This scene from the 1992 film Glengarry Glen Ross starring Jack Lemon and Al Paccino is an amusing take on life in sales before it was possible to buy leads off the shelf.
The unfortunate US real estate agents were facing a situation that many in the mortgage market will be familiar with in the last year or two: sell more or lose your job.
Because good leads weren’t readily available, the film depicts the lengths the sales guys would go to get the prime leads – including breaking into an office to get hold of valuable names and contact details.
Targeted
Things have moved on a bit since then, especially in the UK finance market. Now targeted leads are available for just a few pounds at the press of a button, it’s easy to forget what life used to be like just a few years ago, when life companies taught their sales people to access mortgage customers because they were the way into making the more profitable life and general insurance sales. The mortgage business was just an incidental extra.
Buying leads may be easy these days: you can choose new clients by which product they want: mortgages, loans, debt management, life assurance etc. You can choose them by postcode area, you can even choose how much you pay for them, usually about £15 a lead, but there is a technique to converting these leads and really making them work for you.
Anyone new to lead generation will soon realise that converting an internet-generated lead from a lead generator requires a different approach to gaining a sale from somebody who has walked through your door or come to you as a referral.
Financial need
For a start the person behind the lead doesn’t know you. All they know is that they have a financial need they need solving. They will come to you after having done a web search for the information that they need, then filled in a form to ask for advice after they’ve realised that they can’t get what they want from data alone.
At this point contact is king. If someone is on the internet browsing for information, they are not necessarily going to stop searching just because they’ve filled a form in asking for advice, therefore the more often they can see your company name, and the sooner you can be in touch with them, the more chance you’re going to have of building a relationship with that person and converting their enquiry to business.
This is where picking your lead generator is crucial because you want as many touch points with the client, as soon as you can. For example, we make sure that the client sees your company name before they submit their advice request, so that they have given their express consent for you to call and the lead is compliant - beware of going to a lead generator who only sends your company details after the request as the FSA could classify this as incompliant.
The second touch point is a text containing your company name, which is sent to the enquirer straight after they’ve submitted their form and telling them to expect your call. The third touch point is an email to them, again confirming your company name and that you’ll call, but also containing marketing details about your company. All of this builds up a picture of your company and tries to create familiarity, so that they are receptive to your call and will help prevent them from continuing a search for information.
Golden rules
You should receive the lead’s details instantly, so the first golden rule of making lead generation work for you is speed of contact – get in touch with that lead as soon as you can. It is immensely powerful to the consumer if they have just submitted an online enquiry and 15 minutes later they then receive a call in response to their request.
Golden rule number two is personalising the lead. You have to convert it from being an impersonal enquiry on the internet by letting the enquirer know that they are dealing with a real person. Build as strong a relationship with that person as possible, as soon as possible. Present a professional front to help build confidence in your ability.
A professional website can help here; people who are searching the web for information are going to be internet-savvy and are likely to want to check out your credentials online. Also, have a professional email address - joke email addresses such as ‘[email protected]’ just don’t cut it and undermine your ability, no matter how qualified and capable you are.
Golden rule number three is looking to the future. Look beyond the immediate need as this may not be able to be met in the current environment, for example, the client may be asking for a 90 per cent LTV mortgage on five times their salary, which is completely unplaceable at the moment, but the client still has a value, as there are likely to be many other ways that you can help that client.
Opportunities
Think back to a few years ago and use the client’s initial enquiry as a spring board to see what else you can help them with. They obviously had some change in their financial circumstance to trigger the enquiry in the first place so find out what was around it and consider term assurance, general insurance, income protection etc. The additional business may be much more profitable to you than the initial mortgage would have been.
Try to turn that lead into a client for life. Even if you can’t help them immediately, use them, not for instant returns, but to establish and build a database for the future and then diarise to contact them again every few months.
Get as many referrals from that client that you can, even if you haven’t transacted any business, if you’ve gone out of your way to help them they are likely to be happy to refer you to other people that you can help.
Make leads work
Those advisers who are really successful at making leads work for them, are running hugely profitable businesses, but it can take a change of thinking and a few tweaks to your sales methods; looking at every lead as a long term return can also help.
Finally, how do you measure whether lead generation has worked for you? Don’t focus on conversion rates, it is return on investment that counts. How much money will you make from the £15 or so that you initially spent on the lead? Don’t just take one lead when measuring this, add up everything you’ve spent on leads and everything you’ve made back. If you get any refunds for leads then deduct this from the amount that you spent so that you can work out your net return.
Then do this about every three months so you can find out exactly what works for you and what doesn’t. Don’t forget to take into account long term spend including money earned from referrals, cross sales or referral fees from solicitors or conveyancers.
Despite the downturn of the last two years, it’s still so much easier than it was, so make those leads work for you and you could be amongst the most profitable advisers in the country.
3 golden rules:
Speed of contact
Personalise the lead
Look to the future
