Digital Marketing for Contractors

Optimizing Sales Funnels for Better Digital Conversions

• FatCat Strategies • Season 2 • Episode 7

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Title: How to Build and Optimize Your Sales Funnel

Series: Build. Grow. Dominate. – Part 2

In this week’s episode, Janet and Caitlyn kick off Part 2 of their “Build. Grow. Dominate.” series by diving deep into how Level 2 home improvement contractors can structure and optimize their sales funnel to increase conversions. They break down the five essential stages of a contractor's funnel—Awareness, Interest, Consideration, Intent, and Purchase—and offer actionable advice, best practices, and real-world examples for improving each stage.

Whether you’re already generating leads or still building visibility in your market, this episode is packed with tips on how to turn more of those clicks into contracts. From using localized Meta ads and lead magnets to follow-up systems, sales training, and CRM personalization, Janet and Caitlyn cover it all—plus a cautionary tale about how one door-knocker lost a sale by waking a sleeping baby.

🎧 Tune in for practical ways to boost your conversion rates without increasing your ad spend.

Want to find out how we can create a custom digital marketing game plan for your contractor business? Schedule a call with us at fatcatstrategies.com.

Caitlyn:

Welcome to Digital Marketing for Contractors. This podcast is brought to you by Fat Cat Strategies, a full-service digital marketing agency based in Raleigh, North Carolina. We specialize in helping home improvement contractors just like you grow their businesses.

Janet:

Today, you're listening to a series called Build, Grow, Dominate, marketing strategies for every stage of your home improvement business. Every Wednesday, we take a deep dive into the lessons that we've learned from supporting some amazing business owners. in the home improvement industry.

Caitlyn:

In part one, we'll cover the essentials from startup to your first five million. In part two, we're shifting gears to focus on what it takes to scale your business to a successful exit and or how to dominate your market. Now let's get into it.

Janet:

Hey, I'm Janet, the founder here at Fat Cat Strategies, and today I am joined by my colleague, Caitlin Noble. Hey, I

Caitlyn:

am Caitlin, the head of client services. That was a little enthusiastic, but we'll roll with it. It's the first day back after Memorial Day, if you're listening. It is, and I'm enthusiastic. I can't help it. And it's summer. But y'all are probably listening to this. It might be mid-June. Anyways, let's get into it. We're super excited today. We are kicking off. I'm reading Janet's line, but I'm going to go ahead and do it. We are kicking off part two of our Build, Grow, Dominate series. Janet, what is part two?

Janet:

In this two-part series, in the last several episodes, we had a bunch of content targeting what we call a level one contractor. You're getting started. You may be wearing all the hats. You're building your business. You are building your business. Today, we are transitioning into a whole new batch of content. We've got a great series of episodes, and we are focusing on what we like to I call it level two business, and that's where you are growing. You've already established the business, and now you are growing and scaling. We have content for you. You've already built a solid business foundation, and now you wanna sharpen, optimize, and scale. You've got revenue, you've got a presence in your market, and now it's up to you to figure out how to convert those online leads into paying customers. So today's episode is all about your sales funnel and how to structure it. how to optimize it, and how to get better digital conversion rates out of the marketing that we know you're already doing. So Caitlin, help us break it down.

Caitlyn:

Yeah, I love this topic, and I love that this is how we're kicking off the growth version of this series. Since we've built, now let's grow. So what is a sales funnel? Think of your sales funnel as the journey your customers take from the first time they discover your business to the moment that they sign a contract. A good sales funnel isn't just about collecting leads. It's about guiding those leads step by step, removing friction at every stage, and creating moments that build trust and motivate action. Y'all may probably know this. There's some amazing sales partners, tools, leaders. I think Dave Yoho comes to mind and what the Yoho team has done, Tony Hody, et cetera, who have really, really helped you guys start to understand and build your sales funnels. There are four or five core stages within a sales funnel, awareness, interest, consideration, intent, and purchase. We're gonna break down each stage and what you can do to optimize it.

