A Journey in Successful MH Marketing—Controlling Lead Distribution

by Joe Adams

Part 1 – Introduction

In the Manufactured Home Industry, as elsewhere, leads received from advertising represent a valuable business asset. As such, all leads belong to the company. Therefore, you must record, control and monitor the names of every potential prospect given to sales and marketing personnel for follow-up. If each name costs about $15.00 to obtain, handing a sales person 50 leads is entrusting him or her with a $750.00 investment. Controlling lead distribution takes on a whole new outlook when you consider leads are a return on a cash investment.

Controlling MHI Lead Distribution
Part 2—Number of Leads an MHI Sales Person or Telephone Marketer can Control

There are limits to the number of prospects an individual sales or marketing person can handle. Leads represent potential income to sales and marketing personnel, and they will take as many names as you give them. Therefore, you need to control the number of leads given to any one person.

A phone marketer's sole responsibility is handling lead follow-up. Thus, they can control a greater number of names than a sales person. An experienced phone marketer can make 30-40 contacts per day. Frequency of calls to prospects range from one week to one year. To determine the number of leads a phone marketer can handle, use three months as an average call-back time. During this three-month period, an experienced phone marketer should make between 1,950 and 2,600 contacts (30-40 calls per day x 5 days a week x 13 weeks in quarter = 1,950 to 2,600). Thus, a good phone marketer should never be given more than 2,600 leads. An average phone marketer makes from 20-30 contacts per day. This marketer should be given 1,300-1,950 leads. Inexperienced phone marketers should only be given about 500-1300 names.

A sales person can comfortably handle up to 500 leads. This number of leads would require them to make an average of seven to eight telephone calls per day. Every sales person, when not in front of a customer, should be on the telephone calling his/her prospects. Many sales people use the excuse that email is the only way to contact people. Although email is an effective marketing tool, telephone calls must be included.

The number of leads being generated by your MH marketing efforts determines the number of employees you need. There is no need to hire additional sales or marketing people if you do not have enough traffic or leads to keep them busy.

Controlling MHI Lead Distribution
Part 3—Why Central Lead Control is Cornerstone to Success

Since leads are a company asset, one individual within your organization must be responsible for controlling all leads. I encourage all to get into the 21st century and use a computer database for lead control. But, whatever method used, your lead control designee should be documenting/entering each prospect's name before it is issued to an employee. Secondly, this employee must distribute all the leads and must know to whom the leads were given. Finally, he/she is responsible for monitoring the lead bank to confirm someone is contacting each prospect. Through recording new leads, controlling distribution and monitoring progress, your lead bank asset is protected.

Centralized lead control also prepares you for possible employee turnover. Consider the total financial investment you have in a marketer controlling 2500 leads. Multiplying the average of $15-cost-per-lead times 2500 leads equals an asset worth $37,500. Add in all the telephone call charges and employee expenses in developing those leads and you are now protecting a $100,000 investment. If a phone marketer decides to leave your company, central lead control is the only insurance you have to protect that investment.

Computerized lead control is an excellent alternative to manual lead supervision. As the number of leads increases, you need a computerized lead system. With the decrease in computer hardware costs, a personal computer to manage leads will improve your total marketing effort. The computer quickly sorts names for targeted direct mail and blast emails, compiles reports, and prints personalized letters and mailing labels. Increasing sales means maximizing your investment.

Controlling MHI Lead Distribution
Part 4—Why Prejudging Leads Shows Poor Marketing Sense

Do not base lead quality on source, status or qualifications of the people who have requested your company or land-lease community's information. Every lead must receive the same priority treatment.

Never prejudge a lead because of its source code. Some sales people will telephone a lead from a specific magazine ad or website before they call one from a classified advertisement. Other sales people will place more emphasis on a prospect who called on your toll-free number. Each of these sales people is guilty of prejudging leads. Sales come from all kinds of sources.

