36:3 Do you really need more leads?

Welcome to the Agency Trailblazer podcast, this is your host Lee, and on today’s show, we are talking leads. Do you need to keep generating more leads or do you need to generate the right leads that are easier for you to convert? This is from my live stream. You can find all of my life streams over on leematthewjackson.com/live.

Before we kick off the show, let me thank our wonderful sponsors Cloudways. You can check them out over on cloudways.com. They support all of my projects and their hosting and support, in my experience, is second to none. So, guys, thank you so much for all that you do. Right. Without further ado on with the show.

Bonjour folks, I believe we are live. Yep. Everything is set up. Welcome, my name is Lee Matthew Jackson, and you are most welcome to hang out with me today. If you are watching me live, I’d love to see some emojis. If you’re watching the replay, please type in the word replay. So I know that you got some time with me during the day and hopefully got some value. If you got value, let me know. And if you didn’t get value, hey, why not let me know. Let me know if I am not good at teaching because I can improve. That’s fine.

Right. Let’s get stuck in today. I want to ask the question, do you really need more leads or is conversion the issue? I hear all the time people saying I need to generate more leads, how can I generate more leads? And I would say potentially you can never generate enough leads. That’s a big, bold statement for today. But I think if your problem is you need to generate more leads, then your problem will always be that you need to generate more leads.You will never be able to generate enough leads to satisfy your need for generating leads.

Let me just explain that a little bit. If you have to keep generating leads and you’re struggling to convert those leads into good paying customers, then you’re having to play a numbers game. As you keep playing that numbers game, as you keep trying to attract more and more people, i.e. more and more leads to your business, you’re actually going to attract more of the same, more of the same type of lead that doesn’t convert and more of the same type of lead that does convert but is not a good quality client.

If you are in a situation where you’re stuck then with not good quality clients, this is now self-feeding because you now need to generate even more leads so that you can keep getting clients so that you can keep paying the bills. This means you will be forever stuck in a position of needing to generate more leads. More leads is not your problem. The problem is conversion and that’s good quality lead conversion. Do you get me now? If you need more leads, if you are worried that the leads you have are not good quality and you need more and more and more and more and you’re just going after that more, you’ll be forever stuck there.Hopefully that helps. Over and out. No, I’m joking. So I am telling you this from our experience. So about 12, 15 years ago, that’s the exact position we were in. We were after more and more leads. We had to keep getting more leads in to try and win the business that we could from them. Therefore, it was volume. If we increased the volume of people that we spoke to, we would eventually convert someone to something. And that meant money into the business. But it wasn’t a great position to be. I would suggest, therefore, that if that question has come up a few times, if you’ve been looking for ways for generating more leads, go through this process with me.

Have a look at the type of leads that you are attracting, OK, have a look at that type of lead you are attracting. You potentially have many different channels of attracting leads. Look at each one of those channels. What sort of lead is coming into your pipeline? Is this somebody with little to no money? Is this somebody who simply wants the freebie that you’re offering? Is this somebody who is relatively on point but doesn’t really have the need for the product or service you’re offering and is maybe now and again someone within any of these channels a real amazing hot lead?

Have a look at that. Look at the type of people, the type of leads that your current activities are attracting. Because, remember, if you just want to keep generating more leads, therefore throw money at the same ways you are generating those leads, you will just continue to generate more of the same more of the same people that may not be relevant, more of the same people that may not be easy to convert or more of the same people that make for sucky arse clients.

Let’s keep going. How many of those leads that you’re generating are engaging with you? I’ll tell you what. Ninety nine percent of our leads were not engaging with us back in the early 2010s. People weren’t talking with us. We were generating enough lives through the multiple channels that we did. But people weren’t interested. They were interested in the free report. They were interested in the freebie. They were interested in consuming some content, but they weren’t really interested in talking with us. They weren’t engaging with us. They weren’t replying to our questions. Only a very tiny percentage were. Then of that very tiny percentage we were then trying to glean or convert at least one sale. Thus back to the drawing board for us. We felt like we needed more leads. Do we go down the Facebook ad route to generate leads? Do we go down the purchasing data to generate leads? Do we go to another event to generate leads? We kind of got to an issue as well where we were generating loads and loads of leads, but we had absolutely no way of following up with all of them because when you start generating hundreds of leads, it’s just impossible.

