There’s no 'catch-and-release' in Sales! Do you nurture by nature?

I write a lot about Business Development and Demand Generation. But I never lose sight of the fact that these are just a means to an end.

‘Closing the sale’ is often used as the ultimate benchmark of success. But if that is the “end”, you’re leaving revenue on the table.

Ultimate success is dependent on a process flow. Starting with ‘prospect-acquisition’.

Prospect-acquisition is a product of Marketing, Demand-Generation and Pre-sales initiatives.

A prospect is 'acquired' when they engage with your sales team. In other words, you did enough right on the front end to get them to pursue ‘discovery’.

"...the most ignored revenue-multiplier of all."

Once the prospect is engaged, the “Nurturing” must begin. Nurturing will hopefully lead to “Customer-acquisition”. That means you got the sale. It should not stop there and neither should your revenue potential.

The final frontier is ‘customer-retention’. The most difficult, also the most ignored revenue-multiplier of all. I will be writing more about that soon. Hint­--it’s about how memorable you are and maybe a bit about fixing something broken.

For now, I want to concentrate on what should directly follow ‘prospect-acquisition’—Nurturing.

"nurturing is critical to your ROI"

For the purpose of this article, my focus is B2B companies whose products/services would require a Capital-Expenditure. Buying decisions requiring a CAPEX have longer close-cycles.

The longer the close-cycle the more detail oriented you need to be with regard to keeping that prospect engaged.

Prospect nurturing is critical to your return-on-investment. Marketing executives should have a reasonable idea of what it costs to ‘acquire’ a prospect. Costs include all marketing, content creation, distribution, demand-generation—every process.

The most jarring way to emphasize the importance of nurturing—until you’ve ACQUIRED a CUSTOMER, you have all investment with no return.

"Nurturing done right will get them into your pipeline."

Failure to nurture following your first encounter with the prospect is—a failure. It would be tantamount to ‘catch and release’­­­ – there’s no such thing as catch-and-release in sales. Catch it, stay on it, close it.

The absence of a proper nurturing strategy will negatively impact your conversion percentages.

Again, we’re talking about long close-cycles. During that cycle your prospect is also appearing on other dance cards. Don’t be naïve. Your prospect has to ensure that the company has received ‘everything’ it needs to make an informed buying decision. Information has to flow, you can't dump and run.

Your prospect was acquired during your first meeting. Whether that was face-to-face, Zoom, Webinar, you were able to get them engaged. Congratulations, they’re in the funnel. Nurturing, done right, will get them into your pipeline.

I could write pages on nurturing alone. For now I will offer these humble suggestions:

• Nurturing requires careful planning and scheduling.

• Nurturing involves the phone, emails, product/service updates, blogs, etc.

• Space out your ‘touches’ so the prospect isn’t inundated with too much information.

• Alternate purpose and content of each outreach so it doesn’t appear automated.

• Know your prospect, do your homework, target what is most important to them.

• Make sure nurturing plans include sales and marketing so content can be customized.

• Above all, your goals are—to be helpful—to be memorable—to stay engaged.

Any one of those points can become a healthy discussion. And I’m happy to be a part of that. As always, please share your ideas, it makes us all more successful.

-JF