Some sales people feel that certain prospects might not qualify financially, and they hesitate calling them back. Talking to prospects on the telephone is not the place to do a credit report. In fact, in many cases, it is the financial institution's responsibility to work on ways to get people financed. The purpose of lead contact is to provide reasons why a prospect should visit your business. If prospects are not visiting or not showing up for an appointment, the missing elements could be due to insufficient reasons to visit.

Other sales people, after uncovering some information about a prospect, determine the person does not fit their mold for a good buyer. Finding out what people “say” does not mean we know what they might “think.” Sales people are remiss in their marketing effort when they begin evaluating and predicting what a prospect may or may not do.

Controlling MHI Lead Distribution
Part 5—Demanding Lead Accountability

You must account for the number of leads given to each sales or marketing person. Also, their records should reflect the current status of each prospect. By maintaining two management information sheets or computer-generated reports, you can have a summary of your marketing staffs' lead files.

The Lead Activity Report (Fig. 1) provides a format for a manual- or computer-designed report for knowing the number of prospects in a person's file. The form also accounts for new, killed or reassigned leads in an individual's lead bank. Updates should occur whenever you give new leads to a staff member.

Download a .zip file with full-sized images at the bottom of the article.

The Master Lead Record (Fig. 2) shows, by customer number, every lead in a person's file. It is management's responsibility to record new leads, but the form or computer report is updated by the sales or marketing person. The employee places a check-mark when they sell, kill or reassign a lead. With the Master Lead Record, employees must record the reason they are no longer working a lead. Limiting the number of leads that you issue to a sales or marketing person may cause the employee to readily delete names. Requiring a reason for the removal allows monitoring of excessive deletion. Deleting a name does not remove it from the master lead file. Management can decide to reassign the lead and have another person follow-up.

Download a .zip file with full-sized images at the bottom of the article.

By maintaining the Lead Activity Report and Master Lead Record, you have provided the first step in lead accountability. The next important step is ensuring that sales or marketing people contact their leads regularly. The following topic explains how you accomplish control of individual prospects.

Controlling MHI Lead Distribution
Part 6—Using a Three-Part Lead Form or Computer Reports

Issuing leads for follow-up can be as simple as handing an incoming name to a sales person and telling him/her to contact the person. With this system, however, you have no record or knowledge of the status or progress of individual leads. The Lead Information Sheet (Fig. 3) provides a permanent record of all incoming leads and a format conducive for lead follow-up. Lead Information Sheets can be printed on three-part carbonless paper and are near each person's phone. The three-page sheets can be printed and used for manual or computerized lead entry.

Download a .zip file with full-sized images at the bottom of the article.

When your lead control person receives a lead, he/she assigns a customer number and a sales or marketing person. Place the date, person's name, address, telephone number and source code on the information sheet. (A computer can automatically assign the date and customer number.) The owner/developer retains the original copy and updates the master database. The other two copies are retained by the employee for follow-up. The sales person places one copy in the alpha file and the other in his/her suspense file. The Lead Information Sheet becomes the record of the conversations with individual prospects. Of course, with a computer database, manual alpha and suspense files are not needed and information is entered directly into the database.

If the sales or marketing representative decides to discontinue conversations with a prospect, he/she returns both copies of the lead sheet, or indicates in the database by changing a lead status code, that no further contact is planned. The reason for stopping further follow-up must be noted on the bottom section of the form or in the database. These two copies are joined with the original and either reassigned or filed in a non-working lead file. Killed database leads simply remain in the database. For reasons of marketing analysis, they should never be deleted from the file. When a sale occurs, the sales person returns the two copies, and you join them with the original and place in a sold file or change the database file status to SOLD.

You should now have three master files or lead status codes: (1) Individual employee files of active leads, (2) non-working leads and (3) sold leads.

If employees resign or you terminate them and you are using a manual lead system, they must return the two copies of every lead they were assigned. Compare customer numbers to those in the master file to ensure the employee has returned all his/her leads. You now have the sales or marketing person's comments and you can reassign the leads to someone else. Reassignment of leads is simple with a mass update in most databases.

