Lead Quality vs. Lead Volume: What Really Drives Growth?

On this episode of Strategic Edge, Jay Abraham explains why averages can be one of the most misleading metrics in business. While many owners track performance through aggregate numbers, Abraham argues that the real opportunities for growth and profitability are hidden in variability—the differences between lead sources, salespeople, offers, headlines, and customer behaviors.

Drawing on examples from marketing, sales, and business optimization, Abraham outlines how small changes to a single variable can dramatically improve results without increasing budgets or resources. He also explores why testing should be a core business discipline rather than an occasional exercise.

Key discussion points include:

•  Why averages conceal profitable performance gaps 
•  How testing one variable at a time reveals growth opportunities 
•  The impact of headlines, offers, guarantees, and positioning on results 
•  Why lead quality matters more than lead volume 
•  Matching prospects with the right salespeople to improve conversion rates 
•  How continuous experimentation uncovers hidden profit and competitive advantage

Transcript

Welcome And Why Jay Matters

0:00

I believe every human man was more to be waiting. I believe every human man wants to be watching this. Jay is one of the top who knows how to maximize a business and it's reaching its customers. You're watching Strategic Edge with Jay Abraham, exclusively on ASBN. Hey everyone, Jim. So many of our viewers get so much out of your visits with us. I mean, your content is invaluable to so many small and medium-sized business owners. And uh so thank you for joining us again. It's my pleasure again, and I grow from it. Thank

Why Averages Can Mislead Owners

0:56

you. Sure. So today's topic is understanding variability. Uh Jay, most business owners I know track their numbers, but they're usually looking at averages, average revenue, average close rate, average ticket. You know, you've said that actually uh it's a dangerous habit. Why is that? Well, when you come from the world that I come from, which is very, very data-driven, analytical, and scientific, but also psychological, you realize that different ways of doing things, saying things, pricing things, uh positioning things, proving things can produce dramatically different outcomes. Just to give you an example, when I first got into the world and I was doing marketing, I learned that you can change a headline or its equivalent. Its equivalent can be a subject line. Right. It's equivalent can be uh the beginning uh phrase that you see on a website. Uh the equivalent can be the first thing that is said when someone talks to a salesperson or when a salesperson calls. It can be the message you leave, but you can change that alone, all things being the same, same amount of spend, same amount of market, same amount of space if it's an ad, and it can be up to 21

Tiny Message Changes Big Results

2:28

times. That's 2100%. Wow. By doing that. Now, it's rare, but I've seen regularly three to five times better. You can change what people say. I already said that. You can change how you position something. I'll give you an example. And I it's an old example, but it's profound. So back in the Haiti, I think I might have talked about this when um when uh everyone was was into CV radios. Yep. Everyone loved it. They were on the highways before cell, and everyone was talking about Good Buddy, and they always had a handle, which was their name. TV radio was massive. It would cost $500, $1,000. It would take up almost the entire underside of the passenger front, and you'd have a you'd have a uh antenna, and it was mass, but it was fun for people. Sure. Friend of mine went out and found out that you could basically take a cheap Japanese, like two dollar uh walkie-talkie, and it would have the same effect for about a thousand feet forward, backward, sideways on the highway. And he looked at it and he tested two different things. He tested offering it as a walkie-talkie, then he offered it as a pocket CB and he sold 10,000 units. Oh, wow. Okay. Think and Grow Rich, when it first came out, literally uh was called, I think I've used this before. The actual name he came up with, which is fascinating, how to use your noodle to make a boodle. It didn't sell at all. He changed the name Think and Grow Rich and it's three or four hundred million copies. I had a client, this is a fascinating story, but it's pretty profound. I had a client in the early days when gold was legal, then it was illegal, then it was legal again. Now it's legal. When it first came out, it was selling for about $300 an ounce. I had a client that had a relationship with a bank that would finance the gold. They would finance two-thirds. So if you put a third down, they would finance two-thirds. Okay. And the that this client ran would say two-thirds bank financing on silver and gold. They run Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Barron's, all the all the investment publications. And they would make enough that it was profitable. They made money, salespeople made money, they kept redoing it. But I was paid 25% of the increased profit to make the ad pull better. And I come from a world that says a headline, more often than not, should denominate the highest and most significant benefit, advantage, outcome that will occur, not just a declaratory statement. Two-thirds bank financing on silver and gold is a declaratory statement. I said, What does it really mean? And they said, What do you mean? I said, What it means is if gold is selling for $300 an ounce, if you send me $100 an ounce, I'll buy you all the gold you want. And I said, That's the outcome. That's the benefit. So I changed the headline and it five times increased literally the number of buyers. Nice. The way you prove your case with testimonials, with with uh data on the people behind it, their education, organization that is providing uh the the raw ingredients, the

