159. These Tactics Prevent Ghosting AND Revive Leads - podcast episode cover

159. These Tactics Prevent Ghosting AND Revive Leads

Apr 08, 20258 min
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Summary

Michael King shares proven tactics for fractional CFOs to manage sales leads effectively. He covers the importance of booking follow-up calls on the spot to prevent delays, introduces a 'nine-word email sequence' for reviving old, unresponsive leads, and advises using a specific 'where should we go from here?' email combined with direct phone calls for recently ghosted prospects. The episode highlights practical approaches to improve conversion rates and firm efficiency.

Episode description

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If you’re new to the podcast, my name is Michael King. I’ve been building and managing my Fractional CFO firm, KFE Solutions, since 2016. I’ve also coached hundreds of other Fractional CFO firm owners to help them start and scale their firms as well.

Today, I share the lessons I’ve learned over the past 8+ years to help others build their firms and have an outsized impact on their clients.

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Transcript

Book Immediate Follow-Up Calls

How many of you, when you finish up a sales call, they give you the, hey, I need to think about it. They're just slow decision makers. This is an awesome email campaign to re-engage old leads. What's called the nine-word email sequence. This is how it works. If they ghost you, what's the follow-up email that you send? I'm using this one right now. It's working pretty well. I got two replies from it yesterday. Thing number one that we're doing right now that's like no brainer, no shit.

How did I not think of this before? But how many of you when you you finish up a sales call, they give you the, hey, I need to think about it or look at the number. Like you do all the things and they're just, they're just slow decision makers. They want to go and and they want to talk to their wife or they want to take it to their EOS meeting which we do that so

You know, no shade to people that want to do that. But then you're like, Okay, cool. Well, when's your EOS meeting? Or when are you gonna meet with well, we'll meet next week. Okay, cool. Follow up with me afterwards or I'll reach out to you and follow up after that. Have have you guys ever done that? Okay. Well, here's the no-brainer, no shit. Book the follow-up call on the spot. We're going to our EOS meeting. Hey, you know what?

So you don't have to chase me down after your EOS meeting. Why don't we pull our calendars up right now and book that call maybe just 15 minutes to see if you have any questions or if you have any concerns after you Come back from your EOS meeting. Would you be a post and just pulling your calendar up right now so you don't have to chase me down? Yesterday, I'm on the call.

with the with the manufacturing company. And I said, hey, let's book the call right now. And what I found out is him and his family, the whole extended family, they're going on vacation in the mountains of Colombia. question mark, something like that, for like a week. And I know that if I hadn't booked the call with them right then and there for when they get back, what happens when you go on vacation? You get busy, there's a bunch of fires that come up in the business while you're gone.

All kinds of shit comes up. We got the call booked right then and there. He's already accepted the call. He accepted the call right there on the spot. Now I know it's booked. I don't have to worry about.

About fighting through his inbox. You get back from a week or 10 days of vacation, you got 300 emails. I don't have to worry about him not seeing that in his inbox now. I'm already on his calendar. On that calendar invite, I put down why the call's important. What are we gonna talk about on the call? It's right there. Boom, boom, boom. So it's not just a follow-up call. So I put right on the invite. Here's the three things we're going to talk about on the call. The third thing on there is.

Next steps to work together. A little bit of presumptuousness. We're gonna put it right there. We're gonna assume we're working together. Keep that in his mind. So this is a no-brainer one. I feel stupid. I've always been like, well. Okay. Timid Mike, okay, I guess if you wanna I'll find it. Follow up with you later. Enjoy your vacation. You know, never hear from them again. No, just be bold. Put it on the calendar right now. This number two.

