How would you solve this problem?
You’re given a bunch of referrals. The referrals really need your help, but there’s a third party gatekeeper preventing you from contacting them directly.
This is exactly a scenario a client of ours faces.
Steve runs a leading product recall consultancy. He helps organisations create product recall contingency plans and manage recalls if they occur. His clients range from small businesses who put specialised products on our Supermarket shelves, to major multi-national, household brand names.
Why you might need a recall plan is beyond the scope of this article. Suffice to say mismanaging a product recall could cost you major contracts with your distributers, inflict major brand damage and in many cases send you broke!
And it happens far more often than you might realise. In January 2013 there were 22 different recalls in Australia!
Given this you’d think every organisation that sells physical products should have a product recall and risk mitigation strategy.
But alas, prevention is always harder to sell than cure and the belief, “It’ll never happen to me” is rife. Until it does, of course – which is then often too late and the damage to reputation and loss of money puts many out of business.
Therefore to get traction, Steve has to educate his market, patiently explaining the benefits of having a recall plan and of course, the risks of doing so.
So what’s stopping him?
Even though the referrals all come from the Insurance Company that underwrites the policies, Steve first has to get through a gatekeeper – the independent broker who sold the insurance and “owns” the client.
Brokers are concerned about selling insurance. They don’t know Steve, and his service is not top of mind for them and many wouldn’t see the value.
Therefore Steve’s first job is to establish a relationship with each broker, to show them why it’s in their best interest to put him in touch with their clients.
Then he needs to keep in touch with them regarding every potential referral to ensure the broker sends the details.
And once they’ve given Steve permission to contact their clients, he needs to start that education process all over again with the policy holder, leading to a “risk assessment” meeting and a sale.
In essence, his job is twofold:
- a)Convince the gatekeeper (broker) to let him through.
- b)Convince the policy holders that he can help them potentially prevent disaster.
Easy to do if you only have a handful of leads. But when the numbers increase, it soon becomes unmanageable and stuff will inevitably fall through the cracks.
So this is the solution we’ve come up with and are implementing as we speak… 
As a broad outline, it contains two funnels.
The first is designed to reach out to new brokers with a sequence of emails/letters introducing Steve, his services and what he can do for their end clients.
The sequence includes an introduction, followed a few days later by a White Paper which highlights the risks around product recall and why you need a plan.
Over time recipients will receive real life case studies – where things have gone well, or due to a lack of planning and bad execution, the catastrophic results they’ve experienced.
The messages start gently (the carrot) and each touch point encourages the broker to pick up the phone and contact Steve.
However, some brokers need more of a wakeup call. (The stick)
Steve proceeds to highlight how some major brokers have lost multi-million dollar clients because they hadn’t informed them that product recall consultancy would have been paid for by the insurance underwriter and available at no cost to them. The client had had a disaster which could have been averted if only they’d known how to deal with it.
Still no call?
Our system automatically triggers an outbound call alert so Steve can pick up the phone and contact the broker directly.
Once Steve has the end client’s details, he enters them into the system where a similar introduction and warm-up sequence is automatically triggered.
Every client is unique. As Steve also knows the industry the client belongs to, he can trigger sending customised industry case studies and other material which directly relate to this type of client.
First education, then cranking up the pain and showing them a solution which could save their bacon.
So how do you go about implementing this form of automated lead generation and nurturing solution in your business?
This is what we can implement for you…
We work with you to put the entire strategy together. We determine the pain/pleasure reasons why your clients would want to take action, and why they should use you.
We design the touch points, write the marketing messages, and most importantly, implement the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and automated follow up system.
Automatically nurturing prospects who aren’t ready to buy with on-going information, you steadily move them down the sales funnel toward being more receptive to your product or service.
This enables you to spend your valuable time with prospects who are ready to buy.
Yes, it will require an initial investment of dollars and time. But once it’s set up, it’s a set and forget system that will help you convert far more prospects into good quality clients.
The alternative? You run an ad-hoc system where you spend time inappropriately with people not ready to buy, things fall through the cracks and you have no control over your sales process.
And finally, these lead generation systems are evergreen. You set them up once and they keep running forever, bringing in a steady stream of new sales and giving you your time back!
So call us today on (02) 9499-7958 so we can get started implementing a lead generation and nurturing system which will see your business dramatically improve.
