What if I told you that your business could easily, with minimal extra expense, close up to five times the number of sales you’re closing right now? Intrigued? I know I would be. The best part about this plan is that it’s simple and it uses the leads you already have to make you more money. Read on to find out how you can implement the long game perspective to do it.
Get out of the Short Game
When it comes to leads, most businesses only play the short game. They’re focused on today, right now, and which lead called in five minutes ago. If that lead doesn’t bite, move on to the next.
Let me ask you this: What’s your current close percentage? 5 percent? 10 percent? 20? What’s happening to those remaining leads? How do you follow up with them? What’s the process to re-engage them so they get interested in your product or services again?
If you’re playing the long game, you’re asking what’s going on with the 70–90 percent of leads that aren’t closing. Were some of those people investigating and simply not ready to buy yet? Will they be ready 90 days, 180 days, or even 365 days from now? It’s likely.
On average, of the people who request information from a company, 50 percent of them will make a purchase in the category they are requesting info from within 18 months. But the sale isn’t going to happen on its own.
What You’re Missing
If you want to know how much money is being left on the table, you need one more piece of the puzzle: How many people buy immediately?
Here’s an example: If 100 leads come into your business, on average, 50 of them will make a purchase within 18 months, and only 15 percent of the 50 will buy within the next 90 days. If I round up, that means eight people are ready to buy now, and 42 people will buy sometime in the next 18 months from you or from a competitor.
How wild is that? How much money do you think it has cost you over the years by not playing the long game?
Life Is a Long Game
When you think about it, in almost all areas of building wealth and riches, you need to play the long game. The stock market, your business, your marketing strategy, and your employees all need to be seen as long-term investments. So why do we only focus on the short term with our leads?
If you focused on just this one thing for the next few weeks or months and tracked and ran a long-game system where you followed up on, educated, and built relationships with leads, you could double your business in the next 18 months — or less.
Now let me ask you this: How would this easy strategy change your life? Would it be better? Could you spend more time with your family? What about vacations? If sales doubled, what would vacations look like? How many more would you take every year?
I’m pointing all of this out because I want to show you that you are so close to a huge improvement in quality of life.
Keep Your Eye on the Ball
Don’t allow the next shiny object to distract you. You don’t need new — you simply need to fix what you already have and make it better.
This is by far the easiest and least expensive path you can take.
Here’s the plan:
- Send “edutainment” follow-ups online and offline, including offers.
- At 90 days, make a new offer to a new lead magnet.
- Have a salesperson continue to follow up via phone.
- Send personalized mail.
- Add value to their lives on a regular basis.
- Build the relationship.
- Help them get what they want, and you’ll get what you want.
- Make a sale.
Knock It out of the Park
Part of your online and offline follow-up should include a newsletter. This is exactly what a newsletter was made to do — build relationships, add value, offer new lead magnets via a free-standing insert, and give those leads information to help them get what they want. Most people simply don’t use their newsletter to the best of its abilities. It’s time for you to capitalize on the benefits this long-game strategy can bring you.
