The Top Tips for Making the Most of Your Leads

by | Mar 17, 2012

Bringing in leads is not an easy task. If you’ve made the investment of resources that it takes to pull in a consistent steam of new leads, you don’t want to waste a single one of them. In order to ensure no leads go to waste, here are the top tips for making the most of them:

 

Follow Up: Although it may seem like a no-brainer, far too many businesses fail to properly follow up with their leads. For example, I was recently talking to someone who runs a fitness boot camp. This individual has invested a lot into optimizing his website for search engines and conversions. As a result, he’s now bringing in a steady flow of leads. However, once we started talking about the specifics of how he handles his leads, I realized that he’s missing out on a ton of potential clients by not following up with those who don’t immediately schedule a free session. As I told him, lots of things can happen that prevent a lead from taking the next step, so make sure you plug this potential leak by always following up.

 

Make a Plan for Missed Contacts: There are some situations where although a lead is interested in doing business with your company, you or the team member responsible for getting in touch with them simply keeps missing them. Whether it’s phone calls or emails, several misses can cause a lead to be put on the back-burner or completely discarded. Unfortunately, this type of lapse can result in wasted leads. If you want to avoid this mistake, you need to come up with a concrete plan of action for how to deal with missed contacts.

 

Ensure Your Whole Team Uses the Same Criteria: Deciding that it’s time to add more members to your sales team is always a good sign for business. The one downside to expanding is it can cause confusion and miscommunication across your team. A common example is team members using different standards for when they decide to mark a lead as unqualified. If not everyone on your team is on the same page, it can result in leads being discarded when they are actually still valid. Fortunately, there are two fairly simple steps you can take to fix this issue. In addition to taking the time to create across the board standards for your whole team, using a cloud based CRM will allow you to provide an environment that doesn’t require any extra work for your team members to stay in sync with each other.

 

Don’t Be Afraid to Pick Up the Phone: Automating your sales process is a powerful thing. However, it’s important to remember that automation does not necessarily mean eliminating the phone from your arsenal of tools. Instead, you will likely get the best results from using automated processes to ensure that you never miss an opportunity to use the phone to touch base with a lead.

 

How many new leads do you try to bring in each month?