Debbie Mayo-Smith:Old leads - new rewards

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As sure as the clock ticks, we get a phone call every four or five months. He just says 'Chimney Sweep'. It's been going on for years and years. It started after we had this fellow in (the chimney sweeper).

I don't know his name, and his phone call doesn't last long.

The response from us is a simple, 'no thank you - not at this time'. It hasn't been consistent no's. We've had him in once again last year. It always makes me smile because as a marketer, and as a self-employed service provider - I really dig his tenacity.

It's a wonderful thing, this tenacity. I think it is an element that contributes to being not just a good business person, but a fabulous one.

Let me ask you a question. What do you do with your proposals, your quotes, your leads that didn't pan out? Yes, you'll have definite no's,, never! But of course there are the ones that have timing problems, or other extenuating circumstances that initially frustrated that sale/new client.

I'd like to relate a story about how the use of a simple expanding folder has made thousands upon thousands of dollars for an insurance broker.

As usual I asked one of my upcoming conference clients if they could point me in the direction of one of their 'guys' with a good marketing story.

Darren Gannon, CEO of Newpark Financial Services said, 'if you want a good story Debbie, call Andrew. So I did.

Newpark had given Andrew a lead, whom he visited in November of 2010. At that time, doing business together wasn't right. The products and pricing he offered were similar plus an insurance the client wanted wasn't available.

This lead went into Andrews's expandable folder - which has twelve monthly dividers. As new near hits occur (second visit but stopped there), Andrew and his team file them in the month before the prospects insurances are due for renewal; the month they've asked to be called back and so on.

Every month, Andrew and his team delve into that expandable file, pull out the batch for that month and then spend about one and a half hours reworking the original quotes. Andrew then calls the prospects. For example the Nov 2010 client, when Andrew had the insurance that the prospect wanted - he was over the moon when Andrew called.

Andrew's timing was impeccable, as co-incidently the prospect had just received a substantial renewal increase and Andrew was able to save him a lot of money. Ka-ching!

He is now Andrew's client (his own insurance broker hadn't even bothered to call.)

Do you think getting back to your failed quotes is a waste of time?

You know me, the fluff walks money talks lady.

Let's look at the dollars and sense of this. The team spend about one and a half hours revisiting the quotes. For the one month we spoke of - April 2011, four separate old quotes became written business. $20,000 in income. Even if only those four culminated in business that is $1,111.11 per hour of work. 12 months x 1.5 hours = 18 hours/ $20,000 .

Written by international speaker and bestselling author Debbie Mayo-Smith. For more tips, over 500 how-to articles visit Debbie's article webpage.