Growth Accelerator 5 - How to Convert Leads to Clients by Den Lennie

Hey guys, welcome to this episode of the Video Business Accelerator Podcast. This week I'm going to be delving into how we convert those inquiries into sales. But before I get into that, I just wanted to give you a heads up that we are running another Mastermind event in Melbourne, Australia on the 3rd and 4th of October. So if you are in Australia and you'd like to come to the first day of that event, this is a private two day, closed door event that we have just for our members of our Video Business Accelerator program. It's where we kind of come together, brainstorm, do some training and do some masterminding. Now what we want to do is open up three spots for you. If you're sitting there listening to this podcast thinking, hey, the accelerator program sounds pretty cool, I'm just not sure about it. So what you can do is go to videobusinessaccelerator.com, click on the Accelerator tab and fill out the short application form. We'll have a call and if we think there's a good fit, we may well invite you along to one of those days so you can try it out for yourself and meet the rest of the folks in the program and get some great training at the same time. So please do enjoy this episode and I'll talk to you again soon.

Welcome to the Video Business Accelerator Podcast. Each week we uncover the secrets to creating a wildly successful and scalable video production business. With your host, Dan Lenny, discover how the Accelerator program is transform the lives of our members at www.videobusinessaccelerator.com. enjoy this episode.

Let's jump straight into this folks. Growth Accelerator 5 is convert. So you know, we had some incredible couple of issues just with Jeff at Sonic site talking about niching and the magic of subscription based services.

But before you can get to any of that stage, you've actually got to convert those curious inquiries into customers. Now we've talked in previous accelerator episodes about educating your market, which Jeff does really well on his website@sonicsite.com if you want to check it out and generating interest, the next stage is converting those people into clients. Now just because someone shows interest in our products and services doesn't mean they're ready to buy our products and services. Very important to understand this, we must be very, very aware that.

