Why the smartest marketing move might not be what you think

Every business wants more leads.

It’s the go-to request from owners and directors: “We need more enquiries.” “Get the phones ringing.” “Double our website traffic.”

And fair enough. Leads matter. Without them, there’s no pipeline, no customers, no growth.

But here’s the hard truth. Most businesses don’t have a lead problem. They have a leak problem.

They’re so busy pouring more into the top of the funnel, they haven’t stopped to check what’s coming out the bottom. Or more importantly, what’s slipping through the cracks.

The 5 Ways Framework

At ActionCOACH, we use the 5 Ways to Profit formula to help business owners understand where real growth comes from:

Leads × Conversion Rate × Number of Transactions × Average Sale × Profit Margins = Profit

It’s simple multiplication, but the implications are huge.

Most people obsess over the first variable (leads) and ignore the second (conversion rate). That’s a mistake.

If your conversion rate is weak, adding more leads just means wasting more time, more energy, and more money.

A Simple Question

Do you know your current conversion rate?

Not a guess. Not a gut feeling. The actual number.

If ten people enquire about your product or service, how many become paying customers?

And a follow-up. Where did those leads come from? Facebook? Google? Word of mouth? A referral?

If you can’t answer that, stop. Don’t spend another penny on marketing until you can.

When you start measuring, you get insight. And insight leads to better decisions.

Track Before You Scale

Let’s say your business gets 100 leads a month. You convert 20. That’s a 20% conversion rate.

Now let’s say you spend £2,000 to double your lead volume to 200. Sounds great. But if your conversion rate stays at 20%, you now have 40 customers.

Not bad. But what if you worked on your sales process first?

Stronger follow-up. Better calls to action. A cleaner sales script. Email nurture sequences. Handling objections with confidence.

Get your conversion rate up to 40%, and you’ve just doubled your customer count without increasing your lead spend at all.

Now imagine increasing lead volume after you’ve improved your conversion. You’re not just doubling, you’re multiplying.

Test and Measure

Marketing is only expensive when it doesn’t work.

That’s why we install testing and measuring systems with clients. If you’re not tracking results, how can you tell what’s effective?

You’d be surprised how many businesses don’t know:

  • Where their best leads come from

  • What their close rate is

  • Which campaigns bring in long-term customers

They’re spending blindly. Worse still, they’re trying to scale without structure.

More Leads, More Stress

I worked recently with a business owner who was laser-focused on getting more leads.

The problem? They already had plenty coming in. But the team was overwhelmed. Follow-ups were slow. Quotes delayed. Communication patchy.

We paused lead generation and put in place a simple dashboard: source of lead, time to respond, quote sent, deal closed.

The insight was instant. Some channels converted three times better than others. Some team members were naturals at follow-up. Others needed support.

With a few changes, their conversion rate lifted sharply. Now every new lead was more valuable and less effort to win.

Where Should You Start?

Right here:

  1. Measure your conversion rate
    Track how many leads become paying customers. Be precise.

  2. Know your lead sources
    Google, referral, LinkedIn, cold call — you need to know where they come from.

  3. Fix your follow-up
    Speed, clarity and consistency matter more than you think.

  4. Then and only then, scale your leads
    Once the process works, turn up the volume.

Strategy Over Activity

Marketing isn’t about being everywhere. It’s about being effective.

When you shift from doing more to doing better, your business becomes more stable and more scalable.

That’s what the 5 Ways framework delivers. Clarity, control, and a structure for growth.

And that’s exactly what we install through ActionCOACH.

Curious where your real opportunity lies?
Let’s have a coffee and a chat. No pitch. Just a conversation about how to test, measure and scale with confidence.