Why use lead boxes?
Can your businesses generate more clients by making the initial contact with the potential customer? Businesses such as Health Clubs, Personal Trainers, Chiropractors, and Cellular phone services, home based cosmetics distributors, Martial Arts Studios, Door and Window installers, Carpet Cleaners, Mortgage Brokers, Time Shares, etc. Many clients and customers to these businesses are often thinking about your service, but have not made the time to come in or did not know you were conveniently located. These consumers are often interested in your service and in many cases; a simple call from you may be just what it takes to set up an appointment with the new customer.
A lead box in a well-placed location can generate 5-20 leads a week. If you get 20% of the leads to visit your business and you close 25% (most businesses do better than these percentages) this will give you approximately 1-3 new customers/clients a month. If you place 12 boxes, you now can generate 12-48 customers/clients a month. At a health club, if your average member generates $37.50 a month. 12-48 new members would generate $450-$1,800 per month or $5,400-$21,600 a year. As you expanded your marketing to 24 lead boxes, you could double these numbers. By investing in 24 boxes + 24 pens + 48 registration pads including shipping = $418. The initial start up cost is under $500. You can easily earn this investment back in as little as a few weeks. Now it is easy to see the cost benefits of using lead boxes as a marketing tool!
Minimize Advertising Waste!
Radio, TV, and Print ads can be very costly. Also, once the ad has appeared, it is gone. When you run an expensive ad, it reaches a wide array of people, many of whom are not interested in your service or product. Aside from not reaching your target market, you then rely on the consumer to contact your business. Each day that passes, the more likely the consumer has forgotten about your service and will not contact you. A lead box stays in place and can continue to generate leads for several months.
Frequency should be your goal when creating your marketing strategy. Guerilla marketing tactics are very effective and lead box marketing is often the most effective and cost efficient program to implement. Your campaigns should try to hit your core market (those that live or work within 15 minutes from your location) as many times as possible. Select locations to place your lead boxes within a 15 minute radius from your location. A convenient location to a potential client’s home or work is the strongest factor in obtaining their business. Try places like vitamin and health food stores such as GNC’s, Whole Foods Market, and Bread & Circus. Juice bars, sandwich shops, coffee shops, such as Starbucks, fast food restaurants, pizza restaurants, sporting good stores, athletic shoe stores, hair & nail salons, Jiffy Lube, car tire shops, record stores, auto dealers and auto repair shops, car washes, and small markets. Look for businesses that provide a luxury service, i.e. a car wash. It is very easy to wash your own car, but people who go to a car wash tend to be people who are willing to spend more on privileged services. Do not limit your possibilities on lead box placement based on the store. However, place more emphasis on stores with high foot traffic and look to place them in front of where the customer will be in the store. Remember, the main determining factor is a convenient location to your place of business. You can always remove the box if it does not supply enough quality leads.
Our minimum order is 12 plastic boxes or 25 cardboard boxes. When using the lead box marketing system, quantity is of major importance. Our goal when selling our boxes to first time customers is to create a new long-term customer and establish a strong rapport. In order to start a good lead box marketing program, it is important that your time invested provide you with a good return. To make your program successful, you should place a minimum of 25 boxes and expand from this starting point. Consider our Box Manger computer software for organizing your leads, appointments and tracking your lead boxes.
An attractive box and artwork is important. However, an attractive offer is even more important. 2-week to one year free memberships for health clubs tends to work well. For chiropractors, a free massage, specialized treatment or gift certificate can work better than offering a simple consultation. In addition, you should include a free offer to each registrant. For example, a health club ad would say “Enter to win a free one year membership!” Underneath would read, “Receive a 2-week membership just for entering.” Do not get too fancy or try to convey everything your business does. This only confuses the potential lead. A simple attractive offer and picture that clearly indicates what your business does will work better than a busy information loaded design.
It is important to have a well-kept and well-stocked lead box. It will be a good representation of your business, as well as the business it is placed in. It will also be more attractive to the potential customer. In order to achieve this, the salesman will have to maintain the route on a regular basis. We recommend a route that takes about 2-4 hours to service and should be serviced at least once per week. A route should have between 10-20 locations; this means the salesman has about 5-10 minutes to service each box. He should always have some extra pens and registration pads with him. If the manager is not busy, he should say, “Hello” and make some small talk. The better the rapport created with the manager as well as employees, the better the box will fare at the site. Again, it is important to stick to a timeline; this is not a socialization time. A few kind words and a “Have a nice day” in many cases is sufficient enough.
