Turning A Lead Into An Appointment

Getting quality leads is the first step in growing your business. You do your research, make a connection with prospects, and turn them into a warm lead. Now you want to turn the lead into an appointment. Our Co-founder and CEO, Nico De Bruyn, is going to tell you how to do that. He’ll walk you through the process he uses to book more appointments on your calendar. There are two goals you have when you’re turning a lead into an appointment. Following these steps will help fill your pipeline with people that are more likely to sign a deal with you.

The first goal is qualifying your leads. This is different from making sure they’re a quality lead in your outreach process. Qualifying them as someone ready for an appointment means you need to make sure they have an immediate need, budget and are willing to jump on a call with you.

For instance, if you’re a marketing company and you reach out to a business that is looking at outsourcing their marketing six months from now, you would want to keep in contact with them and nurture that lead, but they might not want to jump on a call right away. Or perhaps you’re a software developer, and a lead is still in the process of getting funding, so they don’t have a budget right now. These types of leads wouldn’t qualify for an appointment right now.

That doesn’t mean you stop talking to them, but booking a call when they don’t need your service right away can hurt you more than help. Having a meeting with someone before they’re ready for your services could cause them to sign with someone later when they are prepared to make that decision, and since you met with them months before they were ready to buy, you’re no longer top of mind for them.

After you qualify your lead, your second goal is to book a call. Booking a call is where the magic happens. This is where you get to shine and show what makes you different from your competition and how you can solve their problems.

When you try to book a call with a lead, you can get two types of responses — positive and negative. Negative responses can be broken down into two different categories. You can get a “No thank you”  response which could mean you can contact them at a later time, or “Never contact me again.” You’re going to get negative responses, but you can’t let those slow you down. You need to push past that and keep pursuing leads that fall into the positive response column. Nico categorizes positive responses in three different ways; hot, mild, and neutral. Depending on how your lead responds will determine your next steps.

Let’s dive into the difference between hot, mild, and neutral responses. When you have someone you can put in the hot lead category, you want to send them your calendar link right away. These are the leads that are most likely to sign with you. They’re your ideal client, have an immediate need, have a budget, and gave you a positive response, or even asked for a meeting on their own.

A mild lead will be someone who is interested, but they might ask for more information. This is where you will send over some educational information about your business. You can send over blogs, Loom videos, or other resources that give more information about how you can solve their problems. You also want to follow up with them 2, 4, 7, and 14 days after you’ve sent the resources. If they don’t respond, you might need to move them to a neutral or follow up later category. This is also a great time to invite them to a Facebook group if you have one. Facebook groups are a great way to engage past, current, and future clients with your resources and information about you and your business.

Finally, neutral responses are people that respond with “great to meet you” or give you a thumbs up. They don’t specifically ask for information, but they are engaging with you. This is a great time to ask about their business. Find out if you can add value, or if you know their problems, ask if you can send resources over to them. You’ll want to follow up with them as well using the same 2, 4, 7, and 14-day schedule you use for a mild lead. Following up doesn’t just have to be sending a message. It can be liking a post they shared, commenting on a status, or other ways that will get you at the top of their interest.

Booking meetings get you one step closer to signing that contract. Following these steps can help turn your leads from cold to neutral to mild, hot, and closed. Nico and the rest of the Boundless team are here to help if you have any questions on how to turn your leads into appointments.