It’s tough to generate leads.  It takes time, money, the right marketing materials, the correct placing of your marketing efforts and materials and it takes luck.  Sometimes a great campaign is directed to the wrong audience and fails, sometimes a marketing person my bump into a sale while waiting for a delayed flight, a consequence of normal small talk.

The best leads, with the highest likelihood of conversion to a sale come from people that proactively seek you out and contact you, no matter how they got the message or found your product or service.  A few times in the past month, I have sought out a product or service or information on such, and received nothing in the way of a response.  In most cases, I tried again, still with no response.  Sorry, but your sale to me has died, I am no longer interested.

Does your company or community have a fail-safe method for quick response to an incoming call or e-mail?  I urge you to make sure this is the case and make sure that all of your sales team is prioritizing the response to an unsolicited request for more information on your company.   The loss of business, which is multiplied by losing out on referral leads from these clients is tremendous, a potential backbreaker in this economy if you are a small or fledgling business.

How quickly do you respond to these leads?  I don’t think 24 hours is soon enough!  Would be great to hear your procedures and back-up plan.  Thanks!