affiliate system set up with that as well. So that, that way. You know, you're, you're cutting the costs of that direct cold marketing. And you're increasing the cost of sales because people are coming to you. You want to absolutely work on relationship selling and relationship marketing. And the way that you do that is by networking. Go and join network groups, find people in those network groups that are non transactional. You don't wanna work with people that you know, that you are just going to be another statistic for them. Another dollar in their bank account. You want to be working on strategic alliances in these networking groups as well, so that your values are in line. Your mission's in line. Your purpose is in line. Your goals are in line for what you're wanting to create. With the end customer. So you need to do something like that. Um, absolutely. You still need to do your direct marketing. I'm not saying cut that out, but I'm saying cut that back until you have niched it down enough to know who your target audience is, so that you're talking directly to them. And the way that you do that is through, instead of doing a direct smash and grab approach, do a direct funnel approach. Get leads in from people that are responded to an ebook or whatnot, give them something free of value that they can take away and use right now. In their businesses, you can capture their details and then you can nurture them through your CRM system. You can email them, you can send them messages, you can start up a Facebook group. You can do LinkedIn work, all these different areas that you can be focusing on nurturing because once we build relationship. We are no longer selling. The reason most small business owners fail at sales is because they're scared to sell. They don't know how to sell. They don't wanna sell. They don't wanna be that sleazy sales person, all that stuff. But when you're actually building that connection with them, when you're building that relationship with them, their trust levels are increasing when the time is right to buy. that's a free lead. That's come into you. You haven't actually directly marketed to that person and they are ready and willing to go. When we over deliver, like I said, in that statistic that, um, we increase our retention rate by 5%. When we over deliver to those people, this is where the magic happens. And this is where the power's gonna come. When times get tough with. They will rebuy from you. Okay. People buy you, they don't buy what you do. So when we get better at who we are, then we're connecting more to them. Then they're trusting more with us. Then they're opening up more. To us. We increase that retention rate by 5%, we increase our bottom line by 25%. The magic then comes from that next step, which is the referral business. When you start tapping into referral, only business, you, my friends have hit the jackpot. These people are coming to you. These people are your target market. These people are ready to buy these people automatically trust you. 92% higher levels of. In a referral. So I don't know about you, but that's exactly how I want to grow my business. I have personally spent hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars over decades in marketing on crap that does not work. It's old school. It's outdated. We must get better at how we connect with our audience. And this is that whole authentic connection that I teach in order for us to have more sales. So that's my tip for you today. If you got value outta that, please give me a thumbs up. Give me a life. Give me a share. Give me a comment. Um, if you want to connect with me one on. it can pop a time in my diary, on the website there, it's got a book, a 15 minute strategy call. We can certainly have a look at some issues that are going on. And if there's anything else that I can do to be of service to you, or if there's anything in particular that you wanna learn, feel free to reach out to me and ask those questions. So without my friends, you make it a fantastic day on planet earth because you absolutely deserve it to your success.