We'Ve got to nurture people through a process and so that when they're ready to make the buying decision, you become the natural choice. Now this is the sales process and I use the word process very, very meaningfully because it is a process. It's something that can be repeated, it's something that can be structured, and it's something that can be scripted. So the first sort of objective here is to work out what you want that process to be. It's what we call a sales pipeline. If you've got someone coming in as a cold lead at one end and coming out the other end as a hot sale, there's a number of steps in between times that might involve inquiry, phone calls, it might involve, you know, sending out quotes, it might be starting to look at locations, it might be a whole heap of different things. So the way to manage that in stages is to use something called a CRM. Now, a CRM is a customer relationship management tool. There are lots and lots of different ones available. I've been using pipedrive for a little while. I also have Active Campaign, and I'm about to shift from Pipedrive to Active Campaign because ActiveCampaign is my email provider, my CRM, and it can also manage my sales process for me. So all under one roof. It's very reasonably priced and yeah, I'm pretty happy with it. Now, there's a whole load of different types. Don't get too caught up in the technology. The important thing here is to understand what it is you want to achieve. And you want to be able to track someone coming in as a cold inquiry, nurture them through a process till they come out the other end as a hot sail. And the important thing about a CRM is you can move people through different stages of that process. So at a glance, well, here's what happens normally, right before I go to the solution, here's what happens normally. Inquiries come in, they're on email, people may or may not follow up. And then if someone's semi organized, they'll put them into a spreadsheet. But so many video production companies just rely on that kind of, you know, remembering, which is a pretty poor strategy. And the thing is, we just naturally forget things as humans. So if you're, if you migrated to using a spreadsheet, good for you, that's a great step. You want to know who's available. A CRM takes it up a whole gear, and that means you can get, you can send different messages to different segments of the list of people on your database. You're going to talk differently to someone who's a previous client than someone who's coming in as a cold inquiry because you don't have the same relationship. So a CRM, the customer relationship management, is a tool that Helps you to manage that relationship relationship through different stages. Now the reason that I personally like to use ActiveCampaign is because I can build automations that trigger when people move from one part of the sales process to another. So if they're just simply a subscriber looking for, you know, updates on the podcast, or maybe they've downloaded an ebook, they're just, they're just kind of saying, hey, you know, I'm vaguely interested in what you're doing here, enough to give you my email address. That doesn't mean they're necessarily going to ever become a client. It could be that. And look, you know, to be honest, probably 95% of people who are on a subscriber list never become clients, but it's the 5% that do that matter. So you have to be willing to be creating content, pushing it out to the network and not necessarily realize or just accept that, you know, not everyone that sees your stuff is going to, going to act on it. But if you don't put it out, then you're guaranteeing no results. So it's important to have a process here. So a CRM is the tool we use to move people through a sales process and they can, they can trigger different events. So perhaps it's, you know, inquiry comes in, triggers an email saying, here's what here, here's what the next steps are. You can use a CRM and email automation to simplify some of the processes that are going, going on. And from there actually, you know, automate a lot of that process because a lot of this is labor intensive, you know, sending emails back saying hey, you know, thanks for your inquiry. Here's what we do, here's how we help. Please fill in this form so we can have a call with you that can be automated. So you know, you don't need to build a huge team. You can do this through automation. And you know, automation I would say in my business saves me at least one full time employee. So it's got a tangible, real life saving and these tools are very inexpensive relative to what it would cost to hire someone full time. Now the real magic is, you know, human automation. So building certain tools and then having a virtual assistant or a team member progress through and track things as well. So that's what we do. Now the sales process itself would be very dependent on the product or service that you are selling. And so in that case if, let's just say you're doing corporate videos for manufacturers, manufacturing, you know, there will be, there'll be a process of them perhaps making an inquiry. Perhaps the next stage is you receive that inquiry and send them an email thanking them for making the application and that you'll be back in touch once you've reviewed their information. It might be then to trigger a phone call. Now, here's the thing, in many cases, it will take you upwards of 10 to 15 phone calls to get a hold of that person, potentially. And this freaks a lot of people out. Just because someone's made an application to have a conversation doesn't mean that they're sitting by the phone waiting for you to call. Now, if, when someone does make the application and you get back to them within half an hour, there's a 95% chance you'll close that deal much more successfully than if you leave it even a day. So things like live chat on your website can be very useful for that. Tools that can create an immediacy. If someone's on your website looking for a solution and you can get back to them straight away, you will have a far higher likelihood of winning that deal. And this is where you can use virtual assistants and virtual team. You can run this kind of software on your website and your team can be responding to inquiries and you can pre script the answers. That human interaction can help make that conversation more meaningful. So moving on to a sales process, you want to map out the journey you want to bring a lead into your business on, and how you want to nurture them. And here's the thing, the more sales conversations you have, the more you will start to understand how the inquiries go. And this takes me back to the whole point of having a niche vertical in your business as a core source of business is you can start to map out how people perform and the kind of objections they have. The more conversations you have. Let me explain. There is always a set of doubts in someone's mind when it comes to, you know, engaging a company and spending oftentimes thousands of dollars. So it might be that they have doubts. They've made an application to have a phone call with you to have an inquiry, but they're not quite sure about the next steps. And when people are confused, they tend not to take any action. So by focusing on a key target market, you can start to have 20, 30, 40 phone calls with potential clients in that market, and you will start to see patterns of behavior. You will start to see and hear objections and a way of approaching things, and you'll start to understand your market much more intimately. So then what you can do as part of your sales process is the more people you have conversations with, the more information you can have to refine your sales process. So if someone is anxious about the crew not turning up on time or costs blowing out and things not being delivered on time, you can address those things in your sales process. You could actually create some media up front. An email that says, we understand that at the beginning of a relationship like this, you may have concerns about the crew not turning up on time. Certainly that's something we would find frustrating. Or, or perhaps you're worried that costs might blow out. Well, I'm pleased to tell you that we have a fixed price video pricing strategy. Once we lock in the price that is fixed, if something else comes up, we go through a process of helping you understand what that might mean and