Episode 4: 3 Steps to Manage Leads

Hello. Hello everyone, and welcome back to the podcast. Today I'm going to be teaching you three steps to manage leads. Now, this is one of the most underutilized systems and it is one of the most important systems for you to have in your business. And I'm going to tell you why. When we are talking about, managing leads first and foremost, what I mean by managing leads is making sure you have a way to bring people into your business business and also make sure they stay with your business and making sure that they are feeling seen, heard and understood. And when we're thinking about creating this amazing business of yours, a lot of us have had examples of businesses that are shifting a lot in 2020 form. So today I'm going to talk to you about trends for 2024. Marketing and what lead managing looks like, what to do instead of posting and ghosting, and a really, really easy system to implement instead of, the posting and ghosting, what you are going to do for 30 minutes a day and how you're going to generate 2500 conversations a year.

So let's get into it. The first thing that is really important is you. Still, when we are talking about having a business, what I like to think about with the marketing, and I went over all of the systems and the way I like to think about marketing last week is you want to think about that as far as the marketing that you're doing as a way to represent your business online, a way for people to see you and come and find you. And when I first started my business, that was the only kind of marketing I was doing. That was the only way that I was actually building my business. I was just posted every day, all the time. And that was great. But there's a bigger issue with that that people don't realize. When you are just posting on Instagram and things like that, you need to think about your business as a whole. And that is only one half of the marketing that you need to do.

I'm going to explain what it looks like when you are thinking about the structure of your business in a common term called a funnel. So you might have heard about this before, but I want you to picture a funnel and it looks like a triangle with the point at the bottom. And when you're thinking about your business, you have at the top. Marketing. It's where we want to have a lot of people with a lot of opportunities to see you. And that is the biggest portion of the triangle. So you want to be marketing as much as you can and getting your name out there as much as you can. What I thought is, yeah, I'm just going to market, and then people will come to me and I will sell them. There is a piece of the funnel that's missing in between. So if there's marketing at the top, there's another layer underneath that, and then there's sales in like the third layer. And then you have to actually deliver to the clients once they actually sign to work with you. And that's the point of your funnel. So the way that your business works and the way that it functions in a way that you bring in clients and keep them is people are going to be in each of the categories within your business. There are going to be people who are just seeing your marketing. Then there are people who are going to be coming to sales or consult calls, and then they're going to be people that are actually working with you, and it's going to get smaller. You're going to have less clients than everyone that's seeing your marketing, obviously. But what is missing in most people's businesses is how do we go from marketing to the sales call? And this is the piece that I didn't realize that I was missing. And I would say, like 90% of my entrepreneurs also are missing as well. The thing that they're missing is managing leads. And I'm going to explain what that means when you are managing leads. Leads are just people, human beings that we would like to go to a sales call. So there are two aspects of managing leads. There's lead generation, so that means that you're bringing in more people, and then there is managing leads and nurturing the leads. So nurturing leads means once they are in your audience, are they getting what they need? Are they feeling support by you as the leader of this movement? That is the thing that I see that is missing. People aren't generating any more leads. And once they come into their audience, it's like, okay, well, I'm seeing you posting, but do you even care about me? And I know that literally everyone, probably on this podcast, cares so much about their clients. They really do. I feel like as entrepreneurs, we usually start these businesses because we're passionate about what we do. We want to help a lot of people. We want to make positive change in the world. We want to create that legacy and also have the lifestyle we want. And what I found is that a, ah, lot of people will, myself included, I would be like, I would care so much about people once, they were in paying me and working with me, but beforehand, I felt like I wasn't actually reaching out to people. I didn't actually let people know that I existed, other than just assuming that we'd seen me post. And what's happened is, I think that, and when I started my business, like, I was still heavily investing in coaching, and I invested in certifications, and I had business coaches and marketing coaches and things like that. But one of the things that was missing is I started my business in the fall of 2020, and, like, all through 2021. And at that time, something that was a huge trend in marketing is that people were actually posting, especially with the pandemic happening, and people would just buy. They had, it was a very interesting time in the world. And so I think that when I was learning and growing my business, that was working for a lot of people. So that was what I did as well. But what happened is, in recent years, the way that people are buying is shifting. It's shifting very drastically. And when I first started my