Nurturing Leads: The Key to Business Growth

Are you a business owner stuck in fear, doubt, and worry about what the marketplace will look like in the future? Then this show is for you. Strap on your seatbelt and get ready to disrupt and innovate. Here's your host, Lisa Levy.

Today we're cutting through the noise on business growth, because if you're struggling to generate more revenue, the answer may not be more marketing, more software, or more leads. It may be the invisible leaks inside your sales process. After this conversation, you'll walk away with a practical framework for finding those leaks, improving conversions, and creating a customer journey that actually drives growth. Joining me today is Jason Kramer, founder of Cultivize, a firm that helps businesses uncover revenue gaps and build systems that turn prospects into customers.

Jason, thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you, Lisa. I appreciate the invite. I am so excited to have this conversation.

But before we get really tactical, I want to kind of get some context. Three quick questions. So in one sentence, why are you speaking on this topic? What is it that you've done in your career that's earned you the right to talk about lead nurturing and CRM strategy?

Well, having worked with hundreds of companies around the globe, the one thing that shocks me every time, even to this day, is the lack of process. And so what I've done, my passion is to helping people find those gaps, find the cracks in their system, if you will, when it comes to parts of their business that I focus on and really get a joy and seeing the change and the impact that we can make when those holes are no longer there. Fantastic. Fantastic.

What's an early assumption you had about sales and marketing that turned out to be wrong? That everything was connected and that everybody knew what was going on. What was the cost of that misunderstanding? It's hundreds of millions of dollars and a lot of frustration thinking that, yeah, our marketing is working because we're generating traffic or we're meeting people at a trade show or getting people to set up our webinar.

But when you don't have all that other pieces connected, you realize none of that matters because the revenue only grew by 3% and you spent a lot of money on marketing and nothing really happened. Yeah, and that's a painful realization. So let's jump into this. Let's name the monster.

What problem are companies actually facing when they think they need more leads? Well, that's just it. They think they need more leads, right? That's the problem.

And what they don't realize is that it's not that they need more leads, it's that they're not doing a good job to nurture, to educate, and to inform the leads that they've already gotten. And so what happens, and it's really no fault because we just get busy. Everybody gets busy, Lisa, right? You and I get busy.

But when you don't have a system and you say to me, Jason, that sounds great. Thank you for your time, but I'm not interested right now. Call me back in six months. Or you just don't even say anything.

You just say it's not a good fit right now. Most sales organizations will just stop. They might follow up for a few weeks, maybe a couple months, but eventually it just tapers off. And what we know is that over 30% of people that are nurtured will eventually convert into a customer.

But not only will they convert, they'll actually convert at a higher price tag because you've educated them and showed them the value of what you can bring to the table. And so when they already made the decision, they tend to buy more from you than they did before. That's a really powerful little gem right there, people, if you're listening to that. So in this, it's not about more leads.

It's not about new leads. It's not about the greatest technology. It's not about hiring the best hunters in the sales world. It's having a repeatable process where you can take care of and nurture the leads you already have.

Exactly. And the other goldmine too, which is really interesting for the listeners to think about, if your business has been around for a few years or more, you have past customers. You have people that never said yes, never said no. And so what do people do?

They spend money on marketing to find brand new people. But you could have hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars in revenue just sitting in your database. That's just completely untapped. And that's the first thing we always look at when we work with clients is, what data do you have that we can go back and try to resurface and rekindle to get some revenue out of that data.

So there are lots of people who will tell you, right, that your database is the gold mine. You have to mine that data and you have, and you've just said it, thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars sitting in there that's yet to be tapped. So let's dig a little deeper. Let's walk me through the process like I'm onboarding as a client.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So for us, and it is, I'll condense a six to eight week process into like 30 seconds. And I've never done that before, but I think I could do it.

So it's really understanding the organization, right? It's the most important part. Who are the critical players? What are their responsibilities?

What do they do? And what are they doing today? We can't fix anything, Lisa, if we don't know what's broken. So the best thing we can do, and anybody listening, and if you're on a treadmill, not the best time, do it when you get off the treadmill, but is to get a piece of paper and start writing down what is my process when I get a lead, when the phone rings, when I get a website lead, when I meet somebody at an event, what have you.

What's the first thing I do? What's the second thing I do? And what are the time gaps between those steps? How long do I usually spend to do that?

