Your online reputation is key to closing more sales leads. It does not matter what industry you are in or if the leads you are working were not even generated via the Internet. When the prospect you are working on gets off the phone with you they are going to “Google” you.

What your prospect finds online is going to drastically affect your closing ratios. Companies with a bad online reputation may have negative blog post, a Rip off Report or a negative local news report. These items need to be dealt with and your online reputation needs to be very clean.

Many companies make the mistake of assuming since they are not generating leads online then their online image is not an issue. Bottom line is most consumers use the Internet to research a company before making a purchase. Consumers are very weary of the finance industry and most take their time to look online for potential scams or fraud.

A cool tool that Google provides to monitor your reputation is Google Alerts. You can type in any search term and get an alert sent to your email anytime that search term is posted online. You can use Google Alerts to track your company or personal name online. Anytime something new is posted online you will be notified.

Creating a good online reputation starts with content. Content can be online profiles, social websites, blogs, websites, articles and press releases. Keep this content fresh and optimize it for search engines so it outranks any negative results online.

Look out for our next post regarding Reputation Management and Building an Online Reputation.

A branded thank you page is a thank you page, the page after a person applies, which contains your company information and sometimes logo. A branded lead generation process like a thank you page is possible for exclusive or semi exclusive lead buyers. It works best with an exclusive lead but a thank you page can contain multiple company names that might call the applicant.

A branded thank you page or email that is presented to the client at the time of the application is very important. The disconnect between an applicant and the lead buyers call is the single reason why Internet leads close at 5 to 15% and not 20% plus. You really have to look at it from the applicants view. They apply on OutofDebt123.com but get a call from XYZ Debt Relief, and XYZ Debt Relief is talking about some ad the applicant found on Google when the applicant really responded to an email.

A branded thank you page or email would go something like this.

“Thank you for your inquiry into our debt relief program. We have matched you with our Top Debt Settlement Company - XYZ Debt Relief. You should expect a call or email soon in regards to this inquiry on our site OutofDebt123.com. Their information is below if you would like to contact them directly. Just mention this online inquiry. Thank you for allowing us to help you on your way to being Debt Free.

XYZ Debt Relief or Logo
123 Can I close a Deal Lane
Wishing CA 54321
www.XYZDebtRelief.com”

This is the single reason why so many leads say they did not apply, they are not interested or do not answer the phone. If lead buyers and lead sellers can work together to bridge the gap between this connection then closing rates on Internet leads would easily double. So how do you make this happen?

First lead buyers need to know that branded lead generation techniques are available. Second lead sellers need to work to form relationships with buyers in which these opportunities can evolve. Not every lead buyer is a candidate for a branded lead generation process. The volume, filters and delivery all have to be a good match. Lead sellers know who their perfect buyer is, when they find one then it is time to pull out all the stops to assure their success.

Branded lead generation is a tool that can secure a long relationship between a lead buyer and a lead seller.

Cost per close is the amount of money you spend to get one closing or one deal. So if you spend $1,000 on a lead package and got 5 deals closed then your cost per close is $200. Pretty simple and easy to understand. What gets lost in calculating this figure is time. The time you spent on managing the lead campaign, distributing leads, returning leads, sending payments, and so on.

It is important to factor time into the equation. It is even more important for you to figure out a way to minimize the time you spend on managing a lead campaign so your cost per close is less and your ROI is more. Here are a few ideas on how you can spend less time on your lead campaigns and more time selling and maximizing your return.

1. Get a lead management system. A lead management system that distributes leads automatically can save you hours. Not to mention you can track ROI, the life of a lead and lead vendor performance. A lead management system gives you a clear picture of how each lead campaign is doing, how your sales team is doing and saves time.

2. Try and negotiate with your lead provider a longer window for returning leads. If you can send back returns weekly then it will save you time during the week for selling.

3. Set up a time to review issues or lead quality with your point of contact at the same time each week. Lead quality goes up and down weekly. If you stop and call your lead provider every time there is an issue then you will waste valuable time. Not to mention be very frustrated.

4. If you can not afford a lead management system then just have a system. One that is organized and tracks your leads. Your ROI can be impacted greatly if you do not get credit for your bad leads.

There are many different telemarketing scripts for calling on a debt settlement prospect. Each calling script needs to be customized to the type of lead or data you are calling on. Let’s start with Internet leads. Internet leads are very good for debt settlement you just need to take advantage of the ones that do answer your call. First let’s start with where and how the lead was generated. These are important facts you need to know before you develop a sales pitch or call script for debt settlement. It is always best to ask your lead provider about their consumer website and how they drive traffic to their site. Now I am not saying you are going to get accurate information every time so the best thing you can do is test out 20 or 30 leads and ask the applicant where they applied and how they found the website. It is best to get it straight from the horses mouth.

