#73 4 Smart Ways to Pre-Qualify Leads Using AI Chatbots (Without Turning People Off)

Speaker A: Four smart ways to pre qualify leads using AI chatbots without turning people off. I'm gonna tell you something most business owners don't like to talk about. Sometimes it doesn't pay to talk to every lead. Here's the thing. 98% of people visiting your website right now aren't even real prospects, right? Either they're just randomly passing by, or they're basically window shopping with zero intention to buy. And you know what most of us do? We treat every single one of them like they're our next big client. We jump on calls, we send proposals, we waste hours. People who are never going to buy in the first place. But what if you could know within seconds which leads are actually worth your time? Well, thanks to AI chatbots, that's a lot easier nowadays. So that's what we're going to be talking about today. I'm going to show you four smart ways to use AI chatbots to pre qualify your leads. And by AI chatbots, I'm not talking about those robotic messengers, right? I'm talking about chatbots that don't make you feel like you're being interrogated by the freaking Terminator. Anyway, just to give you an idea of how common chatbots are these days, 58% of B2B companies are already using them. So if you're not doing this, you're already behind. But here's the good news. Most people are doing it wrong. They're turning their chatbots into annoying gatekeepers that scare away good leads. Today, I'm going to show you how to do it right. Ready? Let's dive in. The first way you can use chatbots to pre qualify leads is with real time conversational scoring. Alright, first up, you need to really look into what your chatbot's trying to do when they're speaking to the prospect. Obviously they're not there just to make small talk, right? Ideally, you'd want to find out if they have any intention of converting at all. That's where real time scoring comes in. Basically, this is where your chatbot asks three to five diagnostic questions. Stuff like company size, what's keeping them up at night and yes, budget. But here's the magic. Instead of making people fill out some boring form, the bot scores them on the fly and writes it straight to your CRM. And with AI chatbots, you can basically program them to ask these questions naturally and more importantly, instantly. Now, why does this work so well? Drift did this massive study on like 30 million conversations. You know what they found? Sales reps who respond within 2 minutes book the most meetings, but wait just 5 minutes. Your bounce risk jumps 10 times. Wait 10 minutes, it's 100 times more likely they'll ghost you. My point is, speed matters. But obviously you don't want to turn people off by asking them too many questions. So never ask for data you won't actually use. Like if you're not going to do anything with their shoe size, don't ask for it. Right? Keep things short, relevant and fast moving. Anyway, once your prospect meets the minimum requirements, that's when you know they're the right fit for you. Or at least you know that they're the right demographic. The chatbot can then direct those prospects to book a one on one call with you. Okay, the second way AI chatbots help with pre qualifying is with immersive conversations that adapt to the prospect. A, uh, really well programmed AI chatbot can do this entire process in a natural, progressive way. And they adapt. So instead of just hitting people with all the questions at once, the bot only reveals the next question based on their answers. And if they veer off topic, the bot adapts. Right. The bot will start asking different types of questions, even give empathetic comments, but the end result is always to nudge the person to answer the main pre qualifying questions. And if you think about it, this has another benefit. It actually helps to address any concerns or objections your prospect might have, because as they're naturally conversing with the bot, they learn a bit more about your product and how it could potentially help them. Right? It's like having a conversation with a really smart salesperson who knows when to dig deeper and when to back off. That's a lot more personal and immersive than say, filling in a boring form or whatever number three is. Redirecting those who don't fit. Now what if the prospect doesn't meet the requirements? You can always redirect them somewhere else, like a low ticket offer or some other thing of value you're able to provide. Right. Why bother doing this? Well, because no one likes answering all those questions only to be met with zero value at the end. That's gonna piss some people off. Remember, they may not be paying customers now, but they might be in the future. Of course, I wouldn't recommend doing this manually, as that would mean spending time and on clients who won't end up converting anytime soon. But now that we have AI chatbots to do this automatically, it's fairly simple to set up. Right? So let's say someone's budget is too small for your premium service. Instead of just saying, oh, okay, sayonara. You can set up your chatbot to say, I think our course would be perfect for you. It's only $297 and shows you exactly how to get results with a smaller budget. Or maybe your project sounds awesome, but we typically work with bigger budgets. Have you checked out our free webinar training? It covers our exact framework. Lower ticket offer could be anything cheap, like a $1 lead magnet. Or even subscription to a weekly newsletter with tips. Finally, the last smart way you can use AI chatbots is to hand things smoothly to a human. See, most people are probably fine with speaking to a chatbot, but those who aren't, they want a real person. And sometimes those are your best customers. Plus, even the smartest AI has limits. Complex questions, unique situations, or just someone who's ready to buy. Now, these all need human touch. So here's what you escape hatches into your bot every few messages. Have it check. Am I answering your questions? Okay. Or would you prefer to speak with someone directly? But here's the key. Make the handoff smooth. Your bot should package up everything from the conversation. Sarah's interested in webinar marketing. Has a 10k monthly budget. Needs results in 60 days. Main issue is low ad conversions. Boom. Your sales rep knows exactly what's going on. The prospect doesn't repeat themselves. Everyone's happy. Now, obviously, you don't want everyone demanding human time, right? That defeats the whole purpose. So, for qualified leads who pass your scoring, sure. Instant access to your best salespeople. For everyone else, maybe they get an email response instead. Or they book a call for next week. Or they get redirected to your faq. The point is, you're using humans strategically. Not wasting their time on tire kickers, but making sure real buyers get real attention when they need it. Because at the end of the day, AI qualifies. But humans close the deals. So here's the bottom line. AI chatbots aren't just some fancy gimmick anymore. They could be saving you thousands while potentially earning you millions of dollars at the same time. Right? Just by helping you focus on the leads that actually matter. Now, before I go, I've got some news. After 73 episodes of Founders Go Naked, we're switching things up and moving over to a new podcast called how to Print Money. And before you think I've lost my mind. No, I'm not teaching you about counterfeiting. Honestly, we'll mostly be talking about the same st you want to hear, just with a name that better reflects what we're doing here. This new podcast will be focusing on talking about proven systems that generate revenue. Just like the AI chatbot strategies we just covered. Real, practical strategies that print real money for real businesses. So if you want to learn how to build systems that generate cash while you sleep, make sure you go on to our new podcast, how to Print Money and subscribe. I'll also leave the link in the description so you can go ahead and click on it there. Until next time, this is Terence Tamil signing off. I'll see you in my new podcast.