After you buy moving leads, follow these 6 steps to book more moves.
- Accept that leads have a low booking percentage – This is one of the biggest frustrations for many movers. The leads they buy are converting at a very low rate. For every 100 moving leads you buy, you’re only going to book between 2 – 15 (2-15%) of them depending on whether it’s local or long distance. That is much lower than leads that come directly from your website which should book anywhere from 25 to over 50 for every 100 leads. (25-50%). The first step is to accept the fact that they have a low conversion rate.
- Focus on your ROI – Accepting that the booking percentage will be low, choose instead to focus on the return on investment (ROI). Even though moving leads may not convert at a high percentage, they can be very profitable. Run your marketing ROI report and see if you’re making money from the leads.
- Treat leads like they’re ringing phones – When your phone rings at your business you don’t just let it ring and ring, you answer it right? Well, treat your moving leads the same way. Try to call the customer back as soon as you receive the lead. Don’t let them sit in your inbox or CRM getting cold.
- Have a set lead follow-up process – You have to develop a set process for how many times you are going to call the leads when you receive them and when. I like to call them two times on the first day then one more time on the second day. If I’m not able to get them on the phone then it’s time to move on. Your time is better spent following up with customers you already gave estimates to.
- Roll out your own red carpet – When someone goes to your website and then decides to call you, it’s because they like what they see. Your website essentially “rolled out the red carpet” and made an introduction for your salesperson. When calling moving leads, you have to make your own introduction and “roll out your own red carpet”
- Follow up after you give an estimate – This goes for all of your leads, not just moving leads. You must have a follow-up process for after you give the customer an estimate. If you want to increase your closing percentage then you need to be following up to book the move. You can’t wait for them to call you back.
If you aren’t buying moving leads, I suggest you start. If you are buying them and need some help booking more of them, follow these 6 steps and watch your numbers go up.
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Full Transcript
[The following is the full transcript of this episode.]
Hey, my friend, it’s Louis Massaro, CEO, Moving Mastery, and founder of Moving Sales Academy. Do you buy moving leads now? Did you try to buy moving leads at some point and maybe you gave up on them? Regardless of where you’re at, I’m sure you know the frustration that could come along with buying moving leads, but they’re a very profitable source of business if handled correctly. Listen, if you’re used to Yellow Page advertising or SEO on your website, or pay per click, or sending out postcards, or advertising with Yelp, you know these sources convert much higher than moving leads. And the reason is, essentially, those sources are rolling out the red carpet for you.
Let me give you an example. If someone receives your postcard in the mail, they look at your postcard. They like what they see. They’ve already read some bullet points about your company, maybe they go on your website, they see some more stuff. Then, they pick up the phone, and they call you. They’ve already had an introduction to your company. They already like what they see, and they chose to call you, or they chose to go on your website and request an estimate. With moving leads, they’re just going online looking for a good deal on a move. They request some moving estimates from a lead provider. And they know they’re gonna get a call from however… Three, five, sometimes 10 companies for their moving quote. But they don’t know you specifically. They just know that you’re one of those companies.
The way that you approach moving leads, and the way that you relate to them in the big picture of your marketing has to be completely different than the other sources, like Google pay per click, and Yelp, and your postcards, and whatever else you’re doing. Moving leads are completely different. I’m gonna give you six things that you can do to help maximize moving leads so that you can really dive in any time of the year, buy some moving leads, and make money with them.
You just first have to start by accepting the fact that it’s gonna be a lower booking percentage, period, just accept that. That’s part of the frustration. That’s part of why a lot of people will start with moving leads and then give up on moving leads, because they don’t convert as high as other sources. If somebody’s coming from your website, if somebody submits a request for a quote from your website, depending on the market you’re in, your booking percentage, your closing ratio can be anywhere from 25% to even 50% on a lead that’s coming in off a request on your website. Whereas a lead provider, whether it’s local or long distance move, could be anywhere from 2% to maybe 15%, maybe. That’s very high. But typically, it’s gonna be 2% to 5%, maybe 10% with some lead sources that don’t sell to as many moving companies. You have to accept the fact that it’s just gonna be a lower booking percentage, meaning that you’re gonna have to call, you’re gonna have to speak to more people in order to close as many deals, alright.
