Dan Martell - How To Deal With Too Many Leads in Your SaaS Business

00:00:00.000 Hi, I'm Dan Martell, serial entrepreneur, investor,

00:00:02.280 and creator of SaaS Academy.

00:00:03.960 And in this video, I'm going to teach you

00:00:05.320 how to deal with too many leads.

00:00:07.800 I know, high quality problem.

00:00:09.000 You're like, come on, man, I need more leads.

00:00:11.340 There are people out there that got too many leads

00:00:13.260 and I'm going to teach you how to deal with it

00:00:15.020 in a way that doesn't reduce your revenue opportunity

00:00:17.480 but gives you way more time back in your schedule.

00:00:20.300 And be sure to stay at the end.

00:00:21.740 We're going to tell you how to get access

00:00:23.280 to my discovery call framework

00:00:25.400 to allow you to add a two-step process

00:00:28.300 to your sales flow to qualify sales better

00:00:32.160 and also prep them ready for the demo

00:00:35.200 to get more people to buy.

00:00:49.340 So maybe you have this issue

00:00:51.120 where you have way too many leads coming in.

00:00:53.300 If you've set up a funnel, like I teach my coaching clients,

00:00:55.920 where, especially if you do a demo process where they're

00:00:59.220 essentially filling out an application and then scheduling

00:01:01.600 time on your calendar and you're just doing product demos,

00:01:03.600 product demos, product demos, closing deals,

00:01:05.560 getting people onboarded, activated, et cetera,

00:01:08.300 then you may run into an issue because one of my clients,

00:01:11.440 Tom, came to me.

00:01:12.540 First problem we had to solve was getting more leads.

00:01:14.640 Once we got him to a couple hundred a month of qualified

00:01:17.800 leads, then the challenge was his calendar was just

00:01:20.420 overflowing that he didn't have time to manage the product,

00:01:23.120 manages customer success team and he was just getting

00:01:26.860 overwhelmed with the amount of new opportunities.

00:01:29.100 So what we did is we added a few things into the mix

00:01:31.920 that I'm going to teach you today that not only allowed him

00:01:34.660 to get clarity into his process but also give him like

00:01:38.940 three quarters of his time back and only spend time with

00:01:42.880 customers that were higher value, higher revenue potential

00:01:48.880 and brought a lot of energy to his day.

00:01:51.520 I'm gonna share with you guys the five ways you can do that

00:01:55.400 in your business today.

00:01:57.200 Number one, lead scoring.

00:01:59.120 Now, I'm not gonna talk about the technology or the tool.

00:02:01.300 You can check the comments below to see which ones others are

00:02:04.700 recommending but there is marketing technology out there

00:02:07.240 that allow you to do lead scoring.

00:02:08.740 Essentially, when somebody converts on a newsletter, an

00:02:11.240 opt-in or even signs up for a demo,

00:02:13.880 you can score their activity based on did they visit the

00:02:17.080 website, any information about their company.

00:02:21.380 There's so much data available to you if you implement lead

00:02:24.760 scoring but all of that will allow you to then qualify those

00:02:28.560 new opportunities and kind of rank order and prioritize them

00:02:31.800 in your business so you don't spend time with folks that

00:02:34.300 aren't as high value.

00:02:36.040 Number two, funnel filter.

00:02:38.100 So when I think of building out a sales funnel, I always think

00:02:41.880 of the top of the funnel and adding a filter, a form that

00:02:46.780 ask a few questions of the prospect so that I know if I

00:02:50.480 can best serve them.

00:02:51.960 You see this very often in an opt-in forum where they'll ask,

00:02:54.720 you know, organizational size, monthly budget, team size,

00:03:00.360 industry, et cetera because what's happening is the sales

00:03:03.960 team knows that they only have a product that works best for

00:03:06.800 certain types of clients and they want to essentially add a

00:03:10.180 filter so that they don't get any of that noise into their

00:03:13.980 sales process.

00:03:14.980 So that's number two is just adding a funnel filter

00:03:17.620 to any kind of opt-in form.

