Is it a trickle? Or a FLOOD?
A while back, a client requested an appointment with me to go over the “failure” of his website to generate leads. He had used a template we gave him for the copy (we were NOT designing and hosting it) and was upset he hadn’t seen any increase in qualified appointments because, he said, “I was following your system to the letter.”
While I was on the phone with him discussing his website, I completed the form on his home page to download a free report – a lead generation offer he had put up there, he explained, “as per your advice.” After completing it, I received a landing page that still had “Insert Logo Here” and bracketed copy to [Insert Phone Here] and [Insert Some Verbiage About Your USP Here].
My first question: How long had this hot mess been “live”? He sheepishly admitted for at least nine months, possibly longer.
Second question: Where’d the lead go (my form fill)? He said it was supposed to be e-mailed to him, but he hadn’t seen it come through yet. We waited. 10 minutes…15. I filled two other forms, including the “Contact Us” form. Any leads? Nope. I had two employees get on the site and complete them. Any leads? Nada. The call lasted about 45 minutes and he had finally admitted that something was “broken” on his end. Perhaps this is a reason for the zero leads?
Third: What happens when a prospect calls? Without a doubt, leads that call in are the hottest and need to be nabbed FAST…as in the minute they call in. I Slack-messaged an employee of mine to “secret shop” him while we were talking by calling the number posted on the site. The phone simply rang out, no live answer. When I told him, he casually said, “Yeah, something’s wrong with our phones today. I’ve got to look into that.”
The other day I had someone accuse me of being a “very angry” person. I didn’t deny it. Admittedly, when I deal with these kinds of calls several times a week, I tend to get a bit testy. One of the MOST irritating things in the world to me is a blatant waste of opportunity. If you’ve ever struggled to pay your rent and had to steal food to eat like I had to at one point in my life to survive, you tend to be more diligent about not letting a single dollar escape.
Further, I work extremely hard to develop marketing and sales systems to cultivate those inbound leads and phone calls, so I HATE seeing opportunities burned and sales wasted when it’s SO DAMNED DIFFICULT to get them in the first place. It’s the epitome of entrepreneurial laziness and sloth. Of entitlement. You don’t deserve any success with such apathy toward your grossly dysfunctional marketing, and I have complete disdain for any business owner who chooses to be CASUAL about it going on in their business, under their watch. You deserve to get eaten by a competitor. And you will.
But I see it all the time: HUGE piles of money neglected, ignored and dismissed in MSPs. Complete and utter failure to fully monetize the leads, opportunities and clients they have.
Failure to capture every inbound lead from their website, phone calls, referrals, networking events, etc., into a CRM/marketing automation SYSTEM, which means there’s ZERO tracking and ZERO follow-up. And for the record, one phone call and a couple e-mails is the same as ZERO.
Failure to build a productive, responsive list of prospects as a result of the above, which means they are constantly starting over in marketing, no further ahead than a brand-new start-up.
Failure to answer their phones live, so dozens of qualified, interested prospects hang up without leaving a message and call the next MSP on the Google search results.
Failure to call, e-mail and follow up on an inbound lead UNTIL there’s a successful outcome – and “no response” is not a successful outcome.
Failure to put all unconverted leads (who are not ready to do anything yet) into some type of drip marketing system to speed up the buying process, and so that when they ARE ready to buy, they think of you first.
Failure to follow up offline (not just e-mail) with qualified prospects that have opted out of their e-mail or have stopped opening and responding to their offers.
Failure to go back and upsell, cross-sell and upgrade existing clients…to sell them additional services they need and/or are already buying (just not from you).
Failure to ask for and incentivize referrals.
I could go on.
Based on very rough math done with hundreds of MSPs, all of these failures are EASILY costing them $650,000 to well over a cool million when added up. Why aren’t they distraught out of their minds, lying awake at night worrying about this? For starters, many don’t even realize the losses because they’re not tracking ANYTHING. Second, many view their business as a job and a place to go to work, NOT as an income-producing asset where the maximum amount of money (profit) should be extracted. Third, many don’t know to do this because they’ve simply not been taught how. And finally, some truly are that lazy, unwilling to put in the work and LEARN how to put marketing systems in place to ensure “no lead left behind.”
What about YOU? Do you have such a no-fail follow-up system in place? Is it diagrammed? Mapped out? Do you monitor your marketing funnel’s metrics daily? Weekly? Ever? Do you have a system and plan in place to ascend the value of each client? To fuel additional sales? Referrals? Or do you just let clients call you when they think of something they might need to buy?
If you don’t have such systems, it’s advised that you join me at the Recession Rescue Roadshow For MSPs to learn how to put these systems in place: www.RecessionProofYourITBusiness.com
