I was speaking with a business owner today who relayed to me a situation which I hear all too often. He was having trouble meeting his goals and growing his business to the level he desired, yet he was successful in networking and in generating leads for his business. The trouble was certainly not getting leads, as he had thousands of those. The situation was that he was not converting these leads as efficiently as he could have been. Notice I am not referring to any of this as a problem. This guy is sitting on thousands of opportunities! Where’s the problem in that?
The two most common sales challenges I encounter are around lead generation and lead conversion. Lead generation can be quickly improved, most often just by doing the activity. There are means of improving your lead generation methods and if you are interested, I encourage you to check out my most recent webinar: Growth Mindset Lead Generation. Lead conversion on the other hand often suffers, because it can be an incredibly long play, in some industries, and requires you to be extremely organized and systematized.
Lead generation brings out our primal instincts as hunters and gatherers. We have our skills sharpened, our scripts studied, and we are prepared to chase down our prey, overcome their objections, and close the deal. If they buy from us right away, it’s a win! We return proudly to our village carrying the trophy of our hunt and bask in our own glory.
The trouble is that not all sales happen on the first contact. If we are astute enough to know that the lead we are working will be an eventual sale, we take good notes, file them away in our card box, enter them in our CRM, or scrawl them on a napkin. It’s not uncommon to feel a bit defeated if we don’t get the sale on our first attempt. This is often the most pivotal point where fortunes can be made or lost.
To only pursue leads who convert to closed sales on our first contact is an incredibly quick way to burn yourself out by doing a lot of activity with little return. I was speaking with a friend whose business generates and cultivates leads for the car sales industry. Their industry average conversion ratios are incredibly challenging. Only 13% of their leads who at one point expressed interest in buying a car actually complete the purchase. To compound that further, he found it takes, on average, 35 contacts with that lead before they make that purchase!!! If you stopped after the first contact with each lead, you’d never sell a car!
There are two main challenges which stand in the way of effective lead conversion. The first is mindset and the second is systems.
Mindset
We can be our own worst enemies when it comes to following up with our leads. We get in our heads and tell ourselves that we are bothering people and we are afraid to upset them. We also don’t see the same excitement in continuing to pursue the same lead, when we could be lucky enough to catch the unicorn who buys on the first contact. Like the patient farmer who turns their soil over in the fall, plants their seeds in the early spring, and waters bare dirt each day of summer until we see growth, we too must cultivate our business if we want a bountiful Fall harvest.
Systems
Systems are the next challenge in effective lead follow-up. How do you record your leads. One question I hear often from business owners is: What is the best CRM? My answer: The one you use! There’s no doubt using AI and automated processes will help you leverage your time and stay in front of your people, however, there is no replacement for the human touch. You should be interacting with your leads, current clients, past clients, referral sources, and strategic alliances on a regular basis and it should be personal. When Gary Keller, the CEO of Keller Williams Realty began, he used a recipe card box with tabs for the different months of the year inside. When it was August, he opened the tab to that month and pulled out each card, which contained one client and their information, who needed contact from him that month. Once he made contact and updated his card, he would stick the card in the tab for the next month that person needed to be contacted. Simple and effective.
Systems extend far beyond the vehicle which contains your leads. Remember the business owner I referenced earlier? The one with thousands of leads? He had a great way to store, file, and sort his leads, however, he lacked the systems to follow up with them. Your business will dictate the message you send to your clients, however, it is good practice to routinely contact your leads and clients to stay front of mind. Not every contact needs to be a personal phone call, however, if you systematize properly, you can easily mix in a minimum of four phone calls each year, per client.
Developing an effective means of following up with your leads can drastically increase your revenues, without increasing your lead generation activities and marketing expenses. If you are ready to review yours and find the opportunity which will grow your conversions, schedule a free business assessment with me so we can get you started cultivating your business.
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