Buzzoodle is committed to helping clients improve lead generation. We have been doing it for many years successfully. But generating leads alone is no guarantee for success. In fact, many clients have thought they needed lead generation when in fact, they need to be better at turning their existing flow of leads into more sales.
One client we worked with had great lead generation, but they did not have sales people. Instead they did a round robin style of handing off leads to various engineers to write proposals. It is amazing the company ever converted a sale. The engineers did not want to write proposals so many of them would put it off, often losing the sale before ever getting a proposal out.
A hospital we worked with had assistants who answered the phone and would book appointments, but often people just wanted to talk to someone and get more information and were not ready to book an appointment. These leads, which were costly to generate, would rarely turn into procedures because of the lack of a process to help people go from lead to patient. Over time, we helped them improve the process, but it has never been as good as it could be.
Here are some things to think about to improve your current lead to sale conversion rate.
Minimize Hurdles – Minimizing hurdles is a broad category of things. Basically, you want to eliminate every non-essential barrier. Is your contract 10 pages? Reduce it to 2. Do people need to scan their ID and email it to you? Is it necessary? Do they need to meet with you for an hour? Will a quick phone call suffice?
Follow Up Quickly – If you can get leads in a text and follow up in seconds, you will convert many more leads to sales. Often the first business to respond gets the sale and the lead is less likely to want to talk to the third or forth company that calls them back.
Auto Respond – Auto responding with a text or email also helps close more sales. A good automatic message that tells people what to expect, how to get immediate service and where to find more information gets them more deeply engaged with you instead of looking for another vendor.
Offer Multiple Channels – Make sure it is clear how they can reach you in many different channels. Some people prefer a call while others prefer a chat on the website or email.
Lower Risk – Try to minimize the risk. Whether it is a money back guarantee or a trial period or samples, get people to feel like there is low risk to try your product or service.
Make a Personal Connection – This one is so overlooked. People buy from people they like, more often then not. When you follow up, do not waste people’s time but at the same time, take a moment or two to make a personal connection if you can. Ask open ended questions and let people talk a bit.
Training and Practice – Record sales calls. Do regular training and practice with your team to be sure they know how to handle objections or ask for the order.
Follow Up Regularly – Keep following up. This can be automated partially in any good CRM. Test different frequencies of following up as well to see if a particular rate performs better.
Track and Audit – Use a CRM and make sure you know your numbers. Regularly review performance and check for irregularities.
These are just some of the things you can do to improve conversion of your leads to sales. Lead Generation is an investment that will grow your business, but failure to have a good process to convert leads will cost you sales.