We know that managers can set pretty ambitious goals for their team which naturally forces them to find prospects that are quick to purchase. Just because lead qualifiers gravitate toward this behavior doesn’t mean it is the best strategy for your business in the long term. And just because your target buyer persona is the “Director of IT” doesn’t mean you should ignore the C-Level leads and keep them in open status, or simply throw them into unqualified. Everyone one your team needs to make best friends with your CRM. When your CRM is used correctly, it can tell you the level of penetration into the target leads/accounts that you’ve provided your team. Leads are not easy to come across so it’s important to make sure you don’t move on too soon.
Below are some indicators to let you know if your leads are being prospected correctly and not thrown out too soon.
Take a look at the numbers. How many leads are open? Many times reps will say they have no leads, but the system is showing 50 1-00 open leads. Reming them that maintenance is important and part of their job. If you see open leads, you are assuming they are still qualified.- Review the leads that in the contacting phase. See how long they have been sitting there. You need to create a time frame for contacting prospects that works best for your needs. Find out why these leads are not being contacted in a timely manner. Many times reps get so caught up in the quick sales that they forget about these contacts.
- Number of leads that have been marked as unqualified. Take a look through leads in this status ever so often to make sure that leads are not being marked prematurely as unqualified.
- Do you have a field that indicates why exactly a lead was put into an unqualified status? This is essential, particularly for nurturing/relationship marketing purposes. The better (more specific) buckets that you have for this status, the better you will be able to tend to these leads with the appropriate content.
- Go back and see the leads that your team was not able to get in contact with. Create a plan that will be implemented a month or two down the road to try and re-connect with them. Do not let these leads go without being touched at all.
We hope that these indicators will help your team not let go of leads too soon! What other tips wold you add to this list?
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