Podcast Episode

TRANSCRIPT

Hey, hey! And welcome back to the sales show. I'm your host, Maree Kirkpatrick. And let me ask you something. How many sales do you think you have missed out on in the past 6 months, 12 months, or even the past 30 days? Not many people ask themselves this question, and I really want you to think about it. How many people have inquired about your offer, joined into your database signed up to your email list? They said that they were interested. And then, Nada crickets. It happens I've also seen people that will book a call sound, super keen, and then ghost you before making the payment, or they say, yes, they're really interested. And when you send them the email to join or fill in the paperwork or anything along those lines, you just never hear back from them. 

Now, if you don't have a sales process in place that captures, nurtures and follow ups with these leads. I guarantee you are losing sales without even realizing it. And look, I get it. Most business owners don't think that they have a lead problem, or they think that their problem is not enough leads coming in. or they also think if someone's really serious, they'll come back, or if they really want it, they'll come back and chat to me and reach out when they're ready. Wrong. The reality is, leads don't just fall out of the sky with ready to buy customers. Sometimes they do but realistically they don't. And so they really need nurturing. They need reminders. They need touch points. They need a process that guides them from. I'm interested to. Here's my card. I'm ready to go. Let's freaking. Do this. 

And today I'm going to make sure that you have that process. So today we are talking about lost leads and lost sales, and how to build a sales process that captures every opportunity, whether people are ready to buy or they're just inquiring at the moment. We want to make sure that they're not falling through the cracks. So I'm going to break this episode up into 3 parts. The 1st is, how do you actually know if you've got a lost lead problem? Because you may be listening to this thinking, well, yeah, maybe we've lost like one or 2. But is it really a problem? Because let's be real? There's probably lost leads that you do, have. You haven't actually stopped and thought about it. So that's going to be part one. The second part is going to be how we actually set up a process that catches every opportunity so that nothing slips through the cracks. And then the 3rd part is, what do we actually do when leads do go silent, and how can we bring them back and re-engage them. 

This is going to be a game changer for your business, so stick with me and let's get into it. So all right, let's get real. For a moment. You might be listening, thinking, Maree, I don't have a lost lead problem. People either buy or they don't. I'm not going to follow up. If people, my ideal client and they're ready to buy, they'll let me know. or when they've got the money they'll come back keyword story, not reality, that is actually going through their head. But here's how to know for sure. If you're letting cells slip through your fingers. 

Red flag number one is that you get inquiries or people are engaging with your social media, or they're joining your database. But you're getting hardly any sales. So that that conversion isn't necessarily happening. People are reaching out. They're asking you about your offers. They're inquiring they're opting in for your lead magnets or your freebies, or those value juicy things that you're putting out there. But for some reason they're not pulling the trigger. That, my dear, darling people, is called a loss lead, or when people join our opt in, and then we don't follow up with them, or we don't have any nurturing sequences that take them to that next step to help them move forward. 

Red flag number 2 is, you get ghosted after sending through the pricing, or if you're on a call, and you do face to face conversations, and you talk about the price, and then people go great. I'll have a look. Send me something through, and I'll get back to you. poof! They disappear. No response. No, follow up. They may not return your calls, they may not return your emails. That is a huge red flag. 

And then number 3 is, you have no idea who's in your pipeline, and you have no idea where they are in the buying cycle. If I asked you right now, who are those top? 5 people that are this close to buying from you? Could you answer who are those people that you're like? Yes, I know they're ready to buy. They just need a bit of time. Bit more information, bit more. Follow up. If you can't answer that, I guarantee you have a lost lead issue. Red flag number 3 is, you have no follow up plan, or you only do follow up when you have time, and I'm doing bunny ears for the people that are just listening. We don't want to just follow up when we have time or when we're in that need for more sales. 

If your version of follow up is maybe sending a quick, hey? Just checking in, or I just wanted to follow up. Oh, my gosh! I hate! When people send, I just want to follow up. I just want to follow up and see if you, if you want to buy like it reeks of desperation it reeks of. I'm chasing you for a dollar. It doesn't feel good. And if you're sending those sort of messages and then never reaching out again, that's not a process. That is what we call ladies and gentlemen winging it, and I guarantee it's costing you sales. I guarantee that you are leaving money on the table. If that's the way you are following up and red flag number 5, you keep thinking. I just need more leads. Maybe I can do Facebook Facebook marketing. Maybe I can do Instagram ads. Maybe I can do Linkedin ads. Maybe I can run some more webinars, master classes, summits. I just need more leads. 

