All About the Leads: Part One
When you boil it down, everything in business comes down to one thing: leads.
Whether it’s a person wandering into your store, a caller ringing you on the phone or a prospect visiting your web site, having a steady stream of leads is crucial to any business.
Indeed, it may be the MOST important thing for any business. Because without leads, there are no sales. And without sales, there is no business for long.
I remember back in high school putting in some time in telemarketing jobs. Even though they were a lighter form of hell, for the age I was it they paid quite well.
Everyone in telemarketing knew that it was a numbers game. Therefore, the more you called, the more sales you could make (theoretically).
Lead generation today is similar in a sense. If your conversion rates are set, logic dictates that increasing the volume of your leads would mean more sales.
That’s definitely one aspect, quantity of leads. Increase leads, increase sales.
The other aspect is your close rate, that is, how many leads turn into customers.
The close rate is the ugly stepsister of sales. It doesn’t get nearly the amount of attention as leads does. But it is just as important.
If your close rate is 5%, then finding a way to double it to 10% could be a cost-effective way to double your sales.
I think the reason close rates are not addressed often is that it is harder to measure and quantify.
After all, leads can be tracked quite well with toll-free numbers, clicks, promo codes or simply asking customers.
Close rates/conversion rates depend on a variety of factors. Online it could be the sales order process, the ease of use of the web site and how quickly pages load. Offline it could be as simple as how good your sales persons are.
The free worksheet courtesy of Hubpages is a great and simple tool. Using it you can quickly see how just some simple improvements can make a big difference in your bottom line.
Feel free to use it to plan for a strong close to 2010. Don’t use the
recession as an excuse. Use it as an opportunity to steal market share and pummel your competitors.
Next newsletter we’ll discuss the pros and cons of various methods for generating leads.
Download your free lead gen worksheet by clicking on the link:
https://www.firecrackerpr.com/Lead-Calculator.xls
If you have any problems downloading the spreadsheet, email me
directly and I’ll send it to you.
Need more leads? Contact Firecracker to discuss…