Gary Halbert used to ask, “If you and I both owned a hamburger stand and we were in a contest to see who would sell the most hamburgers, what advantages would you most like to have on your side?”
You can think of a variety of answers, but a salesperson knows there is only one right answer: A starving crowd.
Whether you have been in a territory for decades, or are the new kid on the block, you’re faced with a constant need to generate leads and move them through the process.
So where do you find your starving crowds? For most salespeople, it’s all about LinkedIn. After tapping out their spreadsheets, Rolodexs, and networks; they spend countless hours, days, and weeks surfing. This is where you very quickly find out that not all crowds are hungry, or even like your type of cuisine. Let’s break it down a bit further:
Prospects: Everyone. Yes, in the mind of a salesperson, everyone is a prospect. You never know who you will meet, what they will need, and where they will go. In my experience, it’s important to always be on your best behavior and use those good manners your parents taught you. I’ve had relationships with Account Executives that are now VPs, and Directors that have switched organizations, careers and industries. Everyone is a prospect and you should treat everyone with respect. Unfortunately, this doesn’t help you fill your pipeline.
Qualified Prospected: If everyone is a prospect you’ve got to find a way to narrow it down. Qualifying the prospects that have the potential to become a lead will start to clear the deck. The right position, the right company, and the right industry are just a few things to consider when finding this group.
Leads: Finally, your audience! Only once you have been able to confirm that your qualified prospect is hungry can you consider them a lead. You can have qualified prospects that don't have an appetite, or maybe they only get hungry if they see their favorite dish. Whatever it may take, a lead has to have a want or need for what you’re selling; they have to be interested.
Here is where you are going to spend the majority of your time hunting down the right contact. Doing the research. Making connections. Finding the leads… Every year 25-30% of data becomes inaccurate, which lead to the conclusion that lead generation programs fueled with incorrect data result in a drastic decrease in marketing effectiveness and sales conversions.
Get ready to go down the wormhole of information, data, and tools to not only get a qualified prospect’s contact information but to also speak to them. Only once they have been able to sort, filter, and validate each one of them, can they find out if a qualified prospect is starving or not.
That’s where we have 4 types of leads, and all have different values:
Lead: A record with basic information, phone, email, company, title
Qualified Lead: A lead that is within the target market of potential customers for your company
Engaged Lead: A lead that has been contacted and has engaged with the company outreach
Sales Lead: A lead that has been contacted qualified and looking forward to a meeting
Finding your leads:
Think you can use good marketing as a shortcut? Think again… Only 8% of salespeople said leads they received from marketing were very high quality (Hubspot). This requires your team to spend valuable time generating their own leads.
On average, sales reps spend 18% of their time generating and researching leads. So what’s the real value of that lead? Go ahead and take 18% of your sales team’s salaries. There’s the true price of lead generation.
If there’s one advantage you can give to your team, your company, and your bottom line, it’s to put them in front of that crowd. That’s why we’ve partnered with Hubioleads. By combining Appointments IQ’s tested processes and strategies with Hubioleads tools allows us to sift through the heaps of prospects and put together programs that generate engagement. Let me know if your business could benefit from qualified, engaged leads.
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