What Do You Do With Your Leads?

“People are not ready to buy when you are ready to sell”

-Zig Zigglar

Studies show that only 3% of any market is ready to buy, yes pull the trigger, at any given time. No wonder our interruptive advertising, direct mail, email blast only garner a <1 font="font" rate.="rate." response="response">

Here is the other dilemma that is working against your marketing/sales program – the leads we get from our efforts are not followed up. We, all of us, tend to follow up once or twice, if they are not ready to buy or can’t tell us when they will be ready we put them in a pile and never contact them again.

Studies prove this.

To summarize my favorite one:

• 80% of the sales are made between the 5^th and 12^th contact
• Only 10% of companies follow up  more than 3 times

I think you see the big disconnect. These “leads” that many call “tire kickers”, because they aren’t ready to buy right now will buy at some point in the future. They are doing research, looking around or they would not have said “yes” to your offer or call to action, searched your website or dropped by the store.

If we are not top of mind when they are ready to buy then they will buy from someone else.

Thus a really effective marketing plan includes a Marketing Machine, an automated follow up, nurturing system to make sure we stay in front of these leads so when the time comes they will think of us. We will have built the trust necessary for them to buy from us.

How do we do that? Via what I call “TIPS”. These can be short emails with videos, text, audios, etc . that are bits of relevant information that address their pains and fears. Simple, but informative.

(Like you are reading right now)

Absolutely no sales. I mean no sales, no offers, no coupons, no calls to action. The minute they see a hint of this they will never read one again. Remember we are trying to build trust here and stay “ top of mind” with these people over a long period of time. That means stick to serving them with good, relevant information they can use.

Here is an example of one of my client's TIPS – the template is easy to build in Constant Contact. Then, over time, begin writing the TIPS and put them in a queue to go out in a consistent interval like weekly, bi weekly, monthly. You don’t have to build them all at once do one a week and soon you will have a whole queue built.

Be there when people are ready to buy, not just when you are trying to sell. Nurture your leads.

Rick Wallace

84% of Sales Are Word of Mouth

"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."  

- Maya Angelou, Poet 

Referrals are something we all talk about but never seem to put any focus on. Reviews on our Google Places pages, testimonials, etc. are all the single most important part of a true Marketing Machine. Below is a short article by Brain Tracy about "word of mouth advertising", and see my presentation on the subject of creating a "Formal Referral  Program". It is simple and quick but it takes some focused effort - an investment that will payoff in rapid growth.    

From Brian Tracy:

Did you know that 84 percent of sales in America take place as the result of word-of-mouth advertising?

Some of the most important sales promotion sales activities are those that take place between customers and prospects, between friends and colleagues, in the form of advice and recommendations on what to buy, or not buy, and who to buy from. What does this mean for you?

It means that the only way that you can be among the top ten percent of salespeople in your industry is by having your existing customers selling for you on every occasion. Because of the importance of mega-credibility in selling, your customers must be happy to open doors to new customers for you wherever they go.

Never Prospect Again

All top salespeople eventually reach the point where they seldom have to prospect because their customers do much of their selling for them. When you live your life consistent with your personal and business mission statements, both fitting together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, your sales career will soar, as will your sales results and your earnings.

Be Clear About Who You Are

One important point with regard to vision, values and mission statements: be gentle with yourself. It has taken you your whole life to become the person you are today. If you are like everyone else, you are not perfect. You have lots of room to grow and improve. There are many changes that you can make in your character and personality in the course of becoming the excellent human being that you aspire to. But change in your personality will not come easily, and it won't come overnight. You must be patient.

Persist Until Your Succeed
The reason that people grow and become better and better over the course of time, is because they persist gently in the direction of their goals and dreams. They don't expect overnight transformations. When they don't see results immediately, they don't get discouraged. They just keep on keeping on. And you must do the same.

All the best,

Rick Wallace 

A Man And His Dogs

  "The secret of business, especially these days, is to focus relentlessly on
your unfair advantage - the thing you do that others don't." 
- John Rollwagen, Executive

   

 "People who have a "job" will work for money, people who believe what you believe will give you their blood, sweat and tears."