Janet:

I love that, Caitlin. You know I like to repeat things because I'm usually the slow person in the car. So what we're doing today is we're going to break down and talk about these five stages, awareness, interest, consideration, intent, and purchase. And this is the journey that your customers go through before they buy from you. So in that first stage that we're calling awareness, Let's talk a little bit about what that is and what you can do to optimize that part of your sales funnel. So awareness, this is the stage where people first hear about your business. It could be through a Google search. Maybe they saw a Facebook ad. They could have seen one of your yard signs or one of your wrapped trucks. So if you're thinking about how to optimize the awareness stage of this five-stage funnel, let's look at what you can dial in and tweak in the awareness stage. Well, SEO is a great tool or weapon in this awareness stage. You are optimizing for all kinds of of keywords, long-tailed keywords. You are trying to capture somebody who is just at the beginning of their research, trying to solve their problems, and you want your company to show up on their searches. So SEO is one thing you can do to dial in your awareness.

Caitlyn:

I'll interrupt too. Go for it. Just because you said that, and I know if you have listened to part one of this podcast, we also have several other episodes about SEO and how important SEO is. I think that's a really important note though, aware if you have your trucks wrapped, if you've paid for that, if you've paid for these yard signs, you want to make sure your business shows up. Right. I mean, like, I know it sounds as simple as that, but it's not as simple as that.

Janet:

Oh, you, you're talking about like a branded search. Yes. Oh, okay. I see. You're tying them to the two together. So you've paid the money to wrap your side, your, your trucks. You've bought these beautiful yard signs. If someone sees your name in the neighborhood and then they Google your business name, make sure it shows up.

Caitlyn:

Correct. And it doesn't just show up. Right. That it shows up. Well, yeah. Tune into some of our other episodes just to learn more about how to make your SEO work alongside your brand name. So sorry, we're building out of awareness.

Janet:

Yeah. So awareness, what, you know, if, if this whole episode is about taking these five steps of your funnel and then giving you tools to dial in and tweak each step in that awareness step, really dig into your SEO. The other thing that you can dig into is your social media content. Um, especially your social media that showcases real projects with real photos. Make that interesting and shareable. Your Google and meta ads with localized, meaning geographically localized targeting, that's going to help you build that awareness in your target geographies that you want to install jobs in.

Caitlyn:

I'll give another quick example while we're going through this. You know, if you are expanding into new locations, if you, I guess that's the best way to do it, use Meta. If you have an agency or you don't have an agency, use Meta to make sure you're doing that localized targeting. Don't expect you're going to get leads, but do a literally, Meta calls it a brand awareness campaign to announce that you are in this new location. So it's called awareness for a reason. Right.

Janet:

Yeah. So on that awareness front, this is, and I'm going to go a little bit off script here. This is where, um, I think a lot of contractors, you guys are so, aggressive in a good way and you're competitive in a good way and you're action oriented in a good way and your results oriented in a good way and you want to jump straight to the point. Where's my lead? Before a homeowner is willing to give you money, you got to kind of warm them up. Right. You're like, yeah, you know, you're not going to marry a girl on the first date. Well, same situation. Well, I guess some of you may have, I don't know. Grandparents in

Caitlyn:

the,

Janet:

yeah, no judgment here, but like if we're using a dating analogy, you know, you've got to, you've got to build up to that. That's what this awareness stage is. You've got to like, who is this company? Are they in business? SEO, social media, Google, and meta ads. To Caitlin's point, those brand awareness ads. And then on the offline part of it, you know, really consistent visual branding across everything. Make your yard signs look like your trucks. Make your trucks look like the sign hanging over your physical office or showroom. Make that look like your website. Make that look like your ads. It all looks the same. We've

Caitlyn:

even had, you know, clients who run radio ads and we've had like that slogan from the radio ad on the homepage hero so when somebody goes to that client's website they're like oh you're helping them make that

