Almost every sales person I speak with, when discussing their prospects for increasing their sales volume and thus their commissions start with leads. While leads a very important part of increasing sales, I find more often than not, most don't think about or simply ignore finding ways to improve the conversion of the leads they are already getting!

Here's a real life example: One of my personal clients came to me looking to increase sales. He predictably wanted to start with how to get more leads. But before I would let him get into that area, I wanted to understand how well he was doing with his current leads.

"What's your current conversion ratio?" I asked. "Well, I'm not sure exactly, but it's probably somewhere around 60-70%," he responded. "Measure it and get back to me in two weeks," I said. He was not happy, but he did as I instructed. When he had the results, he was crushed. "16%. 16%," he said. "That's' awful. I can't believe it!" "Actually, that's GREAT," I yelled at him. "How can that possibly be great?" "Ah, we can double, triple, even quadruple 16%!" "Do you know what would happen if you went from 16% to only 32%?" "Double my sales?" "How about to 48%? And that's still not even half!" "That would triple my sales, wouldn't it?"

Within 30 days, his ratio was up to 34%. That's right. In less than 30 days, he had just doubled his sales, all by making a few minor, but explosive changes in his conversion strategy. Take a look at your conversion rates. Are they all they could be? Remember, a 10% increase here is a 10% increase in sales and commissions, perhaps more if you are on a tiered schedule. And remember, if you currently have a 30% conversion ration, you only need to increase that to 33% to put 10% more in your pocket.

Look for ways to increase the number of current leads you are converting before looking for more leads. It only makes sense.