Use Your Face To Close More Leads

In 2018, the Journal of Advertising Research published a study that found ads featuring people’s faces performed better than those without faces.

That’s why you see YouTube littered with people’s faces in the thumbnails of most videos.

The same goes for selling via email.

Which of the two bodies of emails seems more appealing to you?

Or . . .

The one that receives almost triple the clicks is Email A, according to our own internal sales data.

If you are selling to leads via email, include your face and a video if you can.

Every prospect we sell to at K&J gets a quick 2-minute video (example here of a recent lead) with my face in the email.

Our emails follow this format for new leads who don’t give us their cellphone numbers:

• Thank them for getting in touch

• Go to their sites and find some things we think we could improve

• Film those improvements

• Send it back in an email with our face

The simplest way to connect with people on a more personal level is to show that you are human.

Include your best asset when prospecting to close more leads.

Managers

How many times have you heard someone say they're going to do something—and then not do it?

Thousands.

We're all guilty of it. Not-doing is our default state.

In business, that tendency creates headaches. Especially when it comes to "managers."

The moment someone gets a title that even hints at authority, something shifts. They stop doing. They start finding ways to get others to do their work.

I passed that on to so-and-so.

That's not my job.

But give these same people real managerial responsibility, and they flounder. One minute they're offloading everything. The next, they forget delegation even exists.

The difference is, offloading means getting rid of responsibility. Delegation means staying responsible while enlisting help.

In small businesses, you can't afford anyone who’s too important to do the work, whether it's theirs or someone else’s.

When a team is small, every person has an outsized influence on the outcome. And if too many of those people are managers in name only, the whole thing collapses.

I’d go as far as to say that in a business with fewer than ten people, there should be no managers at all.

At least not the kind I'm talking about: the ones who are managers in title only.

You'll spot them. The obvious ones spend most of their day in meetings or on calls. A subtler sign is routinely offloading tasks you gave them. Subtler still: they leave work they're perfectly capable of doing for someone else, because it’s "not their job."

Left unchecked, this behaviour spreads. Fast. It turns a practical workplace into a political one.

I try to reward doers and keep my businesses flat. Everyone talks to everyone. Anyone can ask anyone for help. And anyone can step in to get something done.

Ironically, when my businesses have been working best they're collaborative, communist-style groups. Rather than the hierarchical capitalist ideals.

Just a bunch of people getting on with it.