6 STEPS TO GET THE MOST ENROLLMENTS FROM YOUR LEADS

Jon MalachChampionsWay Vice President

Overview of the 6 Steps

1) Make sure all roads to your school are well paved

2) Avoiding the common pitfalls of lead management

3) Getting your front desk on board 4) Managing your Short term pipeline5) Managing your Long term pipeline6) Using a system and sticking to it... every hour!

Step 1: Making sure all roads are well-paved

Vancouver 2010 Olympics: - One of the main focuses in the preparation was

the transportation infrastructure. - New roads were built, a new SkyTrain route was

built, and traffic plans were designed to limit the accessibility on some major roads to Olympic Traffic only.

- Why? Because the Olympic Committee's biggest fear was having people interested in going to events, but not being able to get to them.

- That should be your biggest fear too, having someone interested in trying lessons at your school and not having that interest ever reach you!

- Here are some examples:

Your Phone

Your Phone

• What hours of the day is it answered? • Are those the same hours that people are calling to

ask questions? • Voicemails deflate interest, they add a step in your

sales process (getting a hold of them). • I've never seen an answering machine prevent a

competitor from booking the intro lesson before you do.

• Some small businesses have separate lines for student vs. non student calls and route them accordingly.

Your Website

Your Website

• Is it easy for me to drop by, confirm you might offer what I'm interested in, then leave it up to you to contact me and help me decide if it is?

• North Americans are afraid and lazy in general as consumers. Expecting us to call or email you from your contact page isn't intelligent. I either don't have the time or energy to call you or email you right now, or I do but in the past had a bad experience.

• Yes some people will call or email, but for each one of those there are another 9 that won't.

• Instead, offer me some information in exchange for my contact info, or, just flat out express to me that you understand that this decision isn't a straight forward one and you'd be happy to help me and you'll even contact me with all the answers to the questions your website seems not to be answering!

• People won't print coupons and bring them in. Think about it, that works with grocery coupons because you get the coupons from the store you regularly visit. What makes you think a coupon for something I am not convinced about will make me get in the car? It won't, all it will do is tell me that you are ready to undervalue what you offer in order to get me to sign up.

Social Media

Social Media

• Are there any roads here that lead to your school?

• How scenic is the drive? Are the roads plastered with billboards about 2 week specials? Or are there interesting things to read and look at that would make me curious to ask someone about you?

• What would that "someone" say?• This is not a social media webinar

Your School Signage

Your School signage

• As I drive by, what will I remember.• As I walk by, what will make me stop and take

a quick look, or what will make me want to ask someone else if they know anything about you?

Step 2: Avoiding the Pitfalls

Pitfall: Not Rating Your Leads

Not Rating Your Leads

• You have to rate your leads, in a manner you can easily explain to others.

• A rating system only you understand is really no good unless you want to manage every lead directly for the rest of your life.

• Keep it simple, the ratings are meant to gauge their interest level, the logs explain why they are rated that way

• If you could only keep 5 leads right now, which ones would you keep?

• A trick for rating leads based on the very first contact? – How did they contact you, and what is your success rate in enrolling

students in the program they are most likely interested in?

Pitfall: Keeping Fragmented Records of Interactions with leads

Pitfall: Keeping Fragmented Records of Interactions with leads

• Keep communication history in one place! This is getting harder and harder nowadays, which ironically is why it is more important!

• In the old days, there were calls, and face to face chats, plus the occasional letter you would send (yes letter, as in paper and envelope).

• During this time usually the only place we might track any communication would be in a notebook, and at that rate it was only phone calls we might make a note of.

• What you remember now you will forget in a day 30 minutes. – All those conversations you say to yourself you will remember or you think to

yourself "I will update my program director next time I see them" often get lost. • Then came the school email address (this was the beginning of

embarrassing situations) • Now we have Texting, and all the social media channels where

communication can take place.

Pitfall: Keeping Fragmented Records of Interactions with leads

• Each one of these channels act like a wheel on your vehicle to drive better lead conversion.

• The vehicle won’t go anywhere if all the wheels are not connected to it.

Pitfall: Guessing When You Don’t Know

Pitfall: Guessing when you don't know.

• We tend to be some of the best psychic's around when it comes to our marketing

• Get in the habit of researching when you don't want to, or if that is not possible because you don't have data, then get in the habit of taking actions so you don't have to face this problem of guessing in the future.

• Most common case of this = guessing on marketing expenses ("It is/isn't working”)– Boils down to oversight of the cost per/lead – The cost per you are ok to spend should depend on your conversion ratio

and your time to close for the related program• If you think in terms of cost per/lead, you don't make the mistake

of only analyzing the number of leads generated

Pitfall: Acting as if people who don't sign up within 1-4 weeks never will

Pitfall: Acting as if people who don't sign up within 1-4 weeks never will

• Ever been excited about buying or trying something and then something came up?

• Why ignore this then, it happens to those we offer lessons to all the time.

