September 15, 2025 • 25 mins
Most businesses think they have a “sales process.” Spoiler: they don’t.
And it’s costing them thousands in wasted ad spend and lost customers.
In this episode, Brandon and Caleb dig into the real reason leads slip through the cracks and what you can do—without spending a single extra dollar—to plug the leaks.
What you’ll hear:
- The common mistakes almost every business makes
- Why “weak leads” aren’t really weak
- The simple shifts that make your marketing instantly more profitable
If you’ve ever wondered why your phones are ringing but sales still feel slow, this is the conversation you need to hear.
Maven Marketing Mastermind → https://www.mavenmethodtraining.com
Our Website: https://frankandmaven.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/frankandmavenmarketing/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@frankandmaven
Twitter: https://twitter.com/frankandmaven
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/frank-and-maven/
Host: Brandon Welch
Co-Host: Caleb Agee
Executive Producer: Carter Breaux
Audio/Video Producer: Nate the Camera Guy
Do you have a marketing problem you'd like us to help solve? Send it to MavenMonday@FrankandMaven.com!
Get a copy of our Best-Selling Book, The Maven Marketer Here: https://a.co/d/1clpm8a
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Brandon Welch (00:06):
welcome to the maven marketing podcast.
Today is maven monday.
I'm your host, brandon welch,and I'm here with caleb.
Get out there Agee.
Caleb Agee (00:13):
Explain that shirt uh, what is up with?
Brandon Welch (00:16):
that, um, it's just a trying to make me feel
invincible, or?
Caleb Agee (00:20):
we're we're recording on a yeah, I'm just
yeah, we're recording on aFriday, so this is my athletic
athleisure type wear, so it justhas some encouraging things.
Brandon Welch (00:32):
What did you run to work today, or what?
Caleb Agee (00:33):
Yeah, I jogged in.
I'm wearing shorts today.
You can't see that part of me.
Who knows?
Brandon Welch (00:38):
what's going on down there?
Hey, this is the place where weanswer your real-life marketing
questions so you can grow yourbusiness, eliminate waste in
advertising and achieve the bigdream.
And the big dream today allstarts with your leads and how
you are handling them.
Caleb Agee (00:52):
Yeah, let me ask you .
Yeah, go for it.
Let me ask you.
Brandon Welch (00:55):
Ask me a question Out of all the people we've
served, like just coming in here, over the hundreds of
businesses, how many do youthink have a chiseled out sales
process from like website toit's?
We're at the sales presentationand it's done.
Caleb Agee (01:10):
How many actually have it.
I'd be surprised if it was half.
I mean, yeah, it's way lessthan half.
It's less than that.
That would be a generous I canthink of three I can think of
three that pop into my mind.
Brandon Welch (01:21):
They're like they had it figured out, completely
figured out.
And here's the crazy thing theywill come into our door either
already spending multiple,multiple, six figures, some of
them millions of dollars, orprepared to.
And if I were to go out in theother room and hand my
12-year-old a stack of $100bills that equals $10,000 and
(01:46):
just told him to take it and dowhatever he wanted with it, it
would literally be that insane.
Actually, my 12-year-old wouldprobably do a better job, but I
don't know, maybe not myeight-year-old, but we'll see.
So we are throwing money thathas already been spent literally
to the wind, and we want tobring you some data today to
(02:06):
clarify what I promise you isgoing on if you haven't spent
time every week to babysit notbabysit, but actually direct and
tell your money and your leadswhere to go.
Caleb Agee (02:17):
Yeah, it seems like an obvious answer.
But this handoff, this balancebetween the marketing and the
sales process, when peoplebecome a lead, that's the moment
where they shift from being amarketing prospect somewhere out
in the world to being a salesprospect.
Those two, that's a very coldway of looking at a human.
(02:39):
But the sales part of that veryoften is where the leakage is.
You might be getting a highvolume, you might be getting
high volume, you might begetting strong lead flow, but
you're saying I got weak leads.
Brandon Welch (02:52):
Will Leads aren't weak.
We're going to challenge you.
You're weak, you're weak.
So, at least by the research,65% of businesses do not have
any sort of defined lead to saleprocess.
It's just happening from peoplereach out and they say, oh yeah
, well, let's set an appointment, let's try to get you somehow
to the finish line.
And so by just a little bit ofcare, just a little bit of
(03:14):
intention on this, I promiseyou're going to make your
advertising more profitablewithout spending an extra penny.
Matter of fact, you couldprobably reduce your budget and
do these things, and do so muchbetter.
Caleb Agee (03:25):
A lot of you are taking these leads, putting them
on a round robin, maybe in yourCRM, handing them off to
salespeople and saying, hey, gosell them.
And then you're wondering onthe back end why they ain't
selling.
We're going to give you somepointers as to why that might be
.
Brandon Welch (03:40):
So rule number one is the five-minute rule.
We've talked about this before,you know.
It's true, we're not the firstones to tell you it, but why do
we keep just one day gettingaround to fixing this?
Because, I would say, most ofour listeners don't have a
steady five-minute rule in theirbusiness.
But did you know that you are391% more likely to convert a
(04:04):
sale if you call it within fiveminutes versus even 10 minutes
later?
Like five minutes is the cutoff391% more likely.
It's like almost 400%.
And then also, businesses thatreach out within five minutes
are 100 times more likely toconnect versus waiting an hour.
So it goes up drastically afterthat.
Caleb Agee (04:23):
Yeah.
So you're sitting there on yourphone or your computer.
You fill out the form on thewebsite.
You become a lead.
Well, you just think about.
You're in that mindset rightnow, and if Brandon calls me
within the next five minutes,I'm way more likely because I'm
in that mindset to pick up andconnect with them.
Brandon Welch (04:42):
There's some real math here that says if it just
even doubled your likelihood ofconnecting with that lead, how
many times does that have to betrue for you to justify somebody
to sit there all hours of theday answering that phone call?
Caleb Agee (04:54):
Yeah, or you could look at it this way Brandon
mentioned those $100 leads which, all in, could be more, could
be less, depending on yourindustry.
Imagine putting a hundreddollar bill on the desk Every
time you get a lead in and you,if they don't respond in five
minutes, I would take a hundreddollar bill away from your team.