CREATING THE ROUTE
This is the first step and most time consuming, as well as one of the most important aspects to making a lead box marketing system work. As stated previously, the strongest factor in determining whether a potential client will use your service is a convenient location to his/her place or work or residence. This should limit your area to a 10-15 minute radius from your business. Salespeople should immediately focus their attention to malls and strip malls in this area. Working on foot, they should enter each business one after the other with a fully equipped lead box prepared to be left behind. Ask for the manager or owner, if this person is not in, find out what time they are regularly in and leave behind a business card with a guest pass and/or coupon from your business, and short letter describing your intentions. Remember to take a business card so you can call back at another time. The next time you enter this business when you are servicing the route; you can inquire again about leaving a lead box and will have a better chance of the store manager remembering you. If the manager is in, introduce yourself and hand him a business card. Explain to him what your service is and that you are trying to reach people within the community through existing local businesses. Offer the owner/manager a free membership to your gym if you are a gym owner, a massage or chiropractic treatment if you are a chiropractor or some other form of barter. Another incentive to offer the business owner is a coupon for his/her business that is distributed at your office to your clientele. Be prepared to hand out guest passes or free coupons to each business for the employees. In addition, I like to give the employees a discount off the initiation fee. i.e a company or “corporate” discount. This will create more value in your offer and give the business owner more incentive to your promotion. Once you have provided the manager with several hundred dollars in coupons to your business, ask him if you could leave a lead box on a counter. You can also offer to hand out his literature at your business. If he is not interested, you may ask why not? Do not over pursue this issue. This is for your information in the future and may help you increase your box placement rate. Simply move on to the next store. It is very important to get a business card and the person’s name. This will give you a reminder of where you have placed the box. You can use our specifically designed Box Manager Tracking Software to organize and assist your sales team in tracking leads and their success. When the promotional passes are redeemed, treat the individual business employees as potential clients. In other words, use the same sales techniques that you would with a typical lead who is interested in your service. In some cases you will have handed out guest passes and coupons and not received permission to leave a box at the business. This is not a loss, because it is conceivable that one of the employees will respond to the coupons you left behind. In this case, you spent 5-minutes of time and may receive one or more quality leads.
When contacting leads on the phone, set the appointment as close to the call date as possible. Create additional benefit to come in right away. To increase appointment show rates, create a drawing or special offer the potential client will receive just for showing up. When the appointment shows, take the time to sit down and find out what the potential client is interested in accomplishing. You are looking at a potential long-term client so show them you are interested in helping them achieve their goals alleviating their discomforts and problems, or providing a high level of service. In any sales procedure, ask questions that will make them say “yes”. For example, if you are a health club, asking a questions like “would you like to lose the love handles and firm up some?” This will always be answered with a “yes”. “Do you see yourself making the commitment to exercise?” Again this should be answered with a “yes”. If it is not, you must ask a follow up question to find out about their level of commitment or interest. Make a strong first impression without putting undue pressure to purchase your services the same day. Having a post time for them to cancel their decision to join or accept a service within a 2-4 week period shows that you are reputable and honest. Try an automatic close procedure: the potential client fills out the paperwork to join or receive a service, but is given a window (2-4 weeks) to cancel their decision and receive a money back guarantee. Offer the person a discount for agreeing to join immediately or give the person 2 days to decide. At the end of the trial period, they are automatically enrolled to your service and their billing begins. If they decline the initial offer, they still receive their temporary trial, but then if they decide to join at a later date within the trial, they must pay a full price membership. In any instance, follow up very quickly with the potential client as the window for signing them up is between 1-2 weeks after the initial meeting.
