How To Follow Up With New Landscaping Leads So That They Actually Respond

Following up with leads can be exhausting. They don’t respond, or they don’t remember who you are and you waste hours of your time trying to get in touch with someone who might never convert into a booked project.

Have you ever considered that maybe no one ever showed you the right way to follow up? You are probably doing your best but trying your best while doing the wrong thing doesn’t get you anywhere.

So read the “Follow Up” playbook and finally learn the right way to follow up with your leads!

 Why Bother Following Up?

Sometimes it feels like following up is a waste of time and it’s better to just wait for a new lead instead of calling someone 10+ times trying to see if they’re interested in doing some landscaping work.

So why should you bother following up with anyone? If they’re interested they’ll call you, right? WRONG.

Yes, some people will call you when they’re interested and that’s great, but that’s only about 10-20% of people. Most of the time, people expect you to send them some information or call them or do something.

Why? Because they are also busy! 

You see, people have jobs, families, and other responsibilities just like you. With that in mind, they took a sliver of time out of their day to fill out your survey send you a message, or contact you in some way (if not they would not be a lead).

They took the first step and now’s your turn to take another step and meet them in the middle. You have a moral obligation to follow up with them if you want the job. Because 9 times out of 10, you are not the only contractor they are talking to so if you want to close more jobs you need to make an effort in showing your potential customers that you CARE!

 Automate Quality

To increase the chances that your follow up efforts will pay off, automate quality.

What I mean by this is that when someone becomes a lead for your business they need to go through some type of qualification process, ideally a form, that very directly qualifies or disqualifies them (check out our Lead Qualification Playbook here).

That way you know that when you are calling a lead, they have a 90% chance of being qualified.

If you qualify harder, it makes more sense to follow up and it won’t feel like a waste of time.

 Use Scripts Or Templates

A simple way of systemizing your follow ups and making it easier on yourself to do it is to have a script for calls and templates for your follow up texts and emails.

That way, there’s no thinking involved and you can even delegate it!

Would it bother you to follow up if it wasn’t you doing it? Exactly.

 Follow Up Methods

There are many ways to follow up with leads. And each should be used depending on the situation.

Let’s break down the different methods and when to use them.

 New Lead Comes In, What Do You Do?

The most important part about following up with leads is speed. If it takes you 3+ hours to follow up with a new lead, the chances of them closing will decrease dramatically, so you want to be on top of it.

If you have other things to do like going to an estimate or completing a job, so be it, that takes priority. But if you see a lead come in and you have a minute, give them a call! Don’t procrastinate.

So the first thing you want to do when a lead comes in is call them. And if they don’t pick up? Call them again!

The way I see it, 1 call doesn’t equal a call. 2 calls equal a call. You need to double dial if someone doesn’t answer because that’s how you get around their “Do Not Disturb” setting.

If you don’t know what to say if a lead picks up, check out our Appointment Setting Playbook here.

 You Double-Dialed & No Answer, What Now?

If you tried to call them and there’s no answer, you still want to try and start a conversation with them.

So at this point you would send them a text message saying something like:

“Hi [NAME], this is [YOUR NAME] with [COMPANY]. I got your information from the form you filled out a few minutes ago for a free landscaping estimate. When’s a good time to get in touch with you so I can get a few more details about what you’re looking for?”

That way you are giving them 2 ways to get in touch with you. First is through the missed calls they’ll have and second through this text that you sent.

 2 Calls & 1 Text Message, Is That It?

By now you’ve made 3 connection attempts with the lead but they haven’t gotten in touch with you. At this point you will feel that it doesn’t make any sense to keep on following up, but I have seen so many clients get leads that don’t respond after 2-3 follow ups and then on the 5th they answer and are a GREAT lead!

You just have to be patient and do everything in your power to get them to respond to you and continue to sales conversation.

So now you want to keep on texting them every 2-3 days just asking if they got your message, if they are still interested in an estimate, etc.

 When To Stop

Ideally, you want to follow up with your leads forever, but I know you won’t do that. So instead, aim to follow up at least 7 times.

This includes phone calls, texts and emails. It has been proven through a lot of testing that 7 follow ups is the ideal amount you should do!

So keep on following up with your leads up to 7 times. And if they don’t respond, add them to your email list and send them weekly or monthly emails.

Now this Follow Up Playbook may have been a bit overwhelming. You probably don’t want to manually follow up 7+ times with every lead you get. If that’s the case, we actually have a way to automate all of your follow ups with new leads so that you can get in touch with them within 5 MINUTES of them filling out your form.

If you want to learn more about how it works, you can see a breakdown here.