Your ads are running. Leads are coming in. But your calendar is full of calls that go nowhere.
So you do what most business owners do. You blame the agency, turn off the ads, and wait for the next referral to save you. Sound familiar?
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: if you’re not converting leads into clients, your agency isn’t the problem. You are.
Over the years, I’ve worked with startups all the way through to the multi-million dollar giants, and what I’ve noticed is a big trend of small businesses not closing the opportunities that come their way, and big businesses being built with a high-performance sales team that will close anything that comes their way.
It doesn’t have to be that way, though, but it does start with you.
Key Takeaways
Before you throw your laptop out the window and fire your agency, read this:
The Real Issue
- Most businesses blame lead quality when the actual problem is their sales process
- A 5% close rate isn’t a marketing problem, it’s a sales skills problem
- Turning off ads because leads aren’t converting is taking your business backwards
What Actually Needs to Change
- Your sales process and how you deliver on calls
- Your follow-up systems and ability to listen instead of selling from ego
- Your willingness to look inward instead of pointing fingers
The Bottom Line
- Fixing what you can control (your sales) matters more than blaming what you can’t (lead quality)
- Sales coaching and feedback loops are as important as your marketing strategy
- Until you own your part, every agency you work with will fail
The Pattern Every Business Owner Knows Too Well
Let me paint you a picture. Your calendar is packed with discovery calls. You’re talking to potential clients every single day. But every night, you’re slumped on the couch, drained and frustrated, wondering why nothing is moving forward.
The leads feel off. They’re tyre kickers. They’re not serious. They don’t have budget.
And you know what happens next? You blame the ads. You turn them off for instant relief. Finally, you can breathe again.
The problem with this pattern is simple. That feeling never lasts. Because every time you hit pause on your marketing, your business takes one step back. And you end up waiting for the next referral, the next lucky break, the next “good lead” to fall into your lap.
I know this pattern because I lived it.
When My Close Rate Was 5%
When I first started dealing with cold leads, my close rate was terrible. Maybe 5% on a good month. My calendar was full and my days were packed, but I wasn’t actually growing.
I did what you probably do. I blamed the ads.
The leads weren’t qualified enough. They didn’t understand the value. They were just shopping around. Pick your excuse, I used them all.
But here’s what actually changed things for me. I stopped trying to control what I couldn’t and started fixing what I could. My sales process. My delivery on calls. My follow-up systems. Even my ability to listen instead of talking from ego.
When you make that shift, everything changes. You stop chasing and start converting.
The Uncomfortable Question Nobody Asks
Here’s what’s rare, really rare, in business. A founder who stops and asks themselves: “What can we do better?”
Instead of pointing the finger at lead quality or what the agency “missed,” they look inward first. They ask if maybe, just maybe, they’re part of the problem.
Don’t get me wrong. Bad agencies are everywhere. I’ve seen them waste budgets, deliver terrible leads, and disappear when things get tough. But when it comes to actual sales and growth in your business, that’s rarely just your agency’s fault.
Think about it this way. If ten people are calling your business and none of them are buying, is that really a targeting problem? Or is there something happening on those calls that’s pushing people away?
For most small businesses where the founder is taking the sales calls, this is the real bottleneck. Not the ads. Not the targeting. Not the landing page. You.
Why Most Founders Struggle to Close Cold Leads
The shift from referral-based sales to marketing-generated leads is brutal. And most founders aren’t prepared for it.
Here’s why it’s so different:
Referrals come pre-sold. Someone vouched for you. Trust is already there. The sale is 80% done before you even get on the call. You’re just confirming details and closing.
Cold leads don’t know you. They found you through an ad or search result. They’re evaluating multiple options. Trust needs to be earned, not assumed.
This is where most founders fall apart. They expect cold leads to behave like referrals. They show up to calls assuming the sale is done. And when leads push back or ask hard questions, they get defensive or impatient.
The result? You blame the leads. But the real issue is that your sales process was built for warm introductions, not cold outreach.
What Actually Needs to Change
If you’re serious about converting marketing-generated leads, here’s what needs to happen. And I’m not going to sugarcoat this because these changes are hard.
Fix Your Sales Process
Stop winging it on calls. You need a repeatable process that works whether you’re talking to a referral or a cold lead.
This means having a structured discovery call framework. Ask better questions. Listen more than you talk. Understand their pain before you pitch your solution. And for the love of all that’s holy, stop leading with features and pricing.
Most founders make the mistake of treating every call like a presentation. They talk at the prospect instead of with them. The best sales conversations feel like consulting sessions, not pitches.
Get Better at Delivery
Your energy matters. How you show up on calls matters. If you’re burnt out, frustrated, or annoyed that the lead isn’t a perfect fit, they can feel it.
I used to show up to calls stressed and rushed. I’d check the time halfway through. I’d mentally write people off if they asked about pricing too early. That energy killed more deals than I want to admit.
Now? I show up curious. I’m genuinely interested in their business and their challenges. Even if they’re not a fit, I try to help them. That shift in energy changes everything.
Build Better Follow-Up Systems
Most deals don’t close on the first call. But most founders treat a “let me think about it” as a soft no and never follow up.
You need a system. Whether it’s email sequences, CRM reminders, or just a spreadsheet of people to check in with, you need something that ensures leads don’t fall through the cracks.