So now that you have a good feel of how and where the leads are being generated you can develop a telemarketing script for these debt leads. Here is an example of a telemarketing script for a debt lead that is generated via email marketing to a variety of different landing pages. It is very common for lead generation companies to use multiple landing pages, you will find this out when you test the 20 or 30 leads. So let’s go with this scenario.

1. You call the lead. It is important to know what your Caller ID says and how it will be perceived by the prospect. Also it is good if you use the same company name as on the Caller ID.

2. Your greeting obviously needs to be pleasant and you need to get your purpose of the call out along with your initial greeting. You do not want to give the caller time to question who you are, what you are calling about and maybe even hang up on you. Here is an example, “Hello may I speak to Mrs. Smith”,  “Response”, “Good Morning Mrs. Smith my name is Dave Roberts with Stop your Debt and I am calling about your inquiry on our website today requesting information on debt help, how are you this morning?” It is good to not leave the prospect hanging with a yes or no question but a question that will lead into your pitch. A bad question to ask at the end of your opening would be “Do you have time for a consultation?”, you leave the prospect in a position to tell you “No”, which is something you do not want to hear.

3. After the prospect says, “I am fine”, you need to lay out quickly who you are, what your company is all about, and how you are going to solve their problem. This needs to be short so you can get into verifying their information. Here is an example, “I am glad to hear you are fine. Again my name is Dave Roberts with Stop your Debt and our program will reduce your debt, roll it into one low monthly payment and give you a fresh start. Now I see here you have $20,000 in credit credit card debt, is that correct?” It is good to confirm the information you have on the lead because usually the numbers are just estimates.

4. After confirming the details of the debt, income, employment, and their hardship you need to layout the plan. You have to be confident in what you need from them and lay it out with specific instructions. Here is an example, “Mrs. Smith I have all the information I need to see if you qualify for our program. What I need from you is this information and I need it sent to this fax number. I will call you back today with a solution that fits your needs. What is a time we can schedule a call to review the plan?”

5. You want to then confirm the time and phone number to contact them. It is good to also get an alternative phone, verify email address, and mailing address. Many times it is hard to get a lead back on the phone. Having complete contact information will help you reach the lead and close the deal.

When calling on Debt Internet Leads you will sometimes find a disconnect between the applicant and your call. Be prepared for questions like “What website did I apply on, I applied on a few.” To overcome this you need to know where your leads are coming from or have an educated answer. It is also good to ask your lead provider about branded thank you pages that help with this issue.

A good sales lead is only as good as your delivery process. What does that mean? It means that a good lead can seem to have less value than a truly bad lead if it is not delivered correctly. A good lead needs to be delivered in real time, in a usable format, posted into a lead management system and to the clients specifications.

When a new lead buyer starts with your company and does not get leads delivered per their request then most of the time lead quality does not matter. A lead buyer that does not get leads on time, in wrong format or has a slow start is going to label your lead company as a bad source. You could have the best sales leads on the market but the perception is that you have bad leads. To assure this does not happen to you is pretty easy and not related to your lead quality at all. It is all about customer service and communication, something some lead generation companies lack.

To start it is best to not be overly aggressive with your start time. An eager lead buyer is good to have but many lead sellers get caught up in agreeing with conditions in order to get the sale. Remember getting the sale in the lead industry is really not hard or the issue. Keeping them as a client is the hard part. So when your new lead buyer says, “Can we start today or tomorrow, I really need to get the leads fast”, you need to take the time to see if you can start the campaign at the requested time. If not just give a starting time you can live up to.

Even though every lead generation company will recommend a lead management system not all lead buyers have them. Why I do not know, but we will save that for a later post. If the client is receiving leads via a lead management system or by email it is best to test the post and assure delivery is set up properly. This can and will delay a scheduled start if your post is not correct.

The biggest factor in the lead delivery process is your delivery rate or speed. A lead buyer that gets 20 leads dumped on them at one time is going to think you do not have real time leads. However; if you are using some high traffic media outlets it is not uncommon to generate leads in burst that can produce 5 or 10 leads over 2-5 minutes. If you do not get these leads to them in an organic real time flow then it is going to be a red flag. You may not even be doing anything wrong but again it is all about perception. To combat this it is highly recommended that lead sellers also use a lead management or lead delivery system. This will assure your clients are getting leads in real time and you can put in delivery filters to assure an organic flow to all your lead buyers.

I know this post is more geared towards the lead seller but it is important for both sides of the equation to have some insight into each others operations. Remember keep the communication up and it is usually easy to work through any issues that may come up during a lead campaign.

