Why Your Leads Aren’t Converting to Sales (And How To Fix It)

Caleb Agee 0:00
You need to remember they reached out to you because they had a reason to reach out to you. They needed your home improvement product. They needed your boat. They needed that car. They needed legal services. They need whatever that is, they at least are researching it or looking around or leaned in in some way, responded to that Facebook ad, responded to a Google search. And you can’t forget that, because I think when you go to the sales thing without confidence and say, they need me, yeah, you’re gonna lose

Brandon Welch 0:34
Welcome to the Maven Marketing Podcast. Today is Maven Monday. I’m your host, Brandon Welch, and I’m here with my trusty co host, Caleb, blue stripes. Agee, it’s a fancy blue striped shirt. Happy to be here. You just look official. You’re going to pitch something. You’re going for a job interview today or something. Yeah,

Caleb Agee 0:48
love it, getting a big loan.

Brandon Welch 0:50
Oh yeah, that’s good. Get me some while you’re at it. So this is the place where we answer your real life marketing questions, so you can eliminate waste in advertising, grow your business and achieve the big dream, and speaking of eliminating waste and advertising, are leads any good if they don’t turn into sales? No, no, says most people that we know right now, yeah. And there’s a trend. I’m sure you felt it leads are taking longer to turn into sales, and we wanted to dig into that problem today and just kind of overview it, give you some data as to what’s happening, what to maybe expect next, and then also what you can do about it. Most importantly, we have five points for you and what you can do

Caleb Agee 1:36
about that. Yeah, and, and we’re seeing lead volume being relatively similar in a lot of categories. So it in some of these cases, we’re seeing lead volumes the same, but we’re not closing, or we’re not setting appointments, or, Yes, you know, things aren’t leaving. Yeah,

Brandon Welch 1:52
seeing this mostly, and we’ll talk about this. I’m not seeing this mostly with people we work with that are really lead generation dependent versus maybe who have had more of an established brand? Yeah, those are just more cantankerous. So talk about the psychology and what the data is saying about that. But Caleb, why in the heck are my leads turning into sales? Yeah, well,

Caleb Agee 2:15
it all starts with the customer’s appetite. You know, we we are better than last year, but we’re not completely back to the heyday of, you know, 2022, post pandemic. All that, you know, free money floating around, and everybody’s spending it and feeling really good. We had a big dip for a while after that, and we’re pulling up, but it’s just not there yet, and so we found this quote from Ted Rossman. He’s an analyst from bake bank rate. He said, long story short, we’re seeing a more cautious consumer. Consumer spending certainly isn’t falling off a cliff, but we’re seeing ample evidence that Americans are becoming more reluctant to make certain purchases, especially larger purchases and acquiring physical goods services, spending has been more robust, perhaps still owing to pent up demand that stacked up during the pandemic for things like traveling and dining out.

