Introduction
Everyone looking to grow their business and generate more revenue is always looking for the next best thing.
The newest tactic that’s going to send their business into the millions. But that’s often a mistake.
Why? Because growth hacks aren’t working, and they rarely do. New age marketing and sales tactics are failing you.
Finding the elusive unicorn isn’t real. All of these edgy new tips and tricks have one major problem:
Cost per acquisition.
They’re meant for major brands looking to disrupt the traditional advertising market.
Meaning small brands and companies can’t afford it, and they don’t have the brand awareness to make it work.
Sometimes, you have to go back to basics. Put your nose to the grindstone. Use proven tactics.
If you want to reach millions in sales, you need to implement good ol’ fashioned persistence. A tried-and-true method that has been around since the dawn of time.
Everybody knows that you can sell almost anything to almost anyone. All it takes is grit and the willingness to keep going in the face of adversity.
Here’s how Natural Force used real hard work and persistence to grow their sales to over $1 million and how you can do it too.
How Natural Force used persistence to grow their business
Natural Force was founded in 2009 in a college dorm room by Justin Quinn and Joseph Rakoski. Both of them met in college as entrepreneurs in their business classes.
They were both heavily into entrepreneurship with side interests in the sport of bodybuilding and the idea of living a clean life.
They believed that supplements for working out and staying healthy needed to be improved and reworked.
Nothing on the market fit their need of a high-quality, reasonably-priced natural supplement with minimal processing.
All of the mass market products were loaded with sugar and artificial sweeteners and chemicals.
Every time they’d get ready to go to the gym, they’d drink a pre-workout to give them the energy to lift weights.
But those neon colored drinks never made them feel good about their health or what was actually being consumed.
With that realization and a lack of current products on the market, Natural Force was born. They wanted to create the cleanest pre-workout product on the market.
Their first product, Natural Pre-Workout Formula, was launched featuring nearly 20 herbs and superfoods.
Soon, they realized it was time to sell.
They had a product, but they needed a site to sell it on. Quickly, they took to the streets to find graphic designers to help design and launch their website.
Within just weeks they were selling products.
But sales weren’t coming in massive waves at first. They needed to grind to get the sales they currently have.
They noticed a successful growth of their products but were looking for ways to scale it to the next level without blowing their budget.
To start, they attended events for bodybuilding and food to get their product name in front of real customers.
They used good ol’ fashioned persistence to talk to as many people and reps as possible to spread the news of their product.
They weren’t afraid to get on the phone and call stores or potential big orders.
Persistence is what drove them to keep going even in a crowded market.
Here are a few steps that they’ve implemented to keep pushing for sales, and how you can use persistence to grow your business.
Ditch the growth hacks. Here’s how to use persistence to drive sales.
In today’s world, it’s never been easier to start a business. You can create a website in just minutes with the leading platforms.
But when it comes down to business, it’s all about creating a profitable one that can scale. One that actually functions.
Starting a business is just the beginning. You need real sales from real people to keep it running.
And more often than not, it takes a serious amount of persistence. Here’s how to use persistence to drive more sales like Natural Force.
Step 1. Attend events with an ROI focus.
Events are often given a bad rep. Everything from conferences to trade shows are seen as a huge waste of time and money.
But is that due to the nature of the event or possibly a different root cause? Is it because “events suck” or because the attendees aren’t prepared to turn their efforts ROI positive?
More likely than not, attending an event and seeing no positive return isn’t the fault of events or conferences.
It’s a lack of persistence to close the deal or promote your product.
Landing a single wholesale order could be the difference maker for your business. And you can bet that major players in your space are attending these events.
Search engine optimization expert, Rand Fishkin of Moz, recently wrote a post about the case for and against events.
When detailing the reasons not to, he lists things like:
- Lost productivity: usually events take up multiple days where little actual business work is done.
- Cost of tickets to the event: most events cost large amounts of money to attend.
- Travel: the cost of airline tickets and hotel bookings can be massive.
- Employee loss: potentially losing an employee to other recruiting or hiring companies.
Those, when added up, are pretty major costs and risks.
The article estimates that it could cost anywhere from $4,630–$10,230. That’s a huge portion of a budget devoted to sales.
But the benefits often outweigh the costs and barrier to entry.
The latest data shows that the average ROI for an event is 5x. So if you’re spending $5,000 or $500 to get to an event, you’d reasonably expect to 5x that investment.
And it makes sense when you think about it:
You have the newfound opportunity to engage with major buyers and potential clients personally.
Plus, you’re generating new contact lists and promoting your brand to the top consumers or companies in your space.
More often than not, events will be scattered throughout the country, and it’s likely that one or two will be close enough to cut costs significantly with the potential for a large upside.
You can easily find conventions and events in your niche by conducting a basic Google search:
The first result will often be a round-up style post that lists off multiple events.
Clicking on that post nets me 20 curated events throughout the entire country from East to West Coast.
You could take cheap flights or even drive to these events to cut costs.
Events are becoming extremely popular in almost any space. Whether it’s food, tech, clothing or almost any niche, there’s likely an event.
If attending events isn’t feasible in your area, or it’s too expensive for your budget, you can always host your own.
Meetup is one of the best ways to create your own local event in your area.
No matter which option you choose, your efforts always need to center around ROI. Around driving sales at the event or making contacts with big distributors.
You can’t just attend the event for the fun of it.
Focus on attending as many booths as possible and consider hosting your own to promote products.
Sometimes, all it takes is good ol’ fashioned persistence to keep talking and connecting with event attendees to bring in new business.
Step 2. Follow up with sales and customers faster.
Customer service lands sales. The faster you can respond to the needs of a customer, the more likely they are to buy from you.