I don't look. You're not listening to me to listen to Fluff. Right? You've come here because I'm real. I'm raw. I'm honest, and I'll tell you exactly what I think. My friends know this, my beautiful business friends know this. Don't come to me if you're wanting what the fluffy answer is. If you keep thinking, you just need more leads you freaking. Don't you need to convert the ones you already have. More leads won't solve the problem. If you're losing ones that are coming in, or you're not converting the inquiries that are coming in. 

Okay, I said it. I'm not even sorry I said it. Make sure that every single lead that comes into your business. You have a sales process that is high converting to ensure that we are turning them into clients, and if they're not ready to buy, then what are we doing to nurture them? Connect with them, follow up with them so that they don't become a lost lead. 

Let me tell you a little story, one of my beautiful clients. When we 1st started working together, I did a full assessment on her business, and I said, Show me your database. How many of these people have bought? How many have inquired, where did they get to in that inquiry process? And so when we went back and looked at it. She had over 300 lost leads within. I think it was like 3 or 4 months 100 leads a month that we didn't know where they were at now. I don't know about you, but I'm sure that if there were 300 leads sitting in my business that I wasn't doing anything with. That would be an absolute gold mine that I could go back and nurture and really dig in and understand. What do I need to do to get these people from an inquiring to B or Z to purchasing from me, and for me being able to help them and serve them with the challenge that they came with when they originally touched base with my business because if someone has opted in for a lead magnet, or they have put through an inquiry form on your website, or they have started following you on social media. There's a reason why okay? And 99% of the time it will be that they have the problem that you potentially can solve for them. They are just trying to decide whether you are the right person, whether you have the right offer and opportunity for them, and if they want to work with you. So we want to make sure that our sales process and our processes beyond that are really nailed so that we aren't losing leads throughout the process. 

Going back to this client, once we actually mapped out her sales process and understanding where people come into her business. We could then track where people were falling off falling off that sales process. Were they entering the inquiry, and then we'd send them through an email for more information, and then they wouldn't answer, or would they not get back to us once we've presented prices or like? Where in that process are people falling off because once we've tracked it, we can then fine tune it, and we can plug the holes that are currently in that process so that we lose less leads or ideally, no leads at all. Okay. So I want to make sure that you understand it's not just about getting more leads. It's about making sure that we are nurturing and looking after the leads that we already have and our future ones. I say this a lot in a lot of my marketing, and when I talk to a lot of people it's not just about turning on a tap to get more leads. If we have holes in our sales process bucket, it can be a really expensive and exhausting way to do business. 

Okay? So if you're going to turn on Facebook ads. If you're going to turn on Instagram ads, if you are going to increase your social media, if you're going to create more content. Make sure that you have all your sales, process holes and your bucket secure so that we can catch them and nurture them through to become paying clients. Now that leads me on to how do we actually set up that sales process to prevent those loss leads? Now that we know that we have called out the problem. Let’s fix it. A great sales process consists of a few things. We need to understand how we're capturing those leads. We need to understand how people move through the leads, and we need to understand what is that sales process that allows our clients to make a really good buying decision. 

If you are thinking. Well, that's great, Maree! A. I don't know what a sales process is. I've never heard about it or B. You don't know whether your sales process is right. You can go to mareekirkpatrick.com forward, slash 7 the number steps, and I have a free opt in there for you that will walk you through. What are those 7 steps? But I want you to think about first is where are your leads going into? So that means that we need to have a CRM or a database, or an even a simple spreadsheet that we know where our clients are coming into. 

So you can have options like Google sheets. You can have Trello, you can have Asana. You can have a CRM like Dubsado, which is what I use or Hubspot, which I've looked at in the past like there's plenty of thing, plenty of CRMs out there. It doesn't have to be really expensive. It doesn't have to be some whiz, bang! Thing! And on a side note. If you're looking at CRMs, don't try and find a CRM and then plug your process in, map out your process and then work the CRM around your process because a lot of CRMs aren't built by sales professionals. They are built by it or marketing specialists. We want to make sure that we are actually converting people in our database. So sales process 1st and then build the data, then build the CRM around it. And you need to have things traceable like name, contact, and information where they came from. Where are you getting your leads? When I ask people this within their business they'll be like, oh, I think it's from social media. 

