How to Convert Your Leads: Tips & Secrets Anyone Can Use

This article will teach you how to convert your leads.

Leads are the lifeblood of EVERY business. Without leads, you won’t get new sales or customers and you won’t be in business for long. While lead generation is an important skill to master, what’s more important is that you know how to convert your leads into paying customers. That is an artform, a skill anyone can learn.

As a new entrepreneur, you might have to make up in numbers what you lack in skills. You might have a low conversion rate initially, so you need to generate more leads than your competitors. That’s okay. Start where you start, but invest the time, money, and energy to improve your closing rates and skills.

How to Convert Your Leads: 10 Tips

In the paragraphs below, I am going to give you my top 10 tips on how to convert your leads. I suggest you find one or two strategies that appeal to you and master them until you find lead conversion methods that work for you in your situation.

Tip #1: Ask for the Sale

Without a doubt, you must ask for the sale. Most interested prospects will not buy unless you specifically ask them to do so. Whether you are talking with leads by email, text, phone, or in person, ask them to buy. Learn how to close, because you will miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.

How do you ask for the sale? Here are a few things I like to say:

What questions do you need me to answer before we get you started today?
Which product would you like to try as your initial purchase, Product A or Product B.
What form of payment would you like to use to make your purchase today?
Based off everything we’ve discussed, I think this would be a great fit for you. Are you ready to place your order today?

Keep in mind, you never need to use pressure or hype, but you do need to ask for the sale.

One common cause of closing fear is a perception issue. Salespeople are afraid of being seen as pushy, greedy, or otherwise unlikeable. Many salespeople don’t like being closed themselves and fear that their prospects will have a similar attitude. Yes, you will run into the occasional prospect (usually someone who has been in sales himself or knows the standard sales approaches) who will pull back if you ask for the sale. But these prospects are extremely rare, and if they’re familiar with the sales process, they will know perfectly well that you’re just doing your job.
It’s really not necessary to be pushy or aggressive to close someone. If you’ve done a good job in the rest of the presentation, the close will follow naturally and will seem like the next logical step. Ideally, by the time your presentation is done, you’ll have piqued the prospect’s interest and responded to any objections she has. If the prospect is already convinced, asking for the sale can be as simple as saying, “Great, let’s start filling out the paperwork.” ~ The Balances

Tip #2: Use Testimonials

Your prospect might not believe everything you tell them about your product or service (because you’re trying to sell them something) but they will believe a legit testimonial from a satisfied customer, especially someone they know, or someone famous. Use testimonials as part of your selling process. Find 3-10 good testimonials for your product or service and incorporate them into your sales presentations and follow ups.

Most often, the target audience would not believe you blindly. They will have their doubts about your product or service. They may want to try your product only when others are happy with it, or they would want proof of the effectiveness of the product/service.
You can give them social proof through testimonials, as already mentioned above. They seem to be more authentic than the words of the sales rep because brands pay reps, but that is not the case with customers. They praise a product or service when they have a pleasant experience with it. That is why people get influenced by the opinion of those who have already tried your product or service. It holds true even if they don’t know each other. ~ Sales Blink

Tip #3: Track Your Advertising

You should track every ad source you use. Find out which ad sources convert the best. Track the following things:

Cost Per Lead
Cost Per Sale

That way you can ditch what doesn’t work and keep what works.

For example, you might find one lead source that is dirt cheap, but it doesn’t convert well into paying customers. On the other hand, you might find a lead source that is 5x to 10x more expensive per lead, but the conversion rates are 5 to 10 times higher.

If you don’t track it, you can’t improve it. Invest in some tracking software and use different codes or links for each ad.

Tip #4: Master the Follow Up

If you want to convert your leads, you must master the follow-up process. Once you generate a lead, your journey has just begun. Keep in mind the average prospect will need minimum seven to twenty follow ups BEFORE they buy from you. Use an auto-responder or CRM program to stay in touch with your leads. Develop a good follow up sequence and follow up with people until they buy, die, unsubscribe, or ask you not to.

