Speed-to-Lead: The Sales Lever Most Businesses Ignore

Summary

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Special Ops with Emma Rainville

Episode Summary: "Speed-to-Lead: The Sales Lever Most Businesses Ignore"

Date: March 10, 2026
Host: Emma Rainville
Guest: Mitch Barham

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Main Theme & Purpose

This episode centers on the essential—but often overlooked—sales lever of "speed to lead" for businesses of all sizes. Emma Rainville and guest Mitch Barham deliver tactical strategies to help listeners dramatically improve lead conversion rates, whether they're solo operators or running bigger teams. They break down actionable steps, automation hacks, and best practices for responding to leads quickly and nurturing both hot and cold prospects. The episode's tone is candid, practical, and peppered with real-world stories from marketing and sales trenches.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Critical Importance of Speed-to-Lead

• Don’t Waste Your Ad Spend
  • Both hosts stress that running ads without a solid follow-up process is "such a waste of money" ([00:00]).
• First Contact Timing
  • Real-world example: Mitch describes a publicly traded client who waited three days to contact leads—until the holding company CEO decreed follow-up must happen within five minutes ([04:02]).
  • "Three minutes. Three minute rule." – Emma, [04:13]
  • "Speed to lead is everything." – Mitch, [02:31]

2. Lead Scoring & Qualifying

• Evaluating Leads for Intent
  • Use lead scoring to prioritize who gets immediate attention: Did they download content, attend webinars, look at case studies? Higher engagement = higher intent ([04:14]-[05:49]).
  • Match against your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP).

3. Tools & Automations For Any Team Size

• Solopreneurs to Sales Teams
  • Automation is accessible for everyone—texts, ringless voicemails, personalized email triggers ([07:04]-[08:53]).
  • Email timing trick:
    "I would challenge you to send them an email as soon as they open an email." – Emma, [07:05]
• Ringless Voicemail & Human Touch
  • Authentic-sounding, unscripted voicemails outperform robotic or obviously automated messages ([10:01]-[11:14]).
  • "There's just a bunch of things you can do that just bring in like human touch, right?" – Emma, [10:56]
  • Example script: Fumbling voicemail to mimic authenticity.

4. Rethinking Sales Calls vs. Text

• Frictionless Communication
  • Both admit to preferring text over calls and notice higher response and conversion via simple text sequences instead of forcing booked calls ([13:28]-[15:29]).
  • "Just text back and forth...send them a link to buy." – Emma, [18:05]-[18:16]
• Automated Follow-Up
  • Use tools like Go High Level for instant texting, and only jump on a call if absolutely necessary.

5. Contracts & Invoices

• Contract Sequence Debate
  • Should you send contract or invoice first?
    • Mitch: "Invoice." Emma: "I always send the contract first. I think I'm going to swap it" ([18:17]-[18:28]).
    • They note a contract can intimidate potential buyers.

6. Handling Unqualified (Cold) Leads

• Don’t Ignore Cold Leads
  • Nurture with value (YouTube content, low-ticket offers, books, memberships for free resources, etc.) ([21:39]-[25:49]).
  • "They can do tons of things for you...You can create subscribers out of them." – Emma, [22:10]
• Help Email Deliverability & Brand
  • Engaged but unqualified leads can boost webinar attendance, become brand advocates, and help with email deliverability.

7. Ongoing Value & Consistent Touchpoints

• Daily Emails & Personalization

  • Emma shares she personally writes daily emails, using recent engagement data and stories for high relevance ([26:25]-[27:26]).
  • Subject lines like "Why I fired him" drive high engagement.