Does it take a week? Does it take a day? And then eventually you going to start building out this wireframe that has a lot of holes in it And that where you immediately need to focus And that where we focus in our onboarding is finding those problems Sometimes we do that before the onboarding even starts But the next thing we need to do is look at the data. How good is the data?

A lot of people have data. A lot of times it's messy. We live in a world of AI. AI is amazing at synthesizing, cleaning data, not cleaning it in the sense of this person still works at this company, but yes, it could do that with other tools.

But more so, how do we make sense of our data? You know, and there's the various prompts and things. And if you want to reach out to me, I'm happy to share a few. But getting a sense of that data is certainly something that's really important.

And the third step is the plan, right? Okay, now that we have an understanding of what needs to be done, how are we going to go build out the new CRM or the technology or the processes that we know we need? And so you need to have it on paper before you build, right? Nobody's ever built a car just from having a vision in their head of how an engine should be put together, right?

You have to build a wireframe and schematics and understand how all the parts get connected. And so if you don't have that plan on paper, you probably are going to fail at building something. So that would be my recommendations. So I'm going to make a couple of clarifying assertions of my own on this topic.

If you don't have it on paper, you don't have a process because it's not repeatable. Sure. Right. Sally can't learn from Johnny if there's not something for her to use when Johnny's not there to coach her through steps 1 through 10.

So processes require documentation. It's just that simple. And I'm sorry, that's just who I am and how I show up. And Jason, I love that you start with the idea that process is everything.

In that conversation, you didn't actually talk about the technology at all, right? It's about getting and understanding step one through A through Z, understanding who does what, what time required between each step is worthwhile, and what time between each step is wasted so that you can fine tune that so you can be more efficient and more effective. And for everybody in the audience who's listening who's been around for a while, you know that that's the key to all of this, being effective and efficient.

So once you have it on paper and you start wanting to build from that, does the CRM really matter? It says that technology enables the process. I will make that statement. I live in that world.

But does it really matter if the process is good? If the process is good, it only matters to make sure that the technology is going to fit the process. So what I mean by that is, if you said to me, Jason, we have a plumbing company and we have 20 techs in the field and they are in their phones and they need to be able to update job logs, look at schedules. I would never recommend a CRM that did not have a mobile app because then the mobile app is completely useless to the organization.

So we need to understand who's going to be using the system, how they're going to be using it, what features and functions are needed to support the process. For example, another one would be, Jason, we want to create this whole tickler campaign, right? An email campaign that goes out to nurture and educate our customers. Well, what if you go buy a CRM that doesn't offer any email marketing capabilities?

Then you need to find another piece of the puzzle. Then you need to connect those systems together and it becomes just a headache you probably want to avoid. So technology matters, but technology shouldn't be the first thing you look at. And trust me, I know I live in technology and you do too, Lisa.

And the shiny object syndrome is real, right? And even today in 2026, you have thousands and thousands of different pieces of software out there and mobile apps and all these things. And you're like, oh, I want to try it as a free trial. And I tell people all the time, do not do free trials.

It's a waste of time, waste of effort, because also you may not even be able to afford it, right? So it might be $5,000 a month and you get a free trial for 30 days. What does it matter? If you can't afford the $5,000 or the $10,000 a month, then don't even waste your time with the free trial.

You know, so. Well, and then you're going to be stuck in the having, I don't know, champagne taste and a beer budget and whatever it is you can't afford. Yeah, using a spreadsheet after you just show this beautiful, slick software that you can't afford. So, yeah.

So, Jason, you are emphasizing a principle that I hold really true, that there's a magic formula for business. And it's people plus process times technology equals growth and scale. The people in the process have to be right. Technology enables that.

And if that technology is not fit for use, meaning it does not support and enable your process, it's the wrong technology. And no matter how cool it is, it's not going to make your business better. I would agree with that. The other thing to add is accountability.

You know, you can have all those things. You could have the best technology or the, I shouldn't say the best, but you'll have the right technology for your business. The process is there. The people are there.

But if nobody's keeping everything accountable and nobody's checking on it ongoingly, right? So CRM is not, we build it in three months, we're done. We walk away and it's running. We have to continually monitor that every 30 days, at least we do it for our clients.

Is everything still working the way it should be working? Are we getting the results we want? Things change. Business changes.

Industry changes. Products change. There's a world of change out there. And so a CRM is a living, ongoing, breathing thing that constantly needs to be looked at and evaluated.

And that's where the biggest fall, honestly, is, Lisa. People get excited about this new process, this new tool. You check back six months later, a year later, 5% of the people are still using it because nobody's monitoring it and keeping them accountable. And they were more comfortable with the way they had done it before.