Script for Health Club or Martial Arts Sales Regardless of the script you decide to use, the most important factor is presentation. I like this script because even for a novice salesperson, there is reply to almost all objections a lead would have. Part of this selling point is the extended free trial period and a discount on the initiation fee, but the overall percentage of new member sign ups should increase dramatically. The main purpose of this script is to maximize the amount of new members you initially sign up. The percentages show that someone who does not sign up initially will not join later and someone who does join will not cancel inside of 30 days. Script- Hello, this is ______________, over at ______________, and I am calling to let you know you are eligible for our Free Year drawing that you signed up for at ____________(business location where the lead came from). This drawing is available to you and up to 3 of your friends. Are you familiar with (your business)? (“No” reply) – provide some background information, be enthusiastic. (“Yes” reply) – Review the lead’s areas of interest and re-enforce the lead’s interest in fitness, etc. “As I mentioned earlier, you and up to 3 of your friends are eligible for the “Free Prize Package” when you come in to visit and tour. I would like to show you around, answer any questions you may have, and just for coming in, you will receive a free week pass. In addition, you have the chance to win coupons and Free gift certificates from (local businesses). Is there a convenient time for you to come in this week?” (Offer an incentive for the lead to come in ASAP). The longer the appointment is set to a date further from the current date, the less chance the lead will show. The art is to be enthusiastic, strong, and confident, without coming off as a pushy, stereotypical salesman. Set the appointment and make sure you have a good scheduling system so you can follow up the day before as a reminder. This is a must! When the lead comes in for their appointment, make them feel privileged. Do not make them wait, offer them a drink, this can be a great ice breaker strategy that will make the lead feel special. This will differentiate your sales technique from other clubs. Think of the tour as your sales process, not when you a asking them to join and they say “no”. If you use the tour as a tour, then your sales will suffer. The lead must be sold by the time the tour is finished. Filling out the paperwork and exchanging money should just be a formality, not the sales process! “Thank you for coming in.” Start with their interests, “What are you looking for?” “What are your goals?” “I think we will be able to fully accommodate your goals and needs.” “Let me show you the club, answer any questions and then you will have the opportunity to draw for the Free Membership and other prizes.” On the tour, you will continually ask questions that will make them say “yes”. “Is this the type of facility you see your self working out at?” “Can you make it in 3 days a week?” “How about 2 days plus a weekend day?” “Would you like to lose weight?” These type of questions will provoke a yes answer and the lead will start to envision themselves in the club. The goal at this time is to have them ready to join and fill out the paper work. Upon completion of the tour, have the lead(s) draw for a free membership. The most convenient method for organizing this drawing is to use a fishbowl filled with poker chips. You can control the odds by adding or decreasing the amount of chips in the bowl. Mark one chip with the free membership. Mark several others with coupons and gift certificates from local businesses. Assuming the lead draws an unmarked chip, inform them that this chip if you select to turn it in today has a (X) value at the club. By turning it in and signing up as a new member, you can double or triple your free week pass that you automatically receive. In addition, you will receive an (X) $$ discount from your initiation fee. “Does that sound good?” “Let’s do this, you’re ready to start your Workout program, I will fill out the paperwork, get your EFT dues set up, and can issue you a membership card today. Other than a (X $) amount that you would pay for today, nothing will be billed of charged for this first month. So, are you ready? If you receive an objection, re-enforce the notion, in order to take advantage of the offer, the lead has 48 hours to turn in the chip to receive this offer. If you want to wait till tomorrow, better to use the time to workout out instead of take the time to fill out paperwork. “Remember, you are going to receive the first month free and will have the option to cancel at the end of the month. You will receive your initiation fee back minus a small cancellation fee”. “In essence, you have minimal to no financial obligation, and you get to really try out the gym for a month. It is a win, win for everyone”. “Our gym is set up and created to maximize the use of YOUR time. Our purpose is to make health and fitness more simple and convenient to you. If you have one hour a day to exercise, we want to make sure you are best able to use this entire time for this purpose. WHY come in tomorrow and waste time going through this process again when you could be exercising. You have the entire month to decide. This way you can be honest with yourself and can make a better decision for your own well being”. If you receive an objection about checking with a spouse before doing anything- “How about this solution, do you think he or she would also want to join? Great, I will add him(her) to your membership. (S)he will receive the same offer of a free month. At the end of the month, if either of you want to cancel, just come in and let me know. If not, great! You go on the family rate and there will be a small one time charge of (X$) for the two person initiation fee”. You can’t let them walk out without signing up! |