business, I was just posting, and what happened is, I actually started my business. I signed six clients, and then I had crickets. I had zero consults from October to April of October of 2020 to April of 2021, seven whole months. Not even, like, it wasn't even like I, had consults and they didn't convert. I didn't even have anyone booking a sales call. Meanwhile, I'm still teaching full time, trying to get certified at night, coaching people at night. I was, like, in certification till, like, 10:00 p.m. On Wednesday. I was also, like, doing this marketing program till 10:00 p.m. On Monday. It was a lot, guys. And I was also also posting every day, very inefficiently, definitely not like the marketing systems I have now. But what happened is, because I was going through all of that, I didn't know what was going on. And so, of course, if I'm doing all this posting, if I'm posting like, and there would be times when I would post, like, seven days a week, and I wouldn't even get a, like, not a comment. And I still, if you look at my social media, at least at this point, I really still don't have a ton of people liking and commenting on my stuff. But that's not what it actually takes for people to buy from you. I learned that engagement, actually engaging with people, managing leads, and interacting with people, is what is the key to get people to buy from you. So, within your business, one of the things that happened within my business, I mean, what happened is I was going through posting, and I would again be, like, on it for a week, and I would be like, okay, I'm gonna do like seven posts, and, ah, we'll post 30 posts in 30 days. And I would be, like, really ambitious that I would, like, go for it. And then I would have, I would get really frustrated, and so then I wouldn't post because I'm like, I'm not even getting consults. What is the point of all this? And so it just kind of, like, happened like that in cycles until I started really reaching out to people. And one, of the things that I realized is I was a general life coach at the time, and life coaching had truly changed my life. Like, I really had done a 360 in the way that I was able to show up, the way I was able to help people. I felt so much more confident in myself. I felt less stressed. I, it was, it truly changed my life. Ha. life coaching. But it really just, I felt so empowered. So what happened is I realized that I knew that this could help people. I knew I was pretty good at what I did. I mean, like, even as a general career coach, I helped people to create the relationships they wanted. I helped people to, move to different cities, switch careers, get 40k pay raises. Like, I was seeing that, like, this was really helping people, and I knew that I could help more people. I was like, I knew that my skill set, I really felt like I could really make a difference in people's lives. So what I did is I realized that I was going to need to interact with more people in order for my business to grow. And I, when I was in that 2021 stage, I actually started interacting with people. And what happened is, because I started interacting with people that were following me, new followers and things like that, reaching out to other organizations outside of myself. Guess what? Consults, started coming in.

And I know that for many of you guys, you might not be reaching out to anybody. And I think that there are some thought errors here that I want to clear up. When you are online, I think that we forget that online, and it's called social media for a reason. Your business is meant to be social. It is meant to interact with people. It is meant to provide human connection. And when people are seen, heard, and understood by you, they build trust. They feel safe, and of course, then they want to work with you. So what I did is I started talking to people, and then consults started coming in, and then I was able to sign clients and build up enough cash reserve that I actually left my teaching job in June of 2021, try to get the timeline for you guys. And then I was able to sustain myself and go. And I was full time for the entire year of 2022. So within that, within my business, I was trying to figure out why that works so well. And I didn't even realize, like, the full power of managing leads, really, until 2022. I, when I was in looking at my data, I looked back at the consults that I had had, and I, in 2022, I had done a ton of consults. And from the consults that I did, I realized that of all the people that I was working with, seven, like, 93% of the people who actually signed up to work with me in 2022 came from word of mouth, came from actually having a conversation with me virtually or in person, came from knowing me, getting, and, I got to know another person online or in person, and then they came into my audience. One of the biggest things that I see that's an issue is that. And then I looked back at my data for my, the people who I had signed from just directly posting, and I had only gotten seven consults, and I got from that I had seven consults, and, only three converted. I did 900 posts in 2022. I spent around 2 hours per post because I still hadn't fully figured out my marketing system. And that meant that I spent 108 or thousand, 800 hours around doing something that got me three clients, whereas I was networking and talking to people. And that took me, I really didn't spend, like, any time. It was like around 40 hours. I've got the data and I'll link it in the show notes, but I only spent around, like, 40 hours at most doing that in all of 2022, and I signed 93% of my clients. Just want you to think about that for a second. When you are actually talking to humans, that makes a huge, huge difference in the way that they are able to know you, the way that they are able to like you, and the way that they are able to trust you. And I'm just getting the actual data. So from networking, I had 29 consults and signed 23 clients, which