• Keep All Leads in Your World

  • Maintain nurture sequences, constantly deliver value, and revisit automation strategies regularly, even for low-yield industries.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "Speed to lead is everything."
  — Mitch Barham, [02:31]

• "Three minutes. Three minute rule."
  — Emma Rainville, [04:13]

• "It’s too easy now. Too easy to reach out to leads. So stop spending money to get leads, not to cultivate them."
  — Emma Rainville, [28:23]

• "If you have an email sequence on your leads, I would challenge you to send them an email as soon as they open an email."
  — Emma Rainville, [07:05]

• "I've gotten texts from, like, Perry where they legitimately seems like they were from Perry."
  — Mitch Barham, [09:39]

• "If I want to have a quick answer I'm going to call every time...for everything else, voice to text is my best friend."
  — Emma Rainville, [17:00]

• "Why are we putting all of the responsibility and onus on the person that we want to give us money?"
  — Emma Rainville, [17:40]

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Important Segment Timestamps

• 00:00 – 00:35: Cold open, ad spend cautions, intro to speed-to-lead concept
• 02:31 – 04:13: Mitch's story: Big company slow on leads, CEO demands five-minute rule
• 05:28 – 06:41: Lead scoring and the payoff for the client—$45M in extra revenue
• 07:04 – 07:45: Email sequence timing and engagement tactics
• 09:51 – 11:14: Authentic ringless voicemail techniques and effects
• 13:28 – 15:29: Shifting from booked calls to text-driven sales processes
• 17:40: Discussion on reducing friction and focusing on buyer convenience
• 21:39 – 23:47: Strategies for unqualified/cold leads: nurture, value, and community
• 26:25 – 27:26: Emma’s daily email routine and real-world engagement stories
• 27:42 – 28:23: Final push: Three-minute follow-up, closing remarks, and playbook offer

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Actionable Takeaways

• Responsiveness is Revenue: Reach out to new leads ideally within three minutes—via SMS, voicemail, or email—to maximize conversions.
• Automate For Scale: Use automation tools even if you’re solo. Instant texts, personalized voicemails, and event-triggered emails are accessible to all.
• Segment & Score: Lead scoring helps you prioritize efforts and avoid wasting follow-up energy on "tire kickers."
• Nurture All Prospects: Don’t ignore cold or unqualified leads—channel them into educational content, eBook sales, memberships, or community to build long-term value.
• Modern Buyer Preferences: People prefer text or asynchronous messaging—minimize friction and only jump on calls when absolutely needed.
• Continual Value Builds Trust: Daily or regular communication tailored to audience interests sustains engagement and keeps your brand top of mind.

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Additional Resources

• Episode Checklist: Download the "Speed to Lead Do’s and Don’ts" checklist at specialopspodcast.com.
• Visionary Vault: Free membership for templates, checklists, and operational resources.

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For listeners and business owners:

If you’re spending on ads, make sure you’re not letting leads collect dust—follow up fast, automate what you can, and keep the human touch. Three minutes could change your bottom line.

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Transcript

[A]

Don't run ads if you don't have the ability to follow up in your leads properly. It's such a waste of money.

[B]

Speed to lead is everything.

[A]

Every time they open an email, send them an email every single time. And that email should be pulling them in to buy something from you.

[B]

Opening an email, there was a lot more intent there. They're actually interested and curious and so I love that, sending it right away afterwards, it's huge.

[A]

Not every business has the model of a sales team. What do I do with these leads? What's the best practices?

[B]

Even if you're not a giant publicly traded company, there's a lot of different tools, automations, everything that you put into play.

[A]

Hi and welcome to another episode of Special Ops podcast. We give actionable insights to direct response marketers and e commerce sellers. Today Mitch Barham and I are breaking down. Why don't you call your leads? So many of us get leads in, whether it be from paid advertising, lead gen funnels, wherever and we don't spend enough time cultivating them and reaching out to them. So today we're going to break down best practices. What to do, how to do it and how to do it simply and easily. Whether you have a whole sales team or you're a one man show, a lot of you already know that speed to lead is super important. The faster you get to your leads when you recover them, the more likely they are to convert. You've all gone and filled out something on Grant Cardone's website or Alex Homozy's website and you get a call before you can click off the page. That's because they understand that speed to lead is important and they have a sales team. Today I am talking to my homeboy, Mitch Barham and we are going to kind of explore what to do with leads when you don't have a full sales team and a ton of stuff. So some people will tell you, go out of business, don't write ads if you can't.

