Why The B2b Sales Lead Follow Up Graveyard Is Leaking Your Profits

By Author: sadie hawkins
Total Articles: 18
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Ever wonder what has happed to those leads you didn’t close, well they are waiting for you you. Deep in the recess of each previous marketing campaign you’ve ever run. Just like the remains of the dead and deceased, leads that were never followed up just sitting gathering dust, an ancient relic of business your sales team could have closed.

And you’re not alone. It’s estimated that sales reps fail to contact around 70% of the resulting new leads generated from marketing activities. While it’s normally made reference to as a ‘sales lead black hole ‘we wish to call it an 'opportunity graveyard', if you may.

But these aren’t high quality leads, your sales team will shout out! And while they may be expressing this view this out of a deep concern that those old, lifeless leads will come to haunt them, their argument is not a view that is uncommon.

So how can your marketing and sales team work together to make sure they’re exploiting every opportunity on the market to them? All the while avoiding wasting energy and resources on leads that may never convert into a sale?

Well, we’ve ...
... got five killer tips to help you breath new life into your lead follow up processes and close an additional amount of business as a result.

1) The first thing that needs to be agreed on is what constitutes a ‘sales qualified lead’

Many sales groups refuse to follow up on leads as a result of they believe they’re of a poor quality.

In fact, numerous sales reps will discard even those customers who are extremely possible to buy in the future as a result of they don’t believe they met SQL (sales qualified lead) necessities (even if they haven’t been agreed upon).

The solution is to get sales and marketing together to agree on a proper sales qualification listing. Select a team with the foremost expertise and also the best understanding of the sales process at intervals in your business. They will have a firm solid hold on what makes a lead sales-qualified and can place together the most effective list of necessities.

After you’ve done that, pass the listing around your sales and marketing department for approval. Once that’s signed off, if disputes concerning lead quality arise and if sales people fail to follow up on potential business opportunities, you have got a piece of documentation to seek advice from.

Now that we have covered that issue, let us analyse another process!

2) You must produce a solid sales lead follow up process

Is your current sales follow up process to call a potential lead, leave a voice mail and sit patiently on your hands and wait? While the afterlife may be an eternity (literally), most people don’t have time to sit around and stay up for results to call them back.

We wish to use the term ‘being professionally persistent’ and realize it best to agree up front what percentage of times you may try to connect with a lead. As an example, you might say that each qualified lead deserves a minimum of six connect attempts. With your last message as a courteous, “this is that the last time I’ll try to connect." It is quite surprising how typically this gets a call back.

In fact, 75% of leads will obtain related services in the next two years from when their initial contact – thus you’ll want to get in there before your competitors do.

3) Get the correct people for the work

Are you handing out results in your team willy nilly? Well, that’s simply silly! Your sales team is formed from professionals with a various background and ability set – thus you ought to be creating use of these unique strengths for each lead. If somebody contains a specific experience during a product or service you offer, guarantee they’re given the relevant results in the follow up with.

This is especially important with leads that have specific or complex questions and will be turned off if they can’t get an answer from a professional. It is often at this point where your sales team can genuinely really shine, thus let them do what they do best and avoid mismatching your workers with potential business opportunities.

4) Don’t hesitate - follow up on interest within 24 hours

Do you recognize why that burial site is stuffed with neglected opportunities? Likelihood is it’s as a result of there was no immediate follow up once a lead’s first contact. Keeping interest piqued is essential, thus make sure that your sales team follows up with any qualified lead within 24 hours so a) they recognize who you are and b) they recognize why you’re contacting them. A first follow up call a week from when a lead has interacted with your organisation is bound to leave them confused: ‘I downloaded a what from you when?’

Time is of the up most essence and a swift and deceive follow up keeps interested prospects engaged for that vital amount of time before they progress to something (or someone) else.

5) Perceive the worth of your sales team time

The follow up process doesn’t mean following up with every single lead you generate. Naturally, a number of these leads won’t qualify for numerous reasons (students doing analysis, competitors, etc.). For a salesperson, and most of your workers, time is their most precious quality. Thus it’s important to understand when to let an opportunity simply die. Harassing a lead won’t get them to close any quicker if they’re not interested. Thus follow your process and progress if you can’t push them closer to a purchase.

Join up your marketing investment to sales result with Tracepoint. A B2B technology marketing agency helping your business grow.