Debt Settlement is a hard industry. For the settlement companies and for lead providers looking to provide a quality debt lead. Not that most debt lead providers are not trying, the reality is that a good debt lead is hard to generate. Why? Well we will try and shed some light on this issue.

There is much debate on this subject and many are quick to just blame the lead provider for being bad. The truth is that a lead provider or the debt settlement company themselves can generate 10 debt leads online from search or contextual ads and never be able to reach 20% or have around 10-15% put in false information. What consumers think is on the other side of the debt form is a mystery. Why put in false information if you clicked the online ad, read the page and took the time to fill out the form. We will save that for another time.

The responsibility at that point falls in the lap of the lead provider. There is always going to be false leads submitted. The lead provider must have in place a solid quality control process. This can be done with services that verify data in real time or by using in house agents to verify the information. Data verification services that may link to your lead delivery system are great because they are fast and the cost is set. Issue is that many of these services will return incorrect information forcing lead providers to trash a good lead. Either way it is done a lead provider must provide a quality control process that works.

Contact rates on debt leads as we mentioned above are lower than many other verticals. A look into the mindset of consumers applying for debt help may help us understand this issue. Debt Relief or Debt Settlement is not as urgent as saving a home from foreclosure, lowering a mortgage rate because rates are going back up or refinancing to get cash in your pocket. Debt Relief applicants want help, need help, but many are not pressed to take care of this issue now. It is human nature to be sitting at work and thinking I need to get rid of this credit card debt, apply online then next thing you know your mind is taken to an entirely new issue - you may even need to do some work. Can you believe that.

So what can be done to combat this issue. Real Time Debt Leads with a Real Time Reaction!

Debt leads that are not real time are going to suffer when it comes to contact rate. You have a 1 to 5 minute window to call an applicant before they get side tracked. The other part of the equation is Real Time Reaction. We will discuss this subject a lot on this Blog. Real Time Reaction is simply the process and speed in which a lead buyer reacts to a new lead.

Here are some key points to Real Time Reaction below, we will be discussing each of these items in future post.

1. You must have some type of lead management system or CRM. You may be a whiz at excel, at your computer all day, but I guarantee you are missing out on sales managing leads manually.

2. Your script for calling on leads. You need to know where your leads applied, how they applied and write a custom script for each. If you call a lead and say “Hello my name is John with Clueless Debt Settlement calling about your need for Debt Relief”, then the applicant may be confused if they just applied on LowDebtNowPlease.com based on an email they received.

3. Your Caller ID. What does your Caller ID say? These applicants are running from creditors. Should your Caller ID say “Debt Agency” or “Debt Collection Help”. Think about it.

Stay tuned for more post by the Lead Closer Team!

Let’s jump right in.

First I would like to talk about the relationship between a lead provider or service provider and the buyer. No this is not Dr. Phil, but it is important to understand this relationship.

On the lead generation side of things it seems that new buyers come in with a lot of baggage. By baggage I mean fears based on past experiences. I mean nothing bad when I say baggage lead buyers, don’t take it personal. But who can blame you for being so skeptical of the lead industry. There are many companies that have made their living providing bad sales leads. I think it is very important that lead providers understand these fears and try to work with new buyers to curb these fears. Some ideas would be lowering normal minimum orders, offering a written guarantee or sending out a small amount of lead samples. I personally do not believe in offering lead samples. They are hard to set up, control and you really do not know what a potential client is going to get with 5 or 10 leads. From the buyer side this may sound “shady” but the reality is that a high volume lead operation could send out 100 lead samples daily based on request. That alone could put a lead provider out of business. Open communication about the buyers reservations and past experiences can help lead providers overcome objections and make more sales.

On the other side of the coin are reservations or fears the lead provider has about the lead buyer. With a very shaky financial system and many lead buyers coming from finance it is safe to say there has been some relationships that did not end on a high note. With the collapse of hundreds of top mortgage lenders and thousand of mortgage branches came unpaid bills. Many lead providers were forced to write of thousands in unpaid invoices. Lead buyers understanding this issue can help move the relationship along by agreeing or understanding tighter billing terms.

This does not mean a lead buyer needs to send in thousands of dollars to a new lead company and take a big risk. If both sides agree to a lower minimum and suitable billing terms then it just may be the beginning of a long and profitable business relationship.

Hello and Welcome to LeadCloser.com

This is our first official post on our new Blog. This Blog is dedicated to every sales lead buyer in each and every market. No matter the industry good sales leads are vital to a successful and profitable business. The Blog is an open forum website that encourages comments, discussion and reviews of service providers in the lead generation industry. The articles and news you find here will be about leads, lead management, telemarketing, data, technology, web design, marketing, advertising and industry trends.

So sit back enjoy, read and discuss.