Ben Wright walks through how a trade-finance company lifted revenue 40% by auditing 30+ lead channels and finding that 80% of qualified leads came from just three to four referral partners. They stopped low-performing activities and deepened relationships with the best sources instead. Test any lead channel for three months, then cut what doesn't work.
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We hit record sales for 2 consecutive months straight after focusing on our sales process with Ben. Welcome to Trade Sales Made Simple, the show helping 7 to 8 figure trade, construction, and industry leaders finally end the stress of inconsistent sales by simplifying your sales systems so that you can close more deals and grow faster. I'm your host, Ben Wright, and over the last 15 years, I've helped hundreds of trade and sales leaders grow their businesses. And generate over $200 million in additional revenue by simplifying their sales processes. Let's get started. That quote you heard at the start of the podcast was from a business late last year, so 2025, where we'd had about 4 sessions together. They were a business that worked in the trade industry around finance solutions. So they weren't a business that picked up the tools on site, but what they did do was support their customers get projects moving forward, right? So they were financing small business., right in that $1 to $5 million mark that we've spoken about a lot. And what we saw from them was straight after those 4 or 5 sessions was their sales bounced significantly. All right. In fact, 2 consecutive months in a row, they had sales growth and they managed to hold that for the rest of the time that we were working together and consistently grow. So how did they do that? That's what we want to explore today, because if you can perfect your sales process, you should expect that you can grow your sales at least twice or more faster than if you do it without. So this business, what we focused on was very much the start of their sales process. So it wasn't the 5 areas. We talk a lot about the 5 areas of sales process focus, lead generation, meet and greet, quote, closing, and then the post-sale steps of the sales process. But this business, we focused really heavily around lead generation and understanding for that business what were the best sources of leads for them. That converted. Because certainly in my experience, the majority of trade businesses I work with don't actually need more leads. They're generally getting enough leads come through paid search, through SEO, through Google, through word of mouth, through associations, through referral partners in particular. I've got a list of about 30 or so really common lead generation activities where trade businesses get their leads from. And if you'd like it, just contact me, not hard to find, LinkedIn, Instagram, right? All my contact details are in the show notes here. And I'm more than happy to send that out or have a discussion with you about it. But what we focused on here was across those 30-odd lead generation sources, this business was using about 6 or 7 of them. Very common for trade businesses that we work with. They have generally about 4 to 10 lead generation sources that get deals done for them. Really commonly a level of paid search, working with a marketing agency, really commonly word of mouth, really commonly other trade businesses, i.e., builders, for example, real estate agents, and then really, really commonly their own personal networks. So there's 4, for example, but we can add so many. We can add trade shows, we can add subscribing to professional bodies, right? Whatever that may be, there are so many out there. Now this business, as we sat down and worked through those 6 or 7 lead generation sources that they had, what became really, really obvious was that they were getting the majority of their leads from a very small number of referral partners. So despite having 6 or 7 lead generation activities, they were getting 80% of their leads from 3 or 4 referral partners. So to me, what that said was 2 things. Number 1, there was a lot of time leakage around the leads that they were getting through. So they were spending a lot of time on lead generation activities that were simply not generating enough progress for their business. So we needed to either change or stop those lead generation activities as soon as possible. That was the first piece that came from working with this business. So immediately we were able to stop a number of lead generation activities and give them time back in their day. And time back in their day could obviously be then focused on other areas of their business that would make a difference. Now, what were those areas and how could they make a difference? Well, what we decided as a business then was if we have 3 or 4 referral partners giving us the majority of our sales, how do we make sure we get more of that happening? So how can we throw that time that we've just freed up into lead generation sources that deliver. So there were two approaches that we spoke about. Number one is, do we try and go and get even more from these three or four referral partners that are working? Or number two, do we try and copy-paste exactly what she, in this instance, as the business leader, was good at and roll it out to similar referral partners that we thought could deliver them great results? Now the reality was here that we actually ended up doing both. So we tried to work a little bit more closely with those 3 or 4 referral partners, but we also then tried to go and find another 3 or 4 referral partners who were very similar to the existing ones that were delivering. And the end result here for this business was, is her sales were up there about 40% or so that they were up in the couple of months afterwards. And that actually included spending less money on some lead generation activities that weren't working, but it also allowed us to go and then focus on the areas that were working. Now, of course, the longer you spend in these lead generation activities that work, particularly when referral partners and the more you get up and running, the impacts to sales become cumulative because they grow on each other month after month after month. But certainly right now, if you are sitting listening as a trade business leader and you're thinking about how many lead generation sources you have, normally you'll get a good gut feel around the ones that aren't working. You might want to take a moment now to write that down, the one or two that you just know aren't working. So my advice here is to go and stop those. Right? Because if you don't change something on it, you're going to keep getting the same results over and over again. So my advice is to go and stop doing those or find a way to make them work. And if you want to find a way to make them work, give yourself a time window, 3 months where you're going to find a way to make them work. And if you don't in those 3 months, you move into something else. And then number 2 is you should know also which of your lead generation activities are generally the best, not necessarily generating the most leads, but generating the most leads that close. And if you don't, I'd really, really encourage you to just stop, pause, and find out which ones they are. But certainly if you do, have a think about how you can get more from those. Because when we talk about that 1% better everyday approach, this is an exact example around how just by slowing down a little bit, we are able to have a look at some of the really important levers in our business that we as leaders can influence by making small changes. So the reality is, is if you're getting quite a few of those lead generation sources coming through and you're quoting over and over again, but you're not closing those, it's probably going to be pretty frustrating. And as I mentioned a moment ago, if you're not changing what you're doing, then you're going to keep getting those same results. You're going to keep over-investing your time. It's going to be more and more frustrating or stressful, and you're not going to get the results, the sales results, and the money in the bank. So we've got a free quote audit or a free quote quiz that's in our show notes. You can click on the link. It's free. It will take you less than a minute, and it will pinpoint one area for you that we think you can grow your close rates by 20 to 25%. And certainly within that includes how we're dealing with leads and making sure that we're getting best from those leads that we're having. So please jump into the show notes, takes a minute, we'll come back to you really quickly on where we think we can help you improve. But in the meantime, please take from today how you can be that 1% better. It does make all the difference. And we'll catch you next time. Bye for now.