Controlling MHI Lead Distribution
Part 7—Importance of Management Review and Direction

Giving your investment of leads to sales and marketing people for follow-up does not relinquish your responsibility for periodic review and direction. Evaluate the number of leads assigned, killed, reassigned or sold. Also, to ensure that your people are developing prospects properly, you need to examine individual Lead Information Sheets or comments entered in a database.

Do not increase the number of leads to an individual until he/she demonstrates the capability of making the number of calls required for consistent lead follow-up. Use the formula discussed above. Divide the total lead count that appears on the Lead Activity Report by 65 (5 days/week x 13 weeks). For example, if the report shows a sales person has 600 leads, they should be averaging about 9 prospect calls per day. If they are not making the required number of calls, do not issue more leads to that individual. When a sales or marketing person begins killing a large percentage of leads, you need to look at several possibilities. First, check the lead sources of the leads being killed. Compare them to other employees' kill lists. Is there any pattern? A poorly-designed advertisement or marketing effort may cause an increase in unqualified responses. Second, take a sample of killed leads and call the people to determine if these prospects deserve to remain on a call-back list. Third, as a training exercise, listen in on actual prospect telephone conversations. See if qualifying questions are too stringent. Some sales people kill a lead if the prospect is not ready to buy within the sales person's time limit. Finally, review the reasons being given for deleting prospects. If the reasons appear the same, you may have a training problem. Keep in mind that leads represent future sales; each could be valuable if developed properly.

The final area for management review is perusing random Lead Information Sheets or the database. Casual glances are not enough to check the comments written about prospects. Ask yourself these questions: Do the written comments show there was a purpose in each call? Do the notes reveal the prospect is being given positive reasons to visit? Have basic qualification questions been asked and answered? Are there opportunities to use creative mailings, emails, or tweets to specific prospects? Looking at Lead Information Sheets also offers an opportunity for group training. Take a few sheets from each sales and marketing person for discussion in sales or marketing meetings. Working on prospects as a team helps everyone on your staff to improve.

Sales are made by solving customers' problems and filling needs and desires. You will achieve more sales by placing emphasis on management review and direction.

Controlling MHI Lead Distribution
Part 8—Why Lead Re-Assignment Encourages Lead Contact

After reviewing Lead Information Sheets, you will uncover prospects that might be handled better by another sales person.

Some sales people sell more factory-built homes to people they can relate to personally or socially. With apparent differences in personalities, you can reassign leads to a sales person who may more closely match a prospect's temperament, disposition, sense of humor, spirit, attitude or belief.

Personal prejudices are also a cause for lead reassignment. Unfortunately, we still live in a world where prejudices affect how people react to others. Explore possible prospect/sales person conflicts and reassign leads where needed. Biases, bigotry, chauvinism, intolerance, parochialism, partiality, provincialism, racism and sexism are all forms of discrimination that cause discord in relationships. Good sales people can disguise their own prejudices and overlook the prospect's differences. You will achieve better results by reassigning leads when certain sales people cannot mask their own prejudices or respect the preferences of others.

The most difficult mismatch to correct appears when a prospect asks questions the assigned sales person or marketing person cannot adequately answer. Some prospects regard factory construction important and expect the sales person to be well-versed in how the homes are built. Others consider investment opportunities paramount and require the sales person to know all the tax advantages of investing in a home. A prospect may love interior design and wish the sales person could better understand matching colors, designs and interior home features. Prospects, like your sales people, have various educational and business backgrounds. Train sales people to relate to all levels of prospect interests. If sales personnel cannot, or will not, learn new information, then reassign leads to another sales person with whom the prospect can communicate and be more comfortable.

Finally, remember, all leads belong to the MHI company, not the marketer or sales person.

Click to download full-sized versions of the Figures in this article.

For previous articles by Joe Adams in this series, click here.

March - Market Research and Your Customer
April - Shopping the Competition
May - Buying Motives of Seniors

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Joe Adams, President
The Housing Marketplace
Asheville, NC
(828) 891-3911
TheHousingMarketplace.com