Implement These 4 Strategies in Your Sales Department to Close More Leads

Driving your Registered Investment Adviser (RIA) toward the eight-figure exit demands a strategic approach that balances your growth aspirations with operational efficiency. In my last entry, I discussed why decentralization is a necessity for those seeking true value growth. Today, I’m going to continue by discussing one of the more practical aspects of decentralizing. After all, in order to decentralize, you must have confidence that your RIA can continue to grow without you actively working in it. So, join me as I unpack four strategies you can implement to close more leads even when you’re no longer involved in the daily operations!

Follow Along With The Financially Simple Podcast!

This week on The Financially Simple Podcast:

• (0:13) Part one recap

• (3:06) How do you maintain momentum in your absence?

• (3:57) Sales tracking

• (11:26) What are we going to track in the process?

• (14:30) Lead analysis

• (22:55) How do you improve prospect data?

• (27:25) Removing bad prospect data from your system

Four Strategies to Close More Leads

Friends, decentralizing is hard. You’ve poured so much of yourself into your firm, working long into the night to build it from nothing. It feels personal because it is personal. Your business is an extension of you. Likewise, as the financial advisor/owner, you’ve assumed all of the risk. Therefore, relinquishing control can feel very wrong.

However, removing yourself from the firm’s epicenter unlocks its true potential for growth. But how can you ensure your sales department thrives, closing more leads and fostering organic growth, while you step back? Let’s have a look at four strategies that can help your team close more leads even in your absence.

Sales Tracking

Let’s start with the bedrock of effective sales management: sales tracking. According to the sales consulting group, Close, sales tracking is the process of collecting essential sales metrics, analyzing them, and using that data to improve your sales process. When done correctly, sales tracking provides deep insights into each stage of the sales process and helps you reach your goals. It’s a practice that yields invaluable data at every step of the sales journey, propelling you toward success.

You see, sales tracking can be a valuable tool for creating tools to close more leads. Yet, RIAs consistently underinvest in organic growth efforts with many allocating just 1.2% to 1.9% of revenues. Having a system to track lead generation sources, lead volumes, and conversion rates is essential. But why?

Well, for starters, you want to make decisions based on real data. For example, research has shown that 80 percent of sales require five follow-ups. Despite this, 44% of sellers give up after the first follow-up. With proper sales tracking techniques in place, you would know how many follow-ups are needed and you could even put safeguards in place to ensure that no lead falls through the cracks.

More than this, a robust sales tracking system can provide valuable team insights, pathways to innovation, and early detection of problems within your processes. Methods of tracking include Performance Tracking, Sales Lead Tracking, Sales Goal Tracking, and Sales Funnel Tracking, each shedding light on different aspects of your sales process.

Lead Analysis

Lead analysis is “the art of analyzing your sales and marketing leads to learn more about which of your conversion strategies are likely to have the biggest impact on your bottom line.” Certain metrics are vital for effective analysis:

• Visit-to-Lead Conversion Rate: This metric examines how many people are actually converting when visiting your website and interacting with your content. Examining this number will help you to see whether you’re targeting the right audience and whether your campaigns are having the right impact on your customers.
• Overall Contact Growth: If your overall contact growth is low, this could be a sign you’re not using the right lead-capturing strategies.
• Engagement Rates: The engagement rates within your marketing campaigns help you to determine exactly which kinds of marketing strategies push your clients to action. You can look at things like open and click-through rates for your emails, podcast downloads, and interactions on your social media profiles.
• Client Close Rate: This metric looks at how often the leads you target convert into clients. You should be able to track your closing rate using your CRM technology to track which leads turn into conversions.

But why is this so important? Simply put, lead analysis empowers you to tailor your approach and optimize the efficiency of your sales and marketing efforts.

Create Defined Processes

Developing clear, standardized sales processes is key to decentralizing. A streamlined process ensures consistent performance across the team and facilitates growth. Not that long ago, I went through this process in my own firm. I can remember having one of the advisors in my firm sit in my office and taking notes while he listened to me sell a client on engaging with us.

This was an important first step because it allowed the advisor to see and hear my entire process. Had I simply tried to tell him the process, I undoubtedly would have left key portions out because they are so intuitive to me. Because I had him documenting each step of the process, we were able to replicate it. After we were certain he had every part of my sales process in writing, we reversed our roles.

Now, I was in his office, taking notes as he attempted to sell a client on engaging with our firm. We probably went through this process three or four times before he was able to do it as well as I did. That’s okay. I left room for him to make mistakes, even allowing him to lose a prospect. It’s part of the learning process and critical to defining the processes to help your team close more leads. As a result, he was able to become one of our most efficient closers and even trained others in our processes.

Improve Prospect Data

Your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system is only as strong as the data within it. Accurate and verified prospect data is essential for efficiency. But what is it? In its most basic form, prospect data is the contact information your firm has on hand for its Sales and marketing leads. In order to become hyper-efficient, it’s necessary to create a system for the regular verification of prospect data. But why?

Well, 44% of businesses say they lose more than 10 percent in annual revenue due to poor quality prospect data. So, having accurate and verified data is important. However, you must also develop processes and procedures for maintaining prospect list hygiene (cleaning out invalid contacts or those who have consistently remained unengaged for a prolonged period).

Once you’ve initially removed “bad” data, maintaining the cleanliness of your prospect data should be an ongoing task. Begin by implementing a system for regular email verification. This should be done on all new contacts. However, because prospect data can change over time, it’s a good idea to use the same process with your existing contacts as well. I often suggest verifying your entire list on a semi-annual basis.

Purging Bad Data & Sunsetting Disengaged Emails

Just as important as verifying your prospect data, you must also purge bad data from your list. This can help with maintaining your reputation and avoiding bounced emails. Continuing to send emails to invalid addresses can lead to being flagged as spam. This could cause your emails to end up in the spam folders of all of your contacts, or worse… your IP address could get blacklisted by top email servers.

Additionally, it’s a good idea to develop an email sunsetting policy. Hubspot defines an email sunset policy as, “a plan of action for how to manage disengaged contacts that are no longer opening your marketing [and sales] emails.” By continuously engaging uninterested prospects, you are risking a negative impact on your future ability to attract new clients. Additionally, you’re wasting resources on prospects that have shown they are uninterested via their inaction.

Wrapping Up…

Friends, closing more leads requires a holistic approach that combines rigorous tracking, insightful analysis, well-defined processes, and clean prospect data. By implementing these strategies, you pave the way for your sales department’s success, freeing you to focus on broader growth strategies. Remember, a thriving sales department is the backbone of your organization’s journey toward sustainable growth.

Look, I know life is hard. But life is good. Trusting others with the sales and daily operations of your firm can be frustrating, but it doesn’t have to be. By implementing these four strategies, you can make decentralizing at least financially simple. Hey, let’s go out and make it a great day!

Ready to supercharge your sales team’s performance? Reach out to our team to learn more about how we could help you prepare for the eight-figure exit.