36 \\ Losing Warm Leads? How to Improve Your Hand Off Process to Land More High-Ticket Sales

When someone on your social engages, which means likes your post, comments, sends you a DM, or responds to one of your emails, they are saying, "I'm interested". And when your person is reaching out, that means they are open, so they are also actively looking for help. So what happens in that next 24 to 48 hours is vital.
Tired of showing up online, posting your heart out and still hearing crickets? Are you doing all the right things but wondering why your content isn't converting? Your DMs are dry and your audience isn't buying. You're not alone, and this podcast is exactly for you.
Welcome to Social Media Marketing for Small Businesses where strategy meets soul and connection. Well, that's the secret sauce. Hi, I'm Cheyanne Cleyman, a wife, proud mama of three, former actress and fitness trainer turned serial entrepreneur and online relationship expert. Over the last decade, I've built my own brands, helped dozens of others grow theirs, and discovered one powerful truth: connection is the real currency.
If you're a service-based business or high-ticket brand that wants more leads, trust, and sales from social media without the burnout or fake hype, you're in the right place. Each week, I'm bringing you short, powerful, and packed episodes that feel like a coffee date with a best friend and biz coach all in one. Let's turn your followers into clients and content into connection. This is Social Media Marketing for Small Businesses, and it's about to change how you show up online. Let's dive in, boss.
Hey, hey, boss, welcome back to Social Media Marketing for Small Businesses, or welcome for the first time. I'm happy you clicked on this episode. My name is Cheyanne Cleyman. I'm your go-to Marketing co-strategist and founder of Kuleana Connect, where we help heart-led small business owners just like yourself turn your online presence into real relationships and real revenue, because that's what it's all about. Right? If you're tired of chasing leads or wondering why your content isn't converting, then you are in the right place. Every single episode, every week, we unpack practical human-first strategies to help you build trust, nurture your audience, and finally, turn social media into a sustainable growth tool.
Now, before we dive into the topic today, I wanted to give a quick shout-out to one of our sweet listeners. This recent review came in from Taylor. She says, "Every time I listen to this podcast, I leave with clarity". "Amen, Cheyanne has a way of breaking down marketing in a way that finally makes sense". "No fluff, just truth, heart and strategy I can use today". Taylor, seriously, here's a huge virtual hug, and thank you. That's exactly why I do this. And if you've been listening and loving this podcast as well, would you mind taking 30 seconds just like Taylor did, and leave a quick review? It really, really means the world. And ultimately, it lets me know where I'm on target and what kind of episodes really resonate with you, so I can keep giving you the answers that you're looking for.
Now let's talk about the thing that happens right after a lead says, yes. Okay, first and foremost, right? You've sparked the lead. The lead is hooked. They are ready to go now. You posted something great. A lead replies, DMs you, books a call, and you're getting all these nervous butterflies, and maybe you're standing there like, "Okay, wait, what do I do next?" "What do I do?" This is like every business owner's dream, right? Especially if you're an entrepreneur and just success is not guaranteed. And here you go. Finally, something you're doing is connecting, and it's going right?
But this is honestly where so many small business owners, they lose momentum. The hard part's over. Honestly, getting someone to say yes to that next step, that's just like when someone agrees to go on a date with you, right? Someone showed interest. But because there's no clear handoff process, that warm lead can really end up in limbo. It can be that no call is booked, or no follow through happens, no conversion. So that's why you probably clicked on this call today, because you want to make sure that this doesn't happen. Maybe it's happened to you already. Well, let's go ahead and fix that.
So today I'm going to break this episode down in three simple segments, and each segment is just going to be a few minutes long. You heard me in the beginning, and again, if you've been listening to this podcast, you know that I am all about packing a lot in one episode, because I'm all about practical and valuable and not fluff. I want you guys to walk away with something that you can actually tangibly do to make a difference in your business today. So I'm going to start things off fast. Go right into it. So if you're a note taker, make sure you bust out your pen and paper or your Notes section on your phone. And let's go segment one. We're going to focus on why a clean handoff is vital. This may seem like obvious, but I want to point out a few things to you.
So when a lead engages, when someone on your social engages, which means likes your post, comments, sends you a DM, responds to one of your emails, they are saying, "I'm open, I'm listening, I'm interested". And unfortunately, when that happens, that window of interest is short because there's just so much competition out there nowadays. Chances are you are now not the only Realtor in their area. You're not the only dietitian that they can find. You are not the only person offering life coaching, right? And when your person is reaching out, that means one that they're open, so they are also actively looking for help. So what happens in that next 24 to 48 hours is vital, and it matters more than what you posted last week.