00:03:19.420 Now some of you guys might be worried because you're like,

00:03:21.080 well if I do that then not as many people are gonna convert.

00:03:23.880 That may be true but the trade-off is worth it

00:03:27.200 where you get the data to make a better assessment.

00:03:30.100 Yes, you'll have an impact on your conversions

00:03:32.340 but you'll be able to make better assessment

00:03:34.440 and have better conversations with those prospects.

00:03:37.740 Number three, a two-step sales process.

00:03:40.800 One of my favorite things to do and I've seen many of my clients

00:03:43.400 do one step, meaning somebody fills out an application,

00:03:45.740 they get to a product demo, they close the person on that

00:03:48.640 first demo, credit card, purchase, sign up, going,

00:03:51.700 good to go but if you've got the issue that Tom had where he

00:03:55.440 had hundreds of demos per month then you might want to

00:03:58.580 consider adding, after you've done the lead scoring and a

00:04:01.120 funnel filter, a two step process.

00:04:03.620 This is where you add a discovery call, a 15 minute

00:04:05.920 call with the prospect to really understand if you can

00:04:10.160 even serve them and it's in that call that you want

00:04:13.400 to kind of guide them to the vision and what they want

00:04:15.840 to accomplish and some of the big challenges they're looking

00:04:17.640 to overcome with your solution.

00:04:19.140 But at the same time, ask questions that are going to allow

00:04:22.080 you to know if they're going to be the best type of customers

00:04:25.280 for, for the most part, a more hands-on approach

00:04:28.880 to activation and deploying of the customer, right?

00:04:31.420 So if they're not a fit, you politely say,

00:04:33.480 hey, I appreciate your time but unfortunately,

00:04:35.780 our product is actually best suited for companies like X

00:04:38.420 and I would recommend checking out this solution,

00:04:40.460 et cetera, for your problem.

00:04:42.060 which sounds crazy to a lot of founders,

00:04:43.660 but that's a really great way of being clear

00:04:46.000 on who we serve and who we don't serve

00:04:47.360 so that your customer success team

00:04:48.700 doesn't get inundated with trying to serve

00:04:50.940 a ton of people that have been sold

00:04:53.040 and really get clear on the customer avatar.

00:04:56.880 Number four, improve your MQL or SQL definition.

00:05:01.280 So an MQL is a marketing qualified lead

00:05:03.920 and SQL is a sales qualified lead.

00:05:06.380 What that means typically is you have a marketing person

00:05:09.020 driving leads that are marketing qualified,

00:05:13.860 meaning that they're potentially the role that you focus on,

00:05:17.400 they have the budget, et cetera.

00:05:18.400 So the MQL is saying this person could buy,

00:05:22.640 they just may not be in the market yet.

00:05:24.400 So that's an MQL.

00:05:25.400 The SQL is when a prospect or lead turns into an opportunity.

00:05:30.000 And for something to become an opportunity,

00:05:31.840 there needs to be certain characteristics.

00:05:33.440 One is they have a need identified and they want your

00:05:35.940 solution and that's usually what an SDR or a BDR,

00:05:38.520 a business development rep or a sales development rep,

00:05:40.580 they focus on creating these opportunities.

00:05:42.820 All I'm saying is that you can increase the filter

00:05:46.920 and the kind of the limit of what's required

00:05:50.800 for something to be qualified.

00:05:52.600 And by doing that, you're gonna reduce the amount of noise

00:05:55.200 in your sales pipeline.

00:05:57.000 Again, it's a tough decision because you're like,

00:05:58.880 well, I need more leads and you're saying

00:06:01.000 that I increased the filter and all of a sudden now,

00:06:03.140 or the qualification, all of a sudden now

00:06:05.540 I have less leads in my funnel.

00:06:07.340 Yes, I'm saying that because they're going to be higher

00:06:09.840 quality, higher converting, higher value so that you get

00:06:13.780 people that you can actually add a ton of value.

00:06:15.920 There's no point in converting somebody into a customer and

00:06:18.980 then having them churn after 30 days, right?

