Thought it might be helpful to share this tip with the community. I'm doing so with real estate agents in mind (my biz), but this is relevant with anyone dealing with small business lead follow-up.
While this is no new concept for any seasoned veteran, you should always be squirreling away financial resources for that winter market that seems to lurk around every corner. But going one step further, you should be viewing your leads in this opportunity-scampering light as well. We all have them… certain contacts that you just haven’t had much traction with on closing, but who have made their interest nonetheless obvious through continued (and continued… and continued...) inquiries.
Go ahead and pull these out of the “later” bin (or trash) and place them square into a newly created “emergency leads” list. Go on… it’s okay. Now, as you begin to stack up leads that are showing more interest in window shopping than buying a home, you can store them safely in your “emergency leads” category. Of course, you’ll still have to follow through with them here and there, but at least it’ll make the begrudging work of doing so become a part of your strategic endgame (surviving the winter that your competition hasn’t been saving up for).
So… save some cash, save some leads and survive. Winter… it cometh! =)