was 79% conversion rate. So these people were converting at a way higher rate because they knew me so well. For Instagram, which is like my main form of social media, I had seven consults and signed, sorry, not three, four clients. So I only had a 57% conversion rate. So when we're thinking about your business, we want to make sure that you are doing things that actually work for you, making sure that you are actually doing the things that actually get you clients. And that starts with collecting data, making sure you know where your people are coming from. And this is true for 95% of my clients. I don't know very many people who are just able to post anymore and actually sign clients. And here's why. What happened in 2024? And this is the current trends, again, you might be listening to this way later in life, but what happened is people, we learned that people need more time to buy. So in the past, people would just see an ad, they would literally just like, see an ad and they'd be like, oh, yeah, I'll pay thousands of dollars for this. Like that was, and I'll get on an email list and then I will again have this type of marketing. And, they were able to buy directly from that. Here's the issue. Now, in 2024 and beyond, people want to buy from someone that gets to know them personally. There are really big corporations that are just doing the, that kind of marketing and like, just posting and then people buying, but it's for a lot lower price. And people are really wanting to get to know you as a human being, if you would actually be a good fit for them. And if you are going to be the person that is going to provide the service that you, that will give them the results that they want. So I did research after I learned this, and I was like, why did this happen? Why did networking work so well? And I learned that there are two different types of marketing. There is what's called billboard marketing, which is everything you're doing on podcasts like this. You're on social media, blog, anything that in your email list, anything that is what's called one too many. So it's you as one human, and you're marketing to many people. You're kind of like on a platform and you're just like, speaking to the humans. That is called billboard marketing. And I covered that in the last episode about, like, the steps to do my marketing system. And that is very necessary still, because if you think about it, of course, people are driving by billboards and they're like, oh, yeah, Megan's a business coach. You just started a business. I feel like Megan could work with you. It's really good for people to see the billboard. However, more people, the average person will, they're saying, the trends are saying that they are going to be buying from people who are actually interacting with them. Interactive marketing means one to one, aka you, single handedly talking to one person. And that's because they want a personalized buying experience. They want you to know them. They want you to know their kids. They want to know what's going on. And that's one of the most important things for you to be keeping in mind as you grow your business, especially if this is 2024 and beyond. This is what all the trends are saying. And even people who are doing funnels, like, and funnels, not meaning like the actual structure, but like, ad funnels, paid funnels for people to come into your program, people who are getting, like, doing freebies and, like, everything like that. Even, if you think about larger corporations are even trying to get text messages out to you, you probably have seen this. When you're in your business, you want to be thinking about how to do interactive marketing as much as possible. How can you start conversations? How can you make this more interesting? So the philosophy is that we no longer, as business owners, want to post and ghost. It's really, really important when, and that's exactly what I did when I was in that seven month drought. I was just posting and ghosting. I was like, drought sounds very dramatic, but I was like, just posting and ghosting. And I was like, yeah, hopefully someone will read this. But now with the, like, the way that technology has developed, artificial intelligence is rampant in the world. And if you are just posting without actually interacting with humans, you're not only is that not a great kind of way to bring in your humans, but it also makes the, any algorithm or system that's like, tracking your business online, it thinks that you're a robot. I'm not kidding. You will get flagged and it won't show your content to people. So if you're like me and you are spending a just crazy amount of time on social media and doing the billboard marketing, what happens is you literally that lovely billboard or the canva reel, and like, all the fancy things that you're doing, no one will even see it because it thinks that you're a robot and it won't show that content to people. That's why you might be, getting less of what we call, the vanity metrics. And vanity metrics are just like that nickname for anything that, like, is a boost in ego, but not a boost in income. So things like likes, follows, views, comments, any of that kind of stuff really does not make your business or break your business. I have made, I made a hundred thousand, 106,000 in the first quarter of this year, just in the third year of my business. And I typically have at maybe, one person comment on my post and I made 106,000 in the first quarter of the year. That's why you think about that. Likes, comments, followers, anything like that. And I didn't even have 1000 followers when I first, hit my first six figure year. I want you to know that that truly does not make or break your income. Your engagement and interaction with will promise. So instead of posting and ghosting, if that is what you're doing, what do you do? I want you to think about with your business. I want you to think about it being a virtual storefront.