Janet:

mental

Caitlyn:

connection

Janet:

and it reads the same as the radio ad does okay so on this first stage in this five stage journey of your sales funnel funnel awareness what's the goal here your only goal is to get on their radar correct don't try to jump to the chase and sell them something right out of the gate they ain't ready for that Your goal is to get on their radar. You want potential customers and homeowners in your area to first of all, know that you exist, And you specialize in solving their problem. And that's the awareness stage. Caitlin, what is the next stage? Remind everybody. So the second

Caitlyn:

stage in this sales funnel process is the interest. It's now that you're on the site, now that you've gained their interest, they've seen your yard sign, you know, maybe they visited your website, visited your website, you've got some good social, etc. You know, they may be reading a blog post or checking out a gallery. The goal is to capture that interest so they've seen you they've heard about you they've now visited your site how do we continue to spark that interest so there's a couple different tactics that you can use um that we recommend as well for the digital side of things lead magnets that is going to be probably our most favorite um those are going to be uh either by hidden probably behind a form so right now like you've got somebody's interest you want to have their contact in information, obviously, whether it's a phone number or email. So you're going to put a checklist on how to keep your siding clean or tips to make sure your shower is safe for guests this summer, something along that. Put it behind a form, at least an email, capture that, and that's one of the best ways to just go ahead and grab somebody's interest. way to keep somebody's interest. Once you've got their email address, grab Sorry, I'm not really finishing my thought, but now that you've grabbed their email, put them through an email sequence. Follow up with content that's going to help them let this user know that you know what you're talking about. So they've downloaded a guide on Windows for their kitchen. Make sure that that guide is followed up with content about Windows.

Janet:

So to be clear, you're not, at this stage, unless somebody has gone ahead and asked for a quote, you're trying to give people a reason to give you their contact information because they've shown some interest, but they may not be ready to move to the next step yet. That's exactly,

Caitlyn:

yeah, no, yeah, cart before the horse, right? If that's the saying. It is. Yeah. They've seen you. They know about you. You brought awareness. You piqued their awareness. Now let's keep them interested in who you are and what your business can offer. So you've got lead magnets. You now are sending them emails. I think like the top notch version of this is possibly inviting them to like, you know, maybe a showroom, a demo. Yeah. I know I've, you know, received postcards in the mail for a local window company. company who wanted to like just buy my husband and I drinks and apps to learn more about I know no

Speaker 03:

way

Caitlyn:

yes at a little at a local bar I was nine months pregnant so we didn't go but um but like we didn't know this company but this company knew that our neighborhood was filled with homes that needed window replacement and they invited us to a

Janet:

demo to like a demo and a wine tasting yeah that's a great idea you know years ago um On a personal note, I remodeled my kitchen. It was probably the first really big home improvement project I did. It was in 2008, I think. Looking back on it, I realized what kind of ominous timing that was. But at the time, anyway, we remodeled our kitchen. It was a huge investment for us at the time. It was kind of scary. There's a lot of moving parts and pieces to a full kitchen remodel. I mean, they ripped everything out down to the studs. You could see my crawl space through the floor joist when they were done with that first demo day. I mean, it went down to the wires and the studs and there was a dumpster in my driveway. So from a homeowner's perspective, that's a scary project and it was a very expensive project and it was the most... money we'd ever spent on a home improvement project. The company that we hired probably six months before I hired them, they had my awareness. I knew who they were, you know, local company, kitchen and bath galleries here in Raleigh, North Carolina, Raleigh and Cary, very well known, good reputation, multiple showrooms in our area. They hosted, um, a free, I don't even know what you call it. It was like an educational event. Exactly. It was like design your kitchen 101. And I went to that probably four to six months before we were comfortable pulling the trigger. And in that event, it was on like a Sunday afternoon. They had drinks, they had snacks, and they had multiple speakers. And the speakers were like one speaker was about picking cabinets. Another speaker was all about countertops. Another speaker was about like workflow and the work triangle in your space. You know, where the sink is, where the fridge is. Anyway, this is right at that interest phase. I wasn't ready to buy, but I knew who they were and I was interested and they offered me a high value way to interact and engage with them that was low risk for me. Exactly. It was free for me. And then I went on to spend $80,000 with them. Absolutely. Was there at the end of that, was there like a hard ask? I mean, this has been so long ago. I'm sure there was, but at the time, you know, I was I can't do the math right now. Let's say 18 years younger than I am now. Sure. If there was a hard ask, I was sort of oblivious to it. Sure, sure, sure. Because I had not done many big home improvement projects yet. Sure, sure. So it might have like flown over my head even though they were putting me in their sales funnel. Totally, yeah. I'm sure they were.