The businesses that win aren’t necessarily the best. They’re the ones that follow up consistently and stay top of mind when the prospect is ready to buy.
We put together a fantastic guide on the benefits of a dialler and a workflow here to ensure no lead gets left behind.
Stop Selling From Ego
This one’s tough. But if you’re more focused on being right or proving your expertise than actually helping the person on the call, you’re going to lose.
I see this all the time. A prospect asks a challenging question or pushes back on something, and the founder gets defensive. They lecture. They talk over the prospect. They need to prove they’re the smartest person in the room.
That’s ego. And ego doesn’t close deals.
The best salespeople make the prospect feel heard, understood, and confident in their decision. They don’t need to win every argument. They need to solve problems.
The Mistakes That Kill Your Close Rate
Beyond fixing your process, here are the specific mistakes I see founders make that tank their conversion rates.
Mistake One: Talking Too Much
If you’re spending 70% of the call talking and 30% listening, you’re doing it wrong. Flip that ratio. The more your prospect talks, the more they sell themselves.
Your job isn’t to convince them. It’s to uncover their pain and show them how you solve it. You can’t do that if you’re dominating the conversation.
Mistake Two: Not Qualifying Hard Enough
Some leads are never going to be a fit. And that’s okay. The problem is when you keep trying to force a square peg into a round hole.
If someone doesn’t have a budget, if they’re not decision-makers, if they’re six months away from being ready, let them go. Chasing bad-fit leads wastes your time and energy. It also tanks your close rate and makes you question your marketing.
Get better at disqualifying early. It’s one of the most valuable sales skills you can develop.
Mistake Three: No Clear Next Steps
You get to the end of a great call, and then it just fizzles out. No clear next step. No commitment. Just “I’ll send you a proposal and we’ll go from there.”
Every call needs to end with a specific action. Whether that’s booking a follow-up, signing a contract, or scheduling an onboarding session. Vague next steps kill momentum.
Mistake Four: Waiting for Perfect Leads
Here’s the hard truth. There’s no such thing as a perfect lead from cold traffic. They’re going to have objections. They’re going to compare you to competitors. They’re going to need time to think.
If you’re waiting for people to show up ready to buy without any questions, you’re going to be waiting forever. Your job is to handle objections and build trust. Not to filter for people who don’t need selling.
Why This Matters More Than Your Marketing Budget
You can spend $10,000 per month on ads. You can have the best targeting and the slickest landing pages. But if you can’t close the leads that come through, none of it matters.
I’ve seen businesses with tiny marketing budgets absolutely crush it because their sales process is dialled in. I’ve also seen businesses burn through six figures in ad spend and have nothing to show for it because they couldn’t convert.
The bottleneck in most small businesses isn’t lead generation. It’s lead conversion.
And the fix isn’t spending more on ads or finding a better agency. It’s getting brutally honest about your sales skills and putting in the work to improve them.
What We’re Doing Differently
This is why part of our evolution as an agency includes sales coaching, scripts, and feedback loops. Because we realised that driving leads is only half the equation.
If our clients can’t close those leads, we all lose. They waste their marketing budget. We look like we’re delivering bad leads. Nobody wins.
So now we help clients own the sales side too. We listen to their calls. We workshop their scripts. We give them frameworks for handling objections. Because until you look inward and fix what you can control, it doesn’t matter what agency you work with. They’ll all fail.
What to Do Right Now
If you’re struggling to convert leads and you’re ready to stop blaming everyone else, here’s where to start.
Record Your Next Five Sales Calls
You can’t fix what you can’t see. Record your calls and actually listen back to them. I know it’s painful. But you’ll hear things you didn’t notice in the moment where you talked too much, where you got defensive and where you missed an opportunity to dig deeper.
Ask for Honest Feedback
Find someone you trust and ask them to sit in on a call or listen to a recording. Get their unfiltered opinion on how you come across. What’s working. What’s not. Where you’re losing people.
This is hard. It requires humility. But it’s the fastest way to improve.
Build a Simple Sales Framework
You don’t need anything fancy. Just a repeatable structure for your calls. What questions do you ask? How do you uncover pain? When do you pitch? How do you handle objections?
Write it down. Follow it. Refine it over time.
Track Your Metrics
You need to know your close rate. Not what you think it is. What it actually is. How many leads came in? How many calls did you take? How many turned into clients?
If you’re below 20% on qualified leads, you have a sales problem. Fix that before you blame your marketing.
The Bottom Line
Your marketing agency can give you leads. They can’t make you good at sales.
If you’re not converting, stop looking outward and start looking inward. Fix your process. Get better at listening. Build systems that keep leads warm. Work on your ego.
Because here’s the reality. Every time you turn off your ads because “the leads aren’t good enough,” you’re teaching yourself to blame external factors instead of owning your part.
And that pattern keeps you stuck.
The businesses that break through? They’re the ones willing to ask the uncomfortable question: “Is it me? Am I the drama?”
If you want to grow, that question needs an honest answer. And more often than not, the answer is yes.
Want help fixing both your marketing and your sales process? Book a call with us. We’ll audit what you’re doing, tell you what’s broken, and show you exactly how to fix it. No BS. Just honest feedback and a plan to move forward.
