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Learn How To Optimize New Leads Inside Your Side Hustle

Receiving new leads inside your side hustle can make all of your hard work feel worth it! Getting the “new lead” notification in our mailbox can feel exhilarating. And it should! Getting new leads inside your business is a fantastic way to see that your marketing strategy and business model are aligned and paying off. However, receiving the lead isn’t the finish line. And as side hustlers, we shouldn’t treat is as such. In this episode, I dive into how to stand out when responding to new leads for your side hustle that will get you responses and excite your potential new client.

Why Leads Are Important Inside Your Business

If you run a service-based side hustle, you know that a new lead closely connects with a payday. So ensuring that your leads are carefully managed is a surefire way to ensure you’re not leaving money on the table. You want to nurture every lead. This includes increasing customer service and quality management. Managing a new lead is often a client’s first experience with you, before investing. This interaction allows your client to affirm their investment and their decision to work with you.

Customizing Email Templates

When responding to new leads inside your side hustle, you may be using canned emails or email templates. This is a great method for both saving time and looking professional. However, be sure to customize the email a bit further. You don’t want your lead to clearly see you’re using an email template with their name filled in. This can make your lead feel unseen and unimportant.

Leave room at the beginning and end for customizing, addressing specific details they have given you, if applicable. You can write your own email templates and save them inside a Google Doc for free. Or if you’re using a Customer Relationship Management software like mine, you can store email templates here and evenly populate them easily into the client project.

Thank The Person Inquiring & State Your Excitement

One of the first things you’re going to do when responding to new leads for your side hustle is to thank them. I know this may sound obvious. However, it’s important we recognize this for every new lead that comes our way. New leads are never guaranteed. And at the end of the day, a client is choosing to support our side hustle. So thanking them for reaching out during this first impression can really go a long way.

Availability & Confirmation

Very soon into responding to a new lead, we want to affirm that we are the right person for the job. When they reach out to us, oftentimes they may be guessing if they have reached out to the right person. And that is completely okay. It’s our job to hear their concerns and request and let me know they are in the right place. This is often overlooked.

If we are not the right fit for our lead, then we should state this sooner rather than later. This can be from a scheduling issue or from the scope of work. Have a referral list ready to send along with your response. And if you do wish to work with the lead at a later date, sending a referral list like this can make the lead feel served, having them inquire with you again in the future.

This one is important and especially true for side hustlers. We don’t want to fib or elaborate about how busy we are. As a side hustler, you may want to create an illusion that your side hustle is full-time. Perhaps you think this will give your business more credibility and increase the chances of the lead converting to a client. The truth is, this is never a good idea. And we should become comfortable running our side hustle as a part-time business. The narrative that it’s perceived poorly is most often incorrect. As long as you can confidently deliver the service and serve your client, that’s all the lead needs to hear.

Put The New In A Workflow

You don’t just want to save time while running your side hustle. You want to become an efficient business owner that never drops the ball and can scale value with ease. And this comes from workflows. Adding your new lead to a workflow is very important. Even if the client doesn’t see this the same way you do.

Understanding exactly what needs to happen as soon as your side hustle receives new leads can help you provide timely customer service and keep correspondence organized. A CRM platform helps you implement workflows easily without relying on manually keeping track of the step by step process. You can start creating your new lead and client workflows using Dubsado, click here to get 20% off your first month or year. And for more workflow tips and time-saving tips for side hustlers, check out this post.

Provide Solutions & Be Informative

The next step for standing out when responding to new leads for your side hustle is to provide solutions and be informative. You don’t want to only answer the questions that your new lead asks. But instead, you want to front-load your valuable information for them to consider. This makes you look more professional, provides a higher quality of service, and can even save you time but not having the lead return with unanswered questions.

You can do this by linking to informative blog posts in your first response, attaching welcome guides, pricing guides, or any scheduler links for a discovery call.

Call Them To Action

The last thing you want to do when responding to new leads for your side hustle is to call them to action. You won’t believe the amount of time we simply respond with our information but forget to call them to action. This looks like asking them to proceed with the next steps. From the perspective of a new lead this can be a great way to save time on their end. When the dialog is left open-ended, they can feel unwanted or awkward asking for the next steps.

Clearly state the next steps and call them to action to take them or book a call to clarify more questions or concerns about the process. New leads have a short window of availability so we want to “strike while the iron is hot” and close timely.

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Want to start making more of your time when it comes to your business? Take my free workshop Life-Proof Your Side Hustle to put a forever end to not knowing what to work on, and when.