Positioning Stories That Prove Variability

6:05

the um the uh the design of the product, and it's what it's designed to, you know, maybe it's designed to take three times the pressure or last twice as long, the guarantee, the warranty. And I've seen each of those, not all of them together, each separately multiply results. You know, 300%, 50%, 100%. I've seen adding or changing a risk reversal, and there's about five ways to do it. We should do a whole show on risk reversal. I've seen that double or redouble response. I've seen a bonus add 50%. Now, all of these are not combined, they're separate. So if you combine them, it's hundreds of percent from the same amount of spend, the same audience, the same if it's ad or the same recorded ad, if it's a commercial. And when you have that kind of upside, it's amazing. I have seen price shifts change. I have seen $19 sometimes outpull 15 by five times. I have seen $4,995 outproduce $5,000 by 40%. Well, when you have that kind of profound differential, you always need to verify your assumption. Most people, even at agencies, they come up with one approach and they don't challenge it. Same thing with landing pages. I will not let my agency just come up with a landing page. I make them come up with five because when you do and you test one against the other, one might be 50% better at conversion. One might be much higher at average order. Now, a lot of people in your automobile uh side, a lot of people get leads or they get ups or they get prospects. But people don't, and they'll say, okay, we're willing to spend X amount of money to get a lead. Right. And that's that is a very promiscuous mindset. Why? Because when you go very, very granular and very nuclear and very analytical and analyzing lead flow, you'll see that certain sources of lead are much more valuable than other. Certain approaches, meaning ads or propositions, are much more valuable than other. Certain kinds of buyers buy much more profitably to the and if you don't know those things because you don't analyze the variability of different responses, different uh dynamics, you are leaving enormous profit on the table. And that's sort of in a nutshell variability, okay? So you draw a distinction between structural variance and method variance. Break that down for me because I I think most owners, uh business owners out there are fighting the wrong kind. Well, yeah, I mean, so here's what I learned. I learned to think exponentially, and I learned about exponentiation. Now, most people don't think they can increase performance exponentially, but if you study mathematics, you will find that exponential isn't even the highest level of possibility that exists. There's five or seven gradients above that. Um uh heptation, uh pentation, octation. I can't remember what they are, but it's like infinity and beyond. When you realize how much more is possible, again, time, opportunity, access. I look at firstly what is said, and then I look at where it

