Full Episode Transcript

More Leads Won't Fix a Broken Sales Process: How to Convert More Leads Into Paying Clients

Imagine spending twice as much money to get twice as many prospects, only to lose half of them before they ever walk through the door.

That's not a traffic problem, and more advertising isn't gonna fix it.

Today, we're gonna figure out where your prospective customers are disappearing, and why finding the leak is only the first step in fixing it.

You're listening to Wellness Means Business with Casey Conrad. I'm Casey Conrad, and I've spent more than 35 years helping fitness and wellness businesses grow.

If you've got expertise, a product, a program, a service, a wellness modality, or some combination of those, but need to build a better business around it, you're in the right place.

Wellness Means Business gives independent fitness and wellness entrepreneurs practical strategies to attract more clients, increase sales, grow revenue, and build stronger, more profitable businesses.

So, let's get down to business.

In the last episode, Episode 8, I introduced you to the three ways to grow revenue in any business: get more customers, get customers to make bigger purchases, and increase the frequency of customer purchases.

And we challenged the automatic assumption that growth always means you need more customers.

If you did your homework from that episode and concluded that, yes, you do need more customers, then today's show is definitely going to be good for you.

Now, I wanna be very specific about who I'm talking to in this scenario.

Maybe you own a fitness facility and you've added or are thinking about adding recovery or wellness services to either attract more people or better service your customers.

Or maybe you're operating a pure wellness or recovery business, and you've got things like red light, infrared sauna, cold plunge, PEMF—whatever your stack or version of wellness is—but you need more people actually buying it and using it to be more profitable.

In either case, the temptation is often the same.

"I just need more leads."

Well, maybe you do.

But before you spend another dollar trying to get those leads, I wanna know what's happening to the prospective customers you already have that have been going through your process.

And look, just like you wouldn't put more water into a bucket with holes in it and expect it to hold the water, we don't want to pour more prospects into a broken—or potentially broken—customer journey.

Now, what do I mean by that?

I'm talking about from the moment someone becomes aware of you and your products or services through the point where they actually make a buying decision.

That journey varies, of course, from business to business, but let's just keep it super simple.

It goes from attention, right? They find out about you. Then they inquire. Then they book. Then they show. And then, potentially, you have a sale.

It could be from an ad, they get a referral, they find your website. Maybe they stumble upon some guerrilla marketing you have in the community. But whatever that is, they raise their hand.

They inquire, and some, of course, are gonna book a visit. Some aren't. Some are going to come in for a consultation. Some aren't. Some show up, and some buy.

Different businesses give this process different labels, and I don't really care about the labels. I care about the movement from stage to stage.

Now, in the last episode, I gave you one of my favorite lines:

"Show me the numbers."

Any time a client calls me and says, "My marketing isn't working," or, "I need more customers," my brain immediately goes into, "Okay, I need some numbers."

How many inquiries are you getting? How many bookings? How many of those show? How many of those buy? And, of course, where did they come from? Meaning, what was the source?

And I say that because if you throw everything into one bucket and call it "leads," that can actually hide the information you need to make a good decision about where to spend your dollars and where to work.

So let's put some meat on the bone.

I'm gonna give you a case study, and I want you to sit in the consultant's chair just for a minute.

Don't jump ahead and try to fix anything yet. I just want you to look at the journey and see if you can spot where something isn't working.

So we've got an independent wellness and recovery studio.

They offer infrared, red light, cold plunge, compression, biofeedback and PEMF.

And, by the way, it doesn't matter. You could be a fitness facility offering recovery services. Don't get caught up in the exact specifics of the label that we're putting on this.

I want you to look at the numbers.

So the client calls me and says, "I need more customers," and they're gonna start running Facebook ads.

And, of course, I ask for the numbers, and here's what they give me.

They say, "We have 1,000 unique visitors coming to our website every month on average. Of those, 100 people actually inquire, whether that be through a web inquiry or they pick up the phone and call. Of the 100 people that actually reach out to us, 70 book, 35 show, and 28 buy."

Now, before I walk through my process and tell you what I see, what jumps out at you?

Well, let's walk through it together.

1,000 website visitors, right? And 100 inquire. That's 10%.

Is that good or is that bad?

Well, that's a trick question. Sorry, that's the smart-aleck attorney coming out in me.

We don't really have enough data yet to have context. Like we said before, where did the traffic actually come from? What were the people looking for?

What action on your website or funnel page did they take? Because that can tell you a lot.

Maybe they clicked on something that you were doing for sleep, or maybe it's just a general inquiry for a visit. So it's gonna depend.

Okay, out of the 100 inquiries, we got 70 bookings.

Now, I've got a whole bunch of other questions that I would drill down on, but for now, let's just keep it simple.

A 70% booking rate—that's decent.

Now, when we hit the show rate, we get a different story.

Seventy people booked, but only 35 actually showed.

So half of the people that raised their hand and showed some level of interest are actually walking out the door, so to speak, before they ever actually get to you.

And that is a major red flag.

Of the 35 that actually showed, 28 buy.

That's an 80% closing rate, and that means something that's happening there in terms of the process when people get in front of you is working quite well.

Now, imagine just for a minute that the owner says, "I'm skipping all of that analysis, and I'm gonna double my advertising."

Let's say they do that.

