Leads: the Good, the Bad, & the Ugly

Before you build your Cadre, you must establish your value proposition. 

• Do you understand your brand?

• Do you know how to communicate it?

• Are you comfortable selling it? 

If the answer to those three questions is yes, you are ready to build your Cadre!

What makes a good lead?

ca•dre /kodra/ _noun

A small group of people specially trained for a particular purpose or profession.

A lead is someone you want in your Cadre because they share a particular purpose or profession. These are people who can refer your business and vice versa. To make it simple we have broken your Cadre into four groups.

•  VIP List: People who share a common purpose. We also call this your Wealth Team. They are sales professionals with various professions that share the same goal, "success through the service of others." All business professionals will start on this list, and graduate to your Target List once you’ve chosen a profession to specialize in. 

• Target List: People that share the same profession, i.e., Realtors, Financial Advisors, Insurance Agents, Attorneys, etc. Choose a profession that makes money when you make money. 

• Favorite Past Clients: Simply put, these are your favorite past clients. They have left you a raving review Online, plan to continue using your services, and will tell all their friends to use you too!

• Team: At some point, you will probably start to build a team. Everyone on your team, no matter their role, should be responsible for generating and managing your business. This could also include people you 1099 for their services. Ideally, everyone you work with and who works with you, should be in your Cadre. 

Choose from one of the groups above. Then decide what your qualifiers are for that list. Qualifying is all about gathering insights necessary to make a good judgment call. If you don’t know what list to start with, you may consider building your VIP list, starting with your Wealth Team. 

Wealth Team: 

• Financial Advisors 

• Realtors

• Mortgage Lenders 

• Insurance Agents 

• CPAs

• Attorneys

What happens when you don't qualify leads?

You're essentially throwing darts in the dark. You'll waste your time, miss opportunities, and close bad deals. You become a crocodile salesman (big mouth and no ears). People will tell you whether they are a good fit in your first conversation, you just have to listen! 

***The difference between a GOOD lead and a GREAT lead is the referral source! Check out our blog to learn more about “The Perfect Introduction”!

What makes a Bad Lead? 

If a good lead is someone that is ready, willing, and able to work with you; then a bad lead is missing any one of those three components. 

• Not Ready = Delayed

• Not Willing = Dead

• Not Able = Not Qualified 

If you could only work good and great leads you would. But you also don’t want to completely ignore bad leads. Bad leads are circumstantial. Something about their personal or professional life is preventing them from being a good lead. That thing could change at any time! When it does, you still want to be top of mind. 

Create 3 drip campaigns for your bad leads by category. 

A drip campaign should consist of automated emails, voicemails, mailers, and texts. You should also set a next touch date in your database. 

*Unless someone is DNC they should have a next touch date!

DELAYED: Not Ready - The timing isn't right. 

If you called and asked them to meet, they would say yes. If the timing isn't right, they are delayed! Examples of a delayed status would be someone who is on maternity leave, someone who is about to leave for a sabbatical, or someone who for whatever reason is "too busy right now."

DEAD: Not Willing - Not open to the idea of working with you. 

If you asked them for an introduction, would they give you one if they had one to give? Obviously, it takes time and trust to get someone to be willing to work with you. If they aren't willing, they get put into a dead status. An example of someone in a dead status would be anyone who says, "I have no interest in working with you". 

Another example would be someone that already has someone they trust in your position and aren't open to the idea of meeting with someone new. The most common reason someone would end up "dead" is from no contact. If you reach out to someone 8+ times and have never gotten a reply, you can move them to dead.

*It takes an average of 8 attempts to reach a new lead. 

NOT QUALIFIED: Not Able - They aren't a good fit for your business.

Everyone is going to have different qualifiers. It's important before you start making your list to decide who your ideal referral partner is. How much business do they do? Where do they do business? What kind of business do they do? If someone doesn't meet the bare minimum requirements you are looking for, they are not qualified. An example of someone being unqualified would be someone who does business in California, when you are only licensed to work in Washington.

What makes an Ugly Lead?

An ugly lead is simple; it’s a bad lead that wasn’t referred! We call those cold calls… and they have no room in your business!

To Summarize: 

They say you are the average of your closest five friends. In business, you are the average of your Cadre. If you have a Cadre full of positive, encouraging, successful business partners… your business will thrive. Likewise, if your Cadre is full of bad leads that don’t want to be there, your business will feel taxing. 

You should enjoy your business!