PRACTICE CORNER FROM THE
The Money Is in the Follow-Up!
Most professionals (except our members, of course!) don’t have a system for following up with their leads and prospects. After a marketing team gets an inquiry, if the prospect doesn’t convert right away into a paying client, then most teams stop marketing to them. Think about this: If you’ve paid $200 to get the phone to ring and get a qualified prospect who didn’t hire you right then and there, then all that means is that the prospect was not ready to buy at that time. It doesn’t mean that they will never be ready to buy. Most people need to see, hear, or read your marketing message seven times before your marketing message begins to register in their awareness. Some argue that figure is closer to 20 times. This is because we are bombarded with 6,000–10,000 ads every single day. There are many things that go into a successful marketing campaign, but consistency and persistence rank near the top. When embarking on an advertising campaign, either offline or online, you must give it time to work. You can’t run radio or Google AdWords campaigns and stop after a few weeks because you didn’t get a call. What it means is the prospect hasn’t heard it enough times to register and/or you may need to modify the message, the offer, the call to action, or something else in the ad and keep testing until it works. The ugly truth of the matter is around 85%–90% of your leads will never become clients. That’s just how the math works out. The other 10%–15% will either buy at the first contact or up to 180 days thereafter. I had two systems (or sales funnels, if you will) that were running full time. One was for leads, and one was for qualified prospects who I had already met or spoken to who I knew I could help. A “lead” is an inbound inquiry via email or phone call. A “qualified prospect” is someone you’ve had an initial consultation with and who didn’t hire you — yet. Qualified prospects who I knew I could help went into my “180 day, 7-step snail mail and email” sequence. I sprinkled in some phone calls in there as well. I did this for a couple of reasons. First, it was extremely inexpensive to follow up with these, and second, I knew,
AWARENESS Follow up, follow up, follow up
through experience, that 67% of the people I spoke with who didn’t hire me on the spot became a client between 7–180 days after the initial consultation. Think about it … 67%! The money in the tax resolution business is in the follow-up. As for leads, people who reached out to us but we haven’t spoken to, they went into an auto-dialer system and were called up to seven times in an attempt to get them back on the phone or in the office for their initial consultation. If someone doesn’t hire you on the first touch, then remember to follow up, follow up and follow up. You’ll be glad you did.
–Michael Rozbruch
888.670.0303 • 3
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