And yet, what I see so much happening, and what ends up in my DMs are business owners that are talking to me about things, and I'm noticing that there's a lot of DMs that are unread. There's responses when the DMs are read or the emails are read without clear next steps, or worse, or honestly, what happens the most that I see is that there's a cold, robotic sales link. Okay, but here's the cold, hard truth, a lead is not a client until they're led. I'll never forget when one of my business coaches told me that it sounds bad, but you have to imagine that your clients, not that they're stupid, but that they really need to be sheep like led to water. Horse led to water, because they are more than likely finding you on their phones. The majority of people on social media, they're accessing you from their phones. Second, of course, would be perhaps through email, which is funny enough, most often opened on a computer, but they are being bombarded with messages. And how do we know? Because if you spend any amount of time on social, even if it's just for business, you know how that feels, right? You know how that feels to be bombarded. So there's so many people coming at them and after them that you really have to clearly communicate exactly what you want to do.
That's why you'll notice when you've probably been there. I've been there when I sign up for something and I give someone my email, especially when it comes to say, like I want a free download, or I want to book a call, or I've wanted to show up at someone's webinar. Some of the great, some of the best, have what? A confirmation page that doesn't just say thank you. It says, "Hey, here's your next step". Before we could even think about it, they already have an answer, and that's ultimately what a handoff is. It's an intentional, warm, guided next step that keeps momentum moving. It's basically that bridge between interest and income, baby. All about that. That's the gap we want to bridge is building that trust in that momentum to build between interest and ultimately heading into your bank account.
Okay, guys, so that was segment one, right? Segment one, we're understanding why a clean handoff is vital, and also that we must do it. So it's time for you to now implement this in your own industry and your own business, your simple handoff system. So here's what a solid, sustainable handoff process looks like, especially for someone like the majority of my audience listening that are service providers and coaches.
So step one, you have to acknowledge the interest. You've got to make sure that people know that you see them so you can say something as simple as, "Hey, so glad you reached out". "I'd love to hear more about what's going on". You want to make them feel seen before you ever pivot to the next step, right? One of the biggest complaints that I hear is, "Cheyanne, I have so many DMs come in. I just can't keep up with them," or "Cheyanne, I have a business I'm running, even if I get one or two DMs a day, I often miss it". "Can I set up AI for this?" Right? That's kind of one of the big questions out there.
And I, even in our business, that's really proud and really stands out and states from the very beginning at Kuleana Connect, that we are human first, that we do not use bots, that we do not use AI to do our conversations. However, we do use AI in other situations, we use it very limited, because we want to be different, because AI is taking over in the beginning. Just like with any new technology, AI is exciting. It helps people become more efficient, but because we are human, people start to take notice. And I don't know about you, but me, personally, I really loved things like, if you've ever heard of ManyChat, it's a very popular tool now that businesses use to do automated DMs into Facebook and Instagram and many other social platforms now. I still love it, because it can be very time efficient, right? It can help you get more done and reach more people.
However, a huge sense of caution if you use it, really use it as an initial, maybe acknowledgement, like this step one, maybe even as I clarify into step two, but ultimately, I really do believe that people are going to become so conditioned and irritated to automated responses that they are also going to start tuning those out that use it too much. So a happy in between what I would say and what we do with our clients is that some sort of automation is okay, but somewhere in the very beginning you do need to insert yourself there does need to be a human connection, or else you're gonna lose your person especially if you're in the service industry, right, or if you're a coach, if you're a realtor, if you are a healthcare practitioner. Certain brands this works fine for like clothing brands or people that are selling like product based businesses, this is a little bit easier. People are less emotionally attached to buying a vitamin or buying a necklace, right? As opposed to buying a life transformational program. They don't want to talk to a bot about their life, right? Like, there needs to be a human there. So step two, again, you can automate this, but I would really lean more on the air of caution there.
Step two is asking one quick clarifying question. So after you've acknowledged their interest, you might want to ask them something like, "What kind of support are you looking for, is there a specific challenge you're navigating? Have you tried something before that didn't work?" This is going to do a couple things, right? Clarifying questions always help. People also feel seen, so you've acknowledged them now you're asking a question instead of telling them and coming at them. That's going to increase trust this truly guys. If you've been listening to this podcast, I always every episode say that business in general, right? If you've been in business, when people say business isn't personal, it's so not true, because business is so personal, especially when you're working in the service based industry, and it is about relationships, relationships, relationships. It doesn't matter if the person's a client of yours and a die hard or if they're brand new just meeting you, it is all a relationship process, right? So asking questions, just like you would on a date to get to know someone that can go a long way in your business as well.
So now moving on to step three. Okay, this is going to be the third step in your simple handoff system. Is going to be offering the next step. Now I have to emphasize, not the pitch. Do not pitch them an offer just yet. Okay, this is just guiding them on that next step of what are they expected to do next once you have acknowledged them and clarify, because sometimes the clarifying question is also going to help you clarify for them and for you to see, are you guys a right fit just by asking the right clarifying question, Is this someone that is an ideal client? Are you an ideal person to help them? Is what you offer ideally fit for them? Or if you have several offers, it may help you both figure out, where are they in their journey? Where do they need the help the most? Then you can offer the next step.
