The reality is most leads you receive are not ready to buy. It gets less encouraging when you consider these stats:
Only 24 percent of sales emails get opened.
It takes an average of 18 calls to connect with a buyer.
The average person deletes 48 percent of the emails they receive each day.
The average person checks for messages on their smartphone on average 150 times a day.
The average mobile phone session averages a mere one minute and 10 seconds, dozens and dozens of times per day.
It's fair to say we are bombarded with messages.
So what does it take to convert leads into sales?
Following are 8 ideas:
- Converting comes down to nurturing. The buyer is in control, not the seller. I cannot convince you to buy another TV. You will buy a TV when you are ready. The key is to be top of mind for when your buyer is ready. You do this by providing relevant, personal, and timely content over and over again.
- - Make it easy to buy. When we are ready to buy, we don't like to wait. Making buying an experience and make it easy.
- - Real-person engagement helps convert people. Make it easy for a person to engage you from their mobile device or desktop computer. I like tools like Intercom.
- - Engage your customers on social media. Entertain them and help them solve their problem and see you as the expert. Remember, permission is an investment.
- - When it comes to sales, hire talent and those who can lead. Have salespeople sell, support team support. If you have a "C" player selling, don't expect "A" results. I like to explain it using an illustration from John Maxwell on the Law of the Lid. If you can get a handle on this law, you will see an incredible impact on sales (and leadership on every aspect of life). So here it is: leadership ability is the lid that determines a person's level of effectiveness. The lower an individual's ability to lead, the lower the lid on his or her potential.To give an example, if your leadership rates an 8, then your effectiveness can never be higher than a 7. If your leadership is only a 4, then your effectiveness will be no higher than a 3. Your leadership ability --- for better or worse --- always determines your effectiveness and the potential impact on sales in your company.An excellent tool I have used over the years to help my clients determine if a person can lead and perform effectively is the Style of Influence. I highly recommend this tool.
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- Build a list. When I first began in online marketing, I realized pretty quick the value of a subscriber list. In fact, I've become obsessed with growing my list. I have observed one simple fact: as your list grows, so do your leads and your income. The bigger your list, the more money you will make.
- - Automate the process. Align the buyers buying process with your selling process. Go through this process by continually asking, "What happens next?"
- - Boost your marketing with highly interactive online calls-to-action. When a person completes a call-to-action that delivers value and helps a prospective customer self-qualify themselves you have a high probability of converting that lead into a sale. Be sure you have the right sales "leader" in place to convert that lead into a sale.
