Written by Ari Greenbaum, co-founder of conXpros
We have all heard the cliché, “the proof is in the pudding”. I always wondered where this came from and was surprised to learn that the origin goes back to the 14th century. Back then, pudding was not the yummy desert most of us remember from our childhoods, rather usually mixtures of minced meat, cereal, spices, and often blood, stuffed into intestines or stomachs, and boiled or steamed. Apparently, these “sausages” were potentially fatal if not prepared correctly. As a result, the “proof” was in the pudding, literally. You either lived or died. Not the most pleasant of thoughts or images, but it is a fantastic platform to continue my push to educate home improvement contractors on the necessity to utilize texting as a tool when seeking success with homeowners from lead generation efforts. Just like there was an extreme result in some cases with the pudding…death. The analogy can be made to those home improvement and home service pros that use texting and those that do not…it is a matter of life or death with regards to your generating a positive ROI from web based home improvement lead sources. In fact, I cannot recall the last contractor I have spoken with that finds success with leads and does not have texting as a crucial aspect of their multi touch point approach.
In the past, I have shared articles that offered the numbers that support texting. I posted videos to highlight the importance of texting. I have shared interviews with successful pros. I have shared proven processes that many successful pros use to excel. I also have provided platforms that can automate your text game for you and alternatives if you want to do it yourself. If these previous articles did not already get you motivated and excited to incorporate texting to your existing processes, I am confident that the cases I am about to share will provide the push you need to finally make it happen.
If you are not already aware, here at conXpros, we have a Lead Verification Department. They literally call, text, & email EVERY lead we deliver to our clients. The email starts immediately, but the calls and texting start after 30-120 minutes after the lead is delivered to our client. The primary purpose of these exhaustive activities is to proactively “scrub” bad leads that were delivered and to help our clients connect with the homeowner if not already successful in doing so. In addition to the main drivers, we have been able to learn firsthand the power text messaging has in the lead game. In many cases, it goes beyond learning and becomes outright in your face. I am about to share a few real-life situations that will open your eyes like it has for many of us here at conXpros. For privacy, I have taken the liberty to black out the phone number from the homeowner as well as our client’s name mentioned in the text. Otherwise these are screenshots from real text sequences between our Lead Verification Department and the homeowner. (if you are wondering, April and myself are related, she is my awesome wife) Let’s start with a light case and work our way up to the deal sealers…
Case #1: This is a simple case of a text response from the homeowner who simply does not like to talk on the phone and prefers text. If you were the client that received this HVAC replacement lead from a lead company and did not use texting, you would have zero chance to win this opportunity. In fact, our client, who chooses not to use texting, tried to return the lead to us suggesting that they could not contact the homeowner after multiple attempts. Also notice that this homeowner did not respond to the first attempt, but did on the second within minutes of the text being sent.
Case #2: Fortunately, unlike the last case, this next case was for a lead that our client was successful in contacting and providing an estimate for the work. However, I share this one because of the multiple efforts we made internally (image 1) to contact them by phone only to reach a voicemail. Yet we were able to get a response after sending 2 text messages to the same number. Did I mention how important text messaging was?
Case #3: This is a very similar case to the previous one, but with a different and valuable lesson to learn. Often, we get leads returned by our clients that suggest that the homeowner was not interested or denied making the request when contacted by phone. There are a number of theories why a homeowner may suggest this to the caller when in fact the request was legit. But the point is that often homeowners are not in a place to receive a call, or not wanting to talk to someone in general, yet they are more than happy to communicate through text. In this case, our client had a win as they used text and successfully communicated with the homeowner. If they had not, they likely would have been met with the rudeness our verification agent was met with when she called.
Case #4: This case is one of my favorites. We attempted to contact the homeowner by phone, only to reach a voicemail on 3 different occasions. We finally received a response after 2 weeks from the time we sent them the text message. This lead was returned by our client with the reason of “not interested in quotes”. At the time of the credit request, we had not differing information, so like we do with all of our clients, we approved the credit request and returned the charge for the lead. You can understand how silly we felt when this response came back 2 weeks later. But the icing on the cake was what the homeowner shared in their response. As a lead generation company with a generous lead credit policy, you win some and lose some. Clearly, this was a genuine & valid opportunity missed for our client.
Each of these cases were selected because they emphasize different points and aspects of why you must use text messaging when contacting your leads. We have a file full of similar cases that further prove the point. As a company, we strongly encourage every one of our clients to use texting as a primary means of establishing contact with their leads, but this is not limited to the conXpros service. Regardless of what lead generation service you use, there is no logical argument why you should not be using this powerful tool. I began this article with the background of “the proof is in the pudding”. As I previously shared, texting in 2020 can literally be the determining factor of your life or death with lead generation. If you are already doing so, kudos to you! Keep rocking it and I would love to hear about your successes which I am confident are many. For those that have concluded this article and have not yet made a firm commitment to make the positive changes…WAKE UP!! THE PROOF IS IN THE TEXTING!!