How I closed 40% of my leads this month

GM thinkers, I hope the weekend has treated you well. Today is all about value, and I’m giving you everything I know below on increasing your closing rate with new leads.

Improve your call skills first

Recently, I've had multiple daily calls as I launched my new business, thereplyguy.xyz 

My closing rate has been relatively high, with 4/10 leads closed on average and a lot of upselling along the way, so I thought I’d share the exact routine I take each lead through so you can steal my strategy.

If you’ve never done sales before, it might be a bit challenging at first, and I highly encourage you to improve your Sales skills as fast as possible. It will 10x your chances of success. Before diving into the strategy, I thought I’d give you a few ways I’ve improved my confidence to hop on calls with anyone and feel prepared to answer any question.

Take more calls! It sounds simple, but it’s true. I worked at a shoe shop for five years when I moved to the UK at 22. It built my ability to take rejection and think on the fly to respond to unexpected questions. I’m not telling you to get a job in retail, but you can do a few different things.

• Practice interviews: I remember doing interviews regularly during my web2 life. Not because I wanted to change jobs but because I wanted to practice for the day I’d be looking for a new job. It also helped me find my market value based on the salary offers I received. Apply to all the jobs that fit your skills, both web2 and web3, and practice for free with real-life cases.

• Prepare your funnel: This sounds simple, and it is. If you have no idea what you’ll talk about and in what order, you’re heading for the wall faster than Andrew Tate and his Bugatti. You must lead the call and leave no space for doubts in the caller’s mind.

• Pitch yourself to friends: It’s not about selling your service to your friends but asking them to role-play with you for 30 minutes. They must pretend to be that demanding customer who always has objections. The harder they are on you, the more you’ll progress. The ideal friend to do that should have a clear idea of what you offer and should roughly fit your potential client persona.

Ok, now let me take you through my funnel. It’s simple yet effective as I leave no doubt in my lead’s mind I know what I’m talking about while making them comfortable.

Lead The Way:

You must be in charge, the person in front of you is interested otherwise they wouldn’t be on the call, but they want you to reassure them you know your shit. There is a time for you to talk and for them to ask questions. Don’t mix them up. Have a clear plan of how the call is going

Here’s my program for each call

Greetings: The goal is to lighten up the mood, get to know the person for 5 minutes and get an idea of who they are. I always ask where the person is located. We live in an interactive industry, so I rarely speak to someone in my time zone. It isn’t exciting but allows them to talk about themselves briefly.

Call structure: I use the same process every single call.

1. 5-minute intro, which often includes asking where they are in the world, what time is it for you, etc. Simple stuff to get the mood relaxed

2. Call structure explanation, where I detail how the call will go, is a 3 part process.

   1. I will start with an intro of myself. I want to speak first, reinforce my credibility, and allow them to relax rather than put them on the spot immediately.

   2. It is their time to introduce themselves; I want to know their journey to gage how good of a fit they are

   3. It is time to discuss their problem and see if I can help them solve it.

3. Lead the call at all times. It’s all about finding the right rhythm and getting as much information about your client and their pain points as it is about answering those doubts to showcase your ability to help them. It will take practice, but the main thing is to remain in control. The more the client speaks, the better you are doing. Focus on answering each question clearly and quickly.

The closing stage: If the previous points have gone the way I want, it’s time to explain my service in detail and talk money. It’s also where you’ll see objections to your price and negotiations.

My rule is that I don’t give discounts because I know my service is of high value; however, if it’s a referral, a friend, or someone takes multiple packages, I will provide a 10 to 15% discount max below that it’s not worth my time.

That’s it! My process is simple, but it relies on making the caller comfortable, giving them confidence I know my shit, and finally understanding their problem and how I can solve it for them. You'll be left with the negotiations if you’ve done all those steps correctly.

One thing I’m trying to improve is to get a response during the call, positive or negative. I have noticed that the right people will say yes/no on the call. If they’re asking you for time to think about it, but you’ve given them all the information upfront, it’s not a good sign. Ask them what they want to think about, and I promise you 90% of the time, it will be about the price.

When that happens, you can be sure the person did not value your service enough, or they don’t have the financial resources to pay you. Ask them where their doubts are and what they want to think about.

How to overcome that final objection is for another day, and I hope you have found this edition valuable.

Weekly recommendation

I come across a ton of great newsletters each week

As I’m a web3 writer, I thought you might need a web2 ghostwriter, so here’s my friend Tanmay, who’s fantastic at lead gen and outbound, which is something I don’t focus on much 

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Thanks for reading!

As mentioned, I’ve launched a new agency called thereplyguy.xyz. We offer a Done for You reply service on X for founders and builders looking to get their time back to focus on what matters the most to them.

Check this announcement last week explaining the process and some recent testimonials below.

If you are interested, you can book a call on the website directly; I’d love to see how I can help you.