[B]

She knew I was gonna say that.

[A]

Don't run ads. I did. Don't run ads if you don't have the ability to follow up in your leads properly. It's such a waste of money. But we're gonna tell you that that's not true. There are things that you can do that will actually help you convert even if you have a small team. And so Mitch, you run ads for people all the time and they try and hold you accountable for lead quality. And then what we find most of the time is not that the quality of the lead was bad, but the follow up and the nurture of that lead was bad. So let's talk about nurturing and following up with leads. What is that? What do I do? How do I do it? And let's wrap up.

[B]

Yeah. So I mean like just like you said, like literally, speed to lead is everything. I'll give you a quick everything. Everything about leads. Yeah. No, speed to lead is like absolutely paramount in any day and age. I'll tell you a quick story and it, I, I think I got people in trouble with this, but one of my clients are still a client. About a year and a half ago, you know, sales and marketing never really get along.

[A]

Never.

[B]

We're two separate.

[A]

It's your fault. No, it's your fault.

[B]

Yeah. And then, then like the finance department and we all basically just are like

[A]

in the WWE operations comes in and says, now guys.

[B]

Yep, mom comes in, straightens everything out and says to hug makeup. And then we're all good. But sales guys were telling us that like this, these leads were junk. The holding company is publicly traded. And so we were doing marketing for one of their subsidiaries. And so this big CEO is on the call and I'm like, oh hell no. Like the CEO of the holding company is on there as well as the CEO of like the actual company, their sales team, some internal marketing guys. Long story short, the sales guys are saying that like, hey, these leads are crap. They're not picking up, they're not doing anything. And I'm like, okay, well that's weird. How long from the point that the lead hits your sales force until you guys reach out to them? Three days. I didn't have to.

[A]

A publicly traded company, a big publicly trade with the sales team.

[B]

Yeah, okay, three days.

[A]

So you didn't have to say anything.

[B]

I didn't have to say anything. The head CEO immediately jumped in and was like, three minutes in. The fuck? This needs to happen within five minutes.

[A]

Three.

[B]

Three.

[A]

Three minutes. Three minute rule.

[B]

Yeah, he said five. And then they immediately turned that around and yeah, that just have murdered it since. But speed to lead is, I mean there's so many things that go into place. Like even if you're not a giant publicly traded company, Speed delete. And there's a lot of different tools, automations, everything that you can put into play. If you're a solopreneur to a small team, you have one sales guy, whatever it is, like right. There's a lot of different tools that you can put into the play there. But of course you want to make sure you're spending your time on the right leads that are might sound bad, worth your time. Not tire kickers, I guess let's put it that way. So you do that through lead scoring, right. And you're going to basically know if lead A is scored high enough based off of their like the intent and all this public data that's on them as well as how they actually interacted with your website. So did they only download a lead magnet and not book a call? Did they book a call? Did they look at case studies? Where have they gone? What have they actually done? The more of that activity they do generally they're going to score higher and have a higher intent to buy. That's how the scoring really, that's what, that's what the score is going to show you. Like do they have a high intent?

[A]

Are they a fit for your demographic and are they behaving like a buyer

[B]

behaves so they fall within your ideal customer profile and then not only that, but then do they yeah. Behave like a buyer actually behaves? Do they show up to more than 50 of your webinars? Do they stick around through the webinars? It's wild how all this data could be compiled and put together.

[A]

So what did that do for them like overall like the now the speed to lead the company you were talking about, what did that do? You said they're murdering it. What does that mean?

[B]

They had the best.

[A]

Well they're still a client of yours so they got to be doing decent.

