The marketing process that we teach generates inbound enquiries. What that means is that potential clients, those who have recognised themselves in the things that you write or say, will come to you and say hey there, I read/heard this thing that you said/wrote and you’re talking about me. Could I have some more information about what you do? This is where you need to get them on the phone!
Emails Are Not Enough
At this point, some coaches will send a beautifully written email, detailing what they offer and how much it costs. This does work occasionally and the recipient of the email might think, yes, that’s for me!
The thing is, conversion rates for emails are very low. What I mean by ‘conversion rate’ is a calculation like this: Number of clients gained divided by number of emails sent. You send 10 emails and gain 2 clients, you have a conversion rate of 20%. Traditionally, email marketing (which is what this is) has a low conversion rate. Conversion rates of 1 or 2 percent are not unreasonable, so 20% would be really good.
A Better Way – Get Them On The Phone
I will say it until I’m blue in the face; people buy people.
In a situation where a product or service is being sold by two different sellers, you will buy from the one you like the most. We’re humans, it’s what we do. We like relationships and connection.
How To Make The Most Of Your Enquiries
When you get an enquiry from someone who asks for more information, the very best thing to do is to get on the phone (or video call) with them.
The reason that I say this is that you can do that thing at which you are fabulous – you can coach them! But you can’t coach by email. You can’t ask questions and then gently probe the answers. You can only state facts and opinions.
Do It Nicely
Getting someone who wants to talk to you on the phone is nowhere near as difficult as you might fear.
The way that I do it is to share a link to my online scheduler, with a message that says this is a link to my diary. Choose a time that’s the most convenient for you and I’ll call you then for a no-obligation, no strings attached chat.
In 99% of cases, the person in question is happy to book a phone slot. Why wouldn’t they be? They know that I have a potential solution to the problem that they have because they found me, and they’d like to talk through what options are open to them.
Structure The Phone Conversation
Bearing in mind that the person in question has lots in common with your ideal client (because they came to you based on something they read in the marketing message that you have created to speak to your ideal client) your phone conversation should go like this:
- Get them to tell you a bit about themselves, and in particular about the thing that’s bothering them (this is the thing that you know lots about, because of your ideal client work)
- Talk to them about how that problem is manifesting itself in their lives.
- Find out about the things that they have tried to overcome the issue.
- See if it would be ok for you to offer a suggestion or two, and offer one or two of your key solutions to their problem.
- Describe to them how coaching can help them to overcome the problem that they’re having. Do not under any circumstances revert to coach-speak and start talking about mental barriers, limiting beliefs or even mindset.
- Do they have any questions and answer those that they do have.
- Ask them this simple question; what would you like to happen next?
- Shut up and wait for them to respond.
If you follow this process with every single inbound enquiry you get, your conversion rate will improve dramatically on that of simply emailing. To give you an idea, one in every two of the inbound enquiries I get become paying clients.
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