You need to help them visualizethis.
(05:15):
There may be an activity thatyou can do and say, hey, that's
a hundred dollars just for roundnumbers.
Um, if we're not following upin five minutes, we just threw
it in the trash can just light ahundred dollar bill on fire.
Brandon Welch (05:26):
I think that would be a great lesson.
Caleb Agee (05:30):
You see what you made me do Come to the bathroom.
We're going to flush it downthe toilet.
Brandon Welch (05:34):
Yeah, you'll come with.
Yeah, you see, yeah, so don'tdo that.
Maybe do that, I don't know.
Caleb Agee (05:38):
I would make.
Brandon Welch (05:45):
I'd a little intense, but um but, uh, we
don't want to be mean, but we dowant to be very, very intent on
saying like guys, just get overyourself.
The five minute rule will saveyou so much wasted advertising.
Caleb Agee (05:53):
Yeah, I think also you can work in some automations
here to help you, uh, supportyour team and their ability to
respond quickly.
So this does not replace thehuman touch, because I think, I
think a lot of people areleaning on these automations,
maybe a little too much, but ifyou can have some sort of text
message or email or both, or acall, and you are reaching out
(06:15):
to somebody, and maybe in notcreepy way but enough and
quickly, you should be doingthat and that could supplement
maybe the immediate responsefrom your team might be on a
different call.
You may not have the manpowerto pick it up in five minutes.
Well, hopefully they get a textas well.
Brandon Welch (06:32):
Yes.
Rule number two is the keepcalling rule.
Shortly after the five-minuterule, this is the most violated
one, and everybody says the samething.
I don't want to bother them.
One, um, and everybody says thesame thing.
I don't want to bother them.
And did you know that, just bythe world that you woke up in
this morning, just by the natureof human overstimulation, that
it is not only not botheringthem, it is expected and average
(06:57):
that a person still respondsafter seven or eight uh points
of contact.
Yeah, just just the, just toget them on the phone in the
first place.
Caleb Agee (07:06):
Yeah, there are a dozen.
I'll just think in my personallife, a dozen little random
things that I know I need to dobut I have not gotten around to,
and a few of them I've taken,maybe, an early step of action.
I've called somebody about itor whatever.
I still need to do those thingsand nobody's calling, Nobody's
asking me to schedule, to set itup, to make it happen and they
(07:29):
should be.
If they would, it'd probablypush me forward and they'd get
that sale a little bit quicker.
Brandon Welch (07:35):
That's right.
Yep, yeah, there are a bunch ofthings I need now that people
just haven't followed up with meon.
Yeah, I've got money, I'm abuyer on the loose, and so what
you need to be thinking about ishow have I systematized that?
That just always happens, nomatter what.
You could do it as simple as alegal pad that says here's all
(07:56):
the prospects that came in todayfor your appointment center and
cross them off when you'vetaken them to the next step.
Until then, put them on yourlist for the next day.
And we have an episode that wasreally about how to pace this
out.
But people are like should Icall?
Should I email?
Should I text?
The answer is yes, you shouldcall.
(08:17):
You should leave a voicemail.
You should then text.
You should follow up next dayor leave an email, follow up the
next day, say, hey, did you getmy email?
I mean, there's a systematicthing to this, and I will say
even more than that.
We're going to talk aboutnurturing, not just calling and
saying, hey, what do you want?
How can we move this forward?
It's like in the process,there's a tremendous amount to
(08:40):
be done, even beyond that.
If we're sending them things ofvalue.
They've raised their hand, theystuck their head on the ground
for just a second and we're likethat was our permission to add
value to them.
Yes, not our permission to getthem in our door right now.
Caleb Agee (08:54):
Yeah, and that goes back to we didn't say this.
But almost every time we saythe word lead, we say a lead is
a person with a need.
This person has a need and Ineed you to get it through your
head that your goal is not to,in this moment, it's not to sell
them something.
Brandon Welch (09:11):
That is the business outcome that we're
trying to get.
If it was, you would beannoying them.
Caleb Agee (09:13):
Yes, If you have it in your head that I'm trying to
sell them or I'm trying to getthem to set an appointment so
that I can sell them something,then you have the wrong mindset
and you will actuallyself-defeat because you will be
bothering them.
You will feel like a pushysalesperson.
But if you know they have aneed of the service that I
provide or the product that Iprovide and I need to give them
(09:36):
the opportunity to fulfill thatneed, then you have no problem
calling them every single dayuntil they tell you to stop.
Brandon Welch (09:44):
Yeah, and this doesn't have to be some Wolf of
Wall Street high pressure thing.
It like just a tiny bit offocus on hey, what's the last
time we called our leads from aweek ago?
Even would be a good start.
And we have a client who we'veworked with for years has
hundreds of leads in a month andtheir business has done really,
really well.
They've grown.
We've talked about this and theylike things were a little
(10:07):
softer for them and we were justlike cool, uh, just to just to
make sure, are we following upwith all the leads we've already
generated?
It was like middle of thesummer, when things are always
soft, Right, and it's like, well, no, you know, we, we left them
a voicemail.
Yeah, and they even have a CRMthat told them that.
But use the CRM for what it'sgood for and automate your
(10:30):
prompts to follow up.
So I mentioned that.
Seven to eight touch points,that's like HubSpot data.
That's pretty reliable, likeresearch a lot of people cite.
But beyond that, that's just toget a hold of them.
The average is 28 and a halfpoints of contact before you get
them from initially raisingtheir hand to the sale.
Caleb Agee (10:48):
Yeah, they say simple transactions maybe are on
the low side of hand to thesale.
Yeah, they say simpletransactions.
Maybe are on the low side ofthat, more complex.
Yeah, it's higher.
That's the average, that's themiddle If you have a complex
product or a complex purchase.
It's north of 30, probably inthe 35 range.
So, think about that.
How confusing or complicated isyour product.
(11:09):
You need to expect to have tocontact them 30 times.
Yes, think about that.
How confusing or complicated isyour product?
You need to expect to have tocontact them 30 times.
Brandon Welch (11:13):
Yes, and so companies that are good at
nurturing get a 50% less costper acquisition versus those who
do not.