So I want you to imagine that you own a physical store. It's just this is your virtual storefront in general. Again, anyone that's listening to this podcast, you are probably someone who genuinely cares about your people and wants to get to know them and really helps. Wants to help. And what I want you to imagine is that if you do not talk with people that are in your current audience, that means anyone who's following you, anyone who's on your email list, anyone who is in a group that you might have. What happens is I want you to imagine somebody walking into a physical store and you're just smiling at the front desk. You're like, hi, it's me. Please come to the counter and buy my stuff. And I want you to think about. Or you're just kind of ignore them, right? Human being. I don't know if you guys have had those experiences in stores where someone just like, chills behind the front desk and you're just like, hi, I'm here. I just walked into your store and they kind of like, look up and they're like, yeah. And they ignore you. You're like, oh, hi. Like, I'm a pretty vocal person, so I'll be like, hi, how are you? And then they're still like, no, let me know if you need anything. But like, it's like, not in a way that you can tell that they might not really, like, care. And I know that this isn't you guys, but that's how it comes across. So for every person that is following you, for every person that is in your audience, I would love for you to make time to introduce yourself. Start a conversation with them being like, hey, thank you so much for following me. Why? It's like. And then ask, questions. Genuinely, like, find out more information about the people that are in your audience. They are taking time and energy that is precious to them to be in your space. What you need to do is actually make that first, like, step kind of like, in a relationship, even making that first step, being that first person to, like, make a move, it feels uncomfortable a little bit, but it's worth it to help them. These are amazing humans that you could totally help. And when you focus a lot more on them and how you can serve them, instead of feeling awkward and focusing on yourself and being like, I want to feel awkward. I don't want them to not like me. It makes it so much easier. Now, I'll tell you, I would reach out to a bunch of people when I figured this out, I was like, oh, my gosh, I'm going to reach out to everybody. So, like, anytime I would do a webinar, I would reach out to, like, 120 people. All the people who are following me. And at this current state, look up, online to make sure you don't message too many people in a day, because then you could get flagged again as a robot. But I would be like, hey, I'm doing a webinar, would you like to come? And a lot of times, no one would respond. For the first three or four webinars I did, it was me, myself, and I, and usually a family member that felt bad for me. Usually my mom shout out, Susan Wang, you're the best. So. And now, like, it also my whole family and everyone. So within my business, though, it took a long time for me to create that kind of interest and engagement, but I didn't give up. Usually I would get maybe three responses, like, oh, sorry, I can't make it. But did that stop me? Absolutely not. When I was a life coach, I was able to heal so many relationships in my life. I ran a freaking marathon. And even though I really despise running, and I was, it was like a mile for every year and back in 2020 in January. And I was able to complete my national boards for teaching, all in that one year, just because I learned how to manage my mind and how to really, like, just show up as a leader in my own life. Didn't feel like life was happening to me. And I was like, you know what? Even though I feel a little funky about it, felt a little bit of the three biggest fears for all humans. I felt a little bit rejection. I felt a little bit of failure, fear. I was definitely failing a lot. And I was. I felt, abandoned by humans. I didn't give up because my mission was more important than people were responding to me. And because of that, now I have done webinars for many humans. I have been able to present. And now I have, because I still have those webinars. I still have at least the slides on my website. For the initial webinars I did, I now am able to serve people years, years in advance, all because I showed up and talk to people. And because I was able to message all these humans about webinars and things like that. It got other people to view my posts. So on average, the average person only sees 13% of what you post, and it takes them 17 times to see your offer in order for somebody to buy. So even if they don't even respond, they are still seeing your offers more because, again, the algorithm is showing you at least 13% of what you post. And then your six figure offer, like we talked about in the first, or second episode, is going to be top of mind. So that as you get better at your billboard marketing and are interacting with your humans, you're going to be, if it's not you that they work with directly, they are going to. You're going to be top of mind as a referral for, hopefully, a friend of theirs. Cause they like what you do and you've shown up and you've served them and helped them, along