Are you letting leads fall through the cracks? (Photo by Ti.mo)
In conversation after conversation with services firm leaders, I hear the common lament:
“We need more leads!”
However when I start asking them about their lead management and nurturing process and what happens when they have a new lead, I quickly learn that it may not be new leads they need, but a better process to handle the leads they already have.
In my experience, services firms are particularly bad at staying in touch with leads over the long term. They attend to short-term leads and work them hard only to let their long-term leads fall through the cracks. There are a number of ways to stay in touch with these leads and nurture them (read this blog post I wrote on the topic: Your No-Nonsense Lead Nurturing Plan).
There are also a number of places to look where you can find a whole slew of leads that you already have. So, you may not need new leads; you may just need to do a better job of handling the leads you already have.
5 Places to Find Leads
1. Lost proposals: A lost proposal is not the end of a relationship. Even when you lose a proposal, you should make a point to stay in touch with the prospect. Every three months or so check in and see how the project is going. Just because they didn’t choose you for phase one doesn’t mean they will not choose you for later phases of the project or other projects. If you keep in touch and remain up-to-date with what is going on and with the new challenges they are facing, you will have the inside track.
2. Leads that aren’t ready to close right now: These are the most common leads to get lost in the shuffle. On our priority list, these long-term leads fall to the bottom and receive little, if any, attention. The relationship is damaged and future opportunities disappear.
3. Current clients: Don’t neglect your current client base. They are the ones that, through repeat business, are going to make up a large portion of your business. (That is unless you are a turnaround consulting firm—in that case, you hope not to see any repeat business.) Just because you work with a firm doesn’t mean they know all about you and the various ways you can help. Often your client knows very little about your firm past the people and projects they are directly engaged in.
Tapping your current (and past) client base, introducing them to other services, and networking your way through the client firm are all ways to grow and get new projects. Your direct contact can act as an internal champion for you and your services to introduce you to other decision makers within their organization. Plus they can refer you to other businesses that may need your services.
4. Prospects that may not have been the perfect fit (two years ago): Businesses change at an amazingly fast clip. Maybe you had a conversation with a business two years ago that at the time was not ready to make the investment for your services, or was not the right size, or didn’t have the urgency to act right away. That doesn’t mean that they are in the same position today. Unless you stay in touch with these folks, you have no idea if their situation changes.
5. Web leads: What’s your firm’s process and policy for handling web leads? Does every lead that comes in over the web—every download, contact us form, email inquiry—get a response and get added to your database? If there are any gaps in the integration between your website and contact management system, you can be sure that leads are dropping out through them.
Long-term nurturing programs help you stay in touch with these leads on a regular basis. It keeps your message and brand in front of your prospects. Email, direct mail, and periodic phone calls are all great ways to keep the relationship alive so when the need does arise, you are the first ones they think of.
So, go run a report on your contact management system searching for lost proposals, old leads, current and past clients, and web leads. I’m sure you’ll find leads that have been sitting right beneath your nose this entire time.
