Warm Leads: Why They Are So Much Easier To Close
Warm leads are leads where the customer is aware of your services and has shown interest, but isn’t ready to seal the deal yet and needs to speak with you first.
People who engage with your business come from a wide variety of backgrounds, and in turn they are coming to you with a wide variety of readiness to speak with you.
Warm Leads vs. Cold Leads
In some cases the customer comes straight to you, already confident that they are in need of your services and ready to go.
In other cases, the customer doesn’t have any idea who you are and needs a lot of catching up and convincing before they are ready to make a decision. These are called hot and cold leads respectively, and both are a very important part of any expanding business.
Warm leads take skill to close on, but you have considerable advantages when working with a warm lead as opposed to a cold lead. There are a number of tools that you have at your disposal in these cases that can lead to a positive closure.
When you know a person has an interest, you have the opportunity to skip the introductions and explanations and go straight to showing how you can benefit them directly.
That being said, warm leads are like any lead in that they are never a sure thing, so here are some ways you can take advantage of the benefits of warm leads.
How Confident Should You Be in a Warm Lead?
Before you put too much stock in warm leads as a whole, it is important to keep in mind that you still have to work for them if you want success.
If you want a warm lead to turn hot you need to cultivate it. However, if you fail to put in that work, that lead may instead turn cold on you.
When you are working on a warm lead, make sure that you are treating it like a legitimate client and that you do not start slacking on your workload. Do your best to build rapport with the client and follow up with them regularly to maintain their interest in your services.
You should also be willing to find warm leads in various places. Just because you get a warm lead doesn’t mean you shouldn’t look into different sources.
Social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter, or Instagram are all great ways to market yourself and show people what you have to offer.
Looking for and generating warm leads takes work, so make sure you put the same amount of effort into these kinds of leads as you would any other.
Building Rapport With a Warm Lead
When working with a client, be patient with them and give them time to think about the information you provide for them. Make sure to follow up with them with in-person calls so that they can make a connection with you.
The goal is often to create a personal connection with the person so that you can give your business a human touch. People interested in your business aren’t going to lose interest due to your attention and effort.
Try asking them questions to find the root of the problem they could use your services to fix, and move forward from there.
What makes warm leads great is that this personal connection can be your first step. The person you are talking to may know your price and your services, but they need a real human being to convince them to move forward.
In this case, that personal connection is the entire reason they are engaging with you at all, and it is your job to make that the main priority in your interactions with the client.
Instead of starting with the opening elevator pitch, you can move on to the good stuff and use your interpersonal skills in a way that will win the client over on an issue they were already interested in.
Organizing Your Leads with the Dialed App
Consider using Dialed to organize your network of potential leads in a way that helps you choose how to manage your leads.
Working with cold, warm, and hot leads do have some similarities; all of them have the potential to help you expand, and all of them require that you be at the top of your game when it comes to outreach and building rapport.
That said, within your business, you will have to treat each of these types of leads differently based on their needs.
Using the label feature, you can categorize potential clients based on the type of lead you would classify them as. For example, you could have a group of outreach contacts who are cold leads that haven’t been engaged with yet, while a call list could consist of engaged customers you are keeping up with daily.
For cold clients, you could consider using broadcast messages to reach your cold leads, allowing you to send messages en masse to keep people who haven’t gone warm updated about the current initiatives and plans.
Conclusion
Warm leads offer many benefits and are important to take advantage of when the time comes. While hot and cold leads offer their own challenges, warm leads require that you be at the top of your game to guide the client to the finish line.
Warm leads are by no means a confirmation of business, so do not assume that the interaction is in the bag before you’ve put in the work necessary to make it happen. Focus on using the client’s knowledge to your advantage and connecting with them at an emotional level.
When you have a wide range of leads at different temperatures, use tools like Dialed that can help you manage and coordinate your network to maximize your success. Catering your outreach to different clients will go a long way towards personalizing your approach and connecting with them.
Warm leads are no slouch, but there are a lot of benefits to working with a warm lead that you can utilize. Visit Dialed now for more information and to download the app.
Sources:
Defining Lead Status: Cool, Warm, Hot | JonesPR
