Close 90% of Sales Leads Without a Proposal

If you’re running an agency or a service-based business and you want to learn how to sell google ads and scale your digital agency, you’ve come to the right place.

This guide will explore exactly how to get the best leads for your company, and how to close leads without a proposal.

Before we begin, this methodology is NOT about stacking em’ high and selling em’ cheap, it’s about quality over quantity and getting good, loyal clients.

The first phone call

Let’s presume that your website is generating leads and your lead generation form is asking all the right questions to understand each lead coming through.

Let’s say you’ve currently got a lead, you’ve checked out their website and you’re confident for an initial phone call to qualify that lead.

On that first call, it’s important to leave the salesmanship behind and work on building a relationship with the prospect by showing you care about their business.

The first call is NOT a sales call but a diagnostic call, essentially understanding their current problems, expectations, aspirations and goals.

You must use this initial call to qualify the lead and determine if they’re a good fit for you and your business. If you’re not turning work away, you’re doing something wrong.

And that goes back to the stack em’ high and sell em’ cheap mentality. You’re not right for everyone and not all leads are right for you.

What to ask?

On the initial phone call, you should be asking your prospective lead about their product, their service and their business.

Ask what’s currently working for them and what’s not. This allows you to recommend your services.

A great question to ask is, “What’s the lifetime value of a customer?” This tells you a couple of things, if they understand the lifetime value of a customer, they will understand the cost of acquisition.

If your prospect has a very low value, then you know that you’ve got to bring a lot of clients their way for them to cover your fee. If your prospect doesn’t know, you can help them understand their lifetime value of a customer.

Another great question to ask is, “What is your 12-month goal?” Because essentially this is how you will be judged.

This 12-month goal may be revenue based, a customer acquisition target or a cost-saving target, but this is how you will be judged in your success.

If their exceptions are too high or don’t meet what you can achieve, tell them politely that you’re not a good fit for their business.

So you’ve asked them about their business, their product and/or service, their successes and struggles, as well as their 12-month target.

A great tool in evaluating and, if needed, “resetting” client expactations is my PPC Performance Forecast Tool* which allows you estimate Google Ads campaign results and budgets without spending a single

In the link above you’ll find a detailed guide, video walk-through and a Free download of the Tool.

I’m not looking…
Go ahead and steal them all

Honestly… 👀

_{(* not to confuse with Google Ads Keyword Forecast Tool)}

These are just a couple of things to frame a long-term view to gain their trust.

What about price?

You may get this question a lot, especially if you don’t put your pricing on your website, “What about pricing?”

Well, you have an obligation here. There are two things you should be saying; either you do packages but would have to look at the value we could give before we’d give an actual specific price, or an estimated amount given their requirements.

Once given a price ask them, “Does this fit your expectations?”

If the prospective client is comfortable and doesn’t have any further objections to price, this is great. If this is where the call falls apart then you know that your qualification process didn’t quite work and they’re not the right fit for you.

The NDA

So if the prospect is a good match and the phone call has highlighted this, send them an NDA because in the PPC industry (or the marketing industry), you will need to access data to qualify this.

Simply tell them you think you’ve got all the information required, you’re going to take this information away, do some analysis on past data, sit down with your team, and so forth.

Then set some expectations at the end of the call with a time of delivery.

The analysis

So, they’ve agreed to continue talking to you, you’ve gained their trust, they’ve signed an NDA and you’ve got access to the things you need.

This analysis is what will help you secure the lead as well as 90% of ALL sales leads.

This review is essentially an audit that demonstrates your expertise whilst reviewing their position, their account and their analytics.

An analysis demonstrates your expertise, understanding and the value you’re bringing to your prospect which will have more of an impact than a hard sell.

Once you’ve sent over the analysis, give them time to digest the content and don’t chase it like a needy salesperson.

If after rifling through the data you are not confident you’re going to get the results they desire, tell them that you’re not a good fit.

A few examples of an analysis revealing red-flag you couldn’t uncover during the interview stage include:

• Broken analytics and/or conversion tracking
• Clunky/Slow website
• Custom-built site full of garbage hardcoded code

Phew 😱.. these scared the sh*e out of me just by typing them.

You got the point.

If the analysis outcome is of that nature, you start the talk “it’s not your fault, it’s me”

But always give them the analysis because if they’re impressed with your methodology and work, they could revise their goals to be more realistic and transparent.

The second call

After the analysis, arrange a second call to validate your feelings, discuss the audit and ensure the goals are still valid after your findings.

The reason why we qualify leads this way because we’re selling value and demonstrating our skills rather than selling time. And by going through this process your fee becomes less of an issue as you’ve built a relationship and the client has trust in you. As long as you don’t overcharge.

The contract

So, match made in heaven right?
Brilliant, fantastic.

Notice that I’ve honoured my promise of winning sales with no proposal?

There is a mini-proposal of sorts, it’s a two-page contract that states KPIs, agreed targets, an outline of what the first month’s work will entail, any project management software that will be used, fees as discussed, a link to T&Cs and then a simple sign here.

Simply ping this two-page document over. You’ve got a sale, they’ve signed the contract, and away you go.

Cracking.

Cold prospects?

What happens if they go cold?

Because it does happen, and you’ve got to give people a chance.

A chance to digest the two-page document, even though it’s two pages long, I typically give people 48 hours to look at the contract and sign it. If they go quiet, even after all this then it’s just a quick touch-base.

Just ping them an email to see if they’ve had a chance to sign it. Often, it’s a case that people are just busy and they may have a few questions that you’ve missed for whatever reason.

If they’re quiet for more than a week, after you’ve chased them once or twice, I would typically ask them to jump back on a call to discuss any concerns.

So that’s it, the process end-to-end and how I convert 90% of qualify leads without a proposal. I hope you found this useful.