Today on The Sales Evangelist, Patrick Shaw will talk to us about using technology to convert leads. If we use technology and software, we can work smarter and not harder.
Patrick is the founder and CEO of RapidFunnel, a mobile-based permission marketing app created for direct sales, small businesses, and franchises.
It isn’t enough to just have leads; we have to build relationships with and nurture our prospects.
We must have systematic ways to keep up with our prospects and our sales processes.
Converting leads
In the early days of his career, Patrick said he was guilty of putting dollar signs on people’s heads. He felt bad about it, but he also realized that the number of people he spoke to was directly related to the amount of money that he made.
Patrick started to wonder whether he could shift his priorities so that he could improve the quality of his prospect’s life and put his own needs completely to the side.
He wondered about making the process easier and more comfortable for both the salesperson and the prospect as well.
The conversion success rate often depends on the type of organization it is and where their leads come from.
Massage therapists, for example, believe in what they’re doing, but they don’t think of themselves as salespeople. They’re very uncomfortable coming off as “salesy.” They suffer from a very different problem than someone who is in sales.
Many times it’s a question of efficiencies. Are they creating real efficiencies? Do they have systems and processes in place that make them more efficient than the person trying to do the same task manually?
Four Disciplines of Execution
Patrick loves Stephen Covey’s book The Four Disciplines of Execution.
1. Focus on the wildly important. Whether you’re a salesperson or a company, what are your wildly important goals? Usually it’s involved around increasing revenue.
2. Act on the lead measure. If your wildly important goal is to increase revenue which comes through sales, then what’s the lead measure? For almost all companies, it’s prospecting and followup.
3. Have a scoreboard. If there’s no scoreboard, you don’t know where anyone stands during the game. When people have something wildly important, they’ve identified their lead measure and they have a scoreboard based on that lead measure. There’s a cadence of accountability where people hold each other accountable.
4. Develop a cadence of accountability. With a scoreboard, there’s a cadence of accountability where people hold each other accountable. it changes the dynamics of an organization.
The cadence of accountability can be difficult to create if you don’t have a scoreboard. At RapidFunnel, we measure the quantity of the exposure and the quality of the exposure. We can tell you the number of unique exposures you make, and the quality of that exposure based on the engagement of the prospect.
He does note that accountability is never about pointing out those who are failing but rather about highlighting those who are doing proper activity.
Using technology to convert
Technology often makes things more difficult because there’s only so much bandwidth. If someone has to create all their own content for a platform, they’ll be stretched thin.
The lead measure isn’t creating content and becoming a marketing expert. We want to make it simple for the sales reps to tell the company’s story.
You can’t automate a relationship, but here’s what RapidFunnel can do: it can tell you when your prospect is watching the videos that you sent him. It can tell you how long he watched and what he watched.
You can then pick up the phone and call him, and he’ll say, “Hey! I was just watching the videos you sent me.”
It’s discovery, and it’s personal, but it’s automated.
The key is to leverage technology that adds value without sucking you in time-wise.
The reason so many large organizations fail at social media marketing is because they add branding to their personal contacts. The very essence of social is relationship-based, and your prospects have a relationship with you, not your company.
Work on yourself
Whether you’re leveraging technology or not, work harder on yourself than you do on business. Spend 10-15 minutes a day getting your mind right, seeking clarity about your goals and your purpose.
Determine the value you’re trying to create in the marketplace because the answers will come when you do. Continually educate yourself and have a growth mindset.
You will leverage technology the right way as long as you focus on the bigger picture.
There are only so many hours in the day, and you’ve got to be judicious with your time.
“Using Technology” episode resources
If you’d like to connect with Patrick, you can find him at RapidFunnel.com and request a demo or more information. You can request a demo or simply request more information about the platform.
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This episode is also brought to you in part by prospect.io, a powerful sales automation platform that allows you to build highly personalized, cold email campaigns. To learn more, go to prospect.io/tse. Your prospecting will never ever be the same.
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