Every opportunity that comes through your digital marketing has the potential to contribute to your sustainable growth.

This is why every…

…missed call…

…form entry that goes into spam…

…late reply…

…can set your growth back indirectly.

This is especially the case in smaller areas or markets, where the raw number of opportunities is limited each year.

While we would love to have infinite opportunities, in the marketing world, “infinite” is a word that you likely won’t see very often.

Understanding that there are a finite number of leads in any given cycle (monthly, quarterly, annually, etc.) should allow you to focus on maximizing each one that comes through your digital marketing channels.

It should also allow you to understand that each missed opportunity means there is one less of that finite amount to look forward to in each cycle.

To help you visualize this, below is a helpful interpretation or mental model you can use to see how those opportunities “leak” your small business growth potential.

Think Of Opportunities As A Stream (In A Pipeline)

Imagine a stream of water flowing through a pipe, leading to a pool.

Over time, that healthy stream will fill that pool up nicely and may require building on or adding more to the capacity of that pool.

Now imagine that same pipe with a leak in it, where only half the water reaches the pool.

That leak will cause that pool to fill more slowly – if at all.

Now imagine each lead and opportunity as that stream of water, flowing into your small business (pool).

Every leak (or missed opportunity) means that your small business won’t grow as quickly as it could – and potentially shrink, if the leaks are large (or costly).

Most Common Ways Opportunities Are Missed (Or Leaked)

Looking back at the pipeline/stream example, there are many different ways that stream can be interrupted – or “leaked”.

Working with small businesses for over 17 years now, I’ve seen just about every type of leak you can imagine. While these are numerous, here are the biggest “leaks” I’ve come across over that time.

Missed calls

Likely the biggest one I’ve noticed, especially in the early stages of a small businesses growth.

This happens frequently when a single person takes all of the calls – it’s not that they’re not doing the job, it’s just as you grow those calls become too many for a single person to handle; a good problem to have, really.

However good that problem is, if those missed calls start adding up, so to, will your “stream” leak – slowing down growth.

Slow replies

In the era where communication happens at lightning speed and “next best” options can be easily scrolled to, replying slow or late can be another source of “leaks”.

Again, it very well could be a good problem to have – getting so many inquiries that communication becomes congested, but ultimately it’s something that can mean folks will turn elsewhere – to another small business that’s faster to reply.

Capacity management

Looking at capacity – the amount of output (services or products) a small business can provide or produce can also be a source of potential leaks.

Again, while this can be a good problem to have — being booked close to capacity should mean you’re hitting your growth goals — it means that folks will have to look elsewhere if you aren’t able to provide those services or products in time.

Follow ups

This leak is a little further down the “pipeline” so to speak, but often I’ll see small businesses miss opportunities because another competitor was more proactive with their follow ups.

While you don’t want to cross the line into “pushy” (frequent, aggressive contacting), creating a regular check-in schedule on each opportunity to get a status update is an important part of opportunity management.

Folks get busy, life gets in the way – just because an opportunity doesn’t green light a project, service or product doesn’t mean they’ve declined the offer; it may just mean they were too busy to remember it – something a simple follow up can help remind them of.

If you’re in more competitive markets (with more advanced players), missing those follow ups means your competitors can slip in and be the first to remind them of their offer.

Patching The Deltas (Gaps) In Your Opportunity Pipeline

I talk about deltas a lot in this blog — these small “gaps” that appear in different areas of any business.

Generally deltas are a good thing — it can mean your small business is growing to the point where gaps or seams can appear.

Deltas or gaps in your opportunity pipeline, however should be a much more urgent matter – that opportunity stream keeps your small business going – and growing – so those gaps need much more attention, in most cases.

The good news is, most of those deltas or gaps can be easily remedied.

Missed calls and slow replies can be handled by routing calls through a call answering service or by assigning a few dedicated staff members just for calls.

Capacity management can be handled with a little careful planning and forward thinking, based on data and other resource management tools.

Follow ups can be cleaned up by having a systematic process for opportunity handling (and adjusting the time based on performance).

While I make these sound much more simple than they might seem, they can be that simple if you know where to look.

So when you’re reviewing your marketing and sales activity this year, ask yourself: what leaks might I have that can be slowing down my growth?