If you took your advertisingbudget and literally cut it in
half and said, well, I only haveto spend that to get the same
amount of customers.
If all I have to do in betweenis a little bit of training and
intentionality and follow up and, by the way, this is not
(11:35):
permission for you to go justbeat your people over the head
saying follow the process, orwhy aren't you doing this?
No, do not do that.
You want to encourage a cultureof winning, a culture of like
hey, this is the good thathappens when we do this, not
you're bad and you haven't beendoing it because this is right
(11:55):
for celebration.
You guys can do so much morewith watching the numbers go up
and celebrating that, and Iwould suggest sharing that
reward of the hard work.
Yeah, that alone won't motivateit.
But what I'm saying is you justspent half of what you spent on
marketing last year and you hadthe same amount of customers.
How would that feel that?
Caleb Agee (12:13):
would feel great that would feel really good.
Yeah, I'd be happy for you tospend half, or you know, as an
agency, you could just keep itthe same and double your
business.
Right?
That's right, seems, yeah.
Brandon Welch (12:26):
So nurtured leads make 47% larger purchases on
top of that.
So not only are they going toclose more often, they're going
to spend more money with youbecause they trust you.
They've seen the value in yourtenacity.
People actually do appreciatefollow-up and professionalism.
People appreciate people whoare talking to them, about them,
about what matters to them, andthis is what you're doing.
It's not going to your verysweet, very kind, very organized
(12:54):
office manager and saying callmore and bother these people.
Don't do that.
Help.
Tell your entire organizationguys, these are people that need
our help.
They're crying out, they'redrowning and they're asking for
a life raft and it's like whatif we aren't the ones that show
up for them?
What if somebody else, someother jerk in an empty suit, is
(13:15):
the one showing up for them,what happens then?
And if your company values aresolid and if what you believe
and the ways you do your work is?
Caleb Agee (13:23):
solid and how you change the world and how you
change the world is solid.
Brandon Welch (13:25):
That's a hop and a skip going like no-transcript.
(13:58):
Your compassion to follow upwith these leads like they are
people about to get takenadvantage of or lost in some
other person's business,business.
Caleb Agee (14:09):
They're going to have a lesser experience because
they didn't go with you and youowe it to them to give them the
best experience, whichhopefully you believe is through
you so that becomes thefoundation of your courage and
your tenacity to follow up withleads like they ought to be
followed up with.
Brandon Welch (14:27):
And all we've got to do from there.
So point two is keep calling.
But point three is the scriptproblem.
If you are just calling for thesake of calling and saying you
know you filled out a form onour website, how can we help you
?
Caleb Agee (14:43):
I'm just following up on the form you filled out on
my website.
Missed opportunity.
Wrong answer Because hopefullyyour website.
Brandon Welch (14:48):
Missed opportunity.
Caleb Agee (14:49):
Wrong answer.
Brandon Welch (14:50):
Because hopefully your website language is
promising something Either thead they clicked on or the ad
that they knew about in theworld, or the pain that you
claimed you could fix for them.
That should be self-evident byhow they reached out to you.
If they were on your websiteand they came from the page
about gutter service.
Don't call and say you know,it's Lindsay from Hooter Scooter
(15:13):
Roofing and I'd like to youknow how can I set your
appointment.
It's like oh, this is theconversation.
I hear you're having someproblems with your gutters.
Tell me more about that.
That is altogether different.
You've validated that.
You started a conversationrather than trying to be an
inconvenience and force theminto a commitment.
Caleb Agee (15:30):
I almost feel uncomfortable Just my personal
thing.
I feel uncomfortable when Icall somebody and I feel the
need to explain my situation.
Hey, I noticed it rained reallyhard the other day I'm using
the gutter example and it wasjust pouring over the side of my
thing.
I think I have some junk in.
But there's this weird thingwhen somebody answers the phone
(15:54):
or they're following up with meand they're just like, hey, how
can I help you?
Or I'm just following up, Ifeel like I'm inconveniencing
them by giving them the fourminute explanation, whereas they
should be like, oh, yeah, andthey should be validating my
explanation.
They should be like, oh, yeah,and they should be validating my
explanation.
They should be giving me thetime of day.
Yeah, make sure you'reconnecting with that and you're
you're allowing them to speak.
(16:14):
You should be asking goodquestions instead of telling
good answers.
That goes back to how to make,how to win friends and influence
people the old greatconversationalist.
He said I didn't say much ofanything.
I spoke less than anything.
All I did was ask goodquestions.
Brandon Welch (16:32):
So go check it out now.
We should try some goodquestions.
Yes, how are you meeting yourpeople where they are?
How are you encouraging yourstaff to see that this is
helping them, not bothering them?
How are you celebrating Notjust the moment you get the sale
or the appointment, but themoment that you knew you had
permission to make a difference?
(16:53):
That is what good leadnurturing and good lead culture
should be about.
And so look at the clues, lookat where they came from on the
website.
If you're getting the formfills from the website without a
little indication of where thatform came from, what page?
Get with your nerd and fix that.
Yes, because you can just startthe conversation.
(17:13):
I hear you're having XYZ, ormaybe the form itself.
Caleb Agee (17:15):
It has some checkboxes you need.
What do you need?
Blah, blah, blah.
Brandon Welch (17:19):
But then let's talk about from that first
compassionate connection to howdo you hand that off to your
salesperson.
Are you just setting blankappointments on your
salesperson's calendar and thenhaving them walk in blind?
Because if so, you aremishandling that person's time,
that person's perception of whatneeds to be done, and you're
(17:41):
really not holding up to yourmission as a company.
I'll promise you.
Caleb Agee (17:45):
Yeah, that's point.
Number four is the handoffproblem we're talking about from
the setter.
The person who has diligentlynow that we've talked about it
diligently followed up withevery lead and nurtured them
properly and you guys have yoursystems to nurture them properly
but this is arguably one of thebiggest fall-offs is.
(18:06):
That person had a wonderfulconversation.
Let's go back to me and mygutters.
I just talked about how awfulmy gutters are full of leaves
and nuts and there's a bird'snest in there and I need
somebody to come clean it out.
Well, she just heard that wholestory from me.
