All leads are not created equal. In fact, some leads are actually quite bad for your business and morale.
If you’re not careful, you can end up wasting a lot of time and money on leads that don’t convert into sales, growth, and lasting relationships.
So how do you determine which leads are worth pursuing? This was the question I was struggling with for the Brand Intervention Masterclass.
After a shit-ton of soul searching and looking at the qualities the entrepreneurs who enrolled shared, it came down to the criteria I use to determine:
- Who is a good fit?
- Who will put the work in?
- Who will waste time? and
- Who will be a worthy investment in time and effort to help them catapult to their next level of growth?
Not All Leads Are Created Equal
Let’s take a closer look at each one of these criteria and see how they can help you determine which leads are worth your attention. (This is why I started to ask, “Are all leads created equal?”)
But first, a few realizations I had along the way:
- Cold leads are called that for a reason.
- NEVER neglect warm leads.
- Warm leads share certain characteristics: they trust you and you’re credible to them.
Those are basics. Nothing new but nice to have as a baseline checklist.
Why? Because I wasted time on people who did not believe I could help them.
Maybe because of me, but in retrospect, mostly because of prior experiences they had with others that I failed to address successfully, and as a result, I “inherited” this distrust they already had. Fixable? Yes. Quickly? No.
I realized my belief in what they could achieve did not overcome their own feeling of vulnerability in what they thought they could achieve.
True Leads: I Looked At Traits Shared by Those Who Enrolled
It came down to three common and distinct traits. Every single person who enrolled:
- Had the financial resources,
- Were hungry for growth (they could be a startup or be generating millions. Didn’t matter: they wanted growth.), and
- Had a history of investing in themselves.
That’s it. Study that list.
Need proof? Here It Is.
Your business might be different, but here’s what we found:
- If they’re cold, they can have all the resources in the world, and they won’t buy from you.
- If they’re cold, they can be hungry but won’t choose you or your solution.
- If they’re cold, even if they have a history of investing in themselves, they will not buy.
Because without that foundation of trust, credibility, and proof, there is no foundation for the rest to take root.
If you’re selling anything to anyone, that should be your number one criteria.
When we applied these criteria to our masterclass candidates, our results improved dramatically.
We got better quality leads, and our close rate increased by over 1,200%.
I’m not saying that this will work for everyone, but it shows that it’s fundamental to find your tribe: those who share the same values.
Some may read this and put it in the box of “finding your avatar.”
Screw the avatar. I am talking about real people with real values with real goals and real lives.
Now go ahead, connect, and kick ass.