with asking them questions and things like that. You can ask them questions about things that you're posting. You can ask them like, hey, it's like, I help people with burnout and things like that. I'm talking about burnout next week. I'm actually doing a webinar on it. Are there any things that you want me to talk about or things like that? Those are things that you can do to create some engagement, to actually get people to talk with you and just tell you about themselves. The key to this is you want to be committed to your goal and attached when you are committed to creating the impact that you want to in the world, when you're committed to creating this legacy that's going to change people's lives, what happens is then you're able to shift into a better, healthier mindset. And you aren't attached to Sally saying yes and responding to your webinar. You're like, I am willing to go for this no matter what. And when you show up in that energy, in full service, committed to your goal, what happens is people take notice. People start to show up in ways that you never, ever expected. And I know that's going to happen for you, too. And it's funny, a lot of times, like, the people who I was interacting with, I would, I would interact with them and like, they didn't even like, respond. But then I would get a consult from someone else, like out of left field that I didn't even know they were, they were like lovingly, nicknamed lurkers. They were lurking on my profile. I'd been looking at me for years and I had no idea, no idea that they were even looking at my content. And they would be like, oh, yeah, I've been like reading every post that you do. Like, well, that would have been good to know, but. So that's what happens. So it's showing up, trusting the process. Staying in service is going to help you every time. And as you know, I want to have it like a practical application piece for you guys for as many episodes as I possibly can. So what I want you to do is I want you to implement this. It's like a shorthand version of the system I teach in six figure systems.

And it is so simple and it's going to help you create a routine and a habit around actually doing that. Interactive marketing. So. And the cool thing about interactive marketing and managing, leads is you don't like marketing. You know how that's like five different roles? I talked about that last week. This is just you. It's like you are just showing up and talking to people. And now that we can send each other videos and voice memos, it makes it so much easier to feel like you're an actual human talking to actual humans. So definitely be giving that a try. And the system I want to offer to you, it's the philosophy behind, my engagement protocol that I teach. And it is so simple, but it is so effective. Okay. All I want you to do is every weekday, just Monday through Friday, or whenever you possibly can, I would like for you to take 30 minutes out of that day, which is, it's a decent amount. And I want you to talk to just ten people. Okay. One of the things that's really important for me is that it is, I want to make it statistically inevitable for your business to, or to succeed and for you to sign clients. I was like, yeah, that makes sense. So I want to make it like that you are going to succeed no matter what. And if you just talk to ten people a day for 30 minutes a day, that becomes 2500 conversations a year. Ways to connect with people. And so, I want you to think about if we are playing the odds. I don't know what your goals are, but let's just say it's six figures. You, if you talk to 2000 if you have 2500 conversations and your product, or your offer is 2,000, it only takes 2% of those people to convert for you to hit six figures. Let's play those odds. Those are good odds. The reasons why I love data is it takes me out of drama every time. And if you were just showing up and you're like, as the CEO of my business, my job is to manage leads. I need to find ten new people to do outreach to, or I need to talk to ten people in my network and I'm going to find them, come like what may, and I'm ready to rally for my cause. I'm ready to help my humans, and I'm ready to show up and serve them and make the first move. Okay. Like, people say that, like, I don't know, just being, in my opinion. I also want people to know that, like, my heart is in their business. Like, I will go to bat for your business for sure, if we work together. But I want you to feel that way even before we work together, even if you never pay me. My goal is that, anyone who listens to this podcast, that you get six figures. You make six figures just from listening to this podcast. And I want you to know that, like, I genuinely care about your business, even though we have never met. I want it to succeed. It's part of my mission is to create, make entrepreneurship accessible for all. And I want you to know that you are that for your people too. So that's it.

Three steps to manage leads. You want to make sure that you are doing interactive marketing, not just billboard marketing. You want to be asking questions instead of posting and go sitting. And you want to implement the system of 30 minutes a day, ten people a day, create those conversations. And I promise you are going to see a huge shift in your business.