Let’s keep going. How many of the leads that you do generate do you convert? It’s a great question, but take a look. If you generate 100 leads in, say, the first three months of 2020 of those 100 leads, how many, first of all, engaged with you? That should be an easy number for you to work out if you’re just going to set yourself a period of time. But also, how many of them did you convert? So how many of your overall leads did you convert? How many of the leads that actually engaged with you did you convert? That’s two different numbers? You can look at out of 100 leads to people engaged with me, out of those two people, zero converted or maybe ten people engaged with you and two people converted they’re easy enough numbers for you to have a look at to see. Do you have the problem I am describing? Do you have the problem that I had when I kept saying I need more leads?

Next, have a look at the quality of those conversions. So if you’ve got a conversion number, two people out of those 100 converted into clients, well, let’s look at the quality of those clients. Are those two clients well paying, well behaved, wonderful people to work for? And did we do everything that we said we were going to do and it was a dream? Or were those two clients a complete nightmare?

Hopefully the first. But, you know, things happen. But have a look at the quality of those conversions. Were they great clients? Did they pay well? Was that profitable work? Was that work that aligned with your mission and your why? Those are really good questions to look at the quality of those conversions, because that is going to help you realize the importance of getting the lead generation part right and attracting the right sort of people.

Let’s have a look at the one last metric. What was the cost of those two conversions? So if we’re using that example, we generated a hundred leads, ten engaged with us and two converted. Let’s take a look at the cost of those two conversions. How much time did we put into that overall bundle of 100 leads to get those two people to convert? The cost for conversion isn’t two dollars for that one person to click on a link and to convert the cost of conversion is all of the two dollars added up. So if you did a campaign and you attracted 100 people at two dollars each to sign up to some sort of list and you convert to people, then you need to divide all of those two dollars between those two people because that was the cost to you to convert those two people into actual sales plus your time. And that time could have been several conversations, et cetera, might have been more content, more work, replying to emails, whatever that looked like to finally convert the sale.

Remember, if you’re engaging with ten people, that’s ten people you’re having conversations with. That’s ten people you’re spending time with as well as the two people excuse me, that you converted. So the cost for conversion and the quality of these conversions are ridiculously important because you have to spend time with all of these people.

Let’s do those numbers again just so that we can understand it and then you can do the numbers for yourself and pick like a period of a few months. OK, take a look, get some numbers and see how many numbers. First of all of people did you attract? How many leads did you generate in, say, the first three months or the first six months? Let’s do half a year and let’s use the hundred number. Let’s say that was one hundred.

So we look at those hundred leads and we go, what were the quality of these leads? And we can do that by saying how many of these leads engaged with us. So in our example, we’ve said only ten people have engaged with us. We’re then saying how many of those ten engaging leads converted while we figure two in this example, two people converted. That means they sold the actually spent money with us. We then look at the quality of those two conversions. Were they good clients? Was it profitable? Was their work in align with our mission? Everything that we want to do? Did we help them achieve amazing things through what we did? What was the quality of that conversion? And then finally, what was the cost of that conversion? Because remember, the cost of that conversion was all the work you did with all 100 leads just to get those two sales right at the very end of it.

Now that you’d have done all of that. Then ask yourself, do I need more leads? With those statistics, with those numbers, knowing the quality of the conversion and the cost of that conversion, that will help you answer first that question of do I need more leads? And I bet you zero pounds because I’m not the betting type, but you probably have a lead quality conversion problem. Maybe you’re attracting the right leads, but you’re not converting well, or perhaps you’re attracting the wrong leads and then struggling with conversion as well, using all of these questions, using all of this analysis of your data. We want to help you establish a system that attracts relevant leads. That’s freakin important. I would rather attract 10 relevant leads than 100 time wasters. You want those leads to be able to self filter. So that means if I ain’t got no cash, if they’re not really interested in what it is you’ve got to offer, etc., find a way, a system, a process to be able to filter those people out so that the 100 people self filter themselves down to 10, so that you can just talk to the ten instead of trying to chase 100. And of course, your system should allow you to convert easier.

I’m not actually going to tell you at this point how to do that necessarily in detail. I’m going to tell you the most important thing you need to know and to remember so that you can create a system that will attract relevant leads that will have them self filter and that will convert easier. And it’s one word, one word. I go on all the time and it’s the word identity.