Brandon Welch 3:12
Yes, so people are spending money, but they’re being more cautious about where they put it. I think that’s very evident. I think any anybody we serve with like, just knows that to be true by looking around. One thing that stood out to me is that credit card debt is at an all time high, over a trillion dollars in America. Now that’s so fun and warm fuzzies, and we’re just more aware of that like, but even at kind of like, even though that is true. Like the credit card situation is out of hand in America, it’s still the credit usage is still kind of underperforming what analysts expected. So I don’t know if that means we’re getting a little bit wiser or we’re just put on the brakes, but I think when people see the commoditized stuff, your milk and your eggs go up, even though that’s maybe not. You know, the dozens of dollars you spend extra on that stuff does not compare to the 1000s of dollars you might spend in another environment. It just, it creates an emotional nausea, like just a people, people tense up. So yeah, and then also you can’t get blood from a turnip. So yeah, this happening. I read a study this is happening most with Middle America. The lower income bracket is actually still splurging on things comparative to their norms. But middle and upper middle are the ones that are squeezing in, and then your highest levels tend to keep spending. Just keep spending, just doing what they were going to do, yep. So we’re basing a lot of this off of the confidence level. And US economic conditions report and consumer optimism has reached its highest level in almost two years. That’s good. Great. Yeah, that’s coming out of basically the February data. And I. There are still more people pessimistic and still less people optimistic than January of 21 however or sorry of 2020, 20, however, it’s pulled up quite a bit from last year. So the second thing I would highlight is pent up demand from services and travelers still at play while home improvement, things like vehicles, things like larger purchases that would be maybe longer term things. Those are the ones that are suffering. So we’re still giving our money back to the vacations and the eating out and stuff like that, according to an index done by McKinsey consumer wise, really great little read. We’ll put the link in the comments, but basically goes through every category, and it’s like, hey, compared to normal, it’s asking the consumer group, do you plan to spend more, less or about the same? And some of the big highlights from that would be that, like I said, Home Improvement, things like gardening, Home Improvement, are down. Cruises, for example, are up. Domestic flights, for example, are up, right? So you can just kind of see there is money being there. But that kind of leads me to point number three, if you’re not getting the money and they otherwise are leaning in with, you know, by by being a contact or becoming a lead at your company, I would suggest that you just aren’t transferring enough confidence.

Caleb Agee 6:23
Yeah, what are sales? Yeah. Sales is just a transfer of confidence,

Brandon Welch 6:26
and you cannot transfer what you don’t have That’s right. And if you aren’t sure that this is the right time, or your price isn’t the right price, or your product is the right value, or at least, you’re not articulating that to a customer in their language, then that’s why you’re losing and so I think the needs are still the same. People still need home improvement products. I think talking about our professional service folks, they still need medical and legal. Yeah, we all definitely still need vehicles and things like that. It’s just we aren’t articulating their problems better than they can, and so it

Caleb Agee 7:08
equals weight. Yeah, yeah. They want to slow down and and think about it. And I think, I think if we can raise that confidence level, raise the trust that the customer has in us absolutely at the point of the sale, or better, before the point of the sale, then we’re gonna win all the way along.

Brandon Welch 7:27
Yes. So gotta transfer more confidence. And I was given the analogy of like, you remember when you were in college and you could eat like a whole pizza and a bag of popcorn, you know, and a two liter Mountain Dew, and then you would, you know, still be the same weight the next day, oh, yeah, because your metabolism was killing it. And then now, you know, suddenly hit 30 and, you know, even an extra piece of bread at dinner shows up next day on the scale. That is the analogy for the American salesperson. We had had a high metabolism, which is the high appetite of a consumer showing up. And essentially, salespeople, largely for the last five years, even before pandemic, have been allowed to be clerks, not salespeople. Yeah. And so it has everything to do with you’re not transferring enough confidence. We’ve lost the art of salesmanship, which I would say we’ve lost the art of empathy. And so what you need to do, instead of just saying it’s bad and it’s going to be bad, is you need to work harder and you need to get better. And we have five ways we’re going to talk about

Caleb Agee 8:31
that today. Yeah, let’s do it. Number one, you need to ask better questions. Ask better questions. I feel

Brandon Welch 8:42
like the typical conversation in a service based thing, or even a, you know, a salesperson guided conversation, is still cool. Well, let me make a product demonstration to you, and do you want to buy? Right? That’s generally what it is, right? And that’s the expectation that a lot of people even have, yeah, but I think what the consumer is secretly saying is remind me that I need to buy it and help me overcome the things that are telling me I shouldn’t do it yet. And so you know, even before you’re starting that conversation, you’re wanting to be asking, what made you reach out to us right now, find out later, right what are your biggest expectations for making this purchase? Is this something you’re planning on doing in the next month or after and just curious, because we have some pricing, we have some price increases that are about to come in third quarter. Just curious, if you’re thinking about doing that in the next month, like nudge that recommendation. So what made you reach out to us right now? What are the biggest expectations for making this purchase? This something you’re planning on doing in the next month. What are the things that would make you put this purchase off? Just curious, what are the number one things you’ll be making your decision off of, is there anyone else making this decision with you? What are the number one things they’re concerned about? How will you both know that this is the right time I heard you say Blank, blank and blank. Are your biggest concerns? If I could meet all of those today at the price you were expecting? Is there any other reason you wouldn’t be moving forward? And so you’re asking them to participate in that logic with you, so that, hey, you have a roadmap for how to guide that conversation and do it in the right way, the empathetic way, the way we should be selling in the first place. But also you’re giving a set of micro commitments along that way, so that you can remind them of their own formula for making this decision. Yeah, and