Caitlyn:

Claws in.

Janet:

Yeah, claws were in. The hook was set. They were reeling me in. I was like a little flopping around fish and didn't even know it. But I was happy to be caught.

Caitlyn:

Totally. So if you don't have the resources, though, to host something like that. Yeah, what's a low-tech version of that, a

Janet:

low-key

Caitlyn:

version? A

Janet:

low, low, low-key version, literally. The thing you said I think is brilliant. I didn't know that. I didn't know that you and John were invited to drinks. Yeah. So they invited everybody in your neighborhood. Yeah, yeah. You had to

Caitlyn:

RSVP.

Janet:

Was it within, like, a good driving distance? Yes, absolutely. It was

Caitlyn:

at a local bar, like around the corner.

Janet:

This is brilliant. So this was a window replacement company totally targeting your neighborhood. and your home was built when? 1990. 1990. It's 2025. Yeah, 35 years old. So it's a 35-year-old home. I've been to her neighborhood, by the way. It's a very nice neighborhood. She lives on a golf course. It's swank. They're older homes, but they're nice older homes with big yards. So this company, this window replacement company, is totally working their sales funnel. They're really doing two things. They're doing that first two-step, awareness and interest. And they're doing it... Through outreach and education. I love

Caitlyn:

it. So that's low key. I mean, that's still hosting an event, but still, like, I think a nice, you don't have to have a showroom, basically.

Janet:

You don't have to have a showroom. Did they mail you the invitation or did they stick it on the flag in your mailbox? Mail. So it was the cost of a direct mail piece, the cost of a list.

Unknown:

Yeah.

Janet:

And the cost of like the facility and the drinks.

Caitlyn:

Yeah,

Janet:

absolutely.

Caitlyn:

So not a very high cost. No, no, it wasn't. So we have awareness. We have interest.

Janet:

Janet, what's the third stage? Consideration. So now you've got, if we're going to go back and forth between all my wild metaphors. Yeah. You know, this is, you know, a fish is swimming by your lure. It's wiggled in the water. They're like, I think I'm going to bite. I think I'm going to bite. That's the consideration phase. So if we're talking about optimizing your sales funnel for this consideration, they know who you are. They're interested in getting this project done. And now they've started to consider your company. What are they doing? This is the point where homeowners are starting to compare. They're looking at you versus your competitor. They're looking at your offers, your history and your background versus another local contractor. So how can you Right, right, right. You can actually create comparison pages on your website. Tell people what makes you different from your local competitors. You can use retargeting ads to stay top of mind. So as a reminder, you guys, you probably know what a remarketing or retargeting ad is, but just quickly what it is, someone comes to your website, they don't call you, they don't fill out a form, and they leave. Your agency can configure ads to show across all kinds of websites, news websites, sports websites, social feeds, video pre-roll, so that that homeowner is being reminded every day, oh yeah, I was looking at this company about replacing windows. So retargeting ads is how you can stay top of mind. You can showcase and highlight your company's track record, history, and positive reviews. So at this consideration stage, It's all about building trust and credibility. You have to show proof that you are the right choice. So

Caitlyn:

I'll continue the story about the invitation to the drinks and the demo, basically about windows and why this company, um, so spot on, like, are you going to get your windows replaced? We already did. So, Oh, I know. I know. I thought about this.