00:06:21.320 And that's what happens when you get the wrong prospects and

00:06:23.760 the wrong customers into your product.

00:06:25.860 Especially if you have a big upfront investment in customer

00:06:29.960 success and activating their accounts and migrating the data

00:06:32.900 and doing all this stuff only to have them not stick around.

00:06:35.460 So you wanna make sure that you increase your definitions

00:06:38.460 for your MQLs and your SQLs.

00:06:40.300 And number five, create a self-service plan.

00:06:43.400 What this means is that if currently you have a kind of

00:06:46.940 an application to a demo process and you realize you have way

00:06:51.140 too many demos and you don't wanna hire a bunch of sales

00:06:53.940 people, you just wanna hire, you wanna qualify and have a

00:06:56.380 higher quality of conversation, then what you could do is in

00:07:00.260 those applications if you had a self-service version that might

00:07:04.760 be priced differently or not, but you just say,

00:07:07.100 hey, I appreciate you reaching out.

00:07:09.300 Here's a link to sign up for a product to try it out.

00:07:12.540 You know, based on this free plan,

00:07:14.740 you get access to email support and you essentially reduce

00:07:18.840 the burden on your customer success team by letting the

00:07:22.540 customer self-activate.

00:07:23.940 Yes, you're going to have higher churn.

00:07:25.180 Yes, you're going to have lower activation,

00:07:26.980 but that way you're not losing the lead,

00:07:29.560 but you're not having it impact your team in regards to the

00:07:33.560 overhead and the bandwidth that's gonna be required

00:07:35.560 to service that customer.

00:07:36.860 So that's a really great way to essentially downsell

00:07:41.600 a customer that isn't as far along in the maturity

00:07:44.600 of maybe their organization that they would need to be

00:07:46.440 to be able to invest in a more higher tier plan,

00:07:49.680 but without losing them a customer

00:07:51.040 so they could eventually grow with you.

00:07:53.580 So five changes you can make to deal

00:07:55.640 when you have too many leads coming in to your startup.

00:07:59.360 Number one, lead scoring so that you can really understand

00:08:02.460 360 view of who that person is before they came in to your

00:08:05.760 pipeline.

00:08:06.540 Number two, a funnel filter so you can ask one or two questions.

00:08:10.040 They're really gonna get you clear if that person is a great

00:08:13.140 candidate for your product.

00:08:14.500 Number three, two-step sales process so you can add a

00:08:18.140 discovery call to really qualify them so you don't take up your

00:08:21.340 account exec's time.

00:08:22.940 Number four, improve your MQL and SQL definitions so that you

00:08:28.080 raise the stakes on what's required to be a marketing or

00:08:31.620 sales qualified lead and five, create a self-service plan so

00:08:35.460 you can essentially down sell gracefully in an automated way

00:08:39.300 folks that would never be able to be profitable for you to serve

00:08:43.860 as it is in your business today.

00:08:46.500 So as I mentioned beginning this video I want to share with you

00:08:48.380 an incredible resource called the Discovery Call Builder.

00:08:51.780 You can click the link below to get access to your copy.

00:08:54.400 Today essentially it's a nine box model.

00:08:56.940 It's a flow conversation structure for you to be able to do

00:09:00.780 a quick 10 to 15 minute discovery call with a new prospect.

00:09:04.780 Most importantly, for you to qualify them to make sure

00:09:07.860 they're the right fit for your solution so you don't clog up

00:09:11.560 your account exec's calendar with unqualified leads.

00:09:15.160 So be sure to click the link below to download your copy.

00:09:17.740 And as per usual, if you like this video,

00:09:19.540 be sure to smash that like button. 0.83

00:09:21.640 Subscribe to my channel if there's anybody you care about

00:09:23.780 that you think this would really serve.

00:09:25.380 Feel free to share with them directly.

00:09:27.540 And as per usual, I want to challenge you to live a bigger

00:09:29.640 life and a bigger business and I'll see you next Monday.

Dan Martell - January 07, 2019

How To Deal With Too Many Leads in Your SaaS Business

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