You might not like the sound of that, but what you wanna focus on, is you wanna focus on your ROI. Because although you may have to make more phone calls, although you may not book as many of these leads, you wanna focus on your ROI. Because if that… When I say ROI, that’s a return on investment, okay. Your return on investment is how much did you spend for those leads versus how much did you make from those leads. That’s the number you wanna focus on. Because if you focus on your booking percentage, it’s just gonna be discouraging. It’s not gonna look like they’re working. But if you get 100 leads, and let’s say you only booked three of them, let’s just say only three, look at the math and see how much money did you bring in on those three jobs versus what you spent on the leads. That’s your marketing ROI. That’s the number you wanna focus on.
The third thing is, you have to treat these leads like they’re ringing phones. And let me tell you what I mean by that. I used to always say this in my office, “Treat the leads like they’re ringing phones.” If the phone was ringing, you wouldn’t let it just ring, and ring, and ring, and ring. Somebody would pick it up, right? With a moving lead, when it comes in and it hits your inbox, you need to get them on the phone immediately. You can’t just let it sit in the inbox for 20 minutes, 30 minutes, one hour, two hours, half a day, one, two days till you call it back. You wouldn’t let the phone ring that long. Don’t let a lead sit in an inbox that long. Imagine it’s a ringing phone. Imagine every time it comes in, it’s just ringing, and ringing, and ringing. It’s very easy for your staff and for you to let them take the back burner because it’s just sitting there in an inbox, or it’s sitting there in your CRM. There’s no reminder that these people are waiting to hear from you. They’re waiting for an estimate. You wanna be quick and responsive getting back to leads to be able to book more of them.
You also wanna have a set lead follow-up process. You can’t just buy leads, bring them in, and not have something set up in your company for exactly when you should call them, how many times you should call them, and when you should stop calling them. I’ll give you an example. In my company, what we did was we did a two plus one. That means on the first day, we call them twice, on the second day, we call them one more time, and this is to get a hold of them. This is before you even ever speak to them to give them an estimate. We call them twice on the first day, one more time on the second day, and after that, that was it. But we made sure that we made those three contacts because sometimes, you may call a lead once and never call it back. That’s not enough follow up.
Other companies will sit and they’ll call a lead 10 times until they finally get them on the phone. Now, what I say is if you’re spending that much time trying to get a lead on the phone, you need to be spending more time following up with customers that you already gave an estimate to. There’s more money in that than chasing down leads that you don’t know if there’s even a real person on the other end. Make sure you have a set lead follow up process when leads come in. And this goes for all your leads, not just moving leads, this goes for all your leads and make sure everyone in your company is following that.
Number five, we talked about rolling out the red carpet with, when you send out a postcard. When you have a lead, you have to roll out your own red carpet. You have to change your pitch a little bit. You have to change what you say to these customers a little bit because they don’t know you. They haven’t already seen your tracks or they haven’t already seen your website. You have to give your own, roll out your own red carpet and give your own introduction on these leads. These are ways that are gonna help you book more movingly leads.
Number six, follow up after you give an estimate. I can’t tell you how many people are falling short here and leaving so much money on the table. After you give somebody an estimate, don’t just sit back and say, “You know what, if they wanna call me, if they like, if they wanna book their move with our company, they’ll call me back.” No, you have to have a set follow-up process for all your leads; not even just moving leads, every customer that calls in after you give them an estimate, you need to make sure that you’re following up especially on moving leads.
If you follow these six steps, I would… If you’re not doing this stuff now and you’re not buying moving leads, go buy moving leads, start using these six steps, track your ROI, see how it’s going, make some adjustments. You’re leaving money on the table if you’re not buying moving leads. And if you’re buying them now and you’re not on top of the follow-up process, you’re not treating them like a ringing phone, you’re leaving money on the table. I hope this was helpful. Go out there, maximize these moving leads. It’s a huge, huge piece. It may not seem like you get as much business as you get from maybe your postcard campaign or maybe your Google pay per click campaign or maybe you have a great SEO campaign going with your website and you get a ton of calls and a ton of leads, this is extra business. I have no problem putting in a little extra work to get some extra business and you shouldn’t either. Until next week, go out there every single day, profit in business, thrive in life. I’ll see you later.