Janet:

Um, I didn't know you got your windows replaced. Oh yeah. Well, look at you all growed

Caitlyn:

up. Oh, So, but this kind of like is, is funny and it kind of goes along with this whole sales funnel. So this company, um, because obviously Janet and I have been doing this for so many years, they're, they're a big player in the area. Um, I didn't want to go with the cheapest. I mean, and I did not with windows. No, I didn't. And I didn't want to go with, um, honestly, a franchise. Like I, and I just didn't like, and, and we have a local client that I wanted to use. Um, But that being said, the timing was great. They knew we had just moved in. This company did. We got invited to drinks. They knew our home needed new windows. And they had already demonstrated to you that they were interested in serving your neighborhood. Exactly, exactly. So that's great. Personally, as I mentioned, the timing wasn't right. For us, it was summer, about to be summer. I was about to have my first baby. We had just moved into the house. Expenses were already what they were. I heard babies were cheap. Free, yeah.

Janet:

Free. Totally free. I think they pay you,

Caitlyn:

don't they? Yeah, we'll see.

Janet:

We'll

Caitlyn:

see how those taxes come back. But that being said, so it wasn't out of mind, especially as the summer started to, like, get super, super, super hot. And downstairs got super hot. And we were all inside all summer because that's what you do when you have a baby. So

Janet:

you were– I'm just going so off script. I know. Here we are. our consideration. This is your like talking about journeys and stages. This is Caitlin becomes an adult where she's starting to have thoughts about energy efficiency and like why the hell is my air conditioner running so much? Why

Caitlyn:

is the air conditioning running so much? Why is my bill so high? I'm already hot and on fire anyways because you're like horrible. And these windows suck. And these windows suck. Oh and all of these bugs were getting in my house and so you're already Just like so super hypersensitive. So that being said, we reached out to that

Janet:

company. We told them that. So you had already done the drinks thing or had been invited to it. You didn't go because you were pregnant. Right. Correct. And just money.

Caitlyn:

Right. But we told them like, hey, thanks for inviting us. Not interested at this time, but maybe later on. So cue this hot ass summer. Yeah. New baby, not knowing what we're doing. That same company comes through and we have like a thing on our door that says, hey, baby is sleeping. Do not disturb. They still knock on our door. Got the dogs riled up, woke the baby up. This same company. I haven't told you the story because I like blocked it all out, honestly. Like that to me lost the business because I was already

Janet:

like, what other signs? Yeah. I was wondering where this story went. I was thinking like knowing you. Yeah. I could see you had kind of earmarking in your head or bookmarking in your head. Like I'm going to replace my windows. I like this company. I like their marketing. Knowing you the way I know you, if they woke up your baby and riled up your dogs, you will fire bomb their house. Oh, I left them a Google review. Yeah. I

Caitlyn:

swear to you, and if you go... I'm surprised you didn't take out a mafia hit on their extended family. I did, and now that Google review has gotten a ton of likes and appreciation.

Janet:

Okay, so here's a tip. This is not in our script anywhere for this episode. No. If you have a Canvas team... You need to talk to them about looking for signs. Like, is there a little stork thing in the yard? Correct. One of those little signs. There was. Like, hey, just had a baby. Maybe don't knock on that door. Or, like,

Caitlyn:

caution, loud dogs. Right. Like, just don't do it. Yeah. And so all of that to be said, we were talking about consideration, like comparing competitors, et cetera. So, like, they had my interest. There was already awareness there. But then they totally. to drop the ball. Totally drop the ball. By knocking on your door. And so like the consideration side of things was I knew this was a company. I knew it would like that was reputable franchise. The pricing would definitely be lower than going with somebody local. But I wanted to go with somebody that i knew i trusted iris that respected you know right not only me and my family but they also had work done um had done work in our neighborhood too so i'm just telling you that whole story because you're wanting to build trust you're