Turn Features Into Outcomes And Wins

9:52

is said. I also look at variability from salespeople. We've talked about this uh in the automotive business, you've got all these salespeople and you've got a democratic sort of a of a of an operating system. First person comes in, goes to salesperson one, second to two, three, and but that's very inefficient because salesperson one may not be the best suited for the need of prospect one. That's right. If one is a first-time buyer and salesperson one is really good at selling trucks to truck enthusiasts, there's a disconnect. Now he or she may sell, but they're not going to optimize the opportunity. So what I do is try to get people to have a concierge who will figure out what they want and will align them with a specialist who is many times greater. Right. You will to ensure uh uh to ensure a higher closing ratio and therefore also to ensure uh greater gross profit from that customer. Yeah. Yeah. Many people that have a sales organization or a distribution network or or or or or franchisees or uh or any other kind of licensees, they impute omnipotence to their salespeople, their distributors. And it's not true. If you analyze performance of a sales organization, you're gonna find that certain ones are better at opening accounts, certain are better ones at holding margins, certain are better ones at selling composite, like combinations. Certain are better ones at retention, certain are better ones at different industries or different profile buyers. And when you figure out who's better at what and you analyze how much better, it is shocking. Somebody three times better at a certain kind of uh scenario or industry, and yet you put people who are far less effective in entrusting them with the opportunity. I look at selling as if you were as if you inherited a very rich parcel of land in some other state that you never were going

Pricing Tests Landing Pages Lead Quality

12:06

to do anything with yourself, and so you retained a tenant farmer to work it. Right. And that that beautiful parcel had the ability to produce four very rich crop yields a year, but the person you put in to work it had never made uh a lot of money, never learned all how to get the maximum number of bushels. So he or she got one mediocre crop yield, and that was more money than they'd ever made, and they stopped. Right. Understand, some people are better opening accounts, that's all they should do. Somebody are better being specialists, some better. I mean, a Salesforce, as an example, is pretty sophisticated. They've got salespeople who sell the basic service, then they've got specialists who come in and do the upgrades. Yeah. And specialists for different scenarios. Now, it's just more pragmatic. But I'm talking about variability. Does that make sense? Yes, yes, absolutely. And I think many business owners fall into this category where they have been doing it this way because they've been doing it this way, right? And until they get their eyes open to this concept that you're sharing right here, it hasn't clicked yet. So I made $10 million a year when I was 27 just trying to do this for other people. And that was when that was a lot more money than today. The point is that's still a lot today. Well, here's here's what I was gonna say. Most people are not taught, trained. Uh they're not exposed to the fact that in all probability, what they do, how they do it, the way they do it, where they do it, who they use doing it, is they think that's all that's possible. In fact, most of the time, it is a far cry from what there's optimal, there's maximum, and there's these are different gradations. Optimal is making something the best, maximizing it is the biggest, you know, and and those people accept what they do as all that is possible. But it's, I mean, I almost hurt for entrepreneurs who don't recognize that they should be able to demand and command multiple times more yield. And it almost all goes right to the bottom line. Yeah, doesn't take more people, doesn't take more money, doesn't take more uh, you know, more effort. It just takes understanding that not just what you do, but many, many well-intended advertising people and experts, they teach, they teach or they follow methodologies that make money, but they really don't understand this. And so they accept a phrase. As I said, I've had most agencies when we're trying to do any kind of offers online, they'll create a singular landing page. Right. They think it's cool. And a lot of people, I mean, here's something else. If you look at catalog type things online or not, or you look at your car deals with all these pictures,

Match Prospects To The Right Seller

15:20

I've seen changing the description double or redouble the desire for a car. Yeah, and that's something cloud. You and I talked about this. So if you drive down the street where there's a big car area and you see people that have a singular car, you know, as an attraction, maybe it's an angle, maybe it's there. I say if you test a different kind type and looks of cars, there's probably one kind of car that will attract three times more people to be interested in the dealership. Right. It's true that you drive down most of these dealerships and they got all these used cars that you don't even know what they are, where they are, and they don't try to optimize visual leverage. That's right. It's all about leverage. It's about it's about it's about safe, risk-free, investment-free leverage that already exists in what you already do. And not doing it, is it is it the byproduct of not knowing what to do, or is it is it the by is it the byproduct of somebody that's just not taking action, knows, knows they should do it, but isn't doing it? To be a research scientist, which is what it requires, is discipline. Yeah. But the payoff is again, it it increases the top line, but it really multiplies the bottom line far greater, bigger, faster, safer. And the payoff is enormous because that can fund a lot of the other things you'd want to do, or expansion, or hiring, or buying businesses. I think it's that first of all, nobody teaches that. I just taught you, and you're asking as an advocate of your audience, and I've I've done enough of this. I can promise you 85% of all small medium entrepreneurs don't understand it. I can promise you that most localized type of uh of uh online type of agencies or or uh service providers don't know this. Most sales trainers don't know this. I mean, um, you know, it's uh I think I told you this. Right now, agentix is really hot, and everyone gets excited. And so they'll buy or they'll create their own agents, and then they'll arbitrarily give it something to say and scenarios, and they'll give it a voice. But they don't test to see if that's the best thing to say, they don't test to see if that's the best voice to use. They just say, okay, I'm gonna give it this. And my world is that's the most promiscuous, uh uh wasteful thing to do. And and what I learned when I started this, one of my mentors, I've had hundreds of mentors, said something to me that was profound.

