E154 – Signs That You Need to Audit Your Lead Process

Kicked off by Mat and his story of a leaking roof starts off the episode with a perfect example that just happened in recent weeks. Dave also had some water issues this year where he had trouble getting not the Marketing -> Sales handshake to work but just a good overall follow up experience.

Dave then digs into a Memorial Day Test that was the initial test that spurred this episode. To those four landscaping companies that were part of the test and the 2 that responded. Thank you! Also know that Dave does have the quotes and is looking to hopefully hire one of them later this summer for the project!

Form Thank You

If you have a lead form on your site or a contact form make sure that your form solution also sends a notification to that person to thank them or let them know that the form "worked".

Continued Communication

Do you keep the prospect or client alerted to any changes? It can be via email, text or a phone call but if there are updates or delays anywhere along the line do you communicate that?

There is a fine balance between not enough and too much but in most cases companies lean far into the "not enough" category. Of the 4 companies Dave contacted on Memorial Day only two really responded and one did a great job of that continued communication.

How to Increase Close Rates

Matt talks about his past Custom Mattress business and one of the things they quickly learned was that they had an almost 100% close rate if they could talk to a person right away.

If the phone is ringing, they would talk to them. If someone filled out a form they would try and get back within 30-60 minutes. Just fast responses would get them a leg up and a much better close rate.

Better Forms, Better Leads

There is and should be a balance between asking lots of questions on a form and trying to get as many people as possible to fill out a form.

Dave looks at NorthSide Metrics and Avalaunch to get a baseline and throw us under the bus (we both passed).

Then Dave went through the four forms from the Memorial Day test and walked through each of them. In general some were super basic with just name and contact but didn't ask for any real information. There were two that actually asked which services you wanted and left it open for additional information.

What does your form look like? Do you ask enough or too many questions?

Have a Lead Process

No matter your size, you need a lead process. The guys wrap up the episode talking about texting, lead process, marketing -> sales hand-off, customer service and really the whole funnel. Look at how and when you handle leads of any type and follow it through - where can you improve?

If you aren't sure how to test your lead process, ask a few friends to fill out leads or call in and test your process for you. Tell them to use fake names or to do it in some window so you aren't sure it is them, don't alert your staff and then test the process. Do you and the team miss something? Do you crush the follow-up or totally drop the ball?

Full Transcript

] Matt Siltala: [00:00:00] Welcome to another exciting episode of the business of digital podcast, featuring your host, Matt  and Dave roar. Hey guys, excited to have you join us here on another one of these episodes, grateful for you as always. And how's it going, sir?

Dave Rohrer: [00:00:17] Let's coffee.

Matt Siltala: [00:00:20] I got you right at the right time, but what we're going to do today guys is, uh, and here's the funny thing we were still trying to.

Figure out. Yeah, exactly. That's what we're trying to figure out what the title is going to be. But for all you listeners out there, it's going to be something related to, um, lead generation and you know, your followup with that. And I'm going to talk a lot about the local businesses and I like how you put a Dave, the, uh, the gap between the, the, uh, The owner and the marketing or the communication or lack thereof.

I can't