5 Systems to Scale Your Business

(And everything you need to know to build them today)

Intro

Growing a business in the digital era affords the business owner much opportunity.

With the advancement of technology, the small business owner now has the ability to execute their marketing on an enterprise level.

And rightfully so, expect enterprise sized growth and results without the necessity of hiring much staff.

While this is true, it is not straight forward to achieve.

After years of observing many businesses fail to achieve the growth they desire I was able to identify a trend as the main cause.

That trend was...having a lack of understanding the systems required to scale and how to build them with right technology.

This guide will help ensure your business does not show up in such a trend.

What Is Marketing Automation?

I define marketing automation as:

"the effective means of employing technology to automatically execute your marketing processes."

Special emphasis on the word processes.

Nowadays, people think marketing automation is some magic that you sprinkle on your business to enable money to start pouring out while they sleep.

It's not uncommon for a business owner to rely on automation for their business success when things aren't working and they are feeling overwhelmed.

Both approaches are detrimental.

I'm here to inform you that marketing automation is all about your processes.

The processes you have set in place to effectively progress strangers through your business to become customers.

Dictionary.com defines a process as:

“a systematic series of actions directed to some end"

These processes make up the 5 systems every business needs in place in order to scale.

Envision these systems working in sync with one another. Passing your contacts from one system to the next and collecting valuable data all in a seamless manner.

It is true automation harmony. And it is how your business will be able to make millions (hopefully billions) of dollars.

Let's go over these systems and how to achieve such harmony in your business.

1. Traffic Generation

As with any system, your output is proportional to the input. In other words, garbage in equals garbage out.

When it comes to generating traffic for your business the quality is much more important than the quantity. In fact, focusing on quality traffic will position you to generate high quantities of traffic later.

By quality traffic I am referring to attracting people that are highly interested (preferably already searching) in what you have to offer. This type of traffic shows up on your website with the intent to take action.

The technology involved with generating traffic includes: WordPress for content marketing, Google Adwords, and Facebook Ads

Your ability to do this effectively will determine the effectiveness of your second system.

2. Lead Conversion

It's not enough to generate quality traffic, you must also turn that traffic into new leads for your business.

This is done online with a simple exchange of information. Also referred to as "opting in".

When someone provides their information, or opts in, they do so with the expectation to receive something in return.

That something could be:

A pdf download (ebook, white paper, report, guide, slide deck, etc)
Audio file
Video training series
Coupon
Consultation
Product demo

It is important that this system be able to deliver whatever it is you are offering for free immediately to your new lead the moment they provide their information.

The combination of system 1 and system 2 is called Lead Generation.

Implemented correctly and these two systems will automatically pour qualified leads into your business daily.

The technology involved in this system is called landing pages. Landing pages are single page websites that are design for one function alone...

Capture information.

Once the information has been successfully captured you will need to stay in communication with them to progress the along their buyer's journey.

3. Follow Up

I want to share a few statistics with you...

Research shows that 35-50% of sales go to the business that responds first [Source: InsideSales.com]
If you follow up with a web lead within 5 minutes, you’re 9 times more likely to convert them [Source: InsideSales.com]
Nurtured leads (or leads you follow up with) make 47% larger purchases than non-nurtured leads. [Source: The Annuities Group]

Simply put...the fortune is in the follow up.

Although these statistics paint a clear picture of the necessity of following up and nurturing your leads in order to create customers. Many business owners do not have a means of doing this consistently.

This may cause you to wonder what prevents business owners from putting such a system in place (perhaps including yours)? Well, the answer is simple…

They don’t know how to.

They don’t know how to because they don’t know what a true follow up system looks like. They’re sold on the idea, but foggy on the execution of it online.

The primary means of following up in an automated fashion is email. The technology involved to do this effectively is called an autoresponder.

It is rare that new leads will come to your website with the intent to buy upon arrival (50% of qualified leads are not ready to buy [Source: Gleanster Research]). However, your automated follow up system (or autoresponder) makes sure that when they're ready to buy you are the first business that comes to mind.

Your autoresponder is responsible for ensuring timely communication is continually placed in front of your leads. Each time this is done it counts as a marketing touch point. On average, it will take at least 8 marketing touch points before a lead is ready to buy from your business.

When they are ready to purchase it takes place in the next system.

4. Sales Conversion

The old saying in marketing goes...

"People will not always be ready to buy, but when they are ready make sure you're ready to sell".

The only way to sell your product 24/7 and 365 days a year is by way of technology.

This idea can be hard to fully understand without experiencing it. In fact, I'm pretty sure you already have.

Websites like Amazon, eBay, and Etsy are all examples of regular business owners like yourself that are leveraging technology to make their products available anytime of the day.

According to Census.gov the total amount of revenue generated from sales online totaled $101.3 billion. In the last 10 years (from 2006 - 2016) online sales have practically quadrupled.

There is no time like now to be selling your products and services online.

The technology involved for online sales processing are shopping carts, order forms, videos, payment gateways, and merchant accounts.

This is definitely a critical aspect of your business you want to ensure is setup and functioning properly. If you feel overwhelmed or confused about how this technology works together to process payments for your business online, I highly recommend you attend the next upcoming training here.

Let’s talk about what happens after the sale.

5. Product Fulfillment

Once someone purchases your product it is imperative that you get it in the hands of your new customer as soon as possible.

Whether it’s a physical product that requires shipping or a digital product that requires login access, you don’t want to waste any time in this final step of the process.

Doing so will cause your customer satisfaction to go down and your refund request to shoot up.

On the other hand, delivering your product as immediate as possible will leave you with extremely pleased customers that are more than willing to advocate for your company and brand.

This is where digital products and online membership access excels in comparison to physical products. Instead of waiting for products to be shipped, new customers can immediately receive access to their purchased content by receiving their login credentials via email.

The technology involved for delivering digital products requiring login access are Membership scripts (like ActiveMember360) , LMS platform (like LearnDash), and ActiveCampaign for setting membership levels via tags.

If you need to ship products technologies like Shopify, WooCommerce, and BigCommerce will allow you to sell physical goods where you have the option to ship the items yourself or integrate them with a drop shipping company.

Note: One could make a great argument that Referrals (or Evangelists) is another important system for every business. And I do agree. However, for the sake of brevity and keeping this guide as easy to follow as possible I decided to omit the Referral Generating System. If you have any questions on how to set one up and what technology to use feel free to reach out to me here.

Closing Remarks

If you have made it this far in the guide it is proof that you are serious about your business. Remember, your business is only as strong as the systems you have in place; and those systems are only as good as the processes you have defined to run them.

I have no doubt in my mind with the right tutelage and effort on your end that you can turn your business into a well oiled machine that produces consistent, predictable revenue for you without requiring more time than you would like to dedicate to it.

If you want to learn more details about how to put these systems in place for your business I’d like invite you to a free training I recording just for you. This will provide a more deep-dive into the systems and how to integrate them all to work in concert with one another. Thus, providing you with the ability to take some time off without your bank account suffering.

If that sounds like something you know your business needs sign up for the free training below.

Looking forward to seeing you on the training!

Chris L. Davis

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