Never use pressure or hype, but keep your product, service, and marketing message in front of your prospects as often as possible. When the timing becomes right for them, you want them to think of you and your business.

I also suggest you use MULTIPLE formats for follow up. Use a combination of email, direct mail, phone, texting, social media, retargeting, and any other forms of marketing you can.

One way of remaining in touch with your leads is to take part in social networking platforms. Make sure you actively talk about your CRM’s connections, blogs and videos with your social media followers and fans. Encourage your followers to talk with you via social media platforms. Frequently, followers will ask you questions about your products or business. Those interactions will allow you to build a positive relationship with your leads, which can help you sell more of your products and services. ~ Forbes

Tip #5: Answer Your Phone

This should be common sense, but many marketers mess this up. You should include your phone number in everything you do. Every ad and marketing message should include it. You want your prospects to have access to your phone number so they can call. Why? Many of your prospects will have questions and they will want to talk to a real person before they whip out their credit card and make a purchase.

Tip #6: Call Your Prospects

This goes hand in hand with the previous tip. Pick up your phone and call your prospects every so often. If they don’t answer, leave them a voicemail. This added personal touch is one of the best ways to stand out in a crowded market place. So few companies do it in today’s world.

Tip #7: Focus on the Benefits

When talking with your prospects, focus on them. Focus on the benefits they gain by using your product or service. Focus on what’s in it for them. Features are important, but benefits are 10x more important. Your prospects want to know how your product or service can help them solve a problem or get what they want. If you can show them how that can happen, you will convert more leads into paying customers.

For example, people don’t buy a weight loss product just to lose weight. Instead, they want to look good in their bathing suit at the beach or look good at their high school reunion. Make sense?

Advantages have a greater positive impact on small sales than large ones because they address implied needs rather than explicit needs, which you have to develop in a large sale to justify the high price. Offering solutions to implied needs isn’t enough in larger sales. This is part of how features and benefits selling works.
In contrast, benefits are much more powerful in large sales because they address explicit needs (but you have to do the work of developing these needs first in the investigating stage, to the point where customers say they want something).
A Motorola Canada productivity study showed that salespeople who used benefits rather than advantages increased their sales success (revenue) by 27 percent. ~ Short Form

Tip #8: Have a Compelling Sales Presentation

Your sales message must be compelling. It must answer most of your prospect’s questions. It must show them what’s in it for them. If possible, videos and live presentations work best because of the visual aspect and personal touch. The more expensive the product or service you are selling, the more detailed and effective your sales presentation must be.

Be willing to test and tweak your sales presentation. Do an A/B test. Try each one out on 100+ prospects and keep the better converting one. Then test that one against another new and improved presentation. Keep doing this until you find something that converts very well for you.

Tip #9: Social Proof

If you want to convert your leads, you must use social proof whenever possible. It’s a fact, when a prospect can be around a large group of people who are happily using the product or service you are selling, it helps sell them on the idea. Consider creating a Facebook group for your happy customers. When you find new leads and prospects, invite them to the Facebook group to see the social proof that what you are selling does what you say it will do. There’s a good chance the happy customers will help close your prospect for you, even though they don’t realize they are doing that.

Tip #10: Improve Your Skills

One of the best ways to convert your leads is to improve your skills. This means you improve your sales and closing skills. You learn and master the basic objections and how to overcome them. You learn everything you can about your product or service so you can answer questions and educate your prospects. You develop confidence and belief in yourself and what you are selling. You work on your people skills, so you are more likeable. All of these things will lead to better conversion rates and increased sales.

There are so many books written on how to improve sales and salesmanship. You do not need to read every single one of these business books, but even going through a single book per month can help you reach new heights. Try to spend at least fifteen minutes per day reading through the books written by experts and professional trainers. Go through different topics — sales of products, website sales, sales in countries around the world — so you can get a wider breadth of understanding. ~ Learn2.com

Final Thoughts

I hope these tips on how to convert your leads helped you. Please leave a comment below to tell me how you convert your leads in your business. I’d love to know your secrets. If you have any questions, you can post them here too. I wish you great tidings in your business.

How To Convert Your Leads: My Top 10 Tips