Nothing to say, yet
Transcription
The speaker loves people and believes that engaging in conversation is important even if they don't always receive a response. They discuss their approach to reaching out to potential clients, starting with a phone call and then following up with an email. They emphasize the importance of understanding the person's needs and motivations. They mention that leads from Facebook ads can be slower and require more effort to convert. They track which ads the leads responded to and personalize their communication accordingly. They compare their sales cycle to that of real estate agents and stress the need for patience and empathy. The speaker mentions that the length of the sales process can vary from three to six months and that they never lose contact with leads. Well, I love people and I think a lot of people that do what we do are natural people, people, people persons and I just like to get the conversation going and whether they answer or not, I will leave a message. I know other sales people may not leave a message, but I want to know, I want people to know that I at least was trying to reach out to them. And I might begin the conversation and it all depends on what campaign. We'll use this latest one Keith has been running for us and it was titled Pre-Plan with Ann. It was a Facebook ad and you could either make an appointment or request information be sent. So, I would start the conversation that I got one in today. That's where, and I'm sure other people may approach it in other ways, but here's kind of what I do. I'll have a name and let's just say her name is Mary Jane Brown and she responded to our latest campaign, which was or is Pre-Plan with Ann. I'll call up and say, hey, Mary Jane, thank you so much for responding to our recent ad that we've had on Facebook that was Pre-Plan with Ann. We'd really love an opportunity just to tell you a little bit more about it and what would be involved with it and is there a good day and time that we might be able just to spend maybe 15 or 20 minutes together and go over what's going to be important to you. Please call our funeral home and we can get a convenient day and time on our calendars. Our number is 302-478-THANK-YOU and then I hang up. And then right after that, I will send them an email because Keith has gathered their email address and a phone number, but my first line of attack always is the phone. I want to hear a voice, be able to take the temperature of the person because there's all different people in the world. Some people just want pricing, some are just kind of putting their big toe in the water to learn all about this. They don't have a clue of what's involved. Maybe they're coming off another experience that they might have had in their life that motivated them to respond to what we're advertising. People respond to the ads for all different reasons. So I like to hear a voice first off so I can take the temperature of what this other person might be really asking and how I could best help them. Then I do the email thing and we have templates of emails in our little customer relationship management program that I'll then email one that's called the value of a plan and it just talks about how important it is to have a funeral plan in place. Then I'll let a few days go by if I haven't heard either back by phone or email and go try again with the phone and then my follow up email to that is a personal invitation through one that I will write and say, hi Mary Jane, this is Anne again from McCreary and Harrah. I did try to reach out to you the other day and would love to have the opportunity to speak with you regarding pre-planning for yourself or other family members. Is there a convenient time that we could talk? Here is the funeral home number. And then just depending on how they respond, then they'll just go back into the to-do list on my customer management program multiple times and by multiple, I'm working on email leads that I've had ever since Keith has started doing advertising for us. So I don't know when that was, Keith, but we've had all different types of campaigns. It's been a couple of years now. It's a slower lead. It's not as quick as somebody calling up and saying, hey, I got your direct mail piece in and I really, this has been on my mind. And you get a sense that they're much more motivated to do. You have to work these leads. I think just put their toe in the water and you know, there's all sorts out there that are just playing on Facebook that you don't know really how serious they might be. Of course, you get a handful of pranksters that, oh, it's a funeral home. I'm going to put somebody else's name and email on there. I've had a couple of those too. You know, you just handle it as they come. That's kind of my approach. I like just to really try and read and make sure that when I'm calling back, I circle back with whatever Facebook ad they might've responded to. Keith, it's really good that you're keeping track of when these leads come in because when I enter it in on my leads management, I will make reference of which ad they actually responded to. So if it's somebody that we have one, John, that says best Christmas present ever, I can remind the person that I'm trying to reach, hey, you responded to this, you know, a couple months back and we were so grateful and I've been trying to get you ever since and boy, are you hard to get ahold of, but I'm glad I'm at least still doing. You know, when we finally do connect, it's a great thing. It's a way for me to be able to have a connect of how this person came into our lead base. Yes, very much so. Very much so. People are welcoming of this and they're curious about it. They want more information, let alone maybe just jump ahead and book a time to plan the pre-planning for themselves. So yeah, it is. But we've got to warm up that lead to make them feel comfortable. And I kind of correlated, John, to people that sell real estate. They don't sell as many houses or as many strip malls in a year as I do pre-need contracts. So their turnover is a much slower, slower sales cycle where they got to nurture a whole... I never sold real estate in my life, but I know that that's kind of their cycle. This cycle, because of the nature of the business and what they're doing, you're confronting somebody with the fact that, hey, going to die and we've got to plan for it, let alone part with money to pay for it. It's a tall order that we have to go slowly and be the patience that maybe they don't have about it or the fear. We have to absorb all of that and make it the road very easy for them to jump on and take the scare out of it. I'm going to say there's really hard to put a definition on it, and maybe there's people that are more skilled and have more tricks up their sleeves than I do about sending out emails every three days or four days or something. I don't like to be bombarded myself with emails, so I kind of don't do it. To answer your question, it can take anywhere from three months to six months. As I just said, what, five minutes ago, I'm still working on some that Keith generated when we first started this two years ago, but not a once-lives-through-the-cracks because they're in that leads management system that maybe I will pursue for every three days for the first three weeks, months, and then the time frame gets spread out a little bit more, but I never lose contact with them, never. Again, it just depends on my success rate of actually making contact with someone, either phone or email. So that's how we ... You just got to keep going.
