I see growing a business as sharing lots of features with growing a productive garden.
Understand your conditions
Great gardeners know that they need to understand the soil and conditions in their garden to get the best out of it. That requires research such as taking soil samples, checking temperatures in different parts of the garden and observing how the sun moves at different times of the day. Gardeners can also learn a lot from checking what does well in neighbouring gardens.
Our business equivalent is getting to understand our target market and we too need research. Now we could do research questionnaires and surveys etc. but these don’t always give you the information that you need. People tell you what they think they would do which may be different from what they actually do. For us social media can be a great source of information.
What help is your ideal client asking for in a Facebook group? What are the common themes in discussions? What recommendations are asked for repeatedly? What are people ranting about?
What are your competitors up to? What new products and services are they offering? How are they tweaking their marketing? How successful do they appear to be? Get behind the smoke and mirrors. What are people saying about them? Are they leaving openings that you could fill? This is a bit like looking over the garden fence at what is working for your neighbours.
I’ve seen too many businesses fail because they didn’t understand their target market or didn’t keep up to date with changes in that market. Don’t be one of them. Staying in touch with our ideal clients’ wants and needs is an ongoing task for every successful business.
What will work?
Our gardener knows that she has to choose plants that fit her conditions. However much she loves a particular plant the sun lover won’t grow in a shady garden and an acid loving specimen won’t thrive in alkaline soil.
As business owners we have to offer products and services that people want to buy. Sadly those might not be the things we love doing most. However passionate we are about what we do we won’t have a business if we can’t find enough people to pay a fair price for what we offer.
Of course our gardener might be able to create a little micro climate to grow a favourite specimen in a container and you might be able to have a small side line to serve a small niche but it won’t be a full time, profitable business.
Make an impact
If you scatter seeds everywhere in your garden they’re likely to have little impact. The business equivalent is trying to appeal to everyone. When you try to do that you end up appealing to very few.
So a gardener will create impact by sowing in drifts or grouping plants together. Our equivalent is segmenting our target customers perhaps by demographics or problems solved or something else that groups prospects together.
When the gardener has plants grouped together she can create the right conditions and nurture them with specific fertilisers and you can treat each of your segments to the information and support they specifically need. Our targeted communications are likely to have far greater impact.
Do the work
Have you ever tried growing seeds in lumpy soil? Few survive. Gardeners have to work the soil to a fine tilth; we have to work at our visibility, to get on our ideal client’s radar and encourage them to connect with us
Think of your list as fertile soil, on it you have the names of people who are interested in your offer, and hopefully, influencers who will encourage people to buy from you.
We have to communicate with them often, like regular watering. Use your communication to sow your marketing seeds with messages that address your ideal customer’s needs. Different prospects will have different needs so try to personalise your approach when you can and think what stage of growth your prospect is at.
Many sales made on 5th or later contact, most of us give up before that.
One of my favourite marketing experts has calculated that it takes, on average, 344 days to convert a new lead into a customer and he mails most days and has 50+ years of expertise in marketing. So don’t be discouraged if you haven’t got instant results, you’re in good company. Just keep tending those prospects with quality, relevant information.
Focus on the right things
Gardeners don’t expect every seed to germinate; they thin sowings out to create space for growth.
Not all our prospects will buy; identify the most likely and focus on them.
It’s very easy to be distracted into chasing every opportunity but some are just not worth the chase. They spend little, expect more and complain the most and that saps our energy and enthusiasm. A bit like the thuggish plant that grabs all the light and water and takes over the bed!
Some seeds need transplanting. We nurture them until they are strong enough to survive in open ground and then we put them where they have the best chance of survival. We treat the seedling differently depending upon the state of their growth. We need to do the same with our prospects.
The person who has just come across you wants to know that you can help them to solve their problem. If you gave the freshly germinated seedling a full dose of fertiliser you’d kill it off, overload the person who has just Googled you with too much information at this stage and they’ll be overwhelmed and run for cover.
As the seedling grows into an established plant it can take more water, fertiliser etc. It’s the same with your prospect, as they get closer to a buying decision they want more information to help them to decide to part with their money. They’ll give you more of their time and maybe consult with others whose opinion they respect so make sure you help that conversation with appropriate marketing too.
Grow from what you’ve got
Of course a garden grown only from seed is unlikely to be gorgeous all year round and if you only do one form of marketing intermittently you are unlikely to have a constant flow of customers so the lesson is to mix it up, use different forms of marketing and keep doing it… keep tending your business garden.
Once your plant is established you can take cuttings to nurture new growth. The business equivalent is to ask your existing customers for referrals.
This is one of the best ways we have to grow our businesses. What do you do to encourage referrals? How do you reward customers who have passed on new clients? Publicise your referral programme.
As time progresses plants mature, some die. Some will hibernate only to bounce back next Spring. The gardener will mulch and fertilise to encourage new growth and we need to be following up lapsed customers
Are they on your mailing list? How often do you call them?
People forget, it’s said that even happy customers will forget you in 90 days to. People lose things. They lose our contact details. They forget our name. It doesn’t mean they don’t want to trade with us so what do you do to stay in touch with people; to win customers for the long term?
In summary
So where will you sow your seeds? Where will you market to find your ideal clients?
Where is the fertile ground? Where do your ideal clients hang out? Where do they look for what you offer?
How will you ensure your seedlings develop into flourishing plants? How will you nurture your leads?
How else will you fill your business garden? Don’t forget to look after your existing customers. Ask them for recommendations and referrals. Make sure they know what else you offer, beyond what they have already bought.