Caleb Agee 10:31
I think it’s easy to forget if you have this lead, which is a person with a need, a lead is a person with a need. If you have this lead. They reached out because they have a need. Just start sounding like Dr Seuss here in a second. But would you could you with a lead?

Brandon Welch 10:50
Would you could you if they were in need? Yeah,

Caleb Agee 10:52
so you need to remember they reached out to you because they had a reason to reach out to you. That means, at least at some thin level. We don’t know how far down they are on the path, you know to buy, but they were interested in what you’re selling. They needed your home improvement product. They needed your boat. They needed that car. They needed legal services. They need whatever that is. They at least are researching it or looking around or leaned in in some way, responded to that Facebook ad, responded to a Google search. And you can’t forget that, because I think when you go to the sales thing without confidence and say, they need me, yeah, you’re gonna lose That’s exactly right every single time. And that changes your mindset. When you walk in there, it’s

Brandon Welch 11:40
like Whack a Mole. They’re jumping up, begging for attention, and then something else comes, brings it back under. And so speed, we didn’t put this in here, but speed is also a big thing in that category, yeah. And then also understanding that just the turbulence that’s under writing the American emotion right now, yeah, means that they’ll make micro adjustments and their emotional stamina to commit to your product, even on a daily basis. Yeah. So consistency, persistency, follow through is definitely your friend right now. So, but it all starts with asking better questions. So you have the cookie crumbs, the breadcrumbs back to that way they’re making decisions, and we’re gonna post all of these questions in the notes here. These are some of my favorite power questions for moving sales forward. Yeah, what’s the second thing we’re gonna do?

Caleb Agee 12:26
Number two is communicate your values better. 75% of Americans say it’s no longer acceptable for companies to just be in it for the money. Yeah, this is changing. They have to positively impact society too. So

Brandon Welch 12:43
it could also be your, you know, yes, the economy’s in its own turmoil, but it could also be that you’re not getting your fair share, or what used to be your fair share of the share, and that’s just because you’re not that great. People don’t like you as much as they used to by default, and this is a big one, and younger companies do this so much better than established companies. Yeah,

Caleb Agee 13:08
yep, uh, 73% of Americans say to win their support, companies must show that they’re supporting communities in the environment. 69 say they’re less likely to support companies that are clearly only in business to make money. Wow, that’s wild.

Brandon Welch 13:23
Those are my majority. Yeah, that could be three out of four of your clients there, right your of your prospects, and maybe that won’t make the ultimate yes or no, but what if that part of the confidence, which is just the data showing that’s a huge part of our emotional decision making right now? What if you were re engineering your sales process, or hopefully just your company process, yeah. And hopefully it’s something you’re already doing. You just need to communicate it a little bit better, yeah. And so when you buy, you know, Windows or roofs or solar from XYZ company, that’s, you know, you’re helping build homes in Africa, or you help digging wells, or you’re helping, you know, the local community with the backpack program, or you’re helping somebody do something bigger than just that sale and that that produces talking about transferring Confidence, like joy and like Phil and philanthropy, philanthropic moves, yeah, create confidence. It creates oxytocin in the brain. We feel this love and connection, yeah, and when you please hear me right, you should not do this to manipulate. You should absolutely do it. Hopefully you already are, but you should communicate it, because that is of value and that is of strength around that relationship you’re building with that customer. Yeah?