you can make the final decision. There will be no risk to you receiving an unexpected bill. And then you might also have a concern that, you know, the edit won't be delivered on time. Well, I can tell you we have a very strict policy. We're very systemized in this business. We know exactly when the edit's due. In fact, we have a guarantee that if we don't deliver the edit on time that we've allocated for it, the edit is free. So you can be very bold in your marketing up front. Now, I guarantee no one is doing this. No one is doing this because no one has the balls to do it. And the fact is, if you're a professional, you're going to turn up on time. If you're a professional, you're not going to let costs blow out without letting the client know. And if you're a professional, you're going to deliver your edit on time. So these aren't guarantees that are suddenly like some big risk to your business. If you're doing this already, if you're a serious, committed professional, this is standard practice. All we're doing is saying, hey, it's part of the sales process. We're going to put your mind at rest. So it's really, really powerful to do that. And then the next stage is, you know, this is a sales process. So what I often do is I recommend a two part sales process. The first part of the sales process is to have a call and say, hey, thanks so much for your inquiry. The reason for my call today is I'm just calling you to let you know we've received your inquiry, we've processed the information and I wanted to line up a time that was mutually convenient so that we could sit down and actually have a conversation about this. We need about 30 minutes of your time. Want to make sure that you're not distracted by driving or in a meeting. So when would be a good time? That's what we call a qualifying call. In that call you can get a sense of, hey, you know, how quickly do you need this project to be done? Are there any other stakeholders that need to be involved in the conversation? And do you have any example footage you could show us that we could get an idea of what it is you're looking for? Then you line up the actual call. You've already had a conversation, you've broken the ice, you've started a relationship. And once you've set up that initial call and had the initial pre qualifying call, you can say, hey, I'm going to send you an email which is with some more information and a questionnaire that if you can get time to just fill out for me, will give us a greater understanding of you and your business. So you can get them interactively taking part in a process, such as part of your sales process. And then you can have the sales call with them primed, aware, conscious that that's what they're there to do. And then, and then your conversation is about finding out as much as possible about what their needs are and marrying up their needs with if your solution will actually deliver them what they need. You can say, well, hey, it looks like you've got a problem here we can solve. Here's, here's, I think a solution we can help you with. Let me start, let me just give you an idea of, indication of what these things might cost. You know, did you have a budget in mind? And if they say no, you can say, okay, well, you know, this came from one of my clients. Actually. A great example he uses is, is use a house analogy. He says, you know, when you're building a house, you can build a timber frame house with pine, like a log cabin. You can build it with wood and put a roof on with a tin roof and it will keep the rain out and it will give you shelter. But you know, there'll be gaps in the wood and the wind will get through and there's no insulation, so it will get cold at night. Or you can build a concrete house where we can put piles in the ground and that can keep the house elevated. So if there was a flood you'd be okay. And then we can put a concrete floor and concrete breeze block walls and a slate roof and we can insulate the walls and we can put, you know, marble down on the floor. We can put gold taps and, and it can be really comfortable and it can have like all the mod cons and all the electrics and home automation can be up there. He said. And both will do the job of protecting you. One's going to cost, you know, a million dollars and one's going to cost you 100,000. And obviously we can do anything in between. So which, which, which one would you be likely to go for? And generally speaking, people will say, well, something in between, it's okay. Okay, so the same is true of video. And we can make it really cheaply with a one man band and a dslr or we can bring in a full crew with an Alexa, a full lighting rig, professional actors. And it's going to cost more money because there's more people involved. But depending on what outcome you want, we can also slide that scale anywhere in between. So it gives you the opportunity to start a conversation around where do they want to be? Not do they want a video. It's like, it's more of a which one do they want? And that process is something you can script. So you know, just finishing off the conversion accelerator here, scripts are very important. We actually have scripts in the accelerator program pre done for follow up calls, for example, with existing clients, how to get more work from existing clients. We have scripts that we've pre written that you can take and just use straight away. And we, when we find, when people join the program we have this kind of like goal where we want you to make sales in the first 30 days. It's not the, it's not the, it's not the biggest purpose of the group, but it's always nice to keep the solid business focus and, and almost every time someone does this process they win more business because oftentimes you're just leaving business on the table and people don't know how to approach a lapsed client and say, hey, you know, it's been a while. And so we have scripts pre written which are very effective. In fact, Gareth, one of our clients, when he started with us, had been through a spell. He's also, Gareth also makes feature films and Gareth had actually been on the podcast a few episodes back, so feel free to go and check his episode out. But he'd been working on a film for three months and he'd sort of let his corporate business run dry and he kind of came to us saying, I've got no work, what do I do? And, and we did this process where we created these scripts for Gareth and he followed up with these clients and in the space of a month started getting bookings to the point where he ended up like with so much work, he actually was going to move back to the UK for a while to spend some time with his family and he was going to close down the production company in Sydney, Australia. And because he had so much work, he was able to keep the production company going in Australia and move back to the uk. And he's now building a business in the UK and spending time with his friends and family. And that business in Sydney is still generating sales and income for him and he's still got to manage it. And there's a few challenges there with time zones, but the fact is there's a business that's operating largely without him day to day. He's not on the tools, doing the jobs. He's found other people to shoot for him. And that was all because of a sales script. And Gareth, you know, is in great shape as a result of it. So the whole process of Growth Accelerator 5 is to convert people who are showing an interest in your business and helping them move through a process that you predetermined in order to to convert them into customers. Because it's when paying customers pay that you get the cash and the cash is the oxygen that fuels your business. So the conversion part of the process is, is complex. But once you set it up once as a process, it's a process that everyone follows in your business and you'll find yourself building consistency and building predictability into your business. And that, that is the nirvana.

You've been listening to the Video Business Accelerator podcast with your host, Den Lenny. If you are a video business owner who is tired of going it alone and would benefit from mentorship, support and weekly accountability, then mouse over to www.videobusinessaccelerator.com to learn more about how the accelerator program can help you today. Don't forget to subscribe and rate the show over on itunes, and we'd really appreciate you taking a few minutes to leave a.

Sam.