Email Tactics To Revive Leads

Nine word email sequence. This is an awesome email campaign to re-engage old leads. How many of you have sent out proposed, like Like you've done sales calls, you sent out the proposals for different reasons they said no and you never hear from them again and you never touch face with them again. Have any of you ever done that where you went through all the work to get the lead, all the work to get them on a sales call?

time or you botch the skills call, whatever. And now you've just got a closet full of skeletal leads or lead skeletons in the closet. You're like, gosh, what could I do to just shake the tree a little bit and see if there's something there? What's called the nine word email sequence. It works great. This is how it works. Subject line. Jim, quick question for you. Have you given up on hiring a fractional CFO? Nine words. Sign Mike at the bottom. Or you might say,

Are you still looking for help increasing profitability? Or you might say, are you still looking to find ways to increase cash and reduce debt? Whatever it was they talked to you about on the sales call that they were trying to do. So that's why it's important to take notes on your sales calls.

along the way. What are those things that they're trying to accomplish? But it's just nine words in the email and then with the little dash and your name at the bottom. It's a great way. It's a little mysterious. Wait, well, why is he asking? What what's Gretchen got for me? Why, why, why would she ask? What

She have some new ideas or something new going on. And especially if you can be specific, increasing profitability, increasing cash, reducing debt peaks the interest. So shoot those out six months after somebody is gone. You know, it's they ghosted you, you haven't heard from them again. Put a recurring reminder up.

Inside of your Asana or or ClickUp, you can use Apple reminders, Google remind it doesn't matter. Just put some kind of reminder, you know, okay, I sent the last email to Deb. I haven't heard from Deb or Jim or whoever. Six months from now, send nine-word email. Ask about reducing debt. It takes 30 seconds, maybe, because it's pretty much templated out. And who knows what's gonna happen as a result. Works great, low effort. We have had much success with this.

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Direct Engagement For Ghosted Leads

Number three, how many of you do a sales call? They give you the I'm gonna think about you didn't set the follow-up meeting or they didn't show up to the follow-up meeting, but they ghost you. What do you do? What's what's the A follow-up email that you send. I'm using this one right now. It's working pretty well. I got reply, two replies from yesterday. Jim, I emailed you a few times.

Since our call last week and haven't heard back. Where should we go from here? I don't know what the psychology is behind this, but it works. It reignites the conversation. I've got like a 50% response rate on this. Sorry, got busy. I was on vacation. I forgot to tell you I was gone last week.

And got busy. Thanks for reminding me. Let's get on a call. Lost track of this. Oh my gosh. I'm so sorry. Can you send the proposal again? We're ready to move forward. There's something about where should we go from here that people feel responsible to reply to. I don't know what it is. But again, it it's perfect when you're ghosted and it's low effort. You don't have to put a t a ton of time or anything. Copy and paste it right here. Use this template. There's no magic to it. Don't

Don't change it around. Just use this template. Now, with this, I'm also going to make a suggestion that will feel uncomfortable to a lot of you. And that is pick up. the mother loving phone and call people. If you've had a sales call with them and the sales call went well and it felt like a good fit and they want to move forward, stop texting.

Stop emailing, pick up the phone and call them. Two weeks ago, I'm back and forth with Greg. We had a lead that we met at the Dave Ramsey event. They were all hot, ready to go, rah, rah, rah, fractional CFO, Jeff. Ghost. And he's like, hey, I'm I'm in texting them, you know, this is what I said or email and guys, what what should I what should I do? Should I text him next or email next?

I said Greg, pick up the phone, man. Pick up the phone and call. He picks up the phone, he calls him. Hey guys, haven't heard back from you. What's going on? Man, we have been talking about your last text that you spent for a week internally figuring out how we want to respond and what we want to do. But you know what? It's time to quit talking about it.

Let's just do it. And we signed the client right there. On the phone call, Greg signed the client. So pick up the phone. Quit being a wuss. Dial the phone. No one's gonna get mad at you. You're not gonna go to iPhone jail because you picked up and dialed somebody's number.

All right, my friends, I hope you found this episode helpful. If you did, it would mean the world to me if you would leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you're listening to this episode. In the meantime, I can't wait to see you back right here next week. I'll see you.

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