How would some more great leads
sound to you right about now?
Now if you're like most salespeople,
you're saying, "Of course, Marc.
"Yes, please, I want more leads."
In fact, most sales problems become irrelevant
when we're just swimming in strong new leads.
But we can't expect this to just happen.
In fact, my data suggests
that over 90% of salespeople
really desperately need more leads
than they currently have right now.
And it blows my mind
that more salespeople don't have this issue figured out.
In fact, more data shows
that the number one concern that salespeople have
is getting more leads, is prospecting.
And ultimately the solution can be very easy, quite frankly.
And it simply takes a multi-pronged approach
of a few different strategies that work for you,
all in conjunction at the same time.
So in this video, I'm going to show you seven easy tips
to fill your sales funnel to the brim.
Check it out.
Number one, stop cold calling.
Yes, I said it.
Stop cold calling.
Now you're probably thinking to yourself,
"Oh, I can't wait to show this to my boss
"who's always trying to get us to make more cold calls."
To be clear, I did not say to stop making prospecting calls.
I said to stop cold calling.
The idea of simply picking up the phone
and calling on a prospect who has no idea who you are,
has never heard of you, is probably really busy,
doesn't care about what it is you're offering,
to pick up the phone and call that person out of the blue
is like the equivalent of pretty much banging your head
against a cement wall.
Now, the reason for that is because when we call on someone
who has no idea who we are,
we're really just putting ourselves into a situation
where we're starting from a disadvantage.
And we didn't have to.
What we really need to do
is to call as part of a prospecting campaign.
And so a prospecting campaign means no more cold calls.
But what it does mean is that we're going to call
in conjunction with other marketing assets
that are going out to a prospect at the same time.
From us, but going to them.
So that means that we are not going
to randomly make calls to people,
but instead we're going to send them an email
with a high-value asset,
something like an ebook or a guide
or something that is a high-value piece of content
that you can send to them.
And make sure it gets in front of their face
before you pick up the phone.
And so you're going to do that multiple steps in a row
to make sure that even when you're not
getting through to them on the phone,
they're still getting those emails.
They're getting those LinkedIn messages.
They're getting maybe a package that you actually sent them.
And so ultimately by the time
you truly get them on the phone,
they're actually gonna know who you are.
Or at least they're gonna have an idea
because you're going to reference one of, let's say,
the packages that you sent out
or one of the guides that you sent along to them.
And they're gonna say,
"Oh yeah, I do remember getting that."
When you're doing that,
now you're starting to build these little steps
that are creating a little bit more of a relationship,
so that way you're really making more of a warm call
as opposed to a cold call.
Stop cold calling.
Number two, ask for introductions.
Now, what's an introduction?
Well, what is an introduction not?
An introduction is not a referral.
Stop asking for referrals,
because when you ask your clients
or your prospects for referrals
they typically don't know what you're talking about.
Because a referral can mean a lot of different things.
A referral can mean that your prospect
gives you someone's business card and says,
"Oh yeah, give this person a call and tell them I sent you."
That use-my-name referral.
But we don't want that.
In fact, the data suggests that a use-my-name referral
is only a little bit stronger than a true cold call.
So what we want to be doing is getting introductions,
where person A introduces us to person B.
When we get introductions,
the data shows that the close ratio
on a well set-up introduction
can sometimes be as good as 50%.
That's insane.
If I told you that you could get
all 50% likelihood of close leads,
you'd be saying, "What do I have to do to get this?"
Well, the answer is start asking for introductions,
where you're simply having conversations with your clients
and you're asking them,
"Would you be willing to introduce me to so-and-so?
"Or would you be willing to introduce me
"to other folks just like yourself,
"who you think that we also might be able to help?"
When you're asking for those introductions,
not everyone's gonna give you introductions,
but the people that are willing to
are now going to be willing to either pick up the phone
or send an email to that person,
making sure that that person's willing to take your call,
is willing to talk to you.
Ask for introductions.
Number three, quarterly business reviews.
Now, this of course is for folks who are selling
in the business-to-business space.
But of course, you could also do this
if you're selling to consumers,
your clients and customers are consumers.
You can still be having these quarterly meetings
with customers, right?
It doesn't have to be a business review.
But let's just say you are selling to other companies,
and your existing clients
who could be a much bigger source of business
than they are currently
are able to now sit down with you on a quarterly basis.
And you're giving a name, you're giving a title to this.
So you call up your clients.
Let's say you have 20 really good clients.
So you're calling on each of those clients
and you're saying, "George.
"You know, Marc Wayshak calling.
"I wanted to schedule our quarterly business review,
"where we're going to share with you
"some of the best practices that we're seeing
"outside of your industry,
"and making sure that you can really leverage
"all of the information and ideas that we have.
"Would that make some sense?"
And typically your clients,
if they trust you, if they love you,
they're gonna say of course.
And now what you're doing is on a quarterly basis,
you're creating a cadence
to making sure that you're meeting with your clients
on a quarterly basis, getting in front of them,
and of course not just pitching them
your new products or services,
but really making sure that you're providing good value
and then asking questions.