If she doesn't write down whathappened then, when the
(18:26):
salesperson comes to my houseand they try to sell me gutter
cleaning and they ask me nowwhat's going on, I feel like I
just had to tell you the wholestory again yeah, and if that
guy calls hey, it's, this is bobfrom gus's gutters.
Brandon Welch (18:38):
You know, uh, tell me about what your?
I like your fake business names.
Yeah, it's good, uh, gus'sgutters.
Uh, you know.
You know, I heard you neededsome help.
It's like no, hey, I heardheard you got some tweety birds
in your gutters.
You know, I heard you neededsome help.
It's like no, hey, I heard yougot some Tweety birds in your
gutters, right, yeah, it's like,when can I come over and get
those out for you?
That's validating.
That's off to the races.
So I don't know why we chose thegutter business, but get out of
(19:00):
the gutter and into yourbusiness right and what we want
to do is increase thatcohesiveness from all of the
touch points of your company,from your website to your first
person they talk to, to theperson that follows up, and then
, like the holy grail, would bethe automations in between the
(19:21):
texts that say we'll be outtoday, you know, or we'll be out
whenever we talk to on thephone and the email, just
confirming and then afterwardssaying how was Gus?
Caleb Agee (19:32):
How did Gus?
Brandon Welch (19:33):
do for you, right , yeah?
And so, guys, we're looking atthings that are all common sense
.
There's a pile of statisticalvalidation that these are
problems in almost everybusiness.
Caleb Agee (19:47):
Yeah.
Brandon Welch (19:47):
And they're probably a problem in your
business and we want you to winso bad.
We want to work the marketing.
We don't make excuses.
We want to find everyinefficiency to shore up for our
clients and for you and for ourmastermind students.
But if you don't treat thatwell, with the sanctity that it
(20:10):
is, that a human being asked toconnect with you, to give you
money in exchange for the thingyou are supposedly the best in
the world at, then it's yourfault that your marketing is
unprofitable.
Caleb Agee (20:21):
Yeah, what I would challenge you to do right now is
go sit down, write out frombirth to death, the beginning to
the end of your sales process,and maybe there's a couple
versions of this, but you canmaybe make it generalized enough
that it's flexible to thedifferent entry points that they
(20:43):
would come in.
You need to write out everystep in that process and then
what?
happens.
What is happening and then whathappens.
What is happening, yeah, allthe way through, so that you
have acknowledged okay, then ifyou have in-home sales
consultations, then salespersoncomes to house and they have a
conversation about this.
They need to cover these mainthings.
Make this.
(21:03):
It's not a script that you'rebuilding, you're personalizing,
because we just talked aboutmaking that a real thing.
You're personalizing yourfollow-up calls from your
appointments.
You're you're in home salesconversations.
These are all um principlebased.
They're not script based.
They're not.
There's maybe bullet points ona on a conversation.
(21:24):
If you don't have this writtenout from beginning to end, you
need to go do that and you needto share it with your team, like
this week.
Yes, right now the whole team,not even one group and the other
group.
You need both groups to seeexactly what's going on.
Your appointment setters ifthat's a whole different
(21:45):
department, if you have a callcenter following up on leads,
whatever that looks like for you, if it's whoever sits at the
front desk, they just pick upthe phone.
They need to be aware of thewhole process through sales and
sales needs to be aware of thewhole process before it gets to
them?
Yes, and your marketing teamshould also be aware of the
whole process too, they shouldcare about that as well.
How?
Brandon Welch (22:03):
are you going to have that conversation, is not
guys?
What's our followup?
What's a?
Show me how many times youfollowed up this customer.
Do not do that.
It's less than it should be andyou're going to be frustrated.
You're going to go and say Igot a message from above, from a
place called the MavenMarketing Podcast.
You're just going to say Iheard this and it made me wonder
(22:24):
.
Are we treating the people thatinteract with our business with
the highest amount ofintentionality as possible?
And bring back your mission.
Bring back this is why we dowhat we do.
This is who we're serving anddraw the picture of that
customer and say we're luckythat we got her across the
finish line, but there arethousands more of her.
(22:47):
That are just begging for us todo a really good job between
them kind of sort of needingsomething and being bashful and
raising their hand and us givingthe full confidence that not
only are we the best ones tohelp them, we will do it with
the utmost respect and purposepossible.
Caleb Agee (23:02):
Yeah.
Brandon Welch (23:03):
And then from there you go take the avatar and
say how does she get from hereto here to a happy life?
That is marketing at its finest, yeah.
Caleb Agee (23:13):
Make that process, as I think you can make it
really idealistic.
But then come back to what'sthe first step we're going to
take.
I think it would be dangerousfor you to say we're going to go
from zero to a hundred thisweek because your team is not
ready for that necessarily.
I want you to challenge them.
You're going to make it Add onemore touch point a week.
Add one more a week and seewhat happens.
(23:35):
That would be a great-.
Or let's circle back to lastmonth's leads and start calling.
That's the kind of simple thingthat will pay exponential
dividends on the marketingdollars you've already paid.
You've already paid for them.
Brandon Welch (23:49):
Yeah, that's the good and bad news.
Yeah, this only say this onlyrescues money you've already
spent.
Caleb Agee (23:54):
Yeah, we keep we say dividends, this is literally
the.
The dividend check they'rehanding you is is your leads,
and if you don't reinvest those,it's a good analogy right,
there it's wise, then you, whichis calling them, or sending
them a box of chocolate coveredcherries, I don't care.
Brandon Welch (24:09):
There's something in between that you can be
doing to warm and show thesepeople that you love them.
That's right, and you want tohelp them, so all right.
So quick recap the five-minuterule you're too slow at
following up.
We all know that.
The keep calling rule call themmore often than you think you
should.
30 is not too many, it'sprobably average.
There's the nurture rule Keepadding value every step.
(24:33):
It's not just how can we sellyou something, it's how can we
help you right.
And then the last rule is thehandoff to the salesperson.
Keep that communication andthat intel on that customer
cohesive.
You are going to win.
We can't wait to see you win.
That is why we're here, so youcan win.
We just get unreasonablyexcited about the things you are
(24:54):
doing in small business America.
We actually believe that is thething that will change the
world for the better because,you are the heart of the owner,
right in front of your smallgroup of people.
