So you want to increase sales and profits in your business, but to increase sales, first you need leads. And not just any leads, quality leads. Leads for people who not only fit the profile of your customers, but people that actually want what you’re selling. So, I’m going to show you how to generate 4X more leads by combining your marketing together with meaning, something that really matters to people, and something that matters to you. Let’s get started…
Did you know that you need seven to ten lead generators working for you at any one given time. A lot of people will say, “We have events.” If you don’t have an event going every week, you don’t get to count that one. This is seven to ten lead generators at any given time, producing for you, not just out there as possibilities. So again, if it’s something sporadic, that’s something that might be able to be counted that particular week, but not counted throughout the year.
The reason seven to ten matters is simply because if you have seven to ten productive lead generators going at any one time, you’ll be successful. You’ll hit your financial goals. The numbers are proven. Numbers matter, and we’ll talk about that in a minute when we talk about money. So with regard to lead generators, lead generators are things that produces you leads.
We’ve got a great referral system with our company, so we get buddy names from virtually every customer that we now bring into our family. When I say we get buddy names, they don’t just give us a name. They give us a name, they give us a phone number, and we let them know we’re going to contact that buddy with something special for them. That’s one of our very powerful lead generators.
We do regular media, external advertising, so we’ve got television working for us at all times. We have radio sometimes. That’s kind of sporadic, so I don’t typically count that one in our lead gen. Our website generates leads for us at all times. We figured out how to have Facebook generating leads for us at all times. We go out and speak. As long as one of the team is out speaking every week, I can count that one as one of the seven to ten.
Now, here’s the key. Don’t just have seven to ten out there; have seven to ten producing. A lot of us have been very smart and have made an offer for our business on our business card, but if those business cards don’t bring leads back to our business, we don’t get to count that one. It’s not effective.
Seven to ten. Now, give yourself a benchmark. In our business, the benchmark is 100. We have to bring in 100 leads a week, 100 new leads. I will tell you, you can’t sit and wait for that to happen. You have to go out and make that happen. So we go out into our community and we have a lot of business co-oping and charity co-oping. The key is if you have seven to ten lead generators pulling for your business at any one time, you will achieve your financial goals. Numbers are magic.
So let’s talk money. Let’s talk numbers. Numbers talk to you and they’ll tell you if you’re in line to achieve your financial goals or not. I want you to think about a proforma. A proforma is basically just a P&L (profit and loss statement) projected into the future. We know where our business is going at any given point in time and we watch that. It’s like our own little GPS.
We forecast line by line what each little expense should be, and then we forecast. We know we’re going to have our leads coming in, what our sales are going to be, what our product sales will be, what our total income will be. So we can look at the bottom line and know if we are happy with that or not. Then we’ve got a map and we simply follow the map. Letting your numbers talk to you means after you’ve created that proforma, you watch the numbers every day.
Just say, “Are we where we need to be with leads? What was our income? Did it match up? How are we doing on managing our expenses?” Because once you’ve created that map, and you let the numbers talk to you every day. Watch them every day and you’ll know if you’re following your route to your success.
The bottom line is plan your year, have a proforma so you know you are in fact going to end up where you want to end up, and then watch your numbers every day: the leads that come in, how many show up if you book an appointment, how many convert, how many actually become a customer of yours? then from there, how much more do they purchase from you, because we all know Marketing 101 says the person most likely to buy more from you is the person buying from you.
Now, on to the meaning stuff. We talk a lot about your goals. Let’s talk about your team’s goals. I was on the call this week with my Profit Group. It’s an amazing joy of my life to get to lead this group. I get fed as much as they get fed, probably more so. This week we’re talking about knowing your team’s goals. Do you know your team’s goals; their very specific goals, their financial goals, their career goals, their personal goals?
See, if you know exactly where they want to end up, and you make it your personal commitment to see them get there, you’re really in it for them. Then, not only will they hit their goals, but your goals will get blown away. Be in it for them. Be in it for them, and you’ll succeed.