You need to know the identity of your ideal customer avatar. If you can describe to me, to yourself, to your team the exact type of customer that you want to attract, that is where everything begins to change. Fifteen years ago, 10 years ago, it took us a long time to learn like we were doing it for years. We had no avatar. We had a range of services and we were trying to attract anyone and everyone, thus we always needed more leads and we had to spend all this time with all of these leads to try and convert all of these leads or some of these leads to eventually be subpar customers that didn’t really want to spend much money. The moment we need down into the events industry, we went further into professional conference organizers who do so many events, plus the moment we really started focusing on that ideal customer avatar, that was when our lead generation strategy completely changed. We stopped trying to generate more and more and more and more leads.

Instead, we went the opposite way. We tried to generate less leads, but really, really specific, meaning a handful of people in our chosen sector who match our chosen customer avatar versus hundreds of potentially relevant leads. I can work on a handful. The cost to generate a handful of leads is a hell of a lot less. The time it takes me to work and convert a handful of really good quality leads again is a hell of a lot less. And because I’m attracting my ideal customer avatar, the person who I have a solution for, they’ve got a problem, they’ve got a need, they’ve got an aspiration. I have a solution for that. It’s going to be so much easier for me to convert them, to help them and charge what I am worth.

So I would say your lead generation strategy is, first of all, missing, that all important identity. Conversion becomes ridiculously easy once you start with the identity of the person that you are trying to help. You’ll start to create content in your ads, in your blogs, in your media, whatever you’re doing that is so relevant to that particular customer avatar that that is the person you will start to attract. Instead of attracting 100000 leads of randoms, you will now be attracting the ideal type of customer that will become ridiculously easy to convert versus those hundreds. I feel like I’ve gone over. Oh yeah, I have definitely gone over time. I’m meant to be ten minutes for these.

Let’s have a quick look at the comments. I’m going to expand a little bit as we go. Holy moly. We’ve got some essay’s going on in here. We’ve got Leroy, Leadroy Jenkins from Matt.Thank you very much. Matt says, I do love the topic of lead generation. It’s my favorite music. I could have sung the whole thing. We then have an essay from Matt? That time spent with people who are leads that didn’t convert immediately isn’t wasted, though. That’s true. If someone has been through a funnel, for example, but didn’t convert immediately, they can still convert down the line. The most important thing is that they’ve received value from you and you’ve shown your an expert in your field, good things will still come.

Let’s expand on that then. Yes, you are completely right, Matt. If people are using something like Funnel Packs, Matt, please put a link to Funnel Packs. Part of the problem that people have with attracting leads is they are not attracting the right type of people and they’re not providing the right type of content for those people, which means you can generate a hundred leads and spend time with those 100 people and it can be a waste of time.

So I would disagree with you and agree with you. At the same time, if you can attract the right type of people with the right type of content, people take a look at funnelpacks.com. I think it is Matt, correct me and put a link in the comments will you? If you attract the right type of people with your content, with your value and give them some sort of value, they’re aware of you. They’re potentially going to come back later on and I totally agree there. But it has to be based on the people you want to attract. Matt is great at attracting the right sort of clients to his business because he knows who it is that he serves. He knows that it’s agency owners, web designers and freelancers that build websites that need this these sorts of lead magnets that he creates for them. So he attracts the right sort of audience. If Matt was trying to do a catch all attract anyone for his funnels, I would say that Matt would have an awful lot of wasted time on his hand.

We have a Guten tag. This is from a Facebook user. Quality of leads is so important. I recently analyzed the quality of leads by Social Media Channel. Guten Tag. I’m guessing it’s Nicole. Hello, Nicole. I recently analyzed the quality of values by social media and who did I enjoy working with the most? That’s good. To help me guide which channel I should be spending my time on. I’ll go back and review conversions to brilliant questions and tips. Well, thank you, Facebook users.

Oh wow. Who’s next? Nick says Li, you’re so flippin handsome. I want to marry you, but I’m unfortunately already taken. No, he actually says and the ideal customer is not quote unquote a small business owner that needs a website mate. That’s exactly who I used to reach out to at some point. So again, ten years ago I would rock up into a networking meeting, a BNI meeting, and I would stand up and I kid you not. I would say this. I’m looking for a small business owner that needs a website that’s literally my line. Hey, I’m Lee. I’m from Elliot Young. We’re a Web a full service design agency dealing with apps, websites, graphics design, print design, all sorts of stuff like that. And we’re looking for small businesses that need websites. That was it. That was my BNI pitch for a very long time until I worked out what I was doing wrong. Facebook user: hey, all Thanks, Lee. Indeed, quality is bad in my case and I’m stuck with it to pay the bills. My highest conversion rate is from referrals. I’m getting overwhelmed with that. I really don’t want more leads. I need better ones. Everything starts from me, but I’m worried about the expenses.