You're not a corporation.
You can affect change.
You can make your communitiesbetter.
You can make your kids and yourteam's kids' lives better.
You have the power to do thatas a small business owner, and
(25:16):
when we get to help you do thatjust a little bit more, our tank
is overflowed.
That's why we're here, that'swhy I have a company, that's why
all these people outside thiscamera work and do the work they
do, and that's why we show uphere every week to answer real
life marketing questions andwe'll be back here every Monday
(25:37):
doing that.
Because marketers who cannotteach you why are just a fancy
lie.
Have a great week.
welcome to the maven marketing podcast.
Today is maven monday.
I'm your host, brandon welch,and I'm here with caleb.
Get out there Agee.
Caleb Agee (00:13):
Explain that shirt uh, what is up with?
Brandon Welch (00:16):
that, um, it's just a trying to make me feel
invincible, or?
Caleb Agee (00:20):
we're we're recording on a yeah, I'm just
yeah, we're recording on aFriday, so this is my athletic
athleisure type wear, so it justhas some encouraging things.
Brandon Welch (00:32):
What did you run to work today, or what?
Caleb Agee (00:33):
Yeah, I jogged in.
I'm wearing shorts today.
You can't see that part of me.
Who knows?
Brandon Welch (00:38):
what's going on down there?
Hey, this is the place where weanswer your real-life marketing
questions so you can grow yourbusiness, eliminate waste in
advertising and achieve the bigdream.
And the big dream today allstarts with your leads and how
you are handling them.
Caleb Agee (00:52):
Yeah, let me ask you .
Yeah, go for it.
Let me ask you.
Brandon Welch (00:55):
Ask me a question Out of all the people we've
served, like just coming in here, over the hundreds of
businesses, how many do youthink have a chiseled out sales
process from like website toit's?
We're at the sales presentationand it's done.
Caleb Agee (01:10):
How many actually have it.
I'd be surprised if it was half.
I mean, yeah, it's way lessthan half.
It's less than that.
That would be a generous I canthink of three I can think of
three that pop into my mind.
Brandon Welch (01:21):
They're like they had it figured out, completely
figured out.
And here's the crazy thing theywill come into our door either
already spending multiple,multiple, six figures, some of
them millions of dollars, orprepared to.
And if I were to go out in theother room and hand my
12-year-old a stack of $100bills that equals $10,000 and
(01:46):
just told him to take it and dowhatever he wanted with it, it
would literally be that insane.
Actually, my 12-year-old wouldprobably do a better job, but I
don't know, maybe not myeight-year-old, but we'll see.
So we are throwing money thathas already been spent literally
to the wind, and we want tobring you some data today to
(02:06):
clarify what I promise you isgoing on if you haven't spent
time every week to babysit notbabysit, but actually direct and
tell your money and your leadswhere to go.
Caleb Agee (02:17):
Yeah, it seems like an obvious answer.
But this handoff, this balancebetween the marketing and the
sales process, when peoplebecome a lead, that's the moment
where they shift from being amarketing prospect somewhere out
in the world to being a salesprospect.
Those two, that's a very coldway of looking at a human.
(02:39):
But the sales part of that veryoften is where the leakage is.
You might be getting a highvolume, you might be getting
high volume, you might begetting strong lead flow, but
you're saying I got weak leads.
Brandon Welch (02:52):
Will Leads aren't weak.
We're going to challenge you.
You're weak, you're weak.
So, at least by the research,65% of businesses do not have
any sort of defined lead to saleprocess.
It's just happening from peoplereach out and they say, oh yeah
, well, let's set an appointment, let's try to get you somehow
to the finish line.
And so by just a little bit ofcare, just a little bit of
(03:14):
intention on this, I promiseyou're going to make your
advertising more profitablewithout spending an extra penny.
Matter of fact, you couldprobably reduce your budget and
do these things, and do so muchbetter.
Caleb Agee (03:25):
A lot of you are taking these leads, putting them
on a round robin, maybe in yourCRM, handing them off to
salespeople and saying, hey, gosell them.
And then you're wondering onthe back end why they ain't
selling.
We're going to give you somepointers as to why that might be
.
Brandon Welch (03:40):
So rule number one is the five-minute rule.
We've talked about this before,you know.
It's true, we're not the firstones to tell you it, but why do
we keep just one day gettingaround to fixing this?
Because, I would say, most ofour listeners don't have a
steady five-minute rule in theirbusiness.
But did you know that you are391% more likely to convert a
(04:04):
sale if you call it within fiveminutes versus even 10 minutes
later?
Like five minutes is the cutoff391% more likely.
It's like almost 400%.
And then also, businesses thatreach out within five minutes
are 100 times more likely toconnect versus waiting an hour.
So it goes up drastically afterthat.
Caleb Agee (04:23):
Yeah.
So you're sitting there on yourphone or your computer.
You fill out the form on thewebsite.
You become a lead.
Well, you just think about.
You're in that mindset rightnow, and if Brandon calls me
within the next five minutes,I'm way more likely because I'm
in that mindset to pick up andconnect with them.
Brandon Welch (04:42):
There's some real math here that says if it just
even doubled your likelihood ofconnecting with that lead, how
many times does that have to betrue for you to justify somebody
to sit there all hours of theday answering that phone call?
Caleb Agee (04:54):
Yeah, or you could look at it this way Brandon
mentioned those $100 leads which, all in, could be more, could
be less, depending on yourindustry.
Imagine putting a hundreddollar bill on the desk Every
time you get a lead in and you,if they don't respond in five
minutes, I would take a hundreddollar bill away from your team.
You need to help them visualizethis.
(05:15):
There may be an activity thatyou can do and say, hey, that's
a hundred dollars just for roundnumbers.
Um, if we're not following upin five minutes, we just threw
it in the trash can just light ahundred dollar bill on fire.
Brandon Welch (05:26):
I think that would be a great lesson.
Caleb Agee (05:30):
You see what you made me do Come to the bathroom.
We're going to flush it downthe toilet.
Brandon Welch (05:34):
Yeah, you'll come with.
Yeah, you see, yeah, so don'tdo that.
Maybe do that, I don't know.