[B]

Still still clients. So everything's still working out paying you? I mean it amounted, I mean we're talking like multi eight figures once they righted the ship and like actually started getting to it faster. And so with between lead scoring, between automations we put in place to like even if it wasn't, it was gonna take up 10 minutes. Like there's an email or an SMS or something that goes out right away for that first touch and then they call like right away. That's. That is absolutely a no brainer. I mean it's made them probably $45 million.

[A]

Wow. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

So and even in other industries where you know like plumbing, H vac, agency world, whatever you offer like getting to that person super quick is.

[A]

So let's talk about that. If I don't have a sales team and it's just me and so you know far too often people have. I have a great email sequence man.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And so I'll just throw this little tidbit out there. A lot of people have email Sequences where like they feed you once a day or once every couple of days. I would challenge you if all you have is an email sequence on your leads, I would challenge you to send them an email as soon as they open an email.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Instead of waiting every time they open an email, send them an email every single time. And that email should be pulling them in to buy something from you.

[B]

But no, I love that because they already had the intent, like they opened it. Getting somebody to open an email, it's not like getting somebody to open a text message opening an email, there was a lot more intent there. They're actually interested and curious and so I love that. Sending it right away afterwards, it's huge.

[A]

Yeah, but I'm a one person team or I have, you know, sucks to be you. So I'm, I'm one person and maybe I have a marketing person but you know, he lives in a basement in grandma's house and he's, you know, banging out copy. And I got a tech guy in Kazakhstan doing some automations for me. What do I do with these leads? Not every business has the model of a sales team. Like my company doesn't have a sales team.

[B]

No, I don't either. I'm the salesperson. Right. So as you should be founder led, sales teams are great and that's what I think 93% of businesses probably are. So whether you're qualifying through a form and then you're doing lead scoring and you're making sure they're the right intent, like you can have the automation set up. Right? Like yeah, I would send out a text message right away. Like, hey, saw you this information come in. Make it super personalized. Cool if I give you a call right now, like obviously you're monitoring that. If you have the time, I would say to get that lead the info, text them from your phone and if they respond right away, like give them a call, like just speed to lead. Right.

[A]

I'm a big fan of ringless voicemail because everything that you just said is kind of manual.

[B]

It. Well minus the automated text message. Yes. But the other route, I don't do the other route because it is manual and I don't want people to have my phone number. So you can set these up in multiple seals.

[A]

I mean you can, you can have fake phone numbers on your phone. I'm just saying. Oh, and also everybody has your phone number. It's in the comments.

[B]

That's why I'm getting all those phone calls. I knew it somehow.

[A]

But you can go in a high Level. And give yourself. Sign yourself a phone number that goes to your phone and it can say, hi, Mitch. I love when it says my name, hi, Mitch.

[B]

I get those from Perry all the time. And I remember the one time I reached out to him was like, is this actually Perry texting me right now?

[A]

Was it?

[B]

Yeah. You were like. I was like, am I in trouble?

[A]

It always really amazes me how excited people get.

[B]

Well, I was scared.

[A]

When Perry texts them, they either get excited or scared, and they're like, perry, text me. What should I do? Yeah, bro, text him back. Like, you're acting like it's Leonardo DiCaprio. Calm down.

[B]

I've gotten texts from, like, Perry where they legitimately seems like they were from Perry.

[A]

Well, the. The ringless voicemails. He does a really good job in these. And I've implemented this myself. This is what my ringless voicemail sounds like. Hey, Mitch, it's Emma Rainville. I just noticed that you took my scale audit. Dude, I was, like, so happy to see your name come across. Crap. I just. I. I don't know where I was. Oh, yeah. So who would do that on a regular voicemail? You would edit it out and you'd make it perfect.

[B]

Right?