Janet:

wanting to build credibility oh i think this is a fantastic story because I don't know this for a fact, so I'm just going to go out on a limb. I'm going to guess that the companies that have canvassing teams, I'm going to guess... I'm just throwing this out there. At least... Half or 75% of companies that hire canvassers, I'm guessing you're hiring 1099 contractors. These are not long-term employees of your company, I'm guessing. You can contact us and tell us how wrong we are if I'm totally wrong about this. But the point of my digression here is if you are this company that Caitlin's talking about, you've got a fantastic website, you've got 300 Google reviews, you've been in business 20 years, you've got a showroom, and now you've targeted her really nice neighborhood on this golf course in an up-and-coming area, a suburb of Raleigh. A lot of good business can be done out there. So you've stacked up all of the components of a great... reputation and a great marketing campaign. And then your 1099 contractor that was poorly trained. Yeah. And I'm not blaming the door knocker. Correct. I'm blaming whoever the field manager was training, the field manager and the training for, for like nailing into them. Like here's, here's the scripting. Here's what you do. Here's what you don't do. And I'm going to guess that those canvassers were probably incentivized by the number of doors that they knocked. Oh, for sure. Not hot summer. And it was hot. And so they were probably cranky. I'm just saying that you can have a really great campaign and you can have a really good marketing director and you can do so many things right and then lose an opportunity that kind of falls through the cracks because of poor execution and poor training with what I'm guessing was a 1099 canvasser that might have only worked for you for like two weeks. I know.

Caitlyn:

And you know, like I, again, I do this for a living. I, right. So we're

Janet:

very

Caitlyn:

critical of it, you know, like for, for what we do in terms of getting reviews and making sure your reputation and your credibility and your, you know, your proof and all of that's on your website. And so I knew what I was doing when I went on to leave that review which I have found and I will let Janet read after we finish recording this it literally says 11 months ago which is so funny because my baby's going to be one in two weeks so it was so so so so and so you were like out of my mind

Janet:

you were like the most stable you've ever been making the best decisions you've ever made with the most sleep you've ever had and not at all recovering from a major life event like

Caitlyn:

you were calm And, like, the moral of the story is, like, I knew what I was doing when I left that review. And so not only that. I knew you burned somebody's house down. I just didn't know how. I did. But that being said, like. Just build a consideration. Like, I already know who your company is. Like, you've already done a great job with the marketing. Just don't knock on my door.

Janet:

Don't knock on a door that's got one of those stork signs in the yard. Yeah. Because the woman who just had that baby will never forgive you. Mean. And she will hunt you down. Okay. Yes. So we went way out. So we were talking about consideration. Caitlin, the next one, stage four of the funnel, is intent. Intent. So

Caitlyn:

they're almost there. You know, I'm almost there. I was, like, so ready, like, at that point at the end of the summer of to get new windows. I already knew what company I was not going with. That being said, you know, you now have that form submission and they've requested quote or they've called you. Ways to really push somebody over the edge, you know, if they are comparing and price shopping, free consultations, limited offers or discounts. I'm telling you guys, like, things are weird right now and It's a hit or miss when I say offer something, don't offer something. And you'll know that our clients will tell you that. But right now, right now, a big discount is performing well on your website. It is pushing somebody over the edge to choose your company over a free consultation or a free lifetime warranty. Offering $1,000 off, buy one, get one free, that's going to help somebody make that decision. Are

Janet:

any of your clients that you're working with running overt messaging about Potential costs going up. Like, lock your costs in now. Lock in before the manufacturers, you know, put... We've talked about it. I mean, it's such a touchy subject. I don't even want to say the tariff word. Don't say the T word. I mean, that's something that I just don't know if the messaging is... Yeah,

Caitlyn:

and I hope, like, if somebody's listening to this in a year from now, it's a different story. Um... We have not. We've talked to our clients about that exact messaging. Lock in this price right now. Before our costs go up. Before our costs go up. I think people are referring back to offers that worked towards the end of last year, last summer. Typically, summer are some of the slower times, so they're doing their better offers. I wouldn't be surprised if... Not to go completely off subject, but we see that... tariff messaging come the fall too.