And we revert back. It's human nature. It human nature You can work out with the trainer at the gym and they show you the right way to work out And then you done with those private sessions and you can go back to you know arching your back on the bench press when you you know because it just what you been doing you know despite everything So yeah So let's bring this into this and make some of this real. I want to talk about the part that people will often skip and glaze over.

Let's talk about a time when something didn't go right. Tell me about an interaction you had with a client where the process, everything you built, you were on the right path, and yet it still didn't quite work. So there's a common one that does come up from time to time. In a lot of these systems, the email address is the unique identifier to a record, right?

And that's how you prevent duplicates. It's how you keep things in check. It also is integral to integrating to a lot of tools, right? Because that email address is unique to the person, right?

You could have two John Smiths or 100 John Smiths, but there's only one email for that John Smith. And so what we see sometimes is that, well, the sales rep might say, well, I don't have their email yet. You know, it was a phone call. Like they didn't give me an email.

So I just put them and it creates all sorts of havoc. And so the one thing I train people on is if you don't have an email, a simple format to use is, and I'll use myself as an example, jasonkramer at noemail.com. And then this way, you can go through the database.

You could find all the domains of noemail.com, everybody that doesn't have a real email, and easily update that when you do have an email address. That is a huge failure point. It sounds so silly and simple, but it's something that often people overlook is having an email connected to that person.

So everybody who's listening, everybody who has data in a CRM, that is a fantastic little nugget. So if you don't have an email address in your process, have the steps standardized that if you have no email address, you revert to firstname.lastname at noemail.com.

And that way it is searchable so that when you get email addresses, you can update appropriately. What an amazingly simple, incredibly impactful tip. Oh my God, that's fantastic. It's all about simplicity.

That's my world. You know, there's no reason to complicate anything, Lisa. It's true. Keep it simple.

The KISS principle, keep it simple, Simon, exists for a reason. That's right. Yes. So, Jason, let's dig in a little bit more around this.

You've been doing this for a long time. Give me the data. Give me the stories that prove that process first works in this environment. What are measurable changes that your clients start to see?

So the most is the follow-up. That's, I would say, number one. You know, we're talking about companies that don't have the process, are using rudimentary tools, spreadsheets. We onboarded a company that is in pool construction and as a retail, big retail showroom, the largest in their area.

They're using manila folders. You know, they didn't have a system. They only had a system for the service department. But for sales, it was literally the stacks, you know, those wire racks on the desk.

That's where everything was kept, which is insane. And so the story I always like to share is a common story, but this one particularly was somebody who was skeptical about the nurturing process and does it really work and what's the value of it? And so the story goes like this. Tom, and that's his real name, owns a roofing company, family-owned roofing business, and they've been around for about 20 years.

They do about $7 million, give or take a year in revenue. So nice size business, only three salespeople. And what I had noticed early on working with them setting up, and they also, they had spreadsheets, but their spreadsheets were pretty good, but it couldn't do what a CRM could do. You know, it was limiting.

And so one of the things it was limiting on is the follow-up. And one thing I learned early on was that after about five or six weeks after they've gone to the home, they've spent time talking to the homeowner, putting the estimate together, put hours into this, they would just not follow up because they didn't have the time. And they would just assume that, you know, Mary never called back or, you know, John never called back because they hired somebody else or just didn't have the money to do it.

And that was the way that they operated for decades. And I said, well, Tom, that's crazy. I said, because, you know, to make a decision to spend $20,000 on a roof in three or four weeks is not something everybody can do. It's a big investment.

You know, they're probably talking to other people and they might take some time. And so the short end of the story is that I built a campaign for 18 months after that five-week period. So for almost, you know, well over, you know, over a year, the system would automatically follow up every couple of months. And it would do so where it would send a very gentle email from the sales rep, from their name, their email.

And it would just say, hey, Lisa, we came to your home at 123 Sycamore Street. It was a beautiful colonial, all highly personalized because we know the type of home. We know everything about it. We're just wondering, did you hire anybody?

And if you haven't, we'd love to continue to help you build that beautiful roof for your home. And if you have, can you just click this one question survey link and let us know why you hire somebody else if you don't mind. And so what happened? Something magical.

We found out that at the end of 2025, and this had been running for less than a year, maybe about six months, they closed over $3 million in revenue. And most of those deals were from 16 months to 18 months after that five-week period. And people were replying to the email, yes, I didn't forget. Thank you for the reminder.