[A]

But if you know anything about me, you know that I will forget mid sentence what I'm talking about because I'm super adhd, right? And like, dude, I totally forgot what I was talking about. I was thinking about coming. You combing your beard and. Yeah, so, but you. But you get the pointer, like, hey, Mitch, I noticed you just took my scale audit. It's Emma Rainville. I was super excited to see your name. Hey, so give me a call back. My phone number is. Oh, yeah. Wait, what's my phone number again? 508-12-34567. I look so forward to hearing from you. It's Tuesday at, like, an AI can do that. So. So there's just a bunch of things you can do that just bring in, like, human touch, right?

[B]

Oh, yeah, that does Where.

[A]

One, they don't think it's AI. Two, they don't think it's a ringless voicemail. Three, they don't think. They're like, oh, the other thing that I love to fucking do. Because I love to do it. Because people are like, how did this voicemail get here? My phone didn't ring. It's like, it works really well for most people because most people nowadays have their phone on do not disturb all the time, right? But some people do not. They just have the, like, I Have my ringer off and vibrate off. My ringer does not live on, period. Yeah, I hate do not disturb. I want to be disturbed when I want to be. And I can look at it and I can choose when to be disturbed. Anyway, so this is the thing I like to do. Hey, Mitch, it's Emma Rainville. I went straight to voicemail. Does that mean that I've been blocked Anyway, and so they're like, oh, I was on do not disturb, or oh, that's weird. You know what I mean? So they don't actually think that it's a ringless voicemail.

[B]

That's brilliant. I love that because. Yeah, real authentic. And it's not scripted. Like chat, GPT, spit something out and.

[A]

Right. But then people who are only super interested. So I, I noticed that you took my scale audit and you're interested in my strategic operational blueprint. I would love to chat with you about it. If you're interested in moving forward, give me a call. 508-123-4567.

[B]

Yeah, and I love that you just said that because that made me think of the fact that you're only doing this to actual qualified people. So they went through. You lead squad in action.

[A]

You lead. So you, you, you. They hit a funnel. They did a thing. Whether it's take a quiz or fill out their contact information or put the stuff in a car or ask, you know, whatever it is, they did an action which became a lead. Then you lead. You know, you used a lead scoring system and it was a high probability. I like mid to high, mid to high on a ringless voicemail. Mid to high, mid to high probability. And then the call to action is, if you're interested in buying my shit, call me back. I want to hear from people who are going to give me $10,000.

[B]

100%.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know what else I think we're all hurting ourselves with Trying to make people book a call versus just like texting.

[A]

Dude, I did this. It's the craziest thing. Five years ago, I would not text you. I wanted to call. I don't know why, but I wanted to call you. I hated the fact that I couldn't just pick up the phone and call people Now. I hate it if I don't have the ability to text you. I feel mentally exhausted from every conversation.

[B]

No, totally with you. I'd rather. I don't know if it's.

[A]

I don't know if it's the time period that we're in. I don't know if it's the fact that I'm on zoom calls all day. I don't know if it's that I handle, like, big problems. Like the problems I handle now versus five years ago. I remember five years ago when I thought, like, oh, we can't find a million dollars out of 60. That's a huge deal. Like, that used to be the end of the world to me. Now, like, the problems that are like, we're being sued for $40 million. It's like, right, Right. And so I wonder what's going to happen next decade. But, yeah, the point is, is that I just to get on a phone call with somebody, I instantly am not going to buy your stuff.

[B]

Yeah, no, I. Yes, I totally agree with you.

[A]

Yo, we interrupted his podcast to tell you, like, and subscribe. What are you doing? Why haven't you liked. Why haven't you subscribed? Just subscribe. What's the problem? In all seriousness, subscribe so that you get notifications every time we drop new content. Additionally, if you have not signed up for our visionary vault, what the hell? Www.specialopspodcast.com Go sign up. It's free. We never try and sell you. And we're putting all kinds of stuff in there to help you with the operations of your business because we're passionate about it and we want to share operational excellence with our direct response, e commerce and online selling family.

[B]

I've been testing that out a lot lately.

[A]

Molly Mahoney and Perry have been talking about this for a few months.

[B]

Yeah, they're the ones I got the idea for.