Janet:

Yeah. That's the sort of business analysis that I'm reading. Yeah, yeah. Is that's when... consumers may start to see. Oh, for sure. Um, I keep reading stuff about back to school shopping. Absolutely. You know, when you really start to go back to school shopping, you might not have the choice that you know. And then, you know, the store is stocking for Christmas. Right. Um, so, so some of those messaging messages in terms of discounts and offers, I guess what we're saying is we anticipate that we'll just be doing a lot of testing and experimenting and we'll report back and let you know.

Caitlyn:

But don't give up like Because if you've already made the effort to build the awareness, build the intent, to build the consideration, do not stop there. Capture somebody with some compelling messaging. A time-based offer that expires. Yeah, a time-based offer, visuals, et cetera. So again, this is going to reinforce urgency and help those people take the next step to make sure it's just a no-brainer, let's go with your company. Last stage in the sales funnel. That's the purchase stage.

Janet:

It's the stage everybody wants to get to. They try to very quickly. Yeah, and I guess the mistake, and I've said this earlier in the podcast, is where we see people wanting to skip all the steps and go like, where's my leads, where's my sales? We all want the same thing, but you've got to give homeowners respect and let them go through their process. So stage five is that purchase stage. This is all about sealing the deal. You generated awareness, you captured a lead, you booked and confirmed the appointment, don't drop the ball there. So at this stage, what can you do to dial in your sales funnel at that final purchase stage? The very first thing that we recommend is just really fine tuning all of the follow up touches from your team. It needs to be fast, it needs to be clear. You can work on this and tweak your systems with call center scripting when they call to confirm the appointment. You can tweak this with automated text message reminders and automated emails. All of that communication at this, you're almost at the finish line. It needs to be so clear, so fast, so dialed in.

Speaker 03:

The

Janet:

other thing that you can do is really work on your quoting and your contract process. Your sales reps need to be so trained and so confident and really know how to work the room when they're in those in-home sales appointments. So that in-home consultation can make or break this deal. If your marketing is delivering the leads, but your reps are struggling to close those deals, now you have a data point where you know where you can focus your energy. You don't need more leads. You need to improve your closing ratio. And the good news is that in this industry that we all know and love, there's so many great resources to help you improve your sales game at that final stage of your sales funnel. And I think that you can think about improving this final stage in two categories. One category is training and the other category is technology. So if you're thinking about training organizations like Tony Hody, you know, we don't do sales training. We know others who do sales training and Find somebody that you really like and get some outside expertise to help you really dial in every step of how, when, where, and how homeowners are being communicated with. And those sales trainers can help your team. That's on the training side. On the technology side, there's some really cool stuff out there. Like Engage, for example. Engage with an eye. That's the iPad sales presentation software where once you get that deployed and in place you can start to get some metrics let's say you got a team of 10 sales reps you can see through technology like that how far they got into the sales presentation and then you can start to map against okay the reps that get all the way through the sales presentation have a higher or lower closing ratio and then you can start to figure out well maybe my presentation is too long right so At this point, you're almost at the finish line. There are tools and consultants available to help you fine-tune the purchase stage of your sales funnel. And we just encourage you to put systems in place to help you know where to focus your energy because this is a lifelong pursuit, fine-tuning this process. So if your process here at the end is clunky, then you're just losing money. And you need to work on making this step for homeowners as easy and frictionless as possible.

