In this article I’m going to discuss how you can at least double the number of appointments you set from the leads you’re getting right now. The answer is in the follow up. Many companies don’t have an effective follow up, or no follow up system at all.
I’ll discuss 5 different follow up methods I use and teach my private clients. There are 5 various phone follow up methods for canvassed leads. I’ll warn you, they do depend on scripts, but they’re easy to learn.
The 5 methods are
- Validation at door
2. Confirming lead
3. Resets and reschedule (not a rehash)
4. Call to set
5. Spotted leads
Leads cost you money to acquire; whether through inbound or outbound marketing. Lost leads and those you never convert to an appointment, cost you even more.
Canvassing is a proactive approach to your business and canvassing goes side by side with telephone marketing. It’s helpful if you have telephone or support people, even a phone room, but it’s not necessary to implement these 5 follow up methods. Unless you implement some type of lead follow up system you’re going to struggle in maximizing your canvassing efforts. Follow up is important because you will have a high number of people who will not set appointments at the door and of those that do set appointments, some will forget.
Validation Call
The first method is what I call the Validation. This is a little different from a confirmation in that it is a brief validation of some basic information about the lead. There are 3 key points to validate on the call.
- The appointment time is available
2. The appointment is for a product you sell
3. Both spouses will be present for the appointment
I recommend the validation call be made at the front door immediately after the appointment has been set. The canvasser can call in from his or her cell phone while still with the homeowner.
The importance of the validation call is to tie the homeowner to the appointment and commit them to the time. It demonstrates that this is a real appointment. There’s a whole company effort behind this appointment and not something they should take lightly. You’re real, the appointment is real and an estimator is coming to the house on Tuesday at 6pm. If the homeowner wavers on their commitment it’s up to the schedule coordinator to tie the homeowner down to the information.
The key point about the validation call is that it smokes out any leads that aren’t really qualified for the sales presentation and heads it off before it goes into the sales or CRM system.
There are several ways you can conduct the validation call.
Ways of validating
- At the door using your cell phone (how to do) use video example from video product
- End of the day, call from the office, using the same criteria to validate
- In the field follow up, text the lead to the manager and this third party will re-knock that door (justify by dropping off information – handoff), “Oh, by the way…” do the validation
The key to validation is that it’s done the same day
If during the validation call the homeowner changes their mind and decides they don’t want to schedule the appointment, what do you do? Simply go to Step 2 in my canvassing system (refer to the Canvassing in the New Economy training program for the specific steps and scripts – www.canvassking.com/CanvassingNewEconomy.html)
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Next is confirming the lead. I won’t spend a lot of time on this because it’s similar to the validation, but doesn’t happen usually until at least 24 hours before the scheduled appointment.
Confirmation Call
Many companies have a confirmation policy. Many companies will follow up the leads 24 hours before the sales presentation. Often this is a little more in depth than the validation because you’re making sure the appointment sticks. Once the confirmation call clears the appointment is still good the lead usually then goes to the sales rep to make a sales call on the prospect.
It’s a little more in detail than the validation call. Listen back to the CD from the Silver Telecoaching call from July 10, 2013 to hear my demonstration of the scripting.
I recommend you perform a validation and confirmation call on every appointment. Again the validation is done at the time the appointment is set and the confirmation about 24 hours prior to the scheduled appointment. The only time when the validation and confirmation will happen at the same time is when the appointment is the same day or within a 24 hour window. When this does occur, I recommend doing the validation callas the confirmation call.
Next is the reset and call to set. These, like the validation and confirmation are very similar.
Reset or reschedule
The reset call is vital for a canvassing department to be successful. An unspoken truth about canvassed leads is that it’s not uncommon to follow up and reset the appointment. For example, you set the appointment at the door when first canvassed but for some reason it falls out. It could be during the confirmation or they aren’t there when the sales person shows up for the appointment. Regardless the reason you have to have the mindset that you always have people calling these leads back to recapture them. You paid for the lead and in my estimate you can’t afford to have 1 lead lingering out there not called on.
The key is to call the lead back in order to re-secure that appointment. When you do follow up you don’t want to chastise them for not showing up or keeping their appointment. The last thing you want to do is alienate that lead. You don’t know what the circumstances are, or why they didn’t keep the appointment, but it’s good business to give the homeowner the benefit of doubt they had a good reason until you learn otherwise. They could have gotten cold feet and didn’t want to meet with you, but you shouldn’t assume that until they tell you. You must take the approach to follow up on that lead until they buy or die, literally or figuratively.
From here the homeowner will either reschedule the appointment or you’ll flush out an objection or stall. If they schedule an appointment then you go through the same original process; following up with a confirmation call prior to their appointment.
If they give you an objection then you jump back into the canvassing presentation based on what they say. If they give you a ‘can’t afford it’ objection then jump to step 2 of my system. You’ll notice from the system I did an introduction at the start of the call and flowed through the same canvassing presentation. The key is to know and work the system.
My entire canvassing system is laid out in detail in my Canvassing in the New Economy training program, including full video demonstrations and printed scripts you can use at the door; and more.
The hard reality about canvassed leads is that you have to work to keep them set. Based on empirical data, if you look at canvass leads that were demonstrated, on average, the appointment was scheduled and rescheduled 3 times. First by the canvasser and at least 2 more times by a phone person before it finally set for the demonstration. It’s just the nature of the business.
Next is the call to set.
Call to Set
The call to set is similar to the reset though in this situation the homeowner has requested that you call back to set up an appointment. Again, for whatever reason they weren’t able to commit to an appointment when the canvasser was with them. The call to set technically is an appointment with the homeowner to follow up the canvassing call specifically to set an appointment. So here’s the scenario. You’re out canvassing and the homeowner is interested in your product or service, but they ask for your contact info because they can’t schedule the appointment then. They’re still a good lead, but they want you to follow up with them. The canvasser captures the prospects information and a time to call them back to make an appointment. You’re making and appointment to make an appointment.
From here you go into confirming their street address (Rule of 6 from my system) and the rest of their information and schedule the appointment following the same procedure as in the canvassing presentation. Again, if you are met with any objections you simply revert back to the presentation.
Next is what I call spotted leads.
Spotted leads
It’s easiest to understand that a spotted lead is when you’re canvassing and someone’s not home when you knock on the door. From observation from the outside of the home you see they have a need for one or many of the products or services you represent, such as replacement windows. The canvasser makes note of a quick description of the home and lists the possible opportunities available. Later that day or until you reach someone by telephone at that home you call to make a presentation based on what the canvasser spotted while at the home.
You invested in the canvasser being in the neighborhood knocking on doors. You don’t want opportunities slipping through your hands. You’re sitting on a gold mine of leads.
Another follow up strategy, which I didn’t mention at the start so consider this a bonus is what I call the rehash call.
Rehash
Your lead demonstrated, but no sale was made. A rehash call is the follow up after a sales presentation, possibly making a concession on the price, scope of the job or offer in an attempt to resell the job. This could also be to a customer who bought but cancelled the job for some reason; or calling customers back who did buy and offer a cross-sell or up sell. The key is you’re getting back in front of customers who went the whole way through the presentation and making an attempt to resell or upsell them.
I said it at the start of this article, you’ve paid a hefty price for the leads you have, don’t squander one of them. Keep working at converting those leads to appointments, then appointments to demos and demos to sales.
If you have a question that pertains to the content of this article go to www.AskTheCanvassKing.com and submit your questions. I’ll answer them either directly back to you, or, if they would be valuable to all my members I’ll share them on a live Telecoaching call.