Let's say they go from 1,000 unique visitors to 2,000, from 100 inquiries to 200, 70 bookings to 140, and 35 shows to 70.

Okay, you doubled the numbers, and on the surface that sounds good.

But guess what?

Same leak.

You just have twice the volume.

You haven't really fixed the problem.

Sure, you made more sales. You also spent twice as much money, and you've left a hell of a lot of revenue on the table.

And it may sound cruel, but in essence, you've paid to make the problem even bigger.

Now, we should know something important.

We know where the biggest visible leak is occurring, which is between the booking and the show.

But do we know why?

Hmm.

No, we don't.

And this is where entrepreneurs typically get themselves into trouble.

We go straight into quick-fix mode.

"Okay, our show rate is low. Let's install an automated text reminder system."

And okay, maybe those reminders would help, but again, that's prescribing before diagnosing, right?

A low show rate could come from weak reminders, for sure. But it could also be from too much time between the booking and the appointment.

It could be from a poor conversation when they actually booked.

Maybe the reason for them coming isn't powerful or compelling enough.

Maybe they don't understand what's gonna happen, so they got caught up in the emotion of booking, but then they got nervous.

"Oh, I don't know. What are they gonna make me do? Am I gonna have to get undressed? Am I gonna be asked to do something I can't do?"

Maybe the person booking was too aggressive and they thought they were gonna get the hard sell, so they booked, but they just blew it off afterwards.

So it's the same where—it's in the show rate—but there are tons of different whys.

Numbers tell you where to investigate, but they don't tell you why.

And this is why I want you to stop thinking of lead generation and closing as the entire sales process.

Your entire customer's experience—that journey—is happening throughout the entire process.

Every step either increases rapport and trust or it creates friction.

Now, here's something I've taught sales teams for years:

Every interaction with a prospect along that entire journey is a mini-sale.

The sale isn't just that one moment at the end where you close.

You're earning the next yes through every part of this customer journey.

Did they respond to the ad?

That's a yes.

Did they make the inquiry?

Another yes.

Did they book?

Yes.

Did they show?

Yes.

Did they buy?

That's the ultimate yes, and that's what we're looking for in this journey.

But one of the simplest questions you can ask when you look at this process is:

Where do my yeses stop?

And notice that's a different question from, "How do I get more leads?"

Better business decisions start with better business questions.

Now, there's one more distinction that I want you to see.

Let's go back to those 70 bookings and the 35 shows.

What if we dug deeper into those numbers and discovered that referral bookings were actually an 80% show ratio, phone inquiries were, say, 70%, web inquiries were 30%, and social media was 20%?

Well, that's a completely different conversation because we don't have a universal 50% show ratio.

The aggregate was actually hiding the real issue.

Now, you might say, "Okay, is a 20% show ratio on a social media ad good or bad?"

Again, it's contextual.

But the point is you need to drill down into the granular details.

Now, if you're listening to this and you're going, "Oh, crap, Casey, I don't know any of these numbers," don't turn this into a giant, overwhelming project.

And don't waste time trying to go back right now and recreate months of data.

Start now.

Just simply start now.

For the next 30 days, track five things:

Your inquiries. Your bookings. Your shows. Your sales. And your sources.

That's it.

Of course, if your website traffic is readily available and you're monitoring that, add it.

Use a spreadsheet.

Heck, use a sheet of paper that you handwrite and use little tick marks to monitor it throughout the month.

Because for some people, spreadsheets are like, "Aah!"

The reality is, I don't care about what technology or mode you use.

What I care about is that you start paying attention to the journey.

And then after 30 days, I want you to ask yourself just four questions.

Number one: Where is my biggest drop in those yeses?

Number two: Do I know why it's happening, or am I assuming?

Number three: What additional information do I need to actually diagnose it? Peel it back, drill down, get granular.

And number four: Does the problem occur across all leads or only certain sources?

And here's the hard part.

Don't go try to fix anything yet.

Your first job is simply to locate the biggest leak, then start running down sub-questions until you understand what is actually driving it.

More leads aren't automatically more customers.

Traffic isn't customers.

Inquiries aren't customers.

Bookings aren't customers.

Even shows aren't customers.

Customers are customers.

And your job is to understand how efficiently people move through each of the stages in your particular customer journey.

So the moral of the story is, before you pour more prospects into the top of your business—whether you're trying to fill a fitness facility, launch a new recovery service, get more people using what you already have, or grow a wellness practice—make sure you know what's happening to the people who are already flowing through it right now.

Now, what happens when people are making it through your journey? They're finding you. They're showing up. But they're still not buying?

Well, then we need to drill down and look at how you're asking them to buy, what you're asking them to buy, and the process in which you are asking them to buy.

And guess what?

That's exactly where we're gonna go in our next episode.

So if you aren't already getting the Wellness Means Business Brief, where I continue these conversations—completely different than our weekly podcast content—go ahead and jump over to caseyconrad.com/wellnessmeansbusiness.

It's absolutely free, and it is packed with great information.

Let me leave you with this thought:

Every time you get better at numbers, you get better at the questions, and you ultimately get better at diagnosing the real problem.

And when you diagnose the right problem, then you're gonna have a much better chance of choosing the right strategy.

And that's how you make more of a difference to more people and make more of a profit.

Until next time, this is Casey Conrad.

And remember, wellness means business.