One issue I see over and over again with business owners is this… They usually think that the only way to grow their profits is to get more leads. They’re not aware that generating more leads is the most expensive and time-consuming way to grow your business.
One area which is a real “quick-win” for most of our coaching clients revolves around improving their conversion rate… By that I mean the percentage of leads which convert into paying clients.
This is often the cheapest and easiest thing to improve when we look to help our clients grow.
Here are three key questions you need to ask yourself so you can increase your conversion rate:
Question 1: COULD YOU IMPROVE YOUR RESPONSE TIME?
So what do I mean by that… Well, I suppose put simply, “How quickly do you respond to your enquiries?” A great way to start is to calculate the average amount of time in terms of hours and days that you or your staff take to get back to people.
Most of the businesses I speak tell me that they’re great at that.”, but after doing some mystery shopping, we all too often find out the opposite!
Here’s a question to ask yourself…
Did you know that for every hour you take to get back to a prospect, your chances of them buying from you drops quickly… and I mean QUICKLY.
Harvard Business Review told us that if we can answer queries within an hour, we have seven times more chance of engaging with the decision maker, than if we leave it longer than an hour. They also tell us that only a third of companies are that responsive.
Obviously, we’re not always in the fortunate position of having all the time in the world to get back to prospects within an hour… but imagine how our profits could jump if we do follow up quickly?
We know that one of our clients dramatically increased his conversion rate, just by bringing his average response time down from 36 hours to 4 hours.
Question 2: ARE ALL DECISION-MAKERS PRESENT?
So, this is a key consideration too when you’re pitching for business in certain industries. Often, we wrongly judge our prospects to be like ourselves. For example, a recent client of ours assumed that as he’s the only decision-maker in his business, all his prospects would also be the sole decision-maker.
Not so. I’ve seen one of the main reasons we fail to win business is that the prospect’s “husband”, “wife”, “business partner” aren’t present when you speak or meet.
So, what do we do in this situation? Well, we usually call back or arrange another appointment… simple… or is it??! Have you ever been in a position where the prospect has initially been convinced to buy, only to be told they need to check with another person. The sale then mysteriously “never happens”.
So, here’s another idea then … when we’re at the initial discussion stage with the prospect, we ask if there are other people who need to be consulted before they make a decision. Then, if a “sales” meeting needs to take place, you ONLY ATTEND THE MEETING WHEN BOTH OR ALL THE DECISION-MAKERS ARE IN ATTENDANCE!
Sounds like a radical idea which we know won’t work in all industries. However, if this might make a difference, how much will this cost to test and measure this idea out? And what’s the potential upside?
Question 3: COULD YOU HAND DELIVER YOUR QUOTES?
Now, before you say to yourself… “Not in my industry”, or “We haven’t got the time or staff to do that”, listen up as I’ve got an idea how this could still work for you.
We noticed with one client, his conversion rate doubled when he hand-delivered the quotes he sent out (as opposed to emailing them over which was what he used to do).
Now, if you’re in the position of not having the resources to do this, it’s certainly worth having a think whether you could do this only on your high-value clients perhaps?
After all, if their business means a lot to you, and if you’re able to fix a time to drop it over and talk them through the pricing and benefits face-to-face, isn’t it worth a try?
Trying to improve your conversion rate is only a small part of one of our nine steps to helping you build a business that will ultimately work without you.
