By Michael. K. McKean
June 24, 2010
Proactive sales is what brings new business to your door. It’s what gets people talking about your company and recommending your products. This does not mean, however, that the more cold calls you make, the better off you are. Instead of trying to make the most cold calls, you should be concentrating on making the most out of every call. That means starting with high quality leads.
As Brian Carroll explains in his book Start With a Lead, “Marketers today are constantly reminded that the company needs more sales leads…now. Unfortunately, that immediacy quite often is at the direct expense of quality. A flood of ordinary, everyday leads does not mean that successful sales will follow.”
Why Quality Leads are Important
Providing your sales people with quality leads is crucial to ensuring the success of your business, for several reasons:
Productivity
Often the conventional wisdom for cold calling is the more leads, the more business closed. This is simply not the case. If a sales manager is given a list of mediocre leads, they will be doing well if 1 percent of those calls eventually result in signed contracts. However, if they are given a list of targeted, qualified leads, that number can increase to 8 to 10 percent. Quality leads mean more productive cold calling every time.
Sales Manager Morale
Nothing ruins the morale of a sales person faster than having to call dead end leads over and over again. They quickly come to the conclusion that all their work on the phone, often dreaded, is basically pointless. Soon, the calls stop altogether.
Building Trust
Prospects want to be familiar with your company and believe that you can solve their problem before they will trust you with their business. If you’re calling prospects who won’t directly benefit from your products, this trust will not develop. That’s why it’s so important to have leads that you know are relevant to your company and your pitch.
Funnel Management
To cultivate professional business development, every sales team should be properly managing their funnel. You should be able to accurately track how many calls it takes to set up an appointment, how many appointments it takes to generate a proposal, and how many proposals turn into contracts. Without quality leads, this process is worthless because your results will never be consistent. You can never accurately gauge what your numbers will be if the quality of the leads you start out with varies from day to day. When you put garbage in, you’ll get garbage out.
What Makes a Quality Lead
To make the most of every cold call, each new batch of leads should meet these basic criteria:
• Accurate – your sales manager should be able to trust that every piece of information in each lead is correct, from the contact’s name to the specific details about the company.
• Up-to-date – all the data, especially contact information, should have been verified recently to ensure it is still timely.
• Targeted – each prospect should be someone who actually has a need for your product or service. Calling a list of businesses you got from the Chamber of Commerce is not helpful to anyone.
The lesson here is simple: Spend the extra resources to provide your sales team with first-rate leads. This commitment to quality will help grow your business in the short and long term.
Michael K. McKean is the CEO and Director of New Product Development for the Knowland Group, a leading provider of business development solutions for the global hospitality industry.