One of the biggest obstacles for entrepreneurs looking to grow their small business is automating their sales and marketing processes. A lot of small business owners and marketers will go through the motions and do sales and marketing "things." However, these are often fragmented, inconsistent, and fail to mesh together to create an intentional customer journey and conversion machine. It can be an extremely overwhelming endeavor for even the most seasoned of entrepreneurs.

Here at Keap, we have worked hard with thousands of small businesses to create something to help clear up the confusion: the Perfect Customer Lifecycle.

The Perfect Customer Lifecycle (PCL) is an ideal end-to-end customer journey, beginning when someone first learns about your company and continues in the relationship with you even after they've purchased from you. PCL helps to focus any sales and marketing efforts on eliminating lost traffic, lost leads, and lost customers while providing an amazing customer experience to drive repeat business and referrals.

Part of the PCL is knowing where to start. As the metaphorical elephant on your plate, you can't take on the whole thing in one bite. It helps to have a priority path-a series of "baby steps" to act on and implement the tactics that are most important to your business.

The following is a description of the priority path, eight simple tried-and-true steps you can follow to prioritize your small business' sales and marketing processes:

1. Start with your current list
2. Focus on your existing online traffic
3. Ramp up your customer experience
4. Ask customers for referrals
5. Upsell to existing customers
6. Make it easier to purchase
7. Nurture your prospects and customers
8. Generate new traffic