 - Simon Sintek

What is your unfair advantage?

What the heck can Facebook do for me and my business?

How can having a passion for what I do and understanding my Why, my Core Purpose of being in business, help me grow my business?

Recently, I met a 57 year-old business owner, who has built and sold two other businesses, and then found the one that allows him to live his Core Purpose every hour of the day.

He has embraced social media as a tool to allow him to build a "tribe" of followers and a business that is thriving with recurring Ideal Customers and attracting new ones every month. This is just a tool he is using to communicate what he believes.

Meet J.J. Valone, owner of Pheasants On the Flats in Batavia, New York. Joe sent me an email after I visited the other day complete with photos of my friend and his dog. In that email Joe said:

"I am simply among the richest men in the world. The smiles and friendships are priceless!  I truly want to see the Flats always provide a "quality outdoor experience" for many years to come."

Another quote that day from him was:

"You have to remember the dog's name when they drive up. If you forget the person's name it is okay, as long as you remember their dog's name."

If you want to see how Facebook should really work take a look at his facebook page.  

Look at his website and you will see the same. It all oozes with his passion and his Core Purpose "to see people and their dogs enjoy the outdoors and each other."

Click on the About Us page and the Your Host. 

You can do this for your business - this can be your unfair advantage - find your Core Purpose and communicate it to your Ideal Customers and Prospects - build your own tribe by telling them what you believe. If they believe what you believe they will stay with you forever.

 

All the best,

Rick Wallace 

Emergency Room Doctors

"Some of us will do our jobs well and some will not,
but we will be judged by only one thing - the result." 
- Vince Lombardi



What is it we reward? Is it activity, being busy? What should we reward? Results?

From Seth Godin:

Emergency room doctors.

 

It's a mindset, not just a job. 

You can pitch them as hard as you like about having them work to persuade their patients to give up smoking (after all, it saves lives in the long run), but I think you'll find that they're a lot more interested in stopping the bleeding.

We need emergency room doctors, no doubt. I just wonder if we have too many of them in your organization. (Editorial from Rick: Or do you perform like one every day and thus promote this mindset?) If all we do is reward fast first aid in what people do at work, is it any wonder we don't have enough attention to the strategy, habits and choices that would eliminate the need for all that running around in the first place?

It helps to know how prevalent the "emergency room" culture is before you start training your people on a new long-term strategy.  

  

All the best,

Rick Wallace 

Your Most Important Client

"There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently

that which should not be done at all."    

- Peter Drucker

 

One of my clients who has been overwhelmed with business, personal and volunteer work needed a little dose of commitment to saying no to some things, blocking her calendar and focusing on The Right Things, the Rocks that will help her reach her goals.

We discussed and agreed that a blocked hour-just for her to work on Rocks, things that would make her business better - was as important as any client meeting.  This takes a commitment to one's self. She had to stay committed to stop, focus and not let distractions get in the way. She agreed that even her best client walking in the door while she had her door closed working on a Rock could be handled in a way that the client was served and left happy. Finally, she said "You are right I will put a sign up on my door to remind me I'm my "Most Important Client".

See Steve Chandler's insights below:

"It is hard to work with others if you don't have time to talk to them.
 
And as David Allen says: "You have more to do than you can possibly do. You just need to feel good about your choices."

Multi-tasking is the greatest myth in modern-day life. The brain itself does not multi-task, and so people do not really multi-task. The human system is not set up that way. The system has one thought at a time.

And, as business efficiency expert Kerry Gleeson has noted, "The constant, unproductive preoccupation with all the things we have to do is the single largest consumer of time and energy."

People who find joy in their work find ways to relax into an extremely purposeful day, goal-oriented and focused on the highest-priority activity. They can think at any given moment: "Sure I get distracted, and sure some people call, problems come up. But I know what to return to. Because I know my purpose. Because I chose it."