[A]

I know. And I'm just like, man, I could kick myself. Because why would it not dawn on me, like, at the end of my funnel, the only way to buy is to book a call.

[B]

Mine too. Used to be. Now I'm just like, hey, you want to buy? Or like, hey, chat. And if you really want to call, like, you could book a call, but they already took the action, so they're qualified. So you send your ringless voicemail and then follow up like crazy.

[A]

Why. Why on earth am I booking a call with someone when I don't want to get on calls with people?

[B]

Well, people don't want to get on

[A]

calls with us, and people don't. And now I've created a friction point to get on a call with me. I'd rather text them personally. But you don't even need to do that now.

[B]

No. 100. You don't need to personally text them at all.

[A]

Who do you use for the text?

[B]

The go high level.

[A]

Are you having AI texting back? Are you personally texting them back?

[B]

So the initial one goes out.

[A]

Got it.

[B]

In an automation and so you're not using AI? Not currently. For those like the initial text message that goes out and I'm either doing it or I have a little part time setter that will actually respond to people and go back and forth but I'm getting more traction from people who take action and they only want to communicate. Like there's a frickin book a call link in my emails and in my tax they ignore those entirely and we just have a full on discovery. No one wants to talk to you in text or.

[A]

Yeah, I don't want to talk to anybody.

[B]

I don't want to talk to you.

[A]

Do you know what though it

[B]

see what she deals with.

[A]

Guys, I'm not gonna say anything.

[B]

So basically what we're saying is your leads do with them.

[A]

So what this means is he's nothing without me basically. So here's the thing right like and if you think about it, if I want to have a quick answer I'm going to call every time. If I just need really fast like when I snitched on you to Chris Gray yesterday.

[B]

Yeah you did.

[A]

I immediately called him and I got off that call in 30 seconds. So if I need something really fast I'll just pick up the phone call every time. If I think that it's going to be a lot of back and forth over what could be a 45 second or less conversation, I'll pick up the phone call. For everything else, voice to text is my best friend. Even though it always says really weird things that I didn't say it does. You get the point. Right. So well let's say you why are we doing that? Why are we putting all of the responsibility and onus on the person that we want to give us money.

[B]

Yeah. It's just what we all but we've done forever. We've always done it. So we're like romantic about the way it is but as even if you have a salesperson or just yourself like you can send them a link in email or text to join your Google Meets or your Zoom and then you can get your sales calls. Great.

[A]

Booking a call four days from now.

[B]

Right. That they're going to forget about you

[A]

just text back and forth.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And then if it seems like you need to hop on and close.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Which probably you don't need to do. Probably a lot of times sending them a link to buy.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Which by the way do you send them a link to a contract or do you send them a link to an invoice? Which do you do first?

[B]

Invoice.

[A]

I always send the contract first. I think I'm going to swap it.

[B]

Yeah, it freaks them out. Makes them read.

[A]

Yeah. I think Ryan Poteet would probably cringe if he heard us talking about this.

[B]

Ryan, tune out right now.

[A]

Ryan, we can just refund them. Relax.

[B]

Yeah, shut up. It's just a contract.

[A]

Ryan.

[B]

So silly. Such a lawyer.

[A]

He just wants to buy a beach house.

[B]

We'll help you get there by doing

[A]

things opposite of what you tell us to do. So Ryan Poteed is a friend of ours, very good friend, A very good friend of ours. Driven faculty and he's been on this podcast. We actually did a spin off for a while, marketing on trial to get a lot of knowledge about compliance and direct response in e commerce out there. Anyway, just so you know who Ryan is. We're joking. We actually love him. And so a lot of times people will blame media buying or the email list writer or you know, the person bringing in the leads for a poor quality of lead when the reality is is you didn't understand the type of lead because type of leads matter. If it's a cold lead, you have to cultivate them. You can't call them and try and sell them.

[B]

Right.

[A]

A $25,000 a month ticket.