Okay, so remember the latter half of my advice Facebook user, which is all about generating the right sort of lead. I would say, I’ve explained that you need to know the identity of the person that you’re reaching out to equally. You need to know your own identity as a business. Identity is the absolute bottom line foundation of any business. Everybody needs to understand their identity. So you as a business need to understand who you are as a business, what your strength is, what do you do that is phenomenally valuable? And then who do you do that for? So if you are brilliant at building websites, then that’s your thing. Who do you do that for? Who are the people that benefit the most? Who are you the most valuable to? So that’s picking a niche or a customer type. A niche can be a type of customer, doesn’t necessarily have to be an industry, but you try and work out who that is and then you can build your entire generation strategy based on a solid foundation of your identity and the identity of the person that you are trying to reach out to.

Matt is here again, says, so important to identify your ideal customer. So Facebook user, that’s pretty much what we were saying. And it’s funnelpacks.com. I should have known it was a dot com, not co. Nick says it’s hard to talk to your ideal client in a way they care about if you are trying to talk to everyone. Yes, indeed. Matt is correct to me with a dot com. Nicole, you’re awesome. Thank you so much. Matt says, absolutely, you need to talk to the people directly, not try and paint everyone with the same brush. And then Sven also throws in a funnelpacks.com because Sven, like me, thinks funnelpacks.com is also.

This episode is not sponsored by Matt Davis, Mel Davis or by funnelpacks.com. But we do highly recommend that you go over to funnelpacks.com. If you are a design agency, a freelancer, you build websites, you provide services. You need to go and have a look at funnelpacks.com because they have a whole range of funnels custom designed to suit you. They are wonderful. You simply change the branding and you can instantly within an hour approximately. I did my last one in about an hour. Provide content to your audience that is of extreme value that will set them up and help you along that conversion process funnelpacks.com, Matt should probably come on the podcast and we should talk more anyway. Thanks very much.

Let’s do a real quick recap for anyone who joined us. Feels like we should do. If you feel like you need to attract more leads, ask yourself or review the following. Look at the type of leads you’re attracting. Are they good quality or not? Probably not, if you need more leads. Are they even engaging with you? Of the people who are engaging with you? Do they convert? Of the conversions what was the quality? Were some good, were some bad? And what was the cost of those conversions? Remember adding up all the work you did, not just the work you did on that one particular client.

Use this information then to help yourself build a process, a funnel strategy that will help you to attract relevant leads, have them self filter and convert easier. Do that by starting with your identity and building up that picture of your ideal customer avatar and then you go after that particular avatar. Show up with the content that they need with the answers to questions that they want in the places that they show up and then generate a handful of leads and you’ll find them far more easier to convert than hundreds of leads.

I feel like I’ve said enough for today. You’re all awesome. Matt says, I guess we’re sponsoring. So let’s just finish off with funnelpacks.com, go ahead and check that out. If you are a design agency, a web designer, a freelancer, an agency owner, and if I know my market well, you should be you should be an agency of some sort if you’re watching this content. Because my ideal customer avatar, is an agency owner who is looking to build a business that they love and a freelancer, a contractor, etc., who is looking to scale and grow their business into an agency or business that they love. So if you are a knitting champion, I’ve got nothing for you. Take care, folks. Don’t forget if you can’t be good be careful.

That wraps up this episode. Don’t forget, you can find all of our episodes, that’s nearly 300 now over on trailblazer.fm. We have a wonderful and vibrant Facebook group you can be a part of an trailblazer.fm/group. That’s a redirect. Again, if you are looking for cloud hosting. Be sure to check out our sponsors, cloudways.com and also follow them on Facebook because you will see yours truly. That’s myself, along with the other Cloudways Mavericks. We show up regularly with a wonderful content that you can both consume and enjoy.

Folks, you’re all awesome. Thank you so much. If we don’t see you in the community, then we will see you in next week’s episode.