Caleb Agee 14:44
Because somebody else is going to take their money and just put it in their pocket. Yeah, right, yes. So you’re, you’re sharing, hey, I’m not just putting all this in my pocket. I’m doing, doing some good with it. Yes, and I think at maybe a slightly higher level, if you don’t you know before that, it would. Reminds me of how we speak about customer or, sorry, company values. So just the values you have as a company, being able to communicate those your mission, being able to communicate that we talk about how we do that in our team meetings with our team all the time, we’re speaking about our mission. And Nate

Brandon Welch 15:17
said it last week on he did. He did, yeah, so demand that

Caleb Agee 15:21
should be coming out naturally, out of your sales people’s mouths as well, yes. And when that’s true, even if it’s not totally given, given money away to some charity, it still speaks to a higher purpose, definitely. And the and then the thing they’re buying from you is going to help in that way. You don’t say yeah,

Brandon Welch 15:42
yeah. You’re saying So Caleb, can I share just a couple of company values, some some beliefs we hold true here at Frank and Maven, yeah. We believe if we’re not growing you, we’re using you. We believe we should only fill one glass at a time. We believe in saying what needs to be said, even if you don’t want to hear it. Is that okay if I continue this presentation in that spirit? Right? Yep. Those are three real company values of Frank and Maven. Yep. Now you know, I’ve got a bigger agenda in the world than getting your money today. Yep. And I think we’re smarter than how we used to be, and I think we’ve been just disenfranchised and underwhelmed by the advent of sales. But no matter what the data says it’s a trend, and whether you believe that or not, it’s something you should be considering what you’re communicating. So yeah, number three. So number two was, communicate your values better. Yes, plan that plane. So number three is get in front of more people who are not brand aware. So when someone is in like, they’ve entered buying mode. There’s really kind of four micro modes they’re in. So they can either have low motivation, low brand awareness. That is like the worst, because they’re not at the finish line, they’re kind of just sort of leaning in. So they might, like, click on an article you had or something like that, and browse tire kickers. Yeah, they could have high motivation, but no brand awareness, which is actually the one you probably want to focus on. Yeah, they could have high motivation, high brand awareness. And those are the people saying, Take my money, yep. Or they could have high brand awareness, low motivation. So and those people we can’t do a ton about because it’s sort of a life thing. So yeah, but put those into four quadrants. We know we want the high brand awareness, high motivation to apply today. Those are coming anyways, yes, but I would suggest that if you are getting a lot of these, maybe low motivation, low brand awareness, people that are just kind of sort of curious, putting their toe in the water, you need to widen your net. Of the people you’re talking to, most of the people I’m hearing this issue from, are very Facebook, lead generation, Google lead generation, targeted list type advertisers, yeah. And what that’s doing is it’s not creating buyer loyalty and brand loyalty and affinity throughout that process, and so by the time they kind of sort of get in the finish line, it’s like, you’re just another one of the Yeah, instead of you’re going, Okay, I’m kind of sort of getting ready to do this, but I know I like you, and that is a totally different customer. If they already know they like you. Our clients that are doing this well have already secured customers five years in the future, because they built that bond with the people. They’ve showed them their personality. They’ve showed them the values and the things that they hold true in their company. They’ve demonstrated that over time, over time, over time, without beating them over the head asking for the sale. You’ve seen this show this stuff in our Dee and Randy campaigns, our best window company folks are doing it. You’ve seen our vision clinic and Ozarks Elder Law and just a lot of these really heartfelt, value based owner operators that have been for years and years and years. Guess what? They’re not having these problems. Yeah, because for years and years and years, they are already telling their future customer list that they can trust them. Yeah, they’re already they’re demon, or they’re transferring that confidence, long, long, long, long, long before the sale. That’s right. So number three is getting for get in front of more people who aren’t brand aware. Um, anything to add to that? Yeah,

