Chapter Three: Converting Leads and Prospective Customers into Business Opportunities

In the previous chapter, we spoke mainly in theoretical terms and did not take practical steps toward generating revenue from lead and prospect lists. But we needed to become more familiar with behavioral principles and the meaning of the terms. Now we turn to practical, revenue-generating methods. In the first step, we prepared the tools and facilities to discover leads and attract prospective customers. Here, we address trust-building, the trust cycle and conversion into opportunities.

In the next chapter, we will discuss closing contracts and detailed techniques that can help at the final stage.

In the trust cycle, we arrange a work sequence intended to interest a lead or prospective customer in purchasing. We must accept that time builds trust, trust is a foundation of buying, and price comes afterward. We therefore use time together with ongoing contact to encourage leads and prospects to buy—in effect, to get them to purchase from us or provide new opportunities for us to sell to them.

Experience has shown that, over 25 contacts with leads, around 10 percent become opportunities.

Every contact is a signal, an offer and a reminder. A telephone call, email, gift, congratulatory message, in-person meeting, business video or anything that keeps you alive in buyers’ minds helps you take root there and gradually become a lasting option. You need to be established as someone who can supply the goods or services they need, much as information moves from short-term to long-term memory.

It is better to leave at least three or four days between contacts. Communications should not be repetitive but should follow a set of behavioral principles.

Later, I will give you an example of a trust cycle. It must be customized to your industry and applied to every lead. During the cycle, even if a lead requests a price and becomes an opportunity, you do not remove them from the cycle—not even if they buy from you.

In every case, the cooking process must be complete. You put in the raw ingredients—leads and prospective customers—and follow the trust-cycle instructions like a recipe, cooking them and continuing right through to the final stage.

Over time, you will notice faults in the system. Correct them and complete your cycle. Having this recipe is very valuable, so give it considerable attention.

A few points about the cycle:

Social networks help greatly: when a lead or prospective customer joins your network, you can maintain ongoing contact.

Keep improving your communication material. For example, if you have a video or company profile, continually work on its quality to attract customers’ attention more effectively.

If you contact someone and they become inactive for any reason, or stop responding during the cycle—provided the lead was previously qualified—continue the cycle with them. Try to find out why they are inactive or became inactive, but do not stop the cycle.

Identify widely used social networks. At present, the following have useful business applications:

These are among the world’s best-known social networks. LinkedIn is a network for professionals worldwide. Most are traders, economic actors or other professionals who have introduced themselves there. Most information users post on this network is genuine.

You can identify people on this network whose work relates to yours. The network also offers paid services introducing qualified leads, which helps greatly.

Normally, by having a company page you can attract and identify people working in your field and connect them with you over time.

Facebook offers pages. On company pages, you can introduce goods, post prices or publish news, and users who like the page remain in contact with you. As we said, communication and time create trust, and to find foreign customers you must gain their trust.

Video-based social networks such as YouTube are very suitable for publishing videos about your organization, so make sure you use this service.

Use social networks such as Instagram for daily or weekly visual advertising. It is very effective.

When using social networks, understanding their structure and users’ behavior is very important. On many services, for example, hashtags or # are essential; otherwise, people cannot easily find your content.