• Examples of actions related to this attitude (avoid these):– Not storing their info in a place everyone can EASILY find it, or, not storing it at

all.– For those of you who use notebooks to store this info, I know how you work! I

used to do it. So consider this: What would happen if a big cup of orange juice spilled on your beloved Note-book??? Possibly the most costly mistake you can make is keeping anything important on paper • No one but you can access it, and if the paper is lost, you're done.

– Not communicating with the leads on an ongoing basis – Not taking time to analyze why they do eventually sign up and looking for

trends based on their age and interest points.

Pitfall: Judging Old Leads

Pitfall: Judging old leads

• “Oh them, they'll never sign up...” • End result, let's not bother trying to get them to come in• Usually happens when there are no logs about them. • When there are logs, you can look for clues you may

have missed to try another approach the next time, and at the least try any approach.

• People who do this often forget how much effort is required to generate a lead, when you consider this, making that call or reaching out isn't so hard anymore. (Please think like this).

Pitfall: “If they are interested in training, they will call/come in"

Pitfall: “If they are interested in training, they will call/come in"

• This is a great attitude for going broke.• Similar attitude to "I am the most credible martial artist in my area,

anyone wanting to learn real martial arts will want to learn from me” – Sorry no offense, but we the public don't care! Possibly we will care if we go

to a school and have a bad experience with the instruction, we might eventually land on you, but chances are we will end up trying a whole new activity altogether.

• It is our commitment, burden, job, whatever you want to call it: to do everything possible to reach out to anyone with a heart beat and a mild interest in Martial Arts consistently until they express they aren't interested in Martial Arts.

• You will enjoy more financial success while you improve more lives around you, so if you think this way, hide those trophies or do whatever you need to reverse the attitude.

One Pitfall I skipped

• Note: One pitfall I skipped because I will assume that everyone here is recording the individuality of each lead you generate (Age, interests, experience, how they heard of you, when they first made contact, how they first made contact).

Step 3: Getting your front desk on board

Step 3: Getting your front desk on board

Typical scenarios:• All the important info they could extract in

advance is left to the instructor and a crummy guest form when they come in.

• Why? – They don't understand how helpful it would be to

know that in advance– They are not concerned if leads do or don't show up

for booked appointments.• Why? It doesn't affect them.

Step 3: Getting your front desk on board

One solution solves all:• Change how you pay them! (see my pay structure webinar)• Make a portion of their pay dependent on having completed info

about leads, that HAVE to show up for their appointments. • No complete info = no pay • No show = no pay • They will generate as much info as they can (with or without your

script)• They will do whatever possible to confirm all appointments and

have people show up• They will also use the info generated to effectively communicate

with the no-show's in order to reschedule.

Example Pay Structure

Step 4: MANAGING THE SHORT TERM PIPELINE LEADS

• Sales Pipeline = your sales process, the layers that represent the steps you take a lead from first contact to enrollment.

• Short Term Pipeline Leads: leads that are the go-getter parent or youth that decided that Martial Arts is what they want to get involved with, and they are trying to make a decision in the next few weeks.

Step 4: MANAGING THE SHORT TERM PIPELINE LEADS

During first contact: • FIRST: Learn as much as you can about them, gear everything around making

sure that they know your number 1 priority is understanding them and their needs. Look through your marketing material, all of it, does it ask any questions?

• Does it communicate in any way you understand what it is like to try and choose lessons and you are there to help them through the process?

• What about the way your phone calls are being conducted? • What about your auto-responder to web leads?• THEN: Learn as much as you can about how they landed on you. These are the

kinds of leads we want more of, so let's determine how we got this one, it's a clue to getting more of them!

• Oh you are getting a lot of them already? Great! So which ones cost the most? Which ones cost the least?

• Figure that out immediately and determine how you can further optimize the generation of these hot leads!

Step 4: MANAGING THE SHORT TERM PIPELINE LEADS

NEXT:• Try to book appointment(would be a whole

other webinar to discuss the strategies around this step)

• Have email templates ready for both scenarios (booked vs. didn’t book)

• Send respective template depending on outcome > make it easy and idiot proof so it always happens

Step 4: MANAGING THE SHORT TERM PIPELINE LEADS

Quick recommendations for the "did book" template:• If you are one man show, the email is from the school, if not, it's

from your someone other than the person that will be teaching the lesson

• Provide a little background on the person that will be taking them through the appointment (create star power)

• Provide "tips for your first visit", why we bow, parking, address common misconceptions, FAQ, what to wear, what the lesson is like (create comfort, "this school is already taking care of me”)

• Driving directions, public transport directions• Quick note about rescheduling is fine with notice ("we do commonly

have wait-lists for peak lesson times, please let us know")

Step 4: MANAGING THE SHORT TERM PIPELINE LEADS

• Confirm all appointments and don't forget WIIFM• After the appointment, Jot down all important details before

they get home – (You WILL always forget something important if you don't)

• Before the end of the day of the appointment they have been emailed

• Have a template ready for both scenarios (show and no show)• Always personalize the "did show" template based on the

notes you jotted down.• If you didn't jot down the notes in the computer the first

time, do it now.