I think, is not a strategy. It is not clear data that we can track. We want to know where people are coming from, and the reason why is because if you are getting a whole heap of clients from Facebook, then we turn up your Facebook. If you are getting a whole heap of clients from network marketing, then we go to more network marketing events. Right? We want to make sure that where our leads are coming from is actually where we are putting our focus. We also then want to look at their data 1st contact. When did they come into our business? Any notes about following it? Following up what sort of information they have received, what emails they have received, where they're adding their sales process as well as their response and status and things like that. And if you're not tracking any of this. 1st of all, you're leaving sales to chance. And second thing is, this needs to be your 1st priority before you do anything else. 

Okay, make sure you have a regular tracking date within your diary. We are in the 1st week of February. If you are listening to this episode as it has dropped. But we're in the 1st week of February. Take yourself out for a coffee, take yourself out for a glass of wine, lock yourself in your office, get yourself a snack, whatever you need to sit down and do the metrics and the tracking within your business? How many leads did you get? What's your conversion rate? How many people are in the pipeline? How much follow up have you done? How much outreach have you done? What sort of sales have you made so a lot of people go? I've done my tracking because I've just determined how much money has come into my business. No. that is just one tiny piece of the element, the element of tracking. I want a bigger scope for your business. I want to know where people have come in. I want to know your open rates within your email list. If you're doing regular outreach, I want to know all of that. Because then we can put strategies behind it so that the leads coming in are not lost leads. 

Okay? So step number one. Set up your sales process and make sure that you've got a database or a CRM to bring in and track those that data. And those clients step number 2 is, have a freaking follow-up process. And I don't mean a follow up process of like, okay, when things are quiet I will reach out. No. I want you to have a system that once leads. Enter your world. They will go into a beautiful, structured, nurturing process that keeps going, whether you are busy or not. Okay. What I see happening businesses is that they get this really big influx of cash flow. They made sales, and then they have these lulls while they're servicing their clients and delivering. And then they've got to climb back up the hill to get more clients have a follow-up process, a sales process, so that your leads are constantly being nurtured. and you are constantly getting new fresh leads into your business, but you're also nurturing the living, living bejeebers out of the ones that have come into your business. In the 1st place. Okay, so it may be something along the lines of, you know. Step, one may be sent through quick. Got your inquiry, message, or thanks for reaching out, or something along those lines. Then we want to send a  message or an email with some really good quality value, not pitch quality value a step that they can take to move themselves forward. 

Maybe it's an article. Maybe it's a tip. Maybe it's a frequently asked questions that a lot of people have asked you over the past year, 2 years, 5 years, whatever that looks like within your business. We want to make sure that we are sending value, nurture, value, value, value, value. Not just Hey, buy my thing, hey? Buy my thing, hey? Buy my thing, hey? You still haven't bought my thing. Do you want to buy it now? No value, adding, Okay. Then we want to check in and address any concerns that they're having. And it's not like, Hey, Sally, I'm just following you up after the conversation we're having we had previously, or I know we spoke 6 months or 12 months ago. I'm just seeing if you're ready to go and buy it. No, no check in. See what's coming up for them. Address any concerns. Maybe you can address any regular objections that you come across regularly within your business. And then and this is just a really simple like stock standard One. Right? If you've got no current, follow up process. You can absolutely follow this. When I work with my clients, we have a lot more tailored, more structured. Follow up process and system that we go through. And we also depending on where people are in their sales process. We have different. Follow up processes depending on where they're at. But if you don't have a follow up process, and you're just starting from scratch. Or if you've kind of been winging your follow up process. This is a really simple one. So one yes, I've got your inquiry. Thank you. I get it. I'm here. 

Step number 2, value, add value, add value, and add value. Add. Do I need to say that again add some freaking value. And then we want to check in answer any questions concerns, maybe an objection that they might be thinking about, but aren't willing to talk about all that sort of stuff, and then your final one may be, hey? I don't want to annoy you, just seeing if there's anything I can help you with, or where you're at with making a decision. What's come up for you? A lot of the time is, people will say, Oh, my God, thank you so much for following up. Things have just been really busy. and you go. Yep, I get it. But sometimes a story that we have in our head as business owners is. I don't want to annoy people. I don't want to be pushy. I don't want to have to hustle. I don't want to have to chase people down. No, it's not about that. It's about following up. It's about nurturing. and don't just stop at one. Follow up 80% of sales that haven't closed within the 1st week will happen after the 5th follow-up. 

