Speed to lead

Comparing data across 20+ renewables installation businesses, there's a massive opportunity in how quickly leads are contacted.

By getting better at how fast and how often you reach out to leads, you can see dramatic improvements in your conversion rates.

Our benchmarks

Here is our latest client data:

• Average lead-to-call rate among our clients: 74%

• Top-performing client: 89%

• Lower-performing clients: 55% or below

• Lowest observed lead-to-call rate: 28%

This means some businesses are potentially missing out on 3-4x the number of surveys they could be booking.

Every client uses the same funnel.

The same ads ‘strategy’ - of course not entirely the same ads but the same approach.

The lead arrives to every client just as quickly as the next (instantly).

So where is the difference coming from in this area? The first step in the process?

Two critical levers for improvement

When we look at our most successful solar installation clients, two things consistently make the difference:

1. Speed to calling the lead

2. Number of call attempts

Common pitfalls

Looking at CRM data across various clients, we often see:

• Leads only being dialled once

• First contact attempts happening more than 2 hours after the lead comes in, even during working hours

• Evening leads sitting untouched until late the next morning or even, on occasion, the following day

Best practices from top performers

Our most successful clients follow these rules:

Immediate response:
Prioritising lead calls above ALL other tasks during business hours

First day structure:
3 call attempts on the day the lead is generated

Follow-up:
1 call per day for the next week (some go even further)

Early morning calls:
Starting at 8am to catch people during their commute

Lunchtime calling window:
Scheduling dial attempts between 12-2pm when prospects are more likely to be available and responsive

Extended hours:
Some have evening calling (5-8pm) with dedicated skeleton staff teams

Data, data, data:
You can’t fix something you aren’t measuring, our best clients ensure that they know their numbers and are constantly monitoring their CRM’s reporting area.

Examples

Client A (£130k/month ad spend)

• Employs 20 staff dedicated to lead calling

• Makes 6 call attempts in the first 2 days

• Maintains evening call staff (5-8pm)

• Shared that speed-to-lead and call frequency has been one of their most important success factors

• Emphasises that their ability to confidently spend £130k monthly on digital marketing stems directly from the attention they've paid to perfecting their follow-up process - they know their backend systems can extract maximum value from every lead generated

Client B (16% lead → installation, 10+ deals)

• Calls leads within 2 minutes during working hours with a dedicated member of office staff who is personally, directly incentivised by the success rates of those calls.

• Uses a CRM setup to prioritise leads, the CRM is not process driven, its warmth driven.

  • I will do a full article on this because so many clients nail their operational backend, with clear steps, assignees etc, but fail to do the same on the front end.

• Has converted 16% of leads to completed sales in their first month (not just 16% of surveys, but 16% of all leads, totalling over £100k in revenue).

• Showcases that solar sales can move much faster than the industry typically expects - it's often the follow-up process, not customer decision-making, that creates unnecessary delays.

The same logic around speed applies to the process after the first call.

It should only ever customer decision time that is slowing down a sales cycle.

If you are slowing down the process on behalf of the customer, you are increasing the likelihood they go elsewhere, or don’t convert at all.

We most commonly see this in the quoting stage, where there is a lack of resource dedicated to system designs and proposals.

Recommended approach

Based on our data across multiple solar installation clients, here's what works:

• Day 1: 3 call attempts for leads generated during working hours

• Days 2-5: 1 call attempt per day for the next four working days

• Morning priority: Make calling overnight leads the first task of each day - nothing else should even be looked at until all leads from overnight have been dialled

• Response time: Aim to call new leads within minutes, not hours

• CRM optimisation: Implement a pipeline structure that prioritises leads by response urgency, with clear visibility of lead age and contact attempts

• Consider weekends: No one is going to like this one, but some of our clients have had a lot of success making call attempts over the weekend

Non-solar example

Alex Hormozi (gymbro business guru) shared a really powerful example of this in this video about immediate lead response.

He describes a business owner who hired a dedicated employee at £47,000 per year with a single responsibility: call leads immediately when they come in.

The result: they were closing 55% of leads (not just calls, but actual leads) because of this immediate response approach.

Breaking down the numbers: at £47,000 per year with 260 working days and 2-3 leads per day, each initial call was costing £60-£90.

(£47k per year & £60 - £90 per call)

Yet despite this seemingly high cost per call, the business owner considered it their most profitable investment by far.

Summary

If you call your leads within seconds of them opting in, you can increase sales by 391% on average according to Harvard Business Review - that's nearly 4x on revenue, not just improving contact rates.

We see a direct and consistent correlation between call speed, number of attempts, and overall campaign success across all our clients.

Interestingly, we often see businesses that should have everything absolutely dialled because of their size, but in actuality, their size holds them back - they get lost in the noise and forget about the simple rules that smaller companies follow religiously.

Those who implement these best practices consistently outperform those who don't, regardless of other factors or company size.

Putting these calling practices into action can dramatically improve results for any solar installation business.

The data doesn't lie - businesses that prioritise speed and persistence in their lead response process consistently see better results than those who don't. It's as simple as that.

Fortunately, it isn't a particularly expensive to operationally complex change to implement.

More often than not, it is one additional staff member or a slight shift in priorities.

It doesn’t need to be any more complicated than:

1. Call faster.

2. Call more.

Find the above valuable?

A bit of a more extensive write up today.

A full breakdown on the topic of “Speed to lead” was requested by one of our clients, shoutout to them for always looking to improve their approach and take on insights from other ambitious businesses.

If you want me to do a deep dive on a certain aspect of lead generation/handling, just let me know.

Reply to this email.

I’ll bring the data together and share whatever experience we may have in that area.

Until next time.