When you hire Bop Design for your B2B marketing needs, you hire our entire agency. You hire our experts in each related discipline, giving you access to our collective and specific knowledgebase. Our priority is your success, so we share our knowledge in an effort to help your business stay profitable and thrive now and into the future.
In this post, I take a look at common mistakes companies make that leave hundreds of thousands of dollars of revenue on the table. By correcting these mistakes, companies can focus on streamlining lead generation and converting more inbound/sales-ready leads.
Not Answering Your Phone
Can you afford not to answer your phone? At Bop Design, our success rate closing phone leads who talked to a knowledgeable, live person when they initially call is over 85%.
For call-in leads, this is the first point of interaction and the most critical. Every time I answered a call from a prospect in the last 6 months, the person remarked how I am the only one who answered their call and questions.
Your company has to be prepared for the sales call, especially during a time when remote working is the norm. Even if you are chasing a toddler through your living room, when that call comes in, take a moment to compose yourself, lock yourself in the bathroom and make an expert level first impression.
Read more: Answer your damn phone!
Not Being Responsive
A timely response is absolutely critical when a prospect makes contact. When a lead comes in from one of our B2B website contact forms, I always respond within a couple of hours with an email to schedule a call. I don’t sleep on that first email; and if I don’t hear back within 24 hours, I send a follow-up email asking if they are still interested in discussing their project.
You cannot wait to respond to a lead if you want to close deals. While you are doing something else less important than handling a hot lead coming into your pipeline, your prospect is filling out more forms on your competition’s website.
Timely communication and responsiveness to a prospect’s initial contact or questions separate you from the pack – so make sure to stay on task and respond swiftly!
Read more: Why inbound leads should be your first priority.
Not Clear About Your Service Offerings
What do you do? Too often, I visit a B2B website and after reading the service offerings I still have no idea what services or products they sell. If you look at our B2B website, our message is clear, we design and develop B2B WordPress websites and maximize lead generation.
Have you ever had a doctor or engineer give you high-level information that you couldn’t decipher? If your product is complicated, simplify it for the average decision-maker and be clear on how your product can help solve their problem.
Read more: Is your B2B website scaring off leads?
Redundant Communication
Once a prospect has initiated contact, keep communication short and to the point. The lead has already read enough on your site to fill out a form, so have a clear path to where you want to take them next. It’s good to have a couple of links in your initial email response as you want to establish yourself as an expert who can solve their query but don’t overdo it.
For example, if the first step for a lead is to schedule a consultation, your initial email should have 2 days with 2 time slots proposed. DON’T link to a calendar scheduling tool – this is more work for the user and looks lazy!
The overall goal with your communication is to make it as easy as possible for them to get to the next step, whether it’s a consultation, quote, meeting, etc.
Read more: Easy tips to close B2B website leads.
Treat Every Single Inbound Lead Like a Billion-Dollar Deal
The biggest take away should be this, treat every single inbound lead like a billion-dollar deal. Respond swiftly whether answering the phone, their questions, or an email. Be resourceful, the expert they need you to be to help solve their problem. Be clear and concise with communication while leading your best deal down the pipeline and they will feel the difference between you and the competition.