[B]

Good luck.

[A]

I've tried. It doesn't work. Tried everything once, but. But someone who's consumed a ton of your content and they don't need the same nurture. So there should be a strategy with someone who knows what they're talking about on how to cultivate leads. I think one of the best people in the world on that is Kevin Nations. Super, super driven faculty and has been around since the ice age dinosaurs.

[B]

Like yeah.

[A]

And not, not to date him, but he's so, so, so, so smart.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Him and Perry actually hold opposite sides of the sales coin, I think. And the, the two of them together create like a real powerhouse of sales and marketing and growth strategy. So yeah, your leads. Call them.

[B]

Yeah, make sure you're getting to them as quickly.

[A]

Like text them five minutes.

[B]

You can set up automations in almost any platform. And then the disconnect between, you know, like, hey, this, these just aren't qualified. One thing we didn't really touch on is like, yeah, you can re. Have. You could use platforms that literally will grade your sales calls and tell you like where you saw Chorus.

[A]

Chorus is a great one. Yeah.

[B]

So you could use Chorus.

[A]

It Integrates with GHL and Zoom.

[B]

There you go.

[A]

It will record all of your salespeople's calls or yours. It'll grade the call. It'll give you suggestions on the call if you're losing the person, how to get them back literally. And then later on it will tell you like, hey, your retention was really weak and you didn't, it didn't feel like you felt confident when you were talking about this. And here's some talking points for next time. It's a really great tool. Chorus is a really great tool.

[B]

Yeah. If you're paying to get leads, like you should not have a problem paying for something that's going to tell you how you can close these leads and getting to them faster.

[A]

Agreed. Agreed. People will spend 30, 40, $50,000 on getting leads and then they sit there for six months and then. And they're mad at the person who

[B]

got the leads 100%.

[A]

Let's talk about your unqualified leads really quickly. There's a lot of unqualified people that will come in and that's okay.

[B]

We don't ignore them.

[A]

Absolutely not. Because they can do tons of things for you. Right, let's talk about that.

[B]

So this is where you can send them. You say your YouTube channel or wherever you have short form content. It's extra face. Hopefully you're doing face to camera videos. So it's more building know like and trust. It's more nurturing. They're getting warmed up to become when they are qualified, they already know they

[A]

can help you get monetized on YouTube. You can cultivate them by enacting them into your world and becoming followers. You can create subscribers out of them.

[B]

You can push them to a downsell,

[A]

offer a low ticket. If you have a book, sell them your book to get sales. I don't even push it on my book funnel. I push it on Amazon. And then their review will unlock a workbook. So they screenshot their review after they buy my book. So they buy the book. So when they click the Amazon link, they get an email that says did you buy my book? Leave a review. Once you read the book, leave an honest review. We always say that once you read the book, leave an honest review. They'll almost always do it day of which I know Amazon hates.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But I try send us a screenshot of your review and I'll give you my $97 Wave workbook free. And then we link them so that they can see that we sell it for 97 bucks. We really do. Yeah, it really Only sells at the end of the year when people are doing their yearly planning. So it doesn't hurt me at all during the year.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And you'll find that people will open that email and then go buy the book because they're going to get a $97 thing when they buy. I don't even know how much my book is. I think like 16 bucks for the paperback or something.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Or another thing that you can do with the leads is put them on your email list. So people who are not qualified, particularly if you have a high ticket and they're not qualified to buy a high ticket, they'll respond more often.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so that helps your email deliverability. A lot of people will be like, I'm not going to pay to email someone that. Bleh. Number one, they'll show up on every webinar and they'll be active.

[B]

Oh my God.

[A]

And they'll be a raving fan. And you can cultivate that through your email. Number two, you can give them replies. So do this, this, and this in your business and then reply back and tell me what was your biggest takeaway or what was the impact it had? Or reply any questions you have. And those replies back and forth help your email deliverability score. There's so many things you can do with unqualified leads. We have Visionary Vault in our podcast. So when you go to our podcast website, you can sign up for a free membership vault. And that membership vault it like we never sell anybody in there, but it really helps keep people engaged in you.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Because you don't know where someone's going to be in a year.

