Sales Leads

Every salesperson knows that leads are useful and a pre-requisite to a transaction and sale. Leads are simultaneously abhorred, however, because many recognize them as potentially time wasted or unfruitful. Others dislike the responsibility and subsequent scrutiny that a sales lead entails.

Sales leads should be treated as a process. They can always get better and they need continuous work, but each of them must be treated with care in the meanwhile. There is no question that among the leads one receives many will remain non-responsive, but inevitably a portion of one’s sales leads do end up becoming customers. Even if 20% of leads become actual sales opportunities – incidentally a realistic proportion – that number still is 20% more than zero or, in other words, 20% more than the number of potential sales had one not called the prospect… and called and called again!

Therein lies much of the problem. Customers consistently have real plans and equally real budgets to spend, yet this does not automatically translate to calls being returned. Be it plain rudeness, a lack of common courtesy, customers’ settling for the least busy solution/vendor or the busy nature of people’s lives salespersons and the lead generation teams hardly ever hear back from prospects – even those who need to return calls.

Therefore, the shrewd salesperson will keep on calling until he reaches the prospect in person. It simply is worth the effort. The less tenacious salespersons will lose out.

* Those who reach the customer will be in the running for the business – so keep trying.
* Despite the horror stories rampant in sales circles about ‘tire kickers’ (and similar descriptions) most prospects will actually and eventually buy. Unfortunately, it is easier to remember those prospects that did not buy in the past because they became irritations.
Use the tools at your disposal. Put the lead generation team, your CRM, your contact manager or note pad to use and be persistent.. Just do not abandon the lead.
* Should a prospect be unavailable and non-communicative or be in the market only much later find out if your company can assign a lead generation or marketing representative in charge of keeping these opportunities ‘warm.’ This will free you to concentrate on the more imminent sales. Alternatively, for bigger organizations, there might be a division of duties in order between the inside and outside sales groups.

The prospect that becomes a sale might be only one telephone call away. Can one afford not to call?
The customer who will only consider buying next year might be the difference between achieving and not achieving quota next year. Can one afford to be dismissive of the opportunity?