Sales and marketing plans: four customer paths and who owns each step

A channel list can look complete and still lose customers, because a channel is not a person. In a plan worth studying, every step between stranger and customer has a name against it. Where no name appears, that is the step the business will drop, and a reader of the sales section will see it.

What to take away

Why a name matters more than a channel

A channel tells the reader where customers might come from. A name tells the reader who does the work once they arrive. Plans that stop at the channel look finished but leave a step without anyone responsible for it.

Four customer paths cover most small businesses: customers arrive already looking, somebody introduces them, they take the considered route, or they are already customers. Each breaks at one step, and each break is a gap in ownership rather than a shortage of ideas.

Walk-in: who answers the enquiry

The response needs an owner. Enquiries arrive while the owner is doing the work, and a business that answers in two days loses to one that answers in twenty minutes. The section should say who responds, how fast, and with what.

This path suits local services, storefronts and anything bought when a need appears. The customer searches or walks past, compares two or three options quickly, and contacts one. The person who answers is usually already fully occupied with the work described in the operations plan, so answer time is a staffing decision, not a promise.

Where paid placement is part of the reach, the claims in it have to be substantiated in the same way as any other advertising.

Referral: who asks, and who discloses

Somebody has to ask. Referral is described in most plans as if it happens by itself, and in practice it is somebody's job to stay in front of the referrers. Name that person and the time it takes.

Trades and professional services rely on this path, because trust is transferred by a previous customer, a related business or an adviser. If the business gives anything in return, say what. The FTC's Endorsement Guides require a connection that might materially affect the credibility of an endorsement to be disclosed clearly and conspicuously when the audience would not expect it.

Referral also concentrates risk. If three referrers produce most of the work, that dependency belongs in the plan, with a sentence on what happens if one retires.

Considered sale: who follows up

Follow-up needs a named person, a schedule and a limit. Quotes get produced and then left, because producing them feels like billable work and chasing them does not. The section should say who follows up, when, and how many times.

Anything with a quote, a visit, a specification or an approval in the middle belongs here. The buyer takes weeks, sometimes involves other people, and compares formally, so the follow-up owner is managing a wait, not sending a reminder.

The wait costs money quietly. Work won in month one at a two month cycle and thirty day terms is cash in month four, and that timing belongs in the projections, not in a hopeful sentence.

Also state a quote's cost in hours. A business with a low close rate can be busy and profitable per job yet short of cash all year.

Renewal: who notices the lapse

Somebody has to notice a lapse and act on it, and in a small business that person is usually nobody. Name the mechanism, the owner and the cost, then state the loss rate you expect and how you will measure it.

Subscriptions, maintenance agreements, retainers and memberships live here, and so does any business where most of next month's revenue comes from people who bought last month. A recurring model with no stated loss rate has not been built.

The four owners side by side

The four paths ask for four different owners, and each owner has one thing to show the reader. The table sets them out so a draft can be checked line by line.

Checking a plan section for missing names

Read somebody else's section with three questions, in this order, and keep the answers short.

Apply the same three to your own draft, ideally after somebody else has read it. Counseling funded by the Small Business Administration, at your local Small Business Development Center or a SCORE branch, will do this at no charge, and the adviser has seen the path in your trade before.

Faults that recur across whole plans are collected in sales and marketing plans mistakes, which is worth a read once the owners are named.

What carries over from one plan to another

The habit of naming an owner for every step carries over, along with the structure of the path. No rate does: not a conversion rate, close rate, repeat rate or cost per inquiry. Those belong to one business, in one place, in one year.

What a worked plan gives you is the question it forces you to answer about your own business, and that question is what the sales and marketing guide turns into a section.

Common questions

What if one person owns two steps?

Name them for both and state the time each takes. The reader's concern is not the number of people but whether any step is left with nobody's name against it.

My business uses two paths at once. How do I write it?

Write both, say which produces most of the customers today, and name an owner for each path's unowned step separately. Combining them hides which one is carrying the business.

What should the plan say about a thank-you for referrals?

Say what is given in return, and who makes sure the connection is disclosed clearly and conspicuously wherever the recommendation appears.

Where does the choice of customers come from?

The segment each path is aimed at comes from the market analysis. The owners above then work that segment.