78% of consumers have ditched a potential purchase due to a poor service experience.
In today’s day and age, people don’t want to wait. Our culture revolves around getting what we want when we want it.
Free shipping. Two-day delivery. Get it now if you order within the next five minutes.
Customers don’t and shouldn’t have to wait to get the products or support they need.
In fact, waiting to respond can actually lead to lost sales. 75% of consumers believe it takes too long to reach a live agent.
Drift recently conducted their own study, finding that the mass majority of companies don’t respond fast enough:
The majority take more than five days, and some never respond to customer inquiries.
A similar study by the Harvard Business Review and InsideSales found that responding in ten minutes to a customer instead of five results in a 400% decrease in converting them.
If you don’t respond fast enough, you aren’t making the sale.
And sometimes, it requires you being proactive on your site using tools like live chat to suggest products.
Persistence is key. Helping them with any questions and suggesting items can help you drive sales faster.
For example, Natural Force is already using Zendesk to help customers chat on-site in minutes:
A recent post by Kissmetrics found that live chat can quickly help to increase sales by walking customers through the buying process.
According to Econsultancy, live chat has the highest satisfaction rate among any customer service channel:
One of the best examples of live chat to push sales is from Greats, the Brooklyn-based shoe company:
When you land on their product page and start to inspect the sizing, a chat box pops up and provides you with sizing info, giving you the ability to live chat and get more information.
They effectively stay persistent on every single interested customer to close the sale.
They remove any conversion roadblocks or barriers that could cause someone to leave the site without buying.
People don’t need to read an FAQ section because the chat displays exactly what they’re looking for.
Staying persistent is key. Why? Because consumers actually want it.
Don’t get me wrong, they don’t want to be spammed, but they want persistency in the form of helpfulness and information when they need it.
Gary Vaynerchuk, a leading voice for entrepreneurs, says that the only way to succeed in today’s business environment is through “deploying constant effort and persistence.”
Consider implementing a live chat to your storefront to suggest products, helpful content, and answer users questions faster.
Step 3. Follow up with interested customers at every step of the buying process.
Gary Vaynerchuk is one of the most polarizing motivational entrepreneurs in the world today.
Recently, he was featured on a show where he discussed his top advice for modern-day sales reps.
One of the main takeaways from his five-part series was this:
“A stunning amount of behind people behind that camera are not going to be successful in sales, cause they’re not willing to work hard enough.”
He then talks about tools, automation and how they impact our ability to really go after a sale.
How they let us sit back on autopilot, waiting for the consumers to flood in and buy.
But he then talks about content. How content is the best way to be persistent in sales. Where most sales reps are impatient and want to drive you to a sale fast, he recommends creating content that helps the journey flow naturally.
This allows you to be persistent by sharing that content via email, social and advertising without pushing customers to get annoyed with your brand.
Plus, it allows users to warm up to your brand and get a real understanding of your mission.
For example, Greats uses behind-the-scenes content on their Facebook page to get users interested in how authentic their product is:
When a consumer heads to their website, they can read more about the authenticity of their brand on their site:
After a consumer purchases, they increase their lifetime value by displaying content tailored to existing customers:
Their content allows them to sell products without directly selling them to customers.
They can stay persistent throughout the sales funnel without spamming potential buyers with emails and texts about coupons.
Instead, they focus on crafting content that has a brand story behind it. That exudes the “Greats” brand.
Another way that they stay persistent with content is with Facebook advertising to interested users.
When I landed on their site, I was soon seeing amazing ads on my Facebook news feed.
Their persistency to not only drive the sale but show valuable content is critical for reaching huge numbers of sales.
Final tip. Don’t be afraid to jump on the phone.
Phone calls in 2018? Is this a joke?
That’s the reaction you’ll get when you talk about phone call sales in the modern era.
But according to HubSpot’s State of Inbound Report, phone calls are still the best way to reach prospects and customers for sales:
It’s faster and more effective than any social media network or email platform around.
If you’re trying to land a large wholesaler or get your products placed in a store, or even to land a big-ticket client, it’s key to get them on the phone.
Sometimes, emails and live chat can only do so much. Especially when it comes to your best customers or big purchase orders that could make a big impact on your revenue.
In an era of few phone calls, try switching it up and connecting with your consumers via the phone to help them with the sales process.
Recap: TL;DR
The era of digital marketing is constantly changing. New tactics pop up almost every single month that are poised to “change the game.”
But all of those fancy growth hacks, testing tools and strategies aren’t feasible for the mass majority of companies.
If you don’t have a million-dollar marketing budget, it’s unlikely that these growth tactics will come to fruition.
Sometimes, the best strategy is to take it back to the whole idea of sales:
Persistence. Doing whatever you can do to drive the sale.
With a low budget for marketing and sales, that’s exactly what Natural Force did. Instead of raising tons of capital to generate marketing campaigns, they deferred to good ol’ fashioned persistence.
Now they’ve surpassed $1 million in sales.
To replicate their success, make sure you implement ways to respond and update the consumer faster. Live chat is an excellent way to stay on top of consumers with deals, help and offer convenient chatting options to blow past conversion roadblocks.
Consider attending local events in your space that are cheap to attend and can yield high ROI contacts and sales.
As Gary Vaynerchuk said, content is critical for sales as it drives home the aspect of persistence without annoying your customers to death. Create content that’s designed for every stage of the buying process with your brand, and you’ll see sales rise faster than ever.
Never be afraid to get on the phone to make a sale happen, either.
Now It’s Your Turn
Generating sales for your business is tough. But sometimes, the best tactic is a relentless desire to sell by any means necessary.
What are some of your favorite ways to generate sales with persistence?
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