What’s more important in canvassing, the lead or making the sale? The new movement I’ve created in canvassing with my new approach has not only revolutionized the results my students and clients are getting, but has also created for some to ask the question, “which is more important, lead or sale?” If you’ve heard my new approach, or are teaching it to your canvassers it can create some confusion. My intention is in this report is to clear up any confusion.
Let me be clear, the entire purpose you canvass is to make sales. My approach isn’t to go for the appointment first, but to obtain the prospects contact information, first. It’s a different strategy than what most canvassers do. I want to be very clear here, you want the sale, and it’s just that my approach has eliminated all the boundaries and barriers that have gotten in your way to that objective in the past.
Traditional canvassing approaches try to cram the appointment down a prospects throat and continuing to follow the old models only results in the same frustrations and results. My approach has proven to be so much better because it’s more natural for the people we’re talking to as canvassers. Think about it, we’re going to people who weren’t expecting us and weren’t looking into our products or services. The people who respond to your radio or print ads are the low-hanging fruit. They’re calling because they’ve been thinking about what you offer. We have to engage people and get them interested in what we have. We can’t get an appointment until we get the lead.
If a stranger approached you on the street and asked you to give them a dime or $10,000, which would you be more comfortable parting with? It’s not much different than what we’re asking prospects who meet us for the first time. It’s not natural for the prospect to gladly commit to potentially parting with $10k of their hard-earned money within the first 30-seconds of meeting you. My new approach differentiates you from the ‘used car salesman’ persona that most prospects perceive of canvassers.
Having said that, capturing the prospects contact information is the starting point for you. Once you have the lead you have the control and you can transition, in the same presentation, to setting the appointment, but that’s not the purpose of this article. I want to focus on the importance of getting the lead. Once you have the lead, and even if you don’t set an appointment, you can follow up on that lead to nurture the relationship and ultimately get the appointment. This is how small companies become big companies. The money is in the follow up.
Why follow up is so critical to long-term success
Here are some statistics to consider:
- 48% of sales people (or the company) never follow up with a prospect after the initial contact
- 25% make a second contact and stop
- 2% make 3 contacts
- 10% follow up with more than 3 contacts
Factor in these numbers against the number of door knocks or face to face contacts your marketers are making and actually connecting with prospects. Your success potential decreases exponentially if you’re abandoning prospects after the initial contact because they didn’t set an appointment with you immediately. If you do the math the numbers are both staggering and nauseating.
You can’t dismiss a lead because they’re passive or can’t commit to an appointment at the point of first contact. It’s too important to your success to allow leads to get ‘lost’.
Despite my new canvassing approach of obtaining the lead first and setting the appointment second, my students are setting more appointments at the point of first contact, as well as on the follow up.
I shared the dismal follow up statistics, but let’s look at the numbers on the sale side of the equation:
2% of sales are made on the first contact
3% of sales are made on the second contact
5% of sales are made on the third contact
10% are made on the fourth contact, and
80% are made between the 5th and 12th contact with a lead
It shows that most leads are abandoned after the 4th contact, yet the majority is made if they follow up only a few times more. When you’re mining for the river of gold you have to dig deep. When you go out to a prospect, rather than them coming to you, you have to work at developing the relationship with that lead to become a customer.
Companies using my system are seeing the dividends of their follow up. They’re doubling and tripling their businesses year to year. Continuing to follow the system they’re getting the ‘now’ business from the low hanging fruit yet being relentless in the follow up on leads months and years they’ve obtained those leads that have been dismissed by all the other competitors because they weren’t ready to buy initially, but are converting to customers, because they’re following up. They’re doubling and tripling their businesses, using the same staff just by going deeper and longer in the follow up on the leads they acquire.
If you invest money you know that some investments pay dividends quickly whereas others take longer to mature and pay off. Despite the delay, they pay. Leads are an investment and just as you’d invest your money in stocks or bonds speculating them to pay dividends so too should you continue to invest in leads. If you simply trust in the statistics I shared the investments will pay off; and that’s how my clients are multiplying their businesses without adding more staff.
To increase sales you don’t have to have a detailed follow up system, you just need a system; you just have to follow up on leads. Here are a few more statistics to drive my point and to make what most companies view as an arduous task much more palatable.
If you simply implement a telephone follow up system on every lead, at some point in time you’ll connect with those leads:
- 38% of them on the first call
- 28% of them on the second call
- 11% on the third call
- 8% on the fourth
- 6% on the 5th, and
- 4% on the 6th phone call
Overlay these statistics with the sales numbers I shared
- 2% of sales are made on the first contact
- 3% of sales are made on the second contact
- 5% of sales are made on the third contact
- 10% are made on the fourth contact, and
- 80% are made between the 5th and 12th contact with a lead
You increase your odds of making a sale
- 38% on the first follow up
- 61% on the second
- 71% on the third
- 82% on the fourth
- 90% on the fifth and
- 92% on the sixth follow up attempt
Success in our business is just math! You just need to be committed to following up and relentless in doing it!
- Phone
- Direct mail
I’ve emphasized so far a lot on phone follow up, but it’s not the only follow up medium available to you. Phone is the most direct in connecting with leads, but you also have email and direct mail available to you. If you know my entire system hopefully it’s coming together now why I get all the prospects contact information as I do in my system. When you have the prospect’s contact information you have the power, and ability then, to follow up with them through multiple media. Understand the statistics I shared apply not only to phone follow up, but also email and direct mail. Every step of your follow up doesn’t have to be only phone. Using the other mediums contributes to those statistics. Again, it’s just that phone is the most immediate in response and your best chance to get a one on one with them.
Canvass king Members be sure to review the recording from the live Silver Level Membership call from August 5th to hear more details on how I teach how to handle the 3 different categories that leads fall into. On the live call I also give you the phone follow-up script and breakdown the subtle changes in the script and methodologies behind those nuances.
You can find the recording of the call on the Canvass King member site archives. If you’re not a member and would like to receive the call drop me an email at cthompson@canvassking.com.
To bring this article to a close, if you’re not following up on the leads you capture but don’t set appointments on you’re leaving a lot of money and business growth on the table. Don’t take my word for it, look at the statistics or, if you’re tracking results, look at the number of leads captured, appointments set and the time frame that passes between the two. Companies who are doing effective follow up grow their business at much lower costs because they’re not churning and burning the leads they do get. Leads that are not converted to appointments (and sales) are future bank money. If you have questions on follow ups go to www.AskTheCanvassKing.com to post your question and I’ll follow up directly or include it on future member calls.
Committed to your canvassing success,
Chris Thompson, The Canvass King