How Lead Generation Enables Sales People to Make the Most of their Time
The traditional prospecting method has changed.
The obvious first step is to work any inbound leads. Any prospects who have reached out to you expressing interest are obviously your first priority. But when those are exhausted, what do you do then?
A good lead generation program will bring you both inbound hot leads ready to talk now, and warm leads – those that are a good fit for your business but may not be ready to buy right this minute, helping you close leads now as well as build your pipeline for the future. In the up and down world of sales, this is key.
Identifying Good Prospects
The benefit of having a lead generation partner begins with sifting through the mountains of data available in prospecting databases to identify those companies and contacts that are the best fit for your company. This is no longer the responsibility of the sales person. Having a partner to take care of this step for you allows sales people to spend their time doing what they do best – closing deals.
To identify which prospects are best to pursue, just take a look at your customer base. Who are your best customers (those that make up the bulk of your customer base… not necessarily the largest)? What do your best customers have in common? Those are the traits that you want to identify in your prospect base.
Qualify the leads
Taking the time to find the important details about each company, those details that tell you at a high level whether this company really is an ideal prospect, is also no longer the job of a sales person. An efficient sales department needs a partner to take the time to find this information and allow the sales person to make an immediate decision on whether this prospect is even worth pursuing.
In today’s sales world, you don’t have to pursue every lead that comes your way. Choosiness is now a luxury everyone can afford.
Opening doors
Making initial contact with a prospect is an extremely delicate business. On any introductory call you have about 15 seconds to make a good impression and pique the prospect’s interest enough to make them want to take valuable time out of their day to speak to you. Easier said than done.
When you approach a warm lead, however, and the introduction has already been made and interest has already been expressed, much of that pressure is taken away. A good lead generation partner does the leg work and holds those doors open for you, allowing you to concentrate on the essential step of moving this prospect along through the sales cycle, rather than focusing on keeping their attention.
Today’s modern marketing methods are shrinking the sales world and making it more and more competitive every day. Having a solid lead generation strategy is absolutely essential to any sales team. We want to be the foundation of that strategy. Drop us a line and let’s talk about how.