Caleb Agee (05:38):
I would make.
Brandon Welch (05:45):
I'd a little intense, but um but, uh, we
don't want to be mean, but we dowant to be very, very intent on
saying like guys, just get overyourself.
The five minute rule will saveyou so much wasted advertising.
Caleb Agee (05:53):
Yeah, I think also you can work in some automations
here to help you, uh, supportyour team and their ability to
respond quickly.
So this does not replace thehuman touch, because I think, I
think a lot of people areleaning on these automations,
maybe a little too much, but ifyou can have some sort of text
message or email or both, or acall, and you are reaching out
(06:15):
to somebody, and maybe in notcreepy way but enough and
quickly, you should be doingthat and that could supplement
maybe the immediate responsefrom your team might be on a
different call.
You may not have the manpowerto pick it up in five minutes.
Well, hopefully they get a textas well.
Brandon Welch (06:32):
Yes.
Rule number two is the keepcalling rule.
Shortly after the five-minuterule, this is the most violated
one, and everybody says the samething.
I don't want to bother them.
One, um, and everybody says thesame thing.
I don't want to bother them.
And did you know that, just bythe world that you woke up in
this morning, just by the natureof human overstimulation, that
it is not only not botheringthem, it is expected and average
(06:57):
that a person still respondsafter seven or eight uh points
of contact.
Yeah, just just the, just toget them on the phone in the
first place.
Caleb Agee (07:06):
Yeah, there are a dozen.
I'll just think in my personallife, a dozen little random
things that I know I need to dobut I have not gotten around to,
and a few of them I've taken,maybe, an early step of action.
I've called somebody about itor whatever.
I still need to do those thingsand nobody's calling, Nobody's
asking me to schedule, to set itup, to make it happen and they
(07:29):
should be.
If they would, it'd probablypush me forward and they'd get
that sale a little bit quicker.
Brandon Welch (07:35):
That's right.
Yep, yeah, there are a bunch ofthings I need now that people
just haven't followed up with meon.
Yeah, I've got money, I'm abuyer on the loose, and so what
you need to be thinking about ishow have I systematized that?
That just always happens, nomatter what.
You could do it as simple as alegal pad that says here's all
(07:56):
the prospects that came in todayfor your appointment center and
cross them off when you'vetaken them to the next step.
Until then, put them on yourlist for the next day.
And we have an episode that wasreally about how to pace this
out.
But people are like should Icall?
Should I email?
Should I text?
The answer is yes, you shouldcall.
(08:17):
You should leave a voicemail.
You should then text.
You should follow up next dayor leave an email, follow up the
next day, say, hey, did you getmy email?
I mean, there's a systematicthing to this, and I will say
even more than that.
We're going to talk aboutnurturing, not just calling and
saying, hey, what do you want?
How can we move this forward?
It's like in the process,there's a tremendous amount to
(08:40):
be done, even beyond that.
If we're sending them things ofvalue.
They've raised their hand, theystuck their head on the ground
for just a second and we're likethat was our permission to add
value to them.
Yes, not our permission to getthem in our door right now.
Caleb Agee (08:54):
Yeah, and that goes back to we didn't say this.
But almost every time we saythe word lead, we say a lead is
a person with a need.
This person has a need and Ineed you to get it through your
head that your goal is not to,in this moment, it's not to sell
them something.
Brandon Welch (09:11):
That is the business outcome that we're
trying to get.
If it was, you would beannoying them.
Caleb Agee (09:13):
Yes, If you have it in your head that I'm trying to
sell them or I'm trying to getthem to set an appointment so
that I can sell them something,then you have the wrong mindset
and you will actuallyself-defeat because you will be
bothering them.
You will feel like a pushysalesperson.
But if you know they have aneed of the service that I
provide or the product that Iprovide and I need to give them
(09:36):
the opportunity to fulfill thatneed, then you have no problem
calling them every single dayuntil they tell you to stop.
Brandon Welch (09:44):
Yeah, and this doesn't have to be some Wolf of
Wall Street high pressure thing.
It like just a tiny bit offocus on hey, what's the last
time we called our leads from aweek ago?
Even would be a good start.
And we have a client who we'veworked with for years has
hundreds of leads in a month andtheir business has done really,
really well.
They've grown.
We've talked about this and theylike things were a little
(10:07):
softer for them and we were justlike cool, uh, just to just to
make sure, are we following upwith all the leads we've already
generated?
It was like middle of thesummer, when things are always
soft, Right, and it's like, well, no, you know, we, we left them
a voicemail.
Yeah, and they even have a CRMthat told them that.
But use the CRM for what it'sgood for and automate your
(10:30):
prompts to follow up.
So I mentioned that.
Seven to eight touch points,that's like HubSpot data.
That's pretty reliable, likeresearch a lot of people cite.
But beyond that, that's just toget a hold of them.
The average is 28 and a halfpoints of contact before you get
them from initially raisingtheir hand to the sale.
Caleb Agee (10:48):
Yeah, they say simple transactions maybe are on
the low side of hand to thesale.
Yeah, they say simpletransactions.
Maybe are on the low side ofthat, more complex.
Yeah, it's higher.
That's the average, that's themiddle If you have a complex
product or a complex purchase.
It's north of 30, probably inthe 35 range.
So, think about that.
How confusing or complicated isyour product.
(11:09):
You need to expect to have tocontact them 30 times.
Yes, think about that.
How confusing or complicated isyour product?
You need to expect to have tocontact them 30 times.
Brandon Welch (11:13):
Yes, and so companies that are good at
nurturing get a 50% less costper acquisition versus those who
do not.
If you took your advertisingbudget and literally cut it in
half and said, well, I only haveto spend that to get the same
amount of customers.
If all I have to do in betweenis a little bit of training and
intentionality and follow up and, by the way, this is not
(11:35):
permission for you to go justbeat your people over the head
saying follow the process, orwhy aren't you doing this?
No, do not do that.
You want to encourage a cultureof winning, a culture of like
hey, this is the good thathappens when we do this, not
you're bad and you haven't beendoing it because this is right
(11:55):
for celebration.
You guys can do so much morewith watching the numbers go up
and celebrating that, and Iwould suggest sharing that
reward of the hard work.