5th You've got to touch. Keep in contact with someone 5 times potentially for them to move forward with you. And so if you don't have a follow up process, I can guarantee you. You have lost leads within your business. Okay. step number 3 is, I want you to automate what you can. And when I say automate, I'm not saying generic, robotic, disconnected emails or disconnected processes. I want you to think nurture. I want you to think connection. I want you to think about your ideal client and everything that you create, whether you're sending an email, whether you're sending a message, whether you A, whether you are automating it or not. I want you to think connection. Okay, so you can automate those email sequences to nurture your leads. You can automate stages within your follow up process so you can get people like you can get people to go down a different avenue. If they have clicked and looked at your proposals, or they have jumped on a call. With you. That may be different. Follow up process. There's plenty of things that you can do. But my key point here is, I want you to automate what you can. 

The reason why we want to automate is because when you are busy servicing clients, or when you are in your busy periods, or when sometimes you may just want to take a break. Right? We want to automate that constant nurturing process. So it doesn't always rely on us to think about it. We want to take off that mental load. Okay, you can even have saved responses for common questions, like, when would we get started? Or how does it work? If I want to do XY, and Z. You can also just have an automation that sets reminders. So you never forget to follow up. So I will have a regular touch base in my diary that follows people up and be like, Okay, who am I connecting with this week, this day, this month, whatever that looks like. so that I remember to follow people up. 

Time is money. Automation keeps things moving while we're also generating more money. Okay, we want to make business as easy as possible. Not robotic, easy, easy, and connected. You are safe to have an easy business that works for you. I promise you that it has taken me a little while to realize that. But it is okay for it to be easy and step number 4. Speaking of easy is to make it easy for people to say, yes, okay. If your buying process is complicated, you will lose. People. make it stupidly simple, so that it is so crystal clear how people can work with you how they can buy off you when they can buy off you. If you are opening doors to a certain program at a certain time. That is okay. However. Don’t have nothing else for them to buy. In the meantime, because A. Not good for your cash flow and B. They will go looking for someone else that can solve their problem then and there. Humans aren't very patient. Okay, so make it easy for people to say yes, and for people to make: for people to be able to work with you. 

So things you can do really clear pricing, not overwhelming, pricing, really clear, pricing, not too many options not too complicated. Give them what they need, package it up and give them the price. Second thing that you can think about when making it easy to say yes is easy. Payment links easy for people to shut up and give you money right? I don't know how many websites I've gone on and be like, how do I freaking, buy this thing? This is so annoying, and then I go. Too hard. I'll do it later. Make it really easy for people to give you money. And following on from that, we want to make sure it's a really simple checkout process. Okay, the less friction, the more sales. Okay. Step number 5 keep engaging. Don't just think. Well, they weren't my ideal client. They weren't ready to buy, so they'll come back to me later. 

Not everyone will buy right away, and we don't want everyone to buy right away. We think we do. But that's a scarcity mentality. We think we want people to buy right away. But we know that humans aren't always ready, all at the same time. It doesn't mean that they won't buy ever. We just need to keep them in our world. We need. We need to keep moving them forward. Keep engaging, even if they don't buy now and ways you can do that, invite them to your email list, keep them engaged on social media check in every few months. See what they are missing. Is it that the product or the service that you have offered them isn't right for them? And they need another option. They need to know that there's other ways to work with you. For example, I get inquiries that come in and say, Oh, my God, Maree, please don't put me in another course. Another membership. I'm not interested. I just want someone to say, this is what you need to do. Let's get it done hard, fast, dirty. I'm ready, right. But if all I'm promoting to people is about courses and memberships. And more, one too many. And this person's there going. I just want to get it done hard and fast. I don't want to be in another course. I don't want to have to think about going and watching 50 billion master classes. That's not right for everyone. 

Okay. So keep checking in, keep offering different solutions based on that same challenge that they're having. And guess what people circle back. And when they do, they want to remember you. They want to remember what you've said. I've had people come back to me 2 or 3 years later. Hey, Maree, I saw you speak at this, or you did a training for this company. I've now moved, and I want to work with you because I'm working by myself. Now I've started my own business. Keep engaging people. You just never know where they're at. You never know what's happening for them. You never know who knows who in the Zoo. Just keep circling back. Keep engaged Okay, now, you're probably sitting there thinking, well, that's all great. But what do I do? If I've actually got lost leads, Maree. Okay, so you've been listening. You've been thinking, oh, my God! I have so many lost leads, or I'm too scared to even open my database and see how many lost leads that I have. 