Caitlyn:

Yes. I... I'm trying to decide if we save this part and do it as a separate. But we'll go through it. So we just went through the five stages of what sales funnel looks like. This last part of the episode is optimizing the funnel. What are some of the best practices? Which we kind of touched on throughout the episode. Yeah, exactly. So just fine-tuning your entire funnel. So you're going to analyze and refine. You're going to look at the metrics. When are people dropping off? The bounce rate is something you should always be looking at. Do they ghost you after getting a quote on your website? You can refine that. What are some other best practices?

Janet:

Yeah, so... I want to kind of underline what Caitlin just said. The analyze and refine is true for all five stages. Exactly. You've got your awareness stage, your consideration stage. If you put the right systems in place, you can see where are people falling off and then you can fix that part. So you're analyzing, refining every stage. The next thing you can do is personalize everything. If you can tailor your messaging based on where the homeowner is in their journey, then then it's just going to resonate with them so much more. So you can use CRM tools to segment and deliver the right message at the right time to those leads. And then, you know, kind of going back to what Caitlin said, analyze and refine that, you know, our best practice is use data, not your gut feelings. I mean, your feelings are going to change day to day, uh, based on the last person you just talked to. If you're still running some appointments yourself, you're going to come out of those appointments either on a high cause you sold something or pissed off cause you didn't. Um, try not to use those day to day gut feelings to make big decisions. Instead, there's so many analytics tools heat maps call tracking call recording that can give you even like that engage presentation tool I was talking about at every stage in the funnel there are usually so many tools that you have trouble picking them but if you can get the right ones in place then you can use data and not feelings to continue to refine this whole journey for your customers Caitlin what are some other

Caitlyn:

best practices best practices We've already kind of said it. I'm going to combine these and also just echo again what Janet's been saying, but leverage technology. We've mentioned a couple of different technology partners. I mean, there's a lot of heat mapping tools, like Janet said, that also exist, call tracking tools, presentation tools. There's landing page tools, you name it, where you can use technology to see what works, what doesn't work. I mean, it could be as simple as the color of a button. It could be, I mean, we just ran this experiment for a client out in California, but two separate offers. Like one was a- So you A-B tested the offers. Yeah, exactly. We A-B tested the offers. One was a 50% off installation. Another one was $2,050 off installation. I'll let you guess which one worked. But you can test that. There are tools out there, leveraged technology. 2050, that's a weird number. 2050? I know, but hey. Okay. I know. And then I'm like, is it like because we're in 2000? I don't

Janet:

know. They may not go through all five, but they're going to go through at least three of them before they write you a check or give you their credit card. I guess what we want you to know is that optimizing your sales funnel is not a one time project. Honestly, as an entrepreneur, this is your life's work. Yes. This is it. And it never ends. Think of it more like a daily practice. You brush your teeth every day. You comb your hair every day. That's what optimizing your sales funnel is. You're always working on it. So it's not a project with a start and end date. But with the right tweaks in the right places, you can double or even triple your conversion rates at different stages without having to double your marketing budget. So it is a worthwhile practice to shoe. So if your business is generating leads, but they're not turning enough of them into customers, this is your opportunity to refine your funnel, remove friction, align your sales team, and turn those clicks into contracts. Oh, that's cute.

Caitlyn:

Next week. Next week. Yeah. What are we talking about next week? So we're going to tackle a decision that can quite literally make or break your next stage of growth. We've talked about it in part one. We're going to love it. level it up and talk about it in part two, how to choose the right digital marketing agency as your business scales. So you've likely outgrown the set it and forget it marketing vendors if you even have a marketing vendor. But now you need a strategic partner that truly understands where your business is headed and how to help you get there faster.

Janet:

So thank you. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you for joining us on another episode. If you've gotten value from today's episode, please do us a quick favor. It helps us deliver more content like this. It helps the algorithm so that other people can find us. Leave us a five-star review on Apple or Spotify. It helps other contractors like you find the show and it keeps us bringing you better content every week. Thank you so much. And I hope you join us again. Thanks y'all.

Speaker 00:

Digital marketing for contractors is created by Fat Cat Strategies. For more information, visit fatcatstrategies.com.