Aaron Hoos

It’s the end of February. Time to fill out your Monthly Sales Funnel Check-up. (And don’t forget to keep these in a binder so you can monitor your business’ trends).

Wondering what the heck a Monthly Sales Funnel Check-up is? Read the first Monthly Sales Funnel Check-up blog post that kicked it all off!

The Weekly Sales Funnel Challenge is a week-long challenge for business owners to focus on a specific aspect of their sales funnel for one week. It’s a fun way to keep you focused on one of the most important parts of your business. A new Weekly Sales Funnel Challenge is published every Monday and a wrap-up post is published every Friday.

In previous Weekly Sales Funnel Challenges, I’ve challenged you to think about the triggers that your contacts perform to advance from one stage of the sales funnel to the next. Some of them have been easy (for example, it’s easy to know when a Prospect becomes a Customer – usually because they buy something). Some of them have been harder (for example, when does an Audience contact become a Lead?).

In this week’s challenge, I’d like you to think about the Customer-to-Evangelist trigger – possibly the most difficult trigger of all.

Customers are people who buy from our businesses. Evangelists are Customers who tell other people. The trigger, then is usually some form of sharing – but what is it? That’s what is so hard for business owners to know. Does it happen when two friends are talking? Is it a link posted on Facebook or Twitter? Is it just a matter of proudly wearing the brand? There could be all kinds of triggers that transform a Customer into an Evangelist, and most entrepreneurs don’t know what those triggers are.

So this week, think about what the trigger is and when it happens.

Good luck!

In this Inc. Magazine interview by writer Clarissa Cruz, food blogger Deb Perelmen answers questions about what it takes to blog and how she grew her food blog into a (nearly) full-time career.

The recipe for building a successful blog is passion + dedication + time + consistency. A valuable lesson for any brand that wants to blog.

Read the interview here: Building a Successful Food Blog.