5 Lead Management Mistakes That Will Cost You Sales?
Posted on 05. May, 2009 by Kaleidico in Blog
Want more customers with less leads? A strategy that improves your profit and decreases wasted marketing dollars? Of course you do, but you probably don’t even know how many opportunities you are throwing away every day.
Proper sales management will instantly put you on top of every deal and increase the pull-through on your sales pipeline. Fixing these 5 common lead management mistakes will increase your sales numbers.
1. Email is Not CRM Software
This is unquestionably the top killer of sales leads. Email is a communication tool. Meant for short-term discussions or collaborations, not sales account management. It is not a tool to build sales relationships, with hundreds of clients, over numerous years.
Fact: the human brain can only manage so much information.
Your attempts at remembering to follow-up and diligently stay on top of hundreds of prospects and customers is a guaranteed failure. Real sales performance needs a system that will routinely automate some contacts and remind you to reach out personally on a regular basis.
2. One Call Closes are Fantasy
It is certainly the stuff of sales legend, that Boiler Room like close. But, real sales professionals know the real probability ranks up with winning the lottery. So, if you hit it be happy, but don’t expect to pay your bills and feed yourself playing that game.
This is why a disciplined process of following up, on all prospects, is critical to success. Industry surveys show that the average lead takes a minimum of 5-7 contacts to close and generally requires 30-60 days. So, don’t get frustrated and toss out that two week old lead–nurture it.
3. Sales People Can’t Pick Leads
The Call of the Wild fouls this one up too, our primal nature lures us to the biggest fish (whale) of the freshest meat (new lead). Two notoriously bad choices.
We can’t pick the right leads! We invariably gravitate to our biases, which is typically counter productive to our sales numbers.
Grabbing for the brass ring (tackling only the biggest accounts or loan amounts) and neglecting the opportunity to land a few small ones along the way, is the perfect example. Your sales management system should help you create an ideal lead profile for each of your sales agents. You will be amazed at how different your “perfect lead” looks from your “preferred lead.”
4. Prospects Need to be Nurtured
Are you trashing valuable non-responsive customers? More so than ever, leads need to be effectively nurtured. Challenging economic conditions slows everyone’s buying decisions. Stay top of mind, so you will be first in mind when the pain or the need becomes right for the big buy.
This doesn’t mean just throwing all your old leads into the autoresponder. Smart sales people build a detailed follow-up plan that includes email, mail, and telephone. And don’t forget the value at each of those touch points–an interesting article or report, an example of success, or best practices session.
5. Get My Next Lead Increases Sales Velocity
Often we forget that sales is really about numbers in the end.
How many times do we spend too much time organizing or getting ready to do something? The best strategy in most cases is to do as my Dad was found of saying, “Do something, even if it’s wrong.”
Simply getting onto the next lead will produce more sales than any other strategy. So, stop reading this and do something!
