I wanted to bring Wayne Herring, my business coach, in because so much of what we do at Ramblin Jackson and so much of what my book is about is getting found and generating leads, but if you don't convert those leads, if you don't nurture them and convert them into a sale, then your marketing isn't really very effective. Wayne specializes in improving a business' sales process and always takes a high look at things. So, today, we're going to share and clip from an interview that I did with Wayne about some ways that you can lead a better sales team.
There's two pieces that I really work with business owners on. One is the selling, the sales process itself. Then the other piece is getting other people to help you do that work, getting salespeople and helping those salespeople to be effective. So, your question about what are the problems that come up with the actual business owners and then as they transition into salespeople, there's commonality there for sure. Business owners often go through this transition, and then so do their salespeople.
One of the first things is that leads come in, that you spend time, you spend money building a website, or content, or advertising, whatever it is that you do, leads come in and it just takes too long before somebody replies to them. I think it's common knowledge that you should reply to leads quickly. Yet, it often doesn't happen. So, that's one thing for sure.
- Wayne Herring
Respond to new leads and calls quickly
One of the things I mention in my book is that responding to leads within an hour increases your chance of making the sale by seven times. That's from a study from a business journal where they surveyed a lot of different sales processes. In something like an emergency fix, like an emergency restoration, or plumbing, or if people's furnace is out or their air conditioning is out, they're going to Google. A lot of times if you don't answer, even if you have a referral ... Maybe you ask your neighbor, "Hey, who worked on your furnace?" "Oh, you've got to call Larry's Furnace Company." If you dropped the ball and don't answer or get back to them quickly, chances are they'll pick somebody else that they find online. If they answer quickly, they're more likely to make the sale.
If you can't be there to answer the phone, pay for an answering service
One service we actually recommend at Ramblin Jackson, and I actually use it in my own company, is called Call Ruby. Call Ruby is a service ... like right now I have my phone on Airplane Mode, because I'm here with you in the interview. If somebody calls me, the call gets answered by a real human at Call Ruby and they have a little script. Now I can at least collect their info and maybe it pass it on to a team member or someone else. If you guys want to check that out, you can save on your setup at callruby.com/ramblin.
Just because you didn't answer right away doesn't mean you shouldn't follow up
One thing that happens is sometimes business owners or salespeople in their mind think, "The stats say if I didn't get back to them within an hour, forget it." Then it completely falls off the face of the earth. Oftentimes, there's more to that stat, like that the likelihood of them to buy goes down. If you don't get to it until a day later, you still need to call them back. If they reached out to you, pursue them. If they've raised their finger, their hand, pursue them until they say, "No, I found somebody else," and try to make a connection. I've found sometimes calling people a week later when they say they hired someone else, "Hey, how did that go?" "Oh, well they actually didn't show up." "Oh, well we're available today," kind of thing.
Join me on Thursday, June 21st in Boulder at the Book Launch Party!
The party is from 4:30pm to 7:30pm with the Boulder Chamber at the Bohemian Biergarten to get a signed print copy of the book (when you pre-order it on Amazon before the event) + network with my top clients and contacts in the community.
Limited spots are available so Reserve Your Spot at ramblinjackson.com/booklaunch/
Preorder my book before Friday, June 22nd for over $500 in Bonuses!
Pre-order the book on Amazon and forward your email receipt to bonus@ramblinjackson.com before June 22nd at midnight to receive over $500 in bonuses including Wayne's full interview, all the swipe files, checklists, cheat sheets, and templates + guides from the book that will show you how to convert all the leads the book will help you get into paying customers.