Caleb Agee 19:18
well, marketing can only do one of three things. It can convince someone to buy who wasn’t already going to buy, right? You can move somebody into your category. That’s the toughest thing to do right now. That’s the hardest thing to do in a headwind economy, especially, yeah, in a down looking economy, pessimism is high. Optimism slightly higher. But yeah, you can steal market share, grow your piece of the pie, or you can get more business from your previous customers. Yes, and that the more business you should always be doing that. We call that the yesterday customer. You should be talking to them on the regular, which is this, is that brand aware? That’s your, that’s already your, your tribe? Yes. You’re already talking to them, hopefully you’re bringing further value to them. And then when the buying cycle circles around again, or they have a friend, or whatever, you’re gonna be the first choice. But that first one we mentioned, you almost if you are a roofer, unless you get a hammer and start climbing on roofs and dinging them like there’s hail, you really can’t create more roof problems. The world a better place. Yeah, you can’t. You can’t go. If you’re repairing cars. You can’t go make people’s cars. Hopefully, that would be very illegal, right? You can’t go create problems that would cause people to move on these things. But what you can do is make your piece of the pie bigger. That is the that is the thing you have to step into more often. And so when the pie is shrinking, the only way to grow or stay the same, actually even, is to grow your piece of the pie. You need to steal market share, which means more people need to know about you. Yes,

Brandon Welch 20:54
only one way to do that, just reach more people. That’s right. And so typically, if you’re only talking about the product, and if you’re only talking about today’s offer, offer, you’re only relevant to a third of a percent of the public, the other 97 99.7% of people ignore you. So broaden your message, broaden your reach. Broadcast, yeah, broad broadcast is a really good way to do that. It’s the most efficient way to do that if you’re a local provider or a regional provider with a like a set audience that’s limited to geography. Yep, cool. That’s it. So four is provide a trade down option. This one’s pretty simple. Big brands grew really big in pandemic like people were trying to express their identity. They couldn’t be out with their friends and all this stuff, so they bought things with money. They didn’t have to impress people they didn’t even like. Didn’t even like, or they got this, you know, affinity for the Louis Vuitton or the Rolex. The Rolex market just went nuts, and people got on these waiting lists because it was a way they could express themselves. And, yeah, that’s why, you know, watches that cost 15 grand are now 30, $45,000, and you’re waiting two years for them, so, but that’s that’s waning. You need to provide the trade down option. So if you haven’t yet considered, okay, consumers, it’s not just that they’re buying less. They’re buying different. They’re choosing different.

Caleb Agee 22:16
Yeah, one, one customer, one, one of our clients said that the consumer is just smarter. Is how they how they framed it, as in, they’re very smart in the way that they are going to wait, be meticulous and thoughtful. It’s not that they’re, you know, not smart other times, it’s just that they are thinking twice as long about this purchase as they would have two years ago, exactly.

Brandon Welch 22:38
Yeah, I read a thing the other day. So 53% of consumers will buy solely based on the experience, regardless of price, regardless of the value of the product, regardless of features, they’ll buy based on the experience. What kind of experience are you creating? That’s a totally like side thing we didn’t even put in here. But with that, is there a trade down option? Is there a thing? Is there a lens you can put your product in that says, You know what? You’re not buying the high trim Lexus, but we have a Lexus that’s the little, the more the sporty Lexus that’s got a few less options, and we knock the, you know, the acquisition price down five or $10,000 what is your version of that? The the sensible version of a still quality product. And I’m not saying, I’m not saying, charge less for your premium product. Please don’t do that. Maybe even charge a little more so that it makes the middle option seem a little more sensible. Anchor high. Offer a little bit lower. Yes, absolutely. So, yeah, provide a trade down. Um, just an enormous amount of consumers are looking for that trade down option. They’re splurging on certain things, but in every other area they’re trading, if you provide

