The sales process · Lead generation
The account goes quiet the week your business gets busy, and that is the problem.
Social media marketing is publishing on the feeds your buyers already scroll, so that your name is familiar before they need you. This step sets what gets posted, who photographs it, and who answers the messages it brings. It builds recognition slowly and stops the month somebody gets busy.
Scope, fee, reporting and term are agreed in writing after we have read your brief and spoken to you.
In one paragraph
Social media marketing is publishing on the feeds your buyers already scroll, so that your name is familiar before they need you. This step sets what gets posted, who photographs it, and who answers the messages it brings. It builds recognition slowly and stops the month somebody gets busy.
Most business accounts look the same. A festival greeting with the logo in the corner. A photograph of a finished product with no caption. Then four months of nothing. Nobody chose that. It is what happens when posting belongs to whoever has a spare moment, which in a small firm is nobody.
The fix is smaller than the problem sounds. One month of posts, planned in one sitting, made from things that happen in your own premises anyway. A machine being set up. A load going out before the rain. The owner answering the question a customer asked on Tuesday, said to a phone camera in ninety seconds.
Website, the step before, gave you somewhere to send people. This step is about being recognised on the way there. Educational content, the step after, is the same effort pointed at the questions buyers ask rather than at being seen, and the two share a camera and a calendar.
Where this sits
Stage 4 of 10, lead generation. The routes an enquiry can arrive by, and what each one costs in money or in time.
- The stage before
- Prospecting
- The stage after
- Sales enablement
If you want this done for you
Post content people actually stop scrolling for, on a schedule you can actually keep.
The work
What this step is actually like.
“Shoot in one afternoon, post across a month”
Walk your own premises with a phone and come back with twenty photographs and four short clips. That is a month. Batching this way is the only thing that keeps an account alive through your busy season, which is exactly when posting stops and exactly when you want to look busy.
“Replies matter more than posts”
A message at nine in the evening answered at eleven the next morning has already lost. Decide who has the app on their phone, what they are allowed to quote without asking, and what gets passed to you. An account that posts well and answers slowly is worse than no account.
“It buys recognition long before it buys enquiries”
The first enquiries come from people who already knew you and were reminded. Judge the first few months on whether customers mention seeing something, and on messages received. Follower count is the number that moves most and means least.
“When it is the wrong route”
A firm selling gearboxes to five purchase managers on rate contracts will not win one of them with a reel. The hours would do more in trigger events and introductions. Consumer businesses are the opposite case, and a bakery or a salon should probably be here before it is anywhere else.
What we do
What you end up with.
The artefacts this step produces, what each one is for, and how you know it is finished.
The month on one page
Date, platform, what the post is about, who takes the photograph, and the first line of the caption. Twelve rows is a month. Written in one sitting so that no daily decision is required from anybody.
Result: Somebody who is not you can post next Tuesday without asking what to put up.
The shot list
The things in your own business worth photographing: work in progress, the team at a job, a delivery loaded, a before and after, a customer collecting. Specific enough that whoever holds the phone knows what they are looking for.
Result: You stop reposting other people's quotes because there was nothing of your own.
The reply rule
Who answers messages, within what time, in which hours, and what they may say about price without checking. Written on half a page and stuck where the person who does it can see it.
Result: No message sits unread for two days, and nobody invents a price to be helpful.
The mention log
A line in your enquiry register for anyone who says they saw a post, plus a note of which post it was. Kept by whoever answers the phone, not by whoever runs the account.
Result: After three months you can tell whether this is earning its hours or just filling them.
Where this fits
Three pieces of sales work, in this order.
This work sits inside sales process design, at stage 1, prospecting and lead generation. The audit comes before it, and sales management keeps it running.
Step 1
Sales audit
Find where deals are being lost and what to fix first.
Start here if you cannot say where orders are lost.
Step 2 · you are here
Sales process design
One written way to sell, from first enquiry to repeat order.
Start here if every salesperson sells differently.
Step 3
Sales management
A target, a review routine and someone who owns the number.
Start here if the team has targets and no routine.
FAQ
Questions owners ask before they call.
Not here? More answers, or ask on WhatsApp.
Which platforms should a small business actually be on?
How often do we have to post?
Can we just boost posts instead of planning them?
Nobody in the office wants to be on camera. What then?
How much does it cost?
How long is the contract?
How soon will we see results?
Who will actually do the work?
What do you need from us?
What if we are not happy with the work?
Where to go next
The work that carries this step further.
The rest of lead generation
Or read the whole sales process in order.
Your next practical step
Tell us what you are trying to grow, and we will read it before we call.
Eight short steps, mostly taps. Skip anything you would rather answer on the call.