We're ready to go forward. And what they also learned is why people weren't hiring them. They were too slow sometimes to get the proposal out. Their price was too high.

Obvious reasons, right? They hired somebody, a friend to do it. But it was started giving them feedback to make them be better salespeople. And that a story I can tell over and over for a multitude of different clients in different industries because it the same story that the nurturing works when it done correctly You just have to make sure that you not being too aggressive and that you really coming from the heart and really just trying to show value and that you being helpful And you're not just saying, you know, hey, give me your money.

Like, you know, can we start working together? Give me your money now. Yeah, right. The impactful piece in that, and you gave us numbers.

Yeah. So $7 million company, 20 years, very consistent, very stable, felt pretty good about things. Yeah. When the new process was implemented, they found $3 million in revenue that they did not know existed.

It was there in the database, in the spreadsheet, but it was money left on the table. And money that would have been completely just not even obtainable without that system. Yeah. Yeah.

And that is a huge shift. That is business revenue growth. That's fantastic. That is a fabulous story.

And all of the feedback that they were receiving from those prospects that they could use to improve how they operate the business around the sales process. Absolutely fantastic. Let's dig into a couple of things and look at it from the other direction. So let's talk about what the hidden costs might be when somebody comes into refining process, potentially bringing in new technology.

What are some of the things you help people understand and prepare for? So one of the biggest things is about the admin time of a salesperson. So what I've kind of came to the realization, if let's say a salesperson was making $150K a year and, you know, they spent about 20% of their time on just admin work, that could be completely eliminated, that the CRM could handle, that could automate, could do all the things it needs to do for them. I mean, that's almost $30,000 in revenue a year you're spending on a salesperson to do admin work and not to be selling.

And when you multiply that by a team of 10, a team of 20, you're spending a lot of money for people not to do what you hire them to do, right? Which makes zero sense. And so now you magnify that to other areas of your business besides just a sales team, your onboarding team, right? Your customer service department.

And you think about all the people where all their job, and I'll use this as a personal story. When I first graduated from college, I was a graphic designer. So I worked in the advertising industry, and I did that for 20 years before starting this. Let's jump into a little bit of a lightning round.

I'm going to ask a couple of questions, and these are just designed for some how you're thinking sort of moments and what these ad impacts without having to go into great elaboration. So if you had one metric that you think sales organizations should track, what's the most important metric? I would say the quality of leads from an MQL marketing qualified lead to a sales qualified lead. Absolutely.

Fantastic. What CRM feature do most businesses overvalue? Overvalue in a negative way or a positive way? However you want to take that one.

Okay. I would say that the CRM feature that most people undervalue because they don't know how to set it up correctly is something called lead scoring, which identifies the people that are what I would call a hot lead or a warm lead in your database. What's a tool or a process you would ban tomorrow? I like that one.

Tool or process or ban tomorrow? Okay. I would say ban the use of AI without any human interaction to it when you're trying to create anything useful that might be going to a prospect or even to a customer. Absolutely fantastic.

All right, folks, we've had a great conversation today with Jason and the focus really was on the power of process. And the reality of this is, and we talked a little bit about it from my perspective in the people plus process times technology, but we really have to understand what our sales process is. And the trick and thing that anyone who is listening can do right now, as long as you're not driving it, right, is sit down with a pencil and paper and write out what is it you do step by step by step and understand the time between steps and the things that might be causing friction or chaos.

Losing time that's valuable, that doesn't need to be lost and understanding how you can simply tune that process. Any one of us can do that exercise right now. In the conversation today, Jason shared with us and showed that growth problems are most often process problems. We don't need more leads.

We need to close the leads we already have. And documenting and understanding that journey and that sales process and the customer side of it reveals the potential for hidden revenue leaks, where one company he described found $3 million that they would have left on the table if they had not started a new process. And we also know that technology amplifies process. It doesn't replace it.

We had a tremendous amount of conversation around that to know that if we have a really good process, technology will make it better. But if the process isn't good, we get what I call super fast bad. Jason, thank you so much for being here with us today. And if people are interested in learning more, how do they reach out and find you?

Yeah, so you and me keeping things simple. The best way to get people to find me is to go to afterthelead.com. You can connect with me on social there.

Got some great downloads for your audience, Lisa. All these things we're talking about, how to nurture people and just an abundance of resources. Fantastic. Audience members, you know my rules.

Don't get left behind. Join me next time. That's it for today's episode of Disrupt and Innovate.