So you can say something like, "Hey, based on what you shared, I think a call would give us some space to really map this out". "I have 2, 30-minute spots open next week. Want me to send you the link and boom, that's it"? This small, intentional moment builds trust and it avoids the awkward like, "Hey, here's my calendar, Stranger energy". So now, one thing I want to make sure that I add here is that if you're like a lot of busy, busy entrepreneurs, now maybe you have a team or a virtual assistant doing this, like doing some of your nurturing, please just make sure that they're trained to use your voice and your vibe, right, not just plug and play templates. You do not want your team or your virtual assistant to just copy paste chat GPT responses, because your audience will be able to tell. And so that's why, like with our team Kuleana Connect, we do a deep brand dive with each of our clients to make sure that we understand who their ideal client is, first and foremost, but also understand how to speak like them, how to acknowledge people like them, before we do that handoff. And this is typically where we would do the handoff is making sure that we help acknowledge, we help clarify, and then when it comes to that more like personalization. This is when our clients step in. And this is where, if you're doing it on your own, or if you have a VA, this is where I would recommend you stepping in.
All right, so we're coming into the last part of the episode. Segment three is all based on real life handoff. Okay, so this is where you want it just to be done flawlessly, right? I'm going to give you a quick example from a recent client that we've had at Kuleana Connect. So this client of ours, she runs a values driven like branding agency, right? So she was telling us how leads were coming into her DMs constantly, and she just couldn't really keep up with them all. But the disheartening part was that she had barely any converting to discovery calls, right?
So we stepped in. Our team created simple, warm response flows, like basically soft openers with the people that would come in. We went on their social media to see, like, oh, who are they? What are they about? What do they care about? And use that in our openers. And then we also use that to clarify questions, right? Like, how, what are some clarifying questions that we feel resonates with this person? And then we did that gentle bridge, that three step process, right? Gentle bridge to her calendar, and we used her voice. It sounded like her. It was casual, grounded, real. And guess what, within two weeks, she had not just one, not two, but seven warm leads, book calls, and three of them converted three, three converted to high ticket clients, no new content, no ads, just really a better follow through, and that's what we do at Kuleana Connect. We don't just find your leads. We help you lead them.
Well, I actually really like the word lead, you know, it's funny that in business, that's what it's known as, right? Like, basically an ideal client, an ideal, you know, client that you want to work with is called a lead, and we need to lead them well, even from the beginning, and that's why we named our business Kuleana. It's a Hawaiian term that actually means like taking responsibility. And we take responsibility that every person that comes and I and I hope that you know by listening to this podcast, you can also develop this heart and spirit for your audience is like we have a responsibility to everyone that is attracted to our content and our business, and it's all about nurturing them well. So here we go.
Let's build your hand off system. This is your next step. Do you want help building a seamless handoff process like this inside your DMs or your inbox? Just go ahead to the show notes below and come hit us up on our Instagram or email, and just put the subject line hand off, and we will give you a free guide that breaks it all down, or if you want us to handle it for you. Yeah, you've heard already we do that too, right? So your action step this week is to instigate that three step process, right?
So we talked about through the different segments of why a clean handoff is vital, how to do the simple handoff system, and then how the real life, like handoff actually works, and giving you a little glimpse into how we do it. But I want you to focus on those steps, acknowledge the interest, ask one quick clarifying question, and then three, offer the next step, not the pitch, right? And I'd love to hear your success stories. We really, really love hearing from you. Whenever we get an email or a DM ourselves from one of our podcast listeners, it just makes us do a total happy dance, and it's just such a great confirmation. And if you send us some of your success stories, we'd be happy to share it on our social and then that will automatically draw more people to your business as well.
All right, boss, remember, it's not about more followers. It's about better follow through. Focus on that. Follow through. Warm up. Hand off and let your next client say yes with ease. Once again, I am Cheyanne Cleyman, this has been an amazing 20 minutes with you on Social Media Marketing for Small Business Owners. I cannot wait to see you in the next episode. And you guys, keep focused, keep on going and keep connecting. All right, my friend, that's it for today.
Well, let me leave you with this. If your content is not converting, it's not your fault. Chances are you've been taught to prioritize the algorithm instead of the actual humans reading your words and that that ends right here. Go ahead and grab my free guide, five quiet reasons your content isn't converting and what to do instead. It's packed with real talk, practical shifts and quick, immediate wins. Link is in the show notes below. And if you're ready to stop guessing and start connecting with ideal clients who actually buy from you, book a free connection call with our team at Kuleana Connect. We don't do content. We do connection that converts because at the end of the day, it's not about going viral. It's about being valuable. Thanks for hanging out with me again. I'm Cheyanne Cleyman and I'll see you on next week's episode. See you later, boss.