Step 4: MANAGING THE SHORT TERM PIPELINE LEADS

• Depending on how your sales process works for signing them up, repeat the process but tailor the follow up emails to cover the differences between follow up lessons before the next

• If they don't sign up on the day most do, have template ready summarizing the options discussed

• Satisfy all rebuttals by hyper-linking to a testimonials page that contains student essays that address how they were first tentative about trying Martial Arts and then how it turned out – (with some email programs you can see if they clicked this

hyperlink!)

Step 5: Managing Your Long Term Lead Pipeline

• Long term pipeline leads = the leads that either you didn't enroll during your initial sales process, or they never entered the process to start with (inquired but did not go further than the inquiry).

• Determine what is your trigger for determining when a lead has become a long term pipeline lead– Typically when they are non-responsive to a few

attempts to invite them to the school, or when they have visited and elected not to sign up

Step 5: Managing Your Long Term Lead Pipeline

Get Your Ongoing Dripping In Place:• The drip method: contacting leads at regular

intervals until they express interest • This used to be just direct mail• Email the joined the mix, and now has

essentially replaced direct mail• To mail hard or soft copy, that is the question?

Quick Outbound ComparisonDirect Mail Email

-Not many people are doing it anymore, people receive less mail than ever before, you will stick out.- Can be perceived as a faux pas however (goes against the green movement)- Is under the radar if you are concerned about competitors seeing what you are doing- Difficult to track results unless you use a specific web domain (i.e. www.youroffername.com) just for that mail-out

- Costly

-People get a LOT of email- It is measurable (opens, link clicks)

- Interactive if they become interested (can instantly research you)

- Takes very little effort when automated

Managing the Long Term Leads

• The importance of getting that info as early as possible now is quite evident:– The more info you have, the more targeted your

outbound drip campaigning can be (as it should))• previous experience (three categories)• area and/or program of interest (one series for all)• age (make appropriate adjustments)

Managing the Long Term Leads

Outbound messages should vary:• Interesting articles, videos, or photo series• "Changes happening to people in your area" (feature case studies

of student most similar to the target list and their success story)• Personal styled check-in’s• Invites to special events • Bi-weekly or monthly depending on how much interesting

content you can put together for that target!

** Be sure to respond to any responses you get to these emails ASAP and the reply is logged!

Managing the Long Term Leads

• Now you also need to add them as FB friends • This does not mean you are going to start sending to

their FB inbox though, that will just piss them off• Marketing on FB is an inbound practice - they see

status updates or Photo/Video posts that interest them, and the rest happens like a conversation would

• They may notice mutual friends interacting with you, leading to a conversation about you between them - Blog, Twitter play different roles, but this is not a social media webinar - Talk to Sensei Nick!

Managing the Long Term Leads• Phone calls are not out of the question (you actually should do more

of them now to be effective since everyone has gone digital):– On birthdays– On milestone dates since the first contact - example: "It's been exactly 6

months since we first talked, and just curious what kind of activities you are involved with...." (great for enticing procrastinators)

– When you have made a major change to the school (new program, renovations)

– When you notice they have opened several of your emails consecutively– Invites to special events that correspond with their interest.

***Log all details of every call made regardless of outcome (voicemails count)

Managing the Long Term Leads

• Note: these phone calls will rarely happen if:– you don't track correspondence from before (we are less

likely to call a name we have no memory of)– they will never happen if we didn't store the info to start

with.• Want to delegate?– Increase the pay for leads that show up to appointments

that are from your long term pipeline and watch what happens!

• What happens when they book an appointment?– Follow your short term lead pipeline process again!

STEP 6: USING A SYSTEM AND STICKING TO IT - HOURLY

• This is completely impossible without a software system• I say "hourly" because you/your staff need to be interacting

with it throughout the day or the system becomes a simple rolodex at best

• To those who say "I don't like using a computer", go find yourself a hot tub time machine, the days of managing a business without optimizing your operation with a computer ended years ago.

• Make sure the system you use can do everything we just covered!

• Ready for the shameless product push yet? Here it is in 3 minutes or less.

Making sure all roads are paved

Making sure all roads are paved

Rating your leads

Details behind the Ratings

Logs have to be easy to use yet detailed

You don’t have to guess

You don’t have to guess

Cost per/lead made simple

Note: Don’t forget your time has a cost too!

Judging Leads: which one would you call?

VS.

Getting Front Desk InvolvedAnd Knowing the important facts about the

leads you generate.

2 Click Emails after First Contact!

Confirming Appointments + WIIFM

Long term lead Pipeline – Who is warming up?

Automate ‘em all!

Make it happen - Now!

• Evaluate if there are any roads to your school still under construction.

• Identify any of the pitfalls your school’s lead management may be facing currently.

• Take measures to ensure the front desk is on board• Establish your Short & Long term lead pipeline

management processes and put them in place.• Get a system immediately if you don’t have one that can

do what we discussed, and do your part on the computer.

Thank you for watching this webinar – While we conduct the Question and Answer Session,

please follow this link and fill out the form for a chance to win a $150 in ChampionsWay gift

certificates or a chance to win an Apple iPad!http://www.championsway.com/landingpages/webinar-special.html