If your home improvement company were a car, your leads would be its fuel. The farther you want your car to go, the more fuel you have to put into it. Your marketing and other lead generation methods are then your proverbial gas station and, each new lead acquired represents the potential for more revenue.
This metaphor represents a simple 1:1 ratio: The more leads you bring in, the more work you will eventually complete (unless your leads are junk, but that’s a different story – please see our blog on reporting).
There is another way, however, to get further with your business.
EFFICIENCY
Converting fuel into motion requires a strong engine. Converting leads into customers requires a strong business optimization platform, capable of storing and organizing lead information; scheduling your sales reps and project managers; and connecting you with other necessary day-to-day operations.
Once you can get that system running efficiently, you’ll get the most business out of the leads coming in, and in keeping up with the original metaphor, you’ll get much further off a single tank of gas.
So how do I get more out of my leads?
Behold the marketing funnel. Leads come in through the top of the funnel and are led through to an eventual sale.
Consider this the original combustion engine. A scientific marvel but ultimately inefficient.
In a funnel, the leads are all traveling one way. To get more sales more leads need to be funneled in. (This is that 1:1 ratio we were talking about above…more leads = more sales). Conversely, if you were to slow or completely stop the leads from coming in, your sales would dry up as well.
What we need to do is to convert that old funnel to a wheel.
With a wheel model, your leads come in and power the engine just like before. But this time, you are sending your unsold leads back into your process, keeping the wheel spinning. By using the kinetic energy created from that first marketing effort, you open future opportunities to sell to those leads that are already in your system, but have yet to make a purchase.
If you sell more than one product, you can send your happy customers back to the wheel for future marketing on your other products. Now you’re using the free energy of your own hard work to power that wheel!
Lastly, you can be sure to get reviews from your satisfied customers. This doesn’t directly fuel your wheel, but it does allow you to bring stronger leads into your system with less effort by allowing your current customers to market to your potential customers with their positive comments.
Utilize these lead management techniques and you can turn your company’s marketing and sales departments into a well-oiled wheel.
The best part of the wheel model is that even if you woke up one day and decided not to spend another penny on marketing, the wheel would keep spinning for quite some time just on the power of your rehash(leads who sat for appointments but didn’t buy), repeats(customers coming back for alternate products), and referrals.
Optimizing your lead management tools and processes will not only keep you from missing sales in a strong market, it will keep you going in a weak one as well.
