Leads are the lifeblood of any business and you can never have too many of them.

Like a car can’t run without gas, or a human can’t live without food a business needs an ongoing stream of incoming leads in order to grow.

But does that mean ‘more leads’ is always the answer?

What about the leads you are already getting. What exactly (and I mean exactly) is happening to those?

Most businesses believe their inbound leads are being followed up correctly.

However, when we audit the process, most are shocked to realise how many opportunities are missed by leads not being followed up properly.

Often this is just a matter of oversight and sometimes it’s a symptom of the fact that the person paying for the leads (the boss) is not the person following up the leads (the salesperson).

When the boss follows up the leads, every one of them gets called. They get called immediately and they get called repeatedly until each customer either buys or dies.

Yet when a salesperson follows up the leads, often they become “Sh*t leads”, and you hear excuses like “They weren’t interested” or “I couldn’t get a hold of them”.

When all of the excuse making is done, usually they will tell you they need more leads to do their job.

That maybe true, but before rushing to spend more money on marketing to send a salesperson more leads – first check that they are following these 3 simple rules:

3 Rules For Maximising Lead Conversion…

There have been some great study’s featured in the Harvard Business Review done by Inside Sales and Lead Response Management about how to follow up internet leads.

Here are our 3 simple rules as a result of their findings:

Rule #1 - Call Them

  • The most common method for first response to an online enquiry was to send the lead an email.
  • Only 28.6% of leads were first responded to by phone, even though calls are more likely to turn into a sale.
  • 77.17% of leads never received a phone call
  • 50% of leads were not responded to at all
  • So in summary, make sure every single lead is being contacted by phone.

Rule #2 - Call Them Immediately

  • If you contact leads within the first 5 minutes of their enquiry you get a 900% increase in contact rate.
  • After the first 5 minutes your chances of making contact drop by 10X
  • This isn't in the data, but our experience tells us this is largely because by that time they will already be speaking to someone else.
  • The real problem with this is what psychologists refer to as anchoring.
  • The idea being that buyers will 'anchor' to the information or the supplier they speak to first and are more likely to buy from them.
  • As a side note, the guy who discovered this won a Nobel Prize but you don't have to be a genius to know 'it's a thing'.
  • The average phone response time is 44 hours.
  • Only 4.7% of companies achieve the optimal 5-minute window (no surprises, these are the companies that get the deal)
  • Meaning if you ensure all of your sales leads are called within 5 minutes you will instantly out convert 95% of your competitors.

Rule #3 - Keep Calling Them.

  • Your chance of making contact with a lead on the first attempt is 11%
  • Your chances of making contact with a lead by the 6th call SHOOTS UP to 90%
  • The percentage of sales reps that try six times is only 3%
  • If you ensure your sales leads are all called at least 6 times you will automatically outsell 97% of your competition.

Hope this helps and happy selling.