Do you have a system that is proven to work? Do you follow it…?
There are many ways to generate leads for a business, SEO and email marketing and social media and content marketing and Facebook ads and on and on…
One of the things that distinguishes those who are successful at generating leads by any of the above methods and those who are not successful is that the really successful marketers test. They try out an approach on a small segment of their list, measure the results, perhaps tweak the approach and test again. They do this over and over and over again until they are sure that they have the best approach to generate leads. Once they are sure, they repeat the process over and over and over again for just one reason: They know it works.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for sales professionals and telephone prospecting.
I have been working with a coaching client who is the CEO of his company. He is a very busy man. We developed a prospecting process for his business including a list of pre-qualified leads and a complete set of scripts; appointment setting scripts, voicemails and email templates; to enable him to schedule qualified appointments.
My client then tested the system. He didn’t have a lot of time to make calls, but when he did, he consistently converted 40% – 50% of his conversations with decision-makers into qualified appointments. He proved the model and it was clear that the process and all of the scripts worked.
Then my client hired an appointment setter.
The appointment setter’s job was to follow the system that was already set up using all of the scripts that were already written and proven to work and to make appointments for my client, the CEO.
Unfortunately, once the appointment setter started, the number of appointments plummeted. Why? The appointment setter did not use the scripts that had already been proven to work. Instead, he was winging it on almost every call.
This is very puzzling to me. When you have a system that is proven to work, why would you ever do anything else?
And, what is more curious, every once in a while, this new appointment setter would use the script. When he did, he made an appointment.
The data was very clear: Use the script, make an appointment. Don’t use the script, don’t make an appointment.
Sales professionals could learn from successful marketers. Create the approach. Test it. Tweak it if necessary. Test it again. Once you have something that is proven to work… Keep using it.