Ask The Market With Disciplined Testing

18:08

He said, Jay, neither you nor your your uh your clients nor their directors, investors, stakeholders, family have the right to tell the market. They have the responsibility and the opportunity to ask the market because the market will tell you the best and the better things to do by their response. Right, right. One approach against another, and they're not gonna be the same. There's gonna be variability. Now, it's already known because anybody that does any kind of digital marketing knows that they optimize it for things, and that is a valid demonstration, but uh but that's just the outer periphery. That's this much of what's possible. Doesn't matter what you do, who you do it for, you can put a sign up and it will change. I got started helping the largest worldwide multivariable testing organization in the world. Uh, it's called um, I'll think of the name. Uh, it's been a long time. But they tested billions and millions of hypotheses. Back then, it would cost six figures to start and seven figures to get a conclusion. They would test different positions of products on a shelf, they would test following up a sale to see how it reduced refunds or increased post-purchase additions. They would basically test things on the counter, they would test signage, and it was profound. And the results were unimaginably varied. I can imagine that that's pretty that's pretty cool type of testing. Well, but what when you learn, I mean, you can do it simply. You can have one salesperson try one approach, another try another and look at it. And even if it's not definitive, it's usually indicative. And I can promise everybody watching, if all you do is have a store, I mean, you can change how how you you display and merchandise, you can change signage, you can change what people say when they walk in, you can change what they say at the counter. If they say, you know, you just bought this, if you want to buy one more, it's it's a third less. That works. That might add an extra thousand dollars a week to your bottom line. If you're little, it might add another hundred thousand if you're larger. That's right. That's right. Just that word track, that simple little word track. But I'm saying, I mean,

Simple Experiments And Closing Thoughts

20:47

my world is if if I you're you're you're hitting me with it uh sort of on the fly. If I sat down, I could give you probably 500 different things you could test. Wow. And be shocked at the different things. I think we've talked about it before in previous uh shows where um I think it was Starbucks that you mentioned that simply asked the customer, you know, did you want to add a water to today's order in addition to the coffee? And uh right off the bat, you know, the the the sales went up on the water, and it's like eight dollars, you know, for a uh a bottle of water at the airport. And just because that person, you know, that cashier at the time or that barista, if you will, said, Would you like to add water to that, you know, today? And um it went up, you know, like six feet. You want to supersize it? You want fries with that? There you go. Right, right. Or somebody will say, Yeah, you can upgrade to the 20-ounce coke for 50 cents more because it only costs 10. Right. Isn't that something? Just that little. Yeah, but if you don't test these kind of assumptions, hypothesis and variables, you'll never uncover the enormity of stored value of unrealized profit that just sits in what you do, who you do with. That's right. I mean, it's profound. It's almost sadly profound because most people don't have a clue. That's right, that's right. And it's these profound insights that uh we love when you come in, Jay Abraham, to share with us. It means so much. So again, thank you so much for spending time with us here at the Strategic Edge with Jay Abraham. So thank you so much. Look forward to next time us being together. Thanks for watching Strategic Edge with Jay Abraham, exclusively on ASBN.