There are leads, qualified leads and highly qualified leads. Most people don’t differentiate between qualified leads and highly qualified leads but it makes a big difference in sales outcome. When your lead generation efforts involve sharing a lot of information about yourself and your offering, either by phone or online, and little or no information about the prospect is shared, then it’s considered a qualified lead. Companies often put a lot of value on this level of leads but the conversion rate can be less than desired.
The reason that this type of lead is not highly qualified is because the prospect hasn’t had the opportunity to share anything about themselves. A highly qualified lead is generated when the prospect has the opportunity to have a conversation with you, you have the opportunity to ask probing questions, and you learn about their business and issues. This conversation allows you and the prospect to determine whether there is a good fit between you.
Creating qualified leads is one thing, but creating and identifying highly-qualified leads is a procedure that involves several steps working together to move the prospect through the qualifying process. Generating highly qualified leads begins with making a good impression and engaging in a conversation. It involves well thought out, planned and practiced scripting. The goal is to get your prospects talking about themselves and finding out if you are a good fit for one another.
There are several techniques that are used to facilitate the conversation with your prospect. It involves finding common ground to get the conversation started. It includes sharing information about you and what you have to offer. But most importantly it means listening to what the prospect has to say.
Qualified leads will have a lower conversion rate and more effort will be required to convert each lead to a sale. With highly qualified leads a better conversion rate is guaranteed. That’s because highly qualified leads are “sales ready”. Highly qualified leads streamline the sales process and make your sales team more efficient. They are sure to keep your pipeline full and your sales on target.
Sales leaders often have unrealistic expectations for their cold calling campaigns. They expect appointments will materialize quickly. They can lose patience, get frustrated, and consider the whole process a waste of time when this doesn’t happen. However, meaningful lead generation, where you are producing appointments with leads that are interested in what you have to offer, doesn’t happen overnight.
Generally, it takes 8-12 touches with C-suite executives before they pay attention! Then it’s a timing issue. Do they require your services at the time of the first conversation?
There’s more to cold calling than getting the appointment. Here’s what is involved in a meaningful cold calling campaign:
List Clean-up – When you begin calling you will find that some list clean-up will be necessary. This includes weeding out companies that are not a good match, as well as updating names, emails and telephone numbers.
Getting to Know You – Keep in mind that your leads don’t know you. Each time you make contact, you are establishing rapport and building a quality relationship.
Collecting Intel – As you make calls you are probing the prospect and collecting information about the company and the challenges that they are facing. This information becomes invaluable in relationship building and certainly in the proposal and closing stages of the sale.
Awareness – While you have learned a lot about the prospect and built rapport with them, the prospect may not be experiencing the pain that is required to make a purchase at that time. If there is no need, there is no sale. But with regular contact over an extended period of time, you will be top of mind when there is a need.
Recycle – It takes several touches before the decision maker is paying attention but it’s a delicate balance between staying in front of prospects and not becoming a nuisance. You start by working your list over a 4-week period. After some time without contact, the list is worked again. We recommend the entire process is repeated three times a year.
You can see how lead generation could be considered a sales cycle all unto itself. Impatience is quickly dismissed when the quality of the leads and appointments is realized.
We’re all salespeople, at least to some extent. Every negotiation we enter into, both personally and professionally, requires us to convince other people and convert them to our side of thinking. Some are better at selling than others. While we often hear that good salespeople are born, not made, it’s just not true. Selling is mostly a science, not an art. A solid sales process provides the science for anyone to become a top performer.
Successful sales organizations live by their sales process. A best in class sales process is:
Well defined
Clearly communicated
Broadly adopted
Reinforced through specific activities & tools
Measureable & trainable
Constantly improved upon
Aligned with the customer’s buying process
Reinforced through coaching by 1st line sales managers
A well thought-out sales process will help you implement a common sales methodology that leverages the processes used by high performers. You’ll be able to prepare your salespeople for different situations that they may encounter and your team will be able to leverage those best practices in real-time. Your process will make it easier for new salespeople to get on board.
A Process That Reps Prefer
Sales reps appreciate a standardized process because it helps them be more efficient, develop stronger skills through repetition, and spares them from having to reinvent the wheel with every prospect or opportunity. When they come to a roadblock, the process provides them guidance with suggested next steps. Sales reps also gain a sense of company commitment, support, and dedication toward the sales department and their efforts.
Managers Benefit Too
Sales managers and business owners appreciate the sales process concept. Once the process is defined, it is easier to manage the sales funnel and the expectations surrounding sales activities. Managers can determine where in the sales process the sales reps are getting stuck so they can address these issues sooner rather than later. Sales issues are often due to lack of effort or the ineffectiveness of sales methodology. A sales process takes the guesswork out of this, and allows a manager to manage the sales reps behavior and activities accordingly.
The greatest satisfaction, for both the company and its sales reps, comes when they see the true outcomes of being able to handle different selling situations successfully, positioning themselves stronger against competition, communicating their value proposition more effectively and closing more accounts faster. With an effective sales process, goals will be met consistently and achieved without wasting time, energy and money.
There are leads, qualified leads and highly qualified leads. Most people don’t differentiate between qualified leads and highly qualified leads but it makes a big difference in sales outcome. When your lead generation efforts involve sharing a lot of information about yourself and your offering, either by phone or online, and little or no information about the prospect is shared, then it’s considered a qualified lead. Companies often put a lot of value on this level of leads but the conversion rate can be less than desired.
