I have recently become a home gardener, and in this laborious task I have learned the principal of growing sales lead in the process. I finally decided to plant flowers and shrubs in my home landscaping where four years ago we had set bricks and mortar to form greenscape areas of the yard. After the initial build, I put off planting until four years later, and I realized I never got started with the project I initially meant to complete.

I guess I figured the flowers from the neighboring yards and the birds and bees would magically pollinate my dry dirt into a Garden of Eden. Unfortunately, this wasn't the case, and i have now planted a number of flowering bushes, roses, daisy, etc etc. In the evenings, while I am watering, I have had a lot of time to think, and in that thinking time I have been wondering how do I grow my business as I have grown this garden? Easy, all i had to do was look down at my flowering garden and efforts for the example.

Step 1: Plant something. All too often I have thought getting sales leads and business would grow organically without any intervention from me, but I am the direct sales channel needed to get the ball rolling. I need to get some new seed customers to use as references even if that means getting some pilots started to get customers to recommend my services to their peers, so I have to get moving.

Step 2: Focus on the ROI. For the longest time I thought i would spend hundreds or even a thousand dollars on planting my landscape. In the end I spent $156.00, a tenth of what I originally had expected. With that little amount of money I was able to landscape the entire front lawn. For GTGweb, I have joined numerous Linkedin groups and began using twitter, total cost 1 hour of my time a day,and the total return is I have created ten leads for several of my businesses, and these are better than any mailer, Google ads, or cold calls would have produced.

Step 3: Water the plants. I spend every afternoon watering my garden, and now I spend the same time watering my leads. In this time of economic downturn, the personal touch and contacts are what are making the sales now. Relationship building and recommendations are how I will grow my businesses over the next two years.

I hope you can find some truth in my blog, and I can definitely testify to you that it will take less effort thank you think to grow your business so get planting!

Have a great week!

Thanks
Abel