THE IMPORTANCE OF of Following Up on Leads
If you’re a business owner seeking to climb your way to the next level of success, there are three questions youmust ask yourself. The answers will determine whether your company grows dramatically over the next few years— resulting in a pool of hundred-dollar bills —or whether you’ll still be sitting in a dinky office, wondering why the phone isn’t ringing. Consider these questions as if they were a bridge troll standing between you and the glories of success. First, howmany prospects did your business generate last month? Second, howmany of these prospects made a purchase, converting them from a prospect to a customer? Third, howmany times did you contact the prospects that didn’t buy?
That means that 85 percent of the future value of all your leads is at least 90 days out. When it comes to nurturing leads, you need to follow up relentlessly. That doesn’t mean badgering your prospects to the point of insanity, but it does mean following up regularly. Your first call shouldn’t be the be-all and end-all contact. Just because a lead isn’t ready to buy now doesn’t mean they won’t be later. Instead, it should be an assessment call, for segmenting them into different branches and timelines for future selling. There may be no exact way to predict when a customer will make the decision to purchase, but the more motivated they are to buy, the more frequent and personal the communication will become.
the concept of single entry, the concept of a single screen for information entry, ideally using a single screen to input information. With this approach, you cut down on the team’s back-and-forth communication. You also allow for a central place to not only bring data in and get it to where it needs to go. Identifying the information teammembers need in and out of the office should be one of the first steps in implementing any CRM. To do that, you need to understand what they actually do throughout the day. And you can’t just take your team’s word on what they do or the information they need; you need to see it firsthand by spending time with your people in the field. Once you understand what information is needed, there are four functions that exist to provide you this easy access. We’ve also included an example of how these features can improve your process. 1. Searching —Quickly and easily search for anything that you need. For example, salesperson searches the customers assigned to them. This last query is the key. If you answered No. 3 with“only once or twice,”then it’s into the no- money pit with you. In fact, when confronted with this question, almost every business owner would fail the test. According to a study conducted by SiriusDecisions, the average salespersonmakes only two attempts to contact a prospect. After that, they hang themout to dry. Like all CEOs, you spend a lot on new leads. The thought of a salesperson giving up so easily shouldmake you more than a little frustrated. Moen Faucets conducts“Did you Buy?”surveys every month, collecting data on their customers and presenting it for their peers. Via those surveys, they’ve discovered that, on average, only 15 percent of customers who request information from the company make a purchase inside the faucet category—not necessarily with Moen— within the first 90 days of requesting information.
Don’t throw away old leads as if they were spoiled fruit. Keep in contact and watch the money start flowing in. HOW TO ACHIEVE EASY ACCESS Getting Information to Your People
2. Pinning — Save your searches and pull them back up for a single click. For example, the salesperson saves and pins that list based on territory, creating an easily accessible page. 3. Filtering — Hone down your saved/pinned list without performing additional searches. For example, the employee sees relevant customers quickly, without having to search again. 4. Automating —The delivery of critical information and alerts. For example, you receive a list of overdue customers every week. It’s crucial that you identify the information your team needs, and set up fast, easy ways to access it. Additionally, being able to filter it is key, because you cannot come up with every list or scenario a team member might need. Narrowing large amounts of data down to smaller lists that can be filtered save time. Additionally, sorting out what team members need each week makes their job more efficient. All of these goals can be accomplished with Handle.
CRMprovides a centralized location for information that’s easily accessible by members of your organization. Companies often overlook how advantageous a repository the information your team needs can be without any other functionality. With the proper integration of information from other systems into a CRM, you lay the foundation for later successes. The goal is to provide the information your team needs no matter where they are at, and make it extremely fast to access. The wrong way to approach integration of your customer data into a CRM is to create multiple systems that put the same data in more than one place. Complication is the opposite of what you should seek to achieve. Instead, create a sensible workflow, to quickly access what is needed with minimal searches and clicks. Later we will discuss
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