Taking them right into the sales process by finding out,
what are their biggest concerns?
What are their biggest challenges
that they're facing right now?
What are they most focused on for this year?
Those types of things
that are then going to create far more opportunities
to sell more deeply to your clients.
Number four, private events.
I personally love private events.
For my own business, I use private events all the time
to generate hundreds of thousands of dollars of business
every single year.
And what I do is I use private events
to just invite really high-potential prospects,
and mix them in with some of my existing top clients
and get them into a room together,
and then I provide huge value to them in that room.
You can do this exact same thing at your own private events,
where you invite really high-potential clients
and combine that with some of your top clients,
and then provide some content.
So let's say you're a marketing company.
You can provide content.
You could be the speaker
or you could have a special speaker
who's gonna talk about the five must-know ideas
for marketing in today's new economy,
or whatever it is.
And what you're doing
is making sure that you're getting your clients
and your prospects into the same room,
and you're doing it in a really exclusive environment.
Maybe have it at the Ritz or some nice hotel.
You could of course do it at your office,
but I tend to find that the more exclusive-feeling this is,
the more people really wanna be a part of it.
And get them all together, get them talking.
And you don't even have to sell hard, right?
You're just getting people together.
And then of course at the end, you are saying,
"Hey, I'm available to set up meetings if you'd like."
But that's it.
Private events are such a powerful way
to get more people in front of you
in a way that really lowers their guard.
And high-level prospects are gonna be willing to come
because it just feels exclusive.
Number five, nurture, nurture, nurture.
You know, there's a really old-school idea
that we need to just hammer our prospects.
And if they're not willing to buy,
we need to convince them as to why they need to buy.
But in today's world, my data shows
that at least 50 or so percent of your prospects
are not going to be a good fit for you right now.
But that doesn't mean
that they're never going to be a good fit.
It means that right at this particular point,
they're not a good fit.
So we disqualify them
for trying to have a conversation with them,
but what we want to do
is keep them into our nurture campaign.
And so every company should have some way
to nurture prospects who might not be a fit today,
but are maybe going to be a fit down the road.
And so that means having this group of people
where you're sending them content on a regular basis.
It might be emails.
It might be packages with books
or whatever information that you can send them
that is valuable content,
that you can use to nurture that relationship.
So even if they're not willing
or maybe it doesn't make sense
to do business with you today,
six months or a year from now you've got these people,
they know you by your first name,
and they're willing to pick up your call
when you go to call them down the road.
Nurture, nurture, nurture.
Number six, pick one place to network deeply.
Now, we've all been told our whole lives
that we need to network, network, network.
But networking can mean a lot of things
to a lot of different people.
What I find is that the most effective networkers
are really good at networking very deeply
in one or two key places.
And so the first idea
is that we need to decide where we want to network.
The number one rule should be
that you're only networking where your prospects
and your customers currently are today.
I'm talking about the decision-makers
of your clients and customer companies.
Where are they actually networking?
So once you know where you want to be networking,
go really deeply in those one or two groups.
So don't cast a really wide net necessarily,
focus really deeply on those one or two groups.
Get involved.
Become a member of their committee or their board.
Start to develop relationships in those groups,
and ideally it's just one or two places.
And what you're going to find
is that you're gonna get a lot more bang for your buck
by going deeply in one or two places,
as opposed to just going to any networking event
that's available to you.
Because when you just go to a networking event,
it's basically just cold calling face-to-face,
if you have no relationship with anyone there.
But once you start to build those relationships
with those people who could be buyers,
it can just be an absolute flood
of new leads coming into your pipeline.
Pick one place to network deeply.
Number seven, get face-to-face with your best opportunities.
Now this goes counter
to where a lot of sales organizations are going today,
where what I've noticed is that the trend
has been toward avoiding face-to-face meetings,
because they're cumbersome,
they're time-consuming, they involve travel.
I don't disagree with all of that.
I think that in some cases,
it can be far more efficient
to not get face-to-face with those smaller opportunities.
But if you're in the business of selling to big companies,
you're selling big sales,
big opportunities to big companies,
getting face-to-face with those opportunities
is going to make a huge difference on your close ratio.
It's the difference between closing 20% of opportunities
and closing 50%, in a lot of cases.
Get face-to-face with your best opportunities.
That means yes, getting onto a plane.
That means yes, getting in the car and getting face-to-face.
Now, you don't have to get face-to-face
with all of your opportunities.
If it's a little baby opportunity, it's fine.
Use that WebEx, use that GoToMeeting.
But if it's a really good opportunity,
get your ass onto a plane and get face-to-face with them.
What you're going to find
is that you're going to close a lot more
of those best opportunities.
And yeah, is it gonna take a little more time?
Sure.
But it's so worth it in terms of the increased likelihood
of truly closing that deal.
Get face-to-face with your best opportunities.
So there are seven easy tips
to fill your sales funnel to the brim.
I wanna hear from you.
Which of these ideas did you find most useful?
Be sure to share below in the comment section
to get involved in the conversation.
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