Well, here's what I want you to do today. Right today. Set aside an hour, half an hour to just focus on your lost leads. Step one, pull up your old DMs emails, messages, any engagement that you've had into your business find people who have expressed interest, but never bought the people that you've jumped on calls with the people that you've had email conversations with. Get them all out. Let's get all the skeletons out of the closet. And let's see who we have. Okay, step number 2 is, send a friendly message that can be a text message that can be a Whatsapp message that can be. DM, you can even go old school and pick up the phone and call people. Or you can even send an email. Hey? I've been thinking about you. What's been happening? Where are you at? No pressure at all? I'd love to know if you're still needing help with your sales and marketing, just checking in what? Where are you at? Let me know either way. Like just casual, casual, connected. And I want this to be authentically interested. Okay, because we don't want to work with people that aren't our people. We don't want to just have numbers through the door. It's a really draining way to do business. 

So have a really connected nurturing check-in. And even if you choose, 3 people or 5 people a day, or even a week just do something to reconnect. And some people might find this really overwhelming. Some people might feel like, Oh, I don't want to annoy them. Oh, they're not going to remember who I am. I get that. That's the story that goes through my head a lot. Or when I see people be like, Wow! They remember who I am. Okay, like this is me being really vulnerable. This stuff happens for me, too, but you know what I say to myself. I am doing them a disservice if I'm not checking in and seeing if I can help them. Even if it's just. Oh, I'm all, even if they said you. I'm all good. I'm at full capacity at the moment. I'll let you know if there's anything I need help with. I will then go back and go. Great, full capacity. How awesome is that? Have you thought about ways that you can scale your business? So we're not ever at full capacity. Right? 

I'm getting them thinking, what is that next stage to scale their business? What is that next stage of growth? And then I might give them a few different tips or advice based on what I know about their business. Okay? And then step number 3 is start tracking your leads, moving forward. You don't need to go back and go into the Dark Ages and go. Oh, God, I've got to get all my stats out, or I've got to go through all my leads from 12 months ago. No, just start fresh today moving forward. Where are your leads coming from? Where are they stopping in that sales process? Do people ghost me after I talk about pricing? Do people not talk to me after they have jumped on a call with me like, what does that look like? So that we are not losing more potential sales. So do that tracking. Look at your metrics. Understand where they're coming from, and understand where they are falling off in that process, and I will put money on it if you would do. If you do these 3 steps for at least a month. 

I bet you will close at least one more sale just by following up old leads. Scary right? But I guarantee that that's probably what will happen when I have gone into businesses and done training and taught their teams how to sell. We always go back and look at those lost leads for a few reasons. If a lead is lost. Then we can re-engage and check in with the temperature of our database. It also means that as we learn, it's okay to learn on people that aren't so fresh. We don't want to burn leads. We don't want to. We don't want to damage any leads that are coming in right. So as we build out a sales process, we are constantly checking, tweaking, optimizing, checking, tweaking, optimizing, and so lost leads gives us that really good opportunity to go through that. Follow up process and get people re-engaged. Okay, so track your leads and I. And if you do those 3 steps, just those 3 steps. It'll take you less than half an hour. It may only take you 10 min if you've got 10 min, allocate 10 min. If you've got a spare hour in your business. 

This is what I guarantee will get you money generating into your business. So instead of spending an hour on canva and creating pretty things or creating more social media stuff. Go back to people that have already inquired. Don't keep hunting for new leads, nurture the ones that you've got okay. I got a little bit ranty. 

So this is the podcast. That you can go back and re-listen to if you need to, there's been a lot of juicy information in there, but this is your sign to stop letting leads slip through the cracks. Stop letting your business have leaky buckets leaky. Follow up processes, leaky sales processes. 

and if you need a step-by-step system on how to do this, go and check out her sales. Hub. There's plenty of cost effective processes in there, and frameworks that you can use and implement straight into your business and they are about 47, $49. 

If you are not making. If one of your sales is not more than $47 or $49, it's not for you right. The sales Her Sales Hub is not for you and I would look at your pricing. If your cost is not $47 at least. But I guarantee that if you use these sales, frameworks and strategies, you will generate more than you will get a huge return on investment for your 47, or $49. 

The link will be in the show notes if you need it. But just go to mareekirkpatrick.com forward, slash hub, and it's all there for you. I would love you to screenshot this episode and tag me at Maree Kirkpatrick and tell me your biggest takeaway, or what you're going to be doing to reduce your lost leads. Now go, generate more sales, and I will see you in the next episode.