The five leak categories

1. Acquisition leak — paying for visitors who can't buy. Symptom: high traffic, low conversion.

2. Conversion leak — qualified visitors leaving without an action. Symptom: high bounce, low form-fill.

3. Follow-up leak — leads going cold before a human responds. Symptom: lots of "ghost" leads.

4. Close leak — quotes sent, no decision captured. Symptom: pipeline full, revenue flat.

5. Retention leak — one-and-done customers, no reactivation, no referrals. Symptom: rising CAC.

How to measure each leak in dollars

For each leak: current rate × delta to industry benchmark × annual revenue × gross margin = annual recoverable dollars. Pick the leak with the biggest dollar number first. Almost always more impact than chasing 5 small wins.

Talkerstein recommendation

Run this framework before any major investment — paid ads, rebuilds, new hires. If you can't name your biggest leak in dollars, you don't know what to fix.

Related

• Business Bottleneck Scorecard

• CRM Automation Blueprint

• Talkerstein Diagnostic service

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