Sales Acceleration: Could more of your Fire and Security leads become customers?

Dear Fire and Security Professional

One of the first questions any sales coach will ask you is ‘What’s your close rate?’.

Do you know yours?

Well, you’re not alone. Sadly, most Fire and Security companies don’t even know how many enquiries they are getting. Let alone how many of them are turning into customers.

So let’s back up a bit.

How are you keeping track of the enquiries that come in by phone or through the website?

Do new-fangled tools like CRMs leave you baffled and clutching possessively onto your spreadsheet?

Tracking your data doesn’t have to be complicated.

But it gives you the ability to know what leads are coming in and when.

And what happens to them.

Let’s go back to the example that we gave at the top of the page.

Leads, leads, leads

It’s no longer enough to phone and email a new lead once. And only at a time when it’s convenient to your sales team’s working hours.

Today’s consumers are busy people. They work too. So they might not answer a phone call made during working hours. And a single email cannot be relied upon as a follow up. Inboxes get full so they can’t take any more messages. And strict spam filters can mean that your message never gets seen.

You need to make multiple attempts and at different times on different days.

A national security company told us they

follow up 15x over a two week period – or until the lead tells them to go away.

Now no one is saying you have to make a nuisance of yourself but getting a sale does require some effort if you want to compete.

And your first phone call is the most important. Time is of the essence!

The 5 minute follow up

That same national security company told us:

95% of leads are called within five minutes, 80% are called within one minute.

Could you do that with a spreadsheet? No, these companies use a CRM to track their leads and what their sales people are doing with those leads.

5 minutes is a crucial number. A lead often goes cold if left unanswered for much longer.

What you say when you speak to your lead is hugely important too!

The seamless experience

Most Fire & Security companies don’t want a team that does ‘hard sell’. But they do want potential customers to have a seamless experience. This starts from their first phone call, email or live chat interaction right through to the sale.

One Fire and Security director told us:

“I just want a script that everyone can follow to ensure they always say the same thing and get all the information that we need into our job management software”

He had tried several times previously but just couldn’t get buy-in from all the people who answered the phone. Just as his engineers wear the company uniform and drive branded vans, he wanted his telephones to be answered in a way that would make his customer service memorable. Efficiently and effectively.

£100k of work in Quotes Sent… GREAT!

I remember being in a meeting where we were presenting a review of our lead generation activities.

We put up a slide that showed a screenshot of the company’s CRM.

It showed the number of leads generated.

It showed the number of site surveys booked.

And it showed the number and value of the quotes that had gone out as a result of those site surveys.

The value of that last column – Quotes Sent – was over £100k.

Great!

Not so great…

The MD got up from the table and strode towards the screen to take a closer look.

Because many of those quotes had been there far too long. Some were dated more than 3 months previously! A few were even 6 months old!

And they were all still in Quotes Sent. Not Quotes Won.

Tens of thousands of pounds worth of potential work was… forgotten!

Quotes left. Not being followed up…

He turned to look back at his sales team.

No one wanted to meet his eye.

Sales slipping away…

Our experience has been that most sales people are NOT born with natural sales skills.

And that’s sales people I’m talking about! People experienced in selling.

So how good at selling do you think your admin staff are likely to be? Any better?

The awful truth is… Without an efficient approach to sales you’re wasting money. Money spent on:

• marketing
• advertising
• site surveys
• quoting

But with a little training and organisation they can become a huge asset to your business. And:

• your phone will be answered in two rings
• your enquiries will be contacted quickly… and followed up
• your quotes will be followed up promptly so you get a yes or no in good time.

Click the button below and SPEAK TO LOLLIPOP about how we can help you close more leads into customers.