Have you ever tracked your close rate and job selling price against the number of leads you are running per day? I am referring to the actual data, not averages. You might be very surprised at the results.
In the summer, when it’s over 90 degrees during the day and 80 degrees at night, and people without air conditioning can’t get a comfortable night’s sleep, you can run 4, 5 even 6 calls a day. Assuming you can install the job as quickly as everyone else, your first-call close rate will be strong at 50% or more. You feel great, don’t you?
If you take a closer look at this, you’ll likely see that your typical sale is actually lower than during the times when you’re not so busy. It’s also likely that you didn’t have time to follow up on the leads you ran where the customer didn’t buy on the first call, and your follow-up close rate was low.
Now compare your close rate and average job when you are running 1 or 2 leads a day. First-call close rate might be down, but your follow-up close rate will certainly be higher, even exceeding your first-call close rate if you set the follow-up agreement with the customer properly. And your average job selling price? Higher, I’ll bet, often a lot higher.
Two leads-per-day is the sweet spot. This will enable you to:
- Take two hours or more per call when needed
- Have the time to do a full discovery, including taking important measurements and engaging the customer while you are doing so
- Present before-after photos and testimonials
- Present your company story
- Explain 3 or 4 system solution choices
- Discuss financing alternatives
- Ask for the sale
- Respond to questions/objections and ask for the sale again
- Create follow-up agreement
- Actually follow up!
- Go back after every installation to insure customer satisfaction and ask for testimonials and referrals
- Have time for yourself and your family
Here’s the math. Two leads a day, working 5 days a week, 48 weeks a year, with a 40% close rate and an $8,000 average job selling price is approximately $1.5M. (You can figure out what your income will be.)
Sure, you can’t always regulate your leads and there will be times when you’re running 0-1 calls per day and 3-4 calls per day, but you and your company can plan for this to happen for most of time. Why make more calls when fewer can get a better result for your customer, your company and for you?