Back To Basics – Call Your Leads

Here’s a shocker – most companies don’t call their leads.

I really don’t understand how this is possible, but I see it all the time.  And there is a new “secret shopper” study to confirm it.

As a sales and marketing guy for mmmmmm years now, this really goes against the grain for me.  Leads are gold.  Leads are oxygen.  Leads are blood.  As a sales guy, it’s how you make your living and advance your career.  As a marketer, it’s one of the most critical touch points in determining your return on marketing and advertising investments.  As a CEO you really care, as it’s the first interaction a prospect will have with your company and your brand.

So that first contact has to be great.

And yet, that first contact is only being made 21% of the time.

The new study, conducted by lead management software provider Leads360, said that only 21 percent of mortgage lenders made an attempt to call back borrowers after an initial inquiry.

And this is in one of the most aggressive, competitive, and cut-throat industries out there. Imagine how low the contact rates are in other industries – are you kidding me?

Not surprisingly, my old Alma Mater Quicken Loans was cited as the best in class for all the key metrics including speed to contact, contact attempts, types of contact etc.  It’s part of the culture there, and how business is done. Marketing people generate leads, sales people call them – simple.

But these techniques and tools are not proprietary, and are available to anyone with the desire to really make the most out of the leads they get every day.

So why don’t more companies do a better job of contacting and converting their leads?

Probably for the same reasons people don’t do a lot of things they should do – eat right, exercise, be kind to other people, change their oil regularly, etc…  you have to have the vision, desire, belief, and discipline to do it right every day, consistently.

Here is a link to the study.  I’ll be at LeadsCon in NYC next week – if you’re there let me know and we can shake our heads in disbelief together.

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