Yeah, that alone won't motivateit.
But what I'm saying is you justspent half of what you spent on
marketing last year and you hadthe same amount of customers.
How would that feel that?
Caleb Agee (12:13):
would feel great that would feel really good.
Yeah, I'd be happy for you tospend half, or you know, as an
agency, you could just keep itthe same and double your
business.
Right?
That's right, seems, yeah.
Brandon Welch (12:26):
So nurtured leads make 47% larger purchases on
top of that.
So not only are they going toclose more often, they're going
to spend more money with youbecause they trust you.
They've seen the value in yourtenacity.
People actually do appreciatefollow-up and professionalism.
People appreciate people whoare talking to them, about them,
about what matters to them, andthis is what you're doing.
It's not going to your verysweet, very kind, very organized
(12:54):
office manager and saying callmore and bother these people.
Don't do that.
Help.
Tell your entire organizationguys, these are people that need
our help.
They're crying out, they'redrowning and they're asking for
a life raft and it's like whatif we aren't the ones that show
up for them?
What if somebody else, someother jerk in an empty suit, is
(13:15):
the one showing up for them,what happens then?
And if your company values aresolid and if what you believe
and the ways you do your work is?
Caleb Agee (13:23):
solid and how you change the world and how you
change the world is solid.
Brandon Welch (13:25):
That's a hop and a skip going like no-transcript.
(13:58):
Your compassion to follow upwith these leads like they are
people about to get takenadvantage of or lost in some
other person's business,business.
Caleb Agee (14:09):
They're going to have a lesser experience because
they didn't go with you and youowe it to them to give them the
best experience, whichhopefully you believe is through
you so that becomes thefoundation of your courage and
your tenacity to follow up withleads like they ought to be
followed up with.
Brandon Welch (14:27):
And all we've got to do from there.
So point two is keep calling.
But point three is the scriptproblem.
If you are just calling for thesake of calling and saying you
know you filled out a form onour website, how can we help you
?
Caleb Agee (14:43):
I'm just following up on the form you filled out on
my website.
Missed opportunity.
Wrong answer Because hopefullyyour website.
Brandon Welch (14:48):
Missed opportunity.
Caleb Agee (14:49):
Wrong answer.
Brandon Welch (14:50):
Because hopefully your website language is
promising something Either thead they clicked on or the ad
that they knew about in theworld, or the pain that you
claimed you could fix for them.
That should be self-evident byhow they reached out to you.
If they were on your websiteand they came from the page
about gutter service.
Don't call and say you know,it's Lindsay from Hooter Scooter
(15:13):
Roofing and I'd like to youknow how can I set your
appointment.
It's like oh, this is theconversation.
I hear you're having someproblems with your gutters.
Tell me more about that.
That is altogether different.
You've validated that.
You started a conversationrather than trying to be an
inconvenience and force theminto a commitment.
Caleb Agee (15:30):
I almost feel uncomfortable Just my personal
thing.
I feel uncomfortable when Icall somebody and I feel the
need to explain my situation.
Hey, I noticed it rained reallyhard the other day I'm using
the gutter example and it wasjust pouring over the side of my
thing.
I think I have some junk in.
But there's this weird thingwhen somebody answers the phone
(15:54):
or they're following up with meand they're just like, hey, how
can I help you?
Or I'm just following up, Ifeel like I'm inconveniencing
them by giving them the fourminute explanation, whereas they
should be like, oh, yeah, andthey should be validating my
explanation.
They should be like, oh, yeah,and they should be validating my
explanation.
They should be giving me thetime of day.
Yeah, make sure you'reconnecting with that and you're
you're allowing them to speak.
(16:14):
You should be asking goodquestions instead of telling
good answers.
That goes back to how to make,how to win friends and influence
people the old greatconversationalist.
He said I didn't say much ofanything.
I spoke less than anything.
All I did was ask goodquestions.
Brandon Welch (16:32):
So go check it out now.
We should try some goodquestions.
Yes, how are you meeting yourpeople where they are?
How are you encouraging yourstaff to see that this is
helping them, not bothering them?
How are you celebrating Notjust the moment you get the sale
or the appointment, but themoment that you knew you had
permission to make a difference?
(16:53):
That is what good leadnurturing and good lead culture
should be about.
And so look at the clues, lookat where they came from on the
website.
If you're getting the formfills from the website without a
little indication of where thatform came from, what page?
Get with your nerd and fix that.
Yes, because you can just startthe conversation.
(17:13):
I hear you're having XYZ, ormaybe the form itself.
Caleb Agee (17:15):
It has some checkboxes you need.
What do you need?
Blah, blah, blah.
Brandon Welch (17:19):
But then let's talk about from that first
compassionate connection to howdo you hand that off to your
salesperson.
Are you just setting blankappointments on your
salesperson's calendar and thenhaving them walk in blind?
Because if so, you aremishandling that person's time,
that person's perception of whatneeds to be done, and you're
(17:41):
really not holding up to yourmission as a company.
I'll promise you.
Caleb Agee (17:45):
Yeah, that's point.
Number four is the handoffproblem we're talking about from
the setter.
The person who has diligentlynow that we've talked about it
diligently followed up withevery lead and nurtured them
properly and you guys have yoursystems to nurture them properly
but this is arguably one of thebiggest fall-offs is.
(18:06):
That person had a wonderfulconversation.
Let's go back to me and mygutters.
I just talked about how awfulmy gutters are full of leaves
and nuts and there's a bird'snest in there and I need
somebody to come clean it out.
Well, she just heard that wholestory from me.
If she doesn't write down whathappened then, when the
(18:26):
salesperson comes to my houseand they try to sell me gutter
cleaning and they ask me nowwhat's going on, I feel like I
just had to tell you the wholestory again yeah, and if that
guy calls hey, it's, this is bobfrom gus's gutters.
Brandon Welch (18:38):
You know, uh, tell me about what your?
I like your fake business names.
Yeah, it's good, uh, gus'sgutters.
Uh, you know.
You know, I heard you neededsome help.
It's like no, hey, I heardheard you got some tweety birds
in your gutters.
You know, I heard you neededsome help.
