A lot of business owners are obsessed with sales - and rightly so. However, to generate sales, you need to create leads. A lead is someone who might be interested in what you have to offer. By catching them, you can thread them through your sales pipeline and (hopefully) end up with a customer. 

An issue is that many businesses lose leads that they really shouldn’t. You’re letting too many slip through your net due to sloppy practices. To demonstrate how easy it is to lose a lot of leads, take a look at the simple ways you can stop them from slipping through your net:

Add a call-to-action

Websites are a great source of both leads and online sales. However, you can miss out on so many potential leads by making this simple mistake: no calls-to-action.

A CTA is a way of telling your web traffic what they should do. It can be something as simple as a button saying ‘Call Now!’ or a form for people to fill in.

Even a ‘buy it now’ button is considered a CTA as you’re literally calling out to people to click the button and buy the product. Without anything like this, people don’t know what to do. They aren’t tempted by anything, so they’ll likely leave, and you’ve missed some valuable leads.

Never miss a call

How often have you been busy or stepped out of the office and seen dozens of missed calls?

It happens a lot, and each missed call could be a missed lead. Someone may have found your details and wanted to get in touch. You didn’t answer, so they’re instantly annoyed and seek out a different business instead. Therefore, you have to ensure you never miss a call again. This is possible thanks to companies like Virtual Headquarters that offer virtual assistants for businesses.

In essence, you get someone else to answer your calls throughout the day. You often have multiple people operating the lines remotely, so you never ever miss a call. Thus, you have plenty of leads caught in your net and ready for action.

Always follow up

Too many businesses are guilty of ignoring potential leads after an initial interaction. They might call you and have a conversation, they may visit your website and add things to their basket, but they never quite go through with the desired action of buying something. They go away, and you don’t hear from them again. If you followed up your leads, you could reel them back in.

Sometimes, they need an extra judge to remind them of your business. This can encourage them to do ahead and make a purchase or do whatever it is you’re asking for. It’s like following up the ball in a soccer match after it hits the post. The players that always follow up are the ones that score! Turn your back on the ball, and you miss an amazing opportunity.

This should you how to stop leads from slipping through your net and also how easy it is to lose out on leads.

Remember, the key to making sales is to generate plenty of leads.

This article was published by Platform Executive, the home of the platform economy.