The $132K Project That Almost Got Deleted (Why Builders Need This Follow-Up System)

An enquiry went quiet, then re-engaged months later. Cameron walks through the follow-up history behind a renovation opportunity listed at $132,000 and explains how to keep track of the next conversation.

What you’ll take away

• Separate people who are not ready yet from enquiries that are not a fit.
• Keep useful contact history and agree when to follow up.
• Use reminders to keep longer-term opportunities from being forgotten.

Transcript

From the published episode transcript. Automated transcription may contain errors.

What's up guys? So in this one I wanted to talk really quickly about one thing that everybody hates and doesn't seem to do, but arguably makes the biggest impact. In your success as far as profitability and making the most out of your marketing spend. And it's this little thing called follow up. Now, follow up can be short term, but it can also be long term as well. And so I wanted to take a look here In this example of the long term follow up, that is where most people follow over.

And this is a really good example of when it works well. So this lead here first came through in May 26th, okay. From a Facebook lead. Okay, now, when this person first came through, we sent them a text. We sent them some emails and no response. Arguably gave it a another touch point here. Gave them a call, okay? And there was a six minute call in here, which was good. So meaningful call. But at that point there was not ready to take any action. Now this is pretty much in line with where we see most of the split.

You'll see about half of your leads are good, but not ready. You'll probably see somewhere like two to three outta 10 will be a good fit and wanting to move forward. And then there'll be a few that are junk as well. So this one falls into the camp of not ready. And so what's actually happened here is this person's been moved from the new leads column into the qualified keep warm, which is perfect because you know this person. Potentially we'll do something in the future. Just needs to be kept in touch with.

Now, if we keep scrolling down the history, what happened? There's been a few emails here to keep in touch. There's another text message. More emails. Okay. Just general keeping in touch with them, with the happenings, what's going on? Another message here, which via text got no reply. And then still moving forward again, and then it right the way down here. This is just recently, they've actually booked a call in the calendar, which will show up in our client's calendar that they have someone that they wanna speak with and subsequently a text gone out to them confirming that okay.

And confirmation email. Now, if it's just actually looking back to that, that was a another time here that they've. Booked another time to speak and that one looked like it didn't eventuate, so the text went out to say something along that lines. And then again, they've booked another time, so. Generally people in in life are really busy. You know, maybe they're dropping off the kids and it doesn't work for timing, that sort of stuff. And that's why we have the calendar there for people to choose a time.

But also we wanna communicate, don't rely on that. We wanna communicate via text and email and calling them as well. So in this case, they've eventually text back, okay. Which is probably what the fifth text that's been sent across. And probably 20 plus emails. Hi, looking at renovating our home, wanting to stay where we are at Accenture. Cetera and add some more space to the place. Cool. So. Booked in that site meeting, which is a separate calendar in the system here. The call was made here to speak with them.

Okay. 12 minute phone call about their project and then, sorry. Then the site meeting was booked, so the site meeting has been booked in following that initial call. Once they're qualified. And then this person has replied back to the email that said, Hey, just confirming tomorrow's meeting is in 24 hours. Still good to go. And then they have replied and said, yes, tomorrow's all good. So the point I'm trying to make here is that if we look at the dates of this, okay, and the how this has sort of happened, most people would imagine that this person has just ghosted them, write them off completely and move on, which is.

Typical totally get that and they'll say, where's the new leads? I want to deal with new leads who are a better fit. But in most cases, you're better off keeping in touch with the leads that have come through initially. They've raised their hand at some point to say they're interested. People don't just inquire about building a house on a whim. So it's good to keep in touch with them to essentially. Figure out if they're ready or not. If they're complete waste of time, then yes, we can scrub them and put them into abandoned.

But this person here is a really good example of how it can take time to move through. So this person has come back through just on the timeline over here and this is now September 6th that they came back through. And then this site meeting is, is only just recently as well. So we've gone all the way from May, June, July, August, September. So four to five months before this person's actually engaged with us, and like I say, most people would've written this one off, but if we take a look at the value of this project, it's probably gonna fall into the, the range of a couple hundred thousand dollars.

And if we open this one up, should be a value in here. Cool. So this one's listed at 132,000, but imagine it's probably gonna creep up a bit further than that one. But you know, for the sake of something that would've been thrown in the rubbin. Just about keeping in touch with people. So how do we do that without necessarily having to remember? Well, what we're actually doing is every interaction that you have with the lead, we are summarizing that into like a contact history. And if there is something said on the call, for example, that's like can you call me back in a month?

Or we're just waiting on plans or, you know, we've got other things in the mix, then we'll actually analyze the call and we'll create a task within the system here to. Follow up this person at approximately the right time. So whether that's tomorrow, next week, or a month or six months time, we'll capture those tasks and place them in here so that you have a reminder that ultimately you need to get back in touch with this person. Okay? And that's how we're managing to make more use out of the marketing spend that's happening.

Hope that's helpful. Keep in touch with the leads and if you haven't done this in a while, you can still go back to the list, send them out a message or get in touch with them, but you'll guaranteed to make more money just by follow up. Cheers.