It's like no, hey, I heard yougot some Tweety birds in your
gutters, right, yeah, it's like,when can I come over and get
those out for you?
That's validating.
That's off to the races.
So I don't know why we chose thegutter business, but get out of
(19:00):
the gutter and into yourbusiness right and what we want
to do is increase thatcohesiveness from all of the
touch points of your company,from your website to your first
person they talk to, to theperson that follows up, and then
, like the holy grail, would bethe automations in between the
(19:21):
texts that say we'll be outtoday, you know, or we'll be out
whenever we talk to on thephone and the email, just
confirming and then afterwardssaying how was Gus?
Caleb Agee (19:32):
How did Gus?
Brandon Welch (19:33):
do for you, right , yeah?
And so, guys, we're looking atthings that are all common sense
.
There's a pile of statisticalvalidation that these are
problems in almost everybusiness.
Caleb Agee (19:47):
Yeah.
Brandon Welch (19:47):
And they're probably a problem in your
business and we want you to winso bad.
We want to work the marketing.
We don't make excuses.
We want to find everyinefficiency to shore up for our
clients and for you and for ourmastermind students.
But if you don't treat thatwell, with the sanctity that it
(20:10):
is, that a human being asked toconnect with you, to give you
money in exchange for the thingyou are supposedly the best in
the world at, then it's yourfault that your marketing is
unprofitable.
Caleb Agee (20:21):
Yeah, what I would challenge you to do right now is
go sit down, write out frombirth to death, the beginning to
the end of your sales process,and maybe there's a couple
versions of this, but you canmaybe make it generalized enough
that it's flexible to thedifferent entry points that they
(20:43):
would come in.
You need to write out everystep in that process and then
what?
happens.
What is happening and then whathappens.
What is happening, yeah, allthe way through, so that you
have acknowledged okay, then ifyou have in-home sales
consultations, then salespersoncomes to house and they have a
conversation about this.
They need to cover these mainthings.
Make this.
(21:03):
It's not a script that you'rebuilding, you're personalizing,
because we just talked aboutmaking that a real thing.
You're personalizing yourfollow-up calls from your
appointments.
You're you're in home salesconversations.
These are all um principlebased.
They're not script based.
They're not.
There's maybe bullet points ona on a conversation.
(21:24):
If you don't have this writtenout from beginning to end, you
need to go do that and you needto share it with your team, like
this week.
Yes, right now the whole team,not even one group and the other
group.
You need both groups to seeexactly what's going on.
Your appointment setters ifthat's a whole different
(21:45):
department, if you have a callcenter following up on leads,
whatever that looks like for you, if it's whoever sits at the
front desk, they just pick upthe phone.
They need to be aware of thewhole process through sales and
sales needs to be aware of thewhole process before it gets to
them?
Yes, and your marketing teamshould also be aware of the
whole process too, they shouldcare about that as well.
How?
Brandon Welch (22:03):
are you going to have that conversation, is not
guys?
What's our followup?
What's a?
Show me how many times youfollowed up this customer.
Do not do that.
It's less than it should be andyou're going to be frustrated.
You're going to go and say Igot a message from above, from a
place called the MavenMarketing Podcast.
You're just going to say Iheard this and it made me wonder
(22:24):
.
Are we treating the people thatinteract with our business with
the highest amount ofintentionality as possible?
And bring back your mission.
Bring back this is why we dowhat we do.
This is who we're serving anddraw the picture of that
customer and say we're luckythat we got her across the
finish line, but there arethousands more of her.
(22:47):
That are just begging for us todo a really good job between
them kind of sort of needingsomething and being bashful and
raising their hand and us givingthe full confidence that not
only are we the best ones tohelp them, we will do it with
the utmost respect and purposepossible.
Caleb Agee (23:02):
Yeah.
Brandon Welch (23:03):
And then from there you go take the avatar and
say how does she get from hereto here to a happy life?
That is marketing at its finest, yeah.
Caleb Agee (23:13):
Make that process, as I think you can make it
really idealistic.
But then come back to what'sthe first step we're going to
take.
I think it would be dangerousfor you to say we're going to go
from zero to a hundred thisweek because your team is not
ready for that necessarily.
I want you to challenge them.
You're going to make it Add onemore touch point a week.
Add one more a week and seewhat happens.
(23:35):
That would be a great-.
Or let's circle back to lastmonth's leads and start calling.
That's the kind of simple thingthat will pay exponential
dividends on the marketingdollars you've already paid.
You've already paid for them.
Brandon Welch (23:49):
Yeah, that's the good and bad news.
Yeah, this only say this onlyrescues money you've already
spent.
Caleb Agee (23:54):
Yeah, we keep we say dividends, this is literally
the.
The dividend check they'rehanding you is is your leads,
and if you don't reinvest those,it's a good analogy right,
there it's wise, then you, whichis calling them, or sending
them a box of chocolate coveredcherries, I don't care.
Brandon Welch (24:09):
There's something in between that you can be
doing to warm and show thesepeople that you love them.
That's right, and you want tohelp them, so all right.
So quick recap the five-minuterule you're too slow at
following up.
We all know that.
The keep calling rule call themmore often than you think you
should.
30 is not too many, it'sprobably average.
There's the nurture rule Keepadding value every step.
(24:33):
It's not just how can we sellyou something, it's how can we
help you right.
And then the last rule is thehandoff to the salesperson.
Keep that communication andthat intel on that customer
cohesive.
You are going to win.
We can't wait to see you win.
That is why we're here, so youcan win.
We just get unreasonablyexcited about the things you are
(24:54):
doing in small business America.
We actually believe that is thething that will change the
world for the better because,you are the heart of the owner,
right in front of your smallgroup of people.
You're not a corporation.
You can affect change.
You can make your communitiesbetter.
You can make your kids and yourteam's kids' lives better.
You have the power to do thatas a small business owner, and
(25:16):
when we get to help you do thatjust a little bit more, our tank
is overflowed.
That's why we're here, that'swhy I have a company, that's why
all these people outside thiscamera work and do the work they
do, and that's why we show uphere every week to answer real
life marketing questions andwe'll be back here every Monday
(25:37):
doing that.
Because marketers who cannotteach you why are just a fancy
lie.
Have a great week.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.