[B]

Well, you're providing tons of value inside that. That's the key. Like it's just value, value, value, value, value for free. Yeah.

[A]

Never try and sell them anything, but if they use even just one thing that helps them make money. And now they've made some money. Now it's time to buy something that I sell. Whether it be my 1500 dollars coaching for CEOs or it be a $30,000 ticket. When they hit there, they remember me because they consume so much of my info. Early on you have 297 mastermind. Way too cheap. But you have a mastermind for media buyers. Sure. You cultivate the same way your. Your people who can't afford your high ticket monthly. Those, those are the people who end up being your 300 monthly who you now help make a whole bunch of money, who now need your other services that are higher tickets, all seating for later. We want to Help you make money. So we can take it.

[B]

Give me your money. Treat myself.

[A]

So. Yeah.

[B]

Yes. No 100% value is huge. Like my automated flows or just my initial sequences are months long, obviously updated because things are changing all the freaking time. But then we're throwing in extra value to keep building that relationship. And you could do it across all kinds of industries. I mean E Comm. People think that. Oh no, we don't need to email our people. You're an idiot. Even plumbers you could be sending out stuff to like make sure you're staying top of mind.

[A]

Absolutely.

[B]

Like, it's just mind blowing.

[A]

Absolutely. What's funny is, you know my emails? I write them every day.

[B]

Oh you do?

[A]

Every single day. So that's the call with me and Sokka. Oh, okay.

[B]

Nice.

[A]

I personally write them every day.

[B]

Yeah, I get all of them.

[A]

So yeah, no, I write them. And when we write them, we basically, we have a bot, a copywriting bottle that we feed the information of the of like the last month. So we know what people want to know about right now. Because it changes oh so fast and. And things are changing so fast. I want to talk about what they want to talk about right now. Oddly enough, we had talked in another episode about that guy that I fired that just talked too much. I wrote an email about it. Oh. It was the highest engaging email I've ever written.

[B]

Interesting.

[A]

People are sadistic.

[B]

They are. They really are.

[A]

My subject line. Why I fired him.

[B]

That's a great subject line.

[A]

My subject lines are pretty good, I think. I think I do a good job with subject lines. Anywho. All right, so lead gen. You guys got it? Do you got it? But do you get it? You know what, Mitch? They might get it. They don't got it. They're not going to get it.

[B]

You're still not going to reach out in five minutes? It's okay.

[A]

Three minutes reach out. And I think five minutes is too long. Three minutes with automations. Three minutes with AI tools. Three minutes with ringless voicemail. Three minutes. Three minutes. Oh my gosh, Mitch. Sorry. I miss you. I just saw that you filled out my skill audit. Thank you so much. It looks like you're interested in buying my operational. What is it called? My strategic operational Blueprint. What's my product called? My Strategic operational Blueprint. Blueprint. If you want to chat about it, I'd love to talk my phone numbers and I would love to hear from you. Dude, it's too easy now. Too easy to reach out to leads. So stop spending money to get leads, not to cultivate them. And I've been guilty of this myself, not going and contacting leads because they didn't book a call, right? So call your leads.

[B]

Do it.

[A]

Do it. Just do it.

[B]

Just do it.

[A]

Thank you for joining us on this episode of Special Ops podcast where Mitch Barham and I broke down Speed to Lead and what to Do. I hope you enjoyed this episode. As always, we appreciate you taking the time to listen to the things we have to say. If you'd love more www.specialopspodcast.com, head over and join our visionary vault. We have lots of stuff in there, courses, templates, checklists, and today we've actually put together a checklist for you on Speed to Lead and Do's and Don'ts. So go over there. It's free. Always grab it. It'll help you reach operational excellence. See you next.