Small Business

Follow the lead

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by Peter Switzer

Doing the pitch, marketing your business or simply talking about your business is always a lot easier than actually getting customers to part with money and sign on the dotted line.

So, if ever there was an area where everyone in business needs to put in the hard yards, it’s lead conversion. In case you’re not comfortable with sales lingo, when you do something to bring in potential customers it’s called lead generation.

Playing to win

Consider it like a baseball coming in at you and you’re fortunate enough to be getting a chance to bat. If you pull off the sale, it’s a home run. On the other hand, if you don’t make the sale, as they say in the cliché world: “You’ve struck out.”

Once you’ve created a great, systemised business stocked with the right people, your main game is to bring the leads in and then for your people or you, depending on your business size, to do the business. (Don’t you love the sales clichés? They’re so positive and being positive is vital in this lead conversion game.)

Hit the right note

One thing I have learnt in all my years in business is that it’s not just about bringing the leads in and simply converting them. The conversion result ultimately is linked to the calibre of the lead generation.

Imagine, you targeted the perfect audience for your service. You then conceived the perfect advertising pitch that completely hit a chord with the consumers you were chasing — and the phone rang hot. Then to complete this wonderful dream, when customers came in, they virtually said: “where do I pay”?

The great American writer and poet Dorothy Parker reckons the best two words in the English language are: “Cheque enclosed.” I’d argue the best four words I can hear in business are: “Where do I pay?” These are the precious words of lead conversion, so let’s see how we can improve the processes to boost our run rate.

Practice what you preach

The starting point has to have a very positive, cooperative attitude. Imagine yourself and your company’s offering being the opposite of those salespeople that make your cringe. Customers have to want to do business with you and they’ll do that if you solve their problems, wants or needs.

In business nowadays ‘partnering’ is the buzz word and it’s spot on for describing what our intent should be to maximise conversions. This concept marries in nicely with relationship selling and we all know how easy it is to sell to people who you know well and where you have a great track record of delivering.

Education the key

The great sellers tell me, and I have seen it work in my own business time and time again, that if you educate your potential customer about your product or service you travel to conversion county.

Harvard marketing professor Theodore Levitt made a point that we all must never forget, that no-one really goes to a hardware store for a drill. They go because they want to make a hole.

None of my customers want a financial plan – the plans are too thick, have too many numbers and charts ¬– but they do want the peace of mind that the plan promises.

Catering to customers

Sales guru Jay Abraham thinks many of us put roadblocks in front of customers that stops them from buying from us. When you don’t offer the things customers want – such as money back guarantees, speedy service or absolutely the best quality – you make lead generation harder and conversion even harder again.

Tim Shaw, who’s famous for that one line: “But wait there’s more..” when fronting the Demtel television commercials, once explained the value of the money-back guarantee. He said the promise was a great deal clincher and the returns were unbelievably small, in the low single digit area!

Clearly, the lead generation process – ads, public relations, direct mail, giveaways, etc. ¬– conveys the promises about your products or services and if it’s really good, it will deliver near converted customers who have the money to pay. The textbooks call these people ‘qualified’ leads and they’re pretty special people.

Serving an ace

OK, this is a great start but then your conversion process mustn’t blow it. So, how do you deliver the killer blow? Sorry, that’s inappropriate imagery — let’s try it again. How do you deliver the loving product or service?

Like it or not, the loving imagery is relevant. Kevin Roberts, boss of ad agency Satchi & Satchi, told me on my Talking Business program on Qantas, that many of the big brands in the world are loved by their customers. Anyone who knows Mac users or VW bug drivers has seen first hand how committed customers can become. That has to be our goal, to make customers love us to massive profits.

Emotional intelligence

The promise of love or at least a trusting relationship in your lead generation will bring in the great potential customers but your lead conversion process must stand the eyeball test.

Here emotion competes with the serious assessment test before the hand reaches for the wallet, the chequebook or the credit card. This is where the psychographic package of what your business looks like, how your staff are dressed, the scripts your staff use, the systems you have in place and the feeling your business imparts to your customers’ logical senses will determine whether you get the business or not.

Know your customers

The great lead converters really know their customers and that comes from great research. Abraham gives sound advice, which most of us either forget about or simply complacently ignore, when he told me: “Never stop probing for customer response.”

To get lead conversion right, you need to know what the main drivers behind a customer’s decision to say, “Yes”. These drivers include:
•   The truth or facts
•   Simplifying the complex
•   Guidance
•   Explaining the important
•   Showing the way
•   Help with a challenging task
•   Delivering comfort.

Beyond the sale

Ultimately, you want to get the customer across the line but you also want them to be a customer for life and that’s why your conversion process has to be supersonically professional.

Scripts should be designed for everyone in sales or more correctly lead conversion so that they are professional and they deal with the key drivers that could make or break the deal.

But you still have to stay in touch with your emotions and those scripts should be aligned with the dreams, hopes and aspirations customers have had for you when they decided to test you out as a partner in their life or their business.

Love, actually

As the lawyer from that great Aussie film The Castle advised: “It’s the vibe.” The seller has to view the customer as someone they’re going to form a relationship with to satisfy their needs and wants. I don’t want to get too mushy but it does sound awfully like love, doesn’t it?

One thing is for certain, if you can power your lead conversion process to emulate the great love brands of the world such as Qantas and the city of Paris, you’ll be flying high in business and you won’t be kissing customers and profits au revoir!

Published on: Sunday, June 28, 2009