Caleb Agee 23:42
a service where you have material goods, a lot of companies we’re seeing are going and getting multiple suppliers so that they have the ability to shop, whereas maybe they just had one before. Yes, they’re offering multiple lines. Yep, I’m

Brandon Welch 23:58
seeing that in the window business for sure. Yeah, man, you can look at it everywhere, and hopefully the manufacturers are already on that trend and and seeing that that’s what the consumers wanting. Yeah, we have a we have a couple of you know really well ran automotive clients, and they are seeing that people buying more their middle models than the high end style,

Caleb Agee 24:20
yep, yep. The number five, the last of our, of our tips here is, choose to grow. Choose to grow. That means do what you got to do to put numbers on that board.

Brandon Welch 24:33
Yeah, plan for growth. Deal with uncertainty. Yeah. Uncertainty is here. That’s the normal, but you can’t trade the option of growing or uncertainty. You can say, I’m going to manage uncertainty, but I’m going to choose to grow. Yeah, and what that looks like practically. You don’t want the public to get any sense of fear from you. Um. More importantly, you want the public to hear an abundance of good from you, because this is going to shift. It already is, but November will be a pivot point. If not, then it’ll be sometime later, 612, 18 months in the future, it’s going to shift. And the news and the word on the street is going to be it’s time to buy again, and emotional confidence is going to be high. And if you were the one all along, in alignment and in congruence with a good world, in a world where nothing to see here business as usual, we love you. We’re doing all the same things. I’m talking about your ad budgets, I’m talking about your messaging. I’m talking about all of the things that you would do if the sky was blue outside. Do those things, and then suddenly, when the sky is blue, you’ll be the one who skyrockets, skyrockets, ahead of the people who are playing it safe and playing it small. Yep. And that already happened for us, by the way, through the through the pandemic. We had some clients that did that really well, yes. And we have some home improvement people like that. Home Improvement Index is like negative 8% people are saying I’m spending less, that I’m that I’m I’m planning to spend less. And we have clients that are still beating their last year numbers by 20, 30%

Caleb Agee 26:14
I think we had one say 40, in the 40s, yes, up, which is, yeah, wild

Brandon Welch 26:19
in the last year. Numbers, by the way, were up a lot before the years before. So if you are planning to grow, if you go into this, going growth was not ever off the table. I’m just gonna have to deal with it a little bit differently. My foot is on the gas pedal. I’m gonna tell a good story. I’m gonna ask better questions. I’m going to start providing more training for my people, I’m going to understand that this is just a matter of me transferring confidence. I’m going to provide some extra options so that the people who are in concern mode, you know, don’t put me in the overpriced category. And I’m going to communicate my values better. That is what you want to do, and that’s going to keep confidence high. You’ll get through this, you’ll grow through this and you’ll skyrocket after it. That’s

Caleb Agee 27:02
right. Hey, if you enjoyed this, would you give us a five star review on whatever platform you’re or if you’re on YouTube, you give us that thumbs up. That helps us so much to help more people save money on their advertising?

Brandon Welch 27:17
Absolutely. Yeah, it helps with the algorithms. If you’re a business owner that’s benefited from this podcast, and you’ve gone out, they’re asking everybody else, not me, to subscribe. We’re asking you to subscribe right now. We’re also asking for five star, because we’re on a cusp of, like, getting to kind of a another level of virality. We’re just over 11,000 subscribers, and we plan to take this to, you know, 100,000 territory in the next year or two. You can help with that. You can be part of that and send your questions to Maven Monday at Frank and maven.com and you’ll get a bonus of us helping your business along. Yeah,

Caleb Agee 27:52
you know what? We also have podcast T shirts, and I will, I will personally ship you one if you send us question this week, Brandon gonna personally send you one. Yeah? Love it all. It’s a black shirt, so I’ll autograph it in black ink, and you will never know. I’m just kidding. Yeah,

Brandon Welch 28:08
we’ll be back here every Monday answering your real life marketing questions, because marketers who can’t teach you why are just a fancy lie. Have a great week.