Why 9 Times Out of 10, Immediately Speaking with a Cold Lead is a Bad Idea

Let’s say you are in the middle of working on something you need to have to your paying client in an hour and the phone rings with a cold lead on the other end.  Your first inclination of course, is to take the time and speak with this person because, duh, it’s potential new business! 

You spend the time on the phone only to hang up frustrated.  At the top of the call the prospect stated how quickly they wanted to move forward on finding a resource for their bookkeeping only to hang up 45 minutes later without a way to contact them back!  Now you need to scramble to complete the work for your paying client which needs to be to them in 15 minutes.  You’re angry with yourself for having wasted time talking to this prospect and now you are under the gun to get your client what they need.

Okay, so that didn’t work out so well.   What do you do in these instances? 

If you are a solo-provider or do not have a dedicated person on staff to answer phones.  It’s very simple don’t answer your phone while completing client work, especially when there’s a deadline involved!  In my firm, we did not have a full time dedicated person to answer the phone and we followed the practice that when working on a client account we did not answer the telephone.  Instead we had specific, scheduled times where we would pick up messages and return calls.  If you have a dedicated person on staff to answer phones, they can say the following:

“Thank you so much for contacting our firm.  [First Name] is the person who speaks with all prospective clients about our services and he/she is not available right now.  If you would like, we offer a free 30-minute phone consult with [First Name] that I can schedule for you now.”

At this point the cold lead may either schedule the free consult or decide they are not ready to do that at this time.  But either way you are not being pulled from working on a paying client to chase a fire that doesn’t exist.

Want to know more?  Click here to learn more about my 8-step easy-to-use and easy-to-implement process on How to Qualify a Prospect & Work With Clients You Love!

Mindset and the Prospective Clients?

No matter how a prospective client finds you and your business, it is important that you qualify them to ensure you are a fit for one another.  Gone are the days where you think and feel that you don’t have a say in who you work with and how!

During the pre-screening process in my 8-step easy-to-use and easy-to-implement system, each party is interviewing the other and establishing their opinion about whether or not it makes sense to work together.  The way you interact with one another during this initial phase plays a large part in the tone of the working relationship should you both decide to work together.

The other factor that shapes the tone of the working relationship is the mindset you are operating from when speaking with a prospective client.  From the moment we begin interacting with a prospect the groundwork for the tone of that working relationship is being established.

The best mindset to be operating from is one of neutrality when interviewing a prospective client, keeping in mind that your sole objective is to determine whether or not you are a fit for working with one another.

Once you know that you are a fit for working with one another then and only then, is it time to turn your attention to moving the prospect to the next step which is either referring them to your bookkeeper network or scheduling a paid Bookkeeping Evaluation.

Want to know more?  Click here to learn more about my 8-step easy-to-use and easy-to-implement process on How to Qualify a Prospect & Work With Clients You Love!