Changing Course

The Lead - Changing Course

If you’re anything like me, you are likely already thinking ahead to 2026. We have about two more weeks where some real selling can get done in 2025. The story of your year has largely been written at this point, and hopefully you’re within range of feeling good about the result. It’s hard not to look ahead at this point.

As we approach the end of the year, your prospects will begin to check out. The calendar looks thin compared to what it’s been. There’s an opportunity to take stock of what’s happened, and what you want to happen in the new year.

This is something I’m actively engaging in now. Although I haven’t hit a full year in business, I’m wrapping up a calendar year cycle for the first time. I’m glad to say it’s been a success, honestly beyond what I imagined. But 1/1 the slate wipes clean. It’s exciting to think about what might be possible. What could I do differently? What result could I be looking back on at the end of next year?

As exciting as it can be, it’s also a little overwhelming. In my experience, growth is much more about the blocking and tackling than it is about grand directional shifts. What I mean is, to get to the next level you more than likely need to get better at the things you’re already doing. You probably don’t need to hit reset on your efforts completely and make big changes. Is that always the case? Not necessarily.

So how do you think about this year’s result, and next year’s plan in a constructive way? A few things I’d consider.

The universal first question is 100% -**do I have the data to truly evaluate success and failure?**It seems pretty simple, but most people fail here. Are you tracking where leads come from? Are you tracking what you’re spending on sales and marketing efforts in general? Towards specific lead gen sources? What was our close rate? These are the basics.

It’s also important to know where the holes in the boat are. I’ve heard countless business owners say “I need more leads”, meanwhile they don’t realize that the leads they do get aren’t converting. More leads is not the solution, it’s a waste of money. You need to understand where you’re losing people in the process. Are we too slow getting to them? Are we establishing next steps? Following up consistently? You need data here too.

So if it wasn’t clear by now: before you consider making changes to your growth strategy you need real data to know what’s working and what’s not. Your anecdotal perspective is likely not going to tell the whole story, and allow you to make good decisions. If this sounds like you, the change you need to consider first is defining KPIs, and actually tracking them.

The next question to consider when evaluating your strategy, is **were we actually consistent with what we’ve been doing?**I know that probably sounds ambiguous, it’s meant to be. It’s an especially important question if you are the business owner, and not the frontline salesperson. Here’s why.

I’ve found as a general rule of thumb that sales people are impatient. Ok, people are impatient. We go to the gym a few times and get frustrated that we don’t see results. We make 10 cold calls, get 10 voicemails and declare “Cold calling is dead!”. You get the picture.

Obviously this all connects back to the data you’re collecting, but here’s a basic example. Let’s say you’re the business owner talking to your sales person.

You: Hey, we talked about making cold calls to For Rent By Owner leads. How did that go?

Salesperson: Yeah we didn’t get anything from that.

You: Ok, well we should stop doing it then.

Here’s what your sales guy/gal isn’t telling you: they made a total of 20 calls over two weeks. They didn’t get anything so they stopped doing it. Sounds funny, but this happens all the time. That’s not enough of a sample size to say whether or not it’s effective, obviously.

With most sales/lead gen efforts, consistency is critical. This is especially true if those efforts are focused towards prospects who are cold, they haven’t expressed interest. Whatever you think is a good sample size, it’s probably not enough.

From there I’d move to -**are there changes that could be made to the strategy before scrapping it completely?**I’m a big believer in A/B testing. Let’s say you’re investing in a direct mail strategy. You send a postcard to property owners in certain zip codes over a period of time, consistently.

There are any number of tweaks to consider while executing this strategy. What’s our offer on these mailers? How can we reduce friction for people getting more info? Could we change the messaging? The frequency we send them? The size of the postcard even?

Even if you’re doing something consistently, it’s not really helpful to execute an ineffective strategy over and over. But again, most will jump to scrapping altogether rather than making tweaks. The data will tell the story if you track it.

I’ll wrap up here -**are we focused enough?**This applies in two ways.

The first is where we spend our time and energy. It’s easy to come up with 20 different channels/methods and then do none of them well. You could cold call, send mailers, advertise on Facebook and LinkedIn, build a realtor referral program, sponsor events etc. etc. The list could go on. But the truth is it’s hard to do everything well, and consistently. Be careful not to overstretch.

The second component is your audience. If your focus is broad, your message will be broad. In an attempt to reach more people you’ll actually reach fewer because what you say won’t resonate. So your problem may not actually be the methods of outreach, it may be the people you’re trying to reach.

As I think about my own business in 2026, I want to go significantly bigger. It’s not hard for me to then go to big changes. But the truth is, what I’m doing is working. If I scrapped it all, I’d be setting myself back. Instead, I have to consider the good and how to do more of it.

The scale and scope of your changes will ultimately be dictated by what you’ve experienced and for how long. But if you take nothing else away from this, I hope you’ll feel a renewed call to do actual analysis based on real data, not what your gut tells you. If you don’t have that for 2025, make it your first priority in 2026.