As a business owner, one of the worst things you would ever want to face is a disconnect between your marketing and sales. Unfortunately, such is the case with the majority of B2B enterprises today. Here is how the lead generation process of most “struggling” companies looks like and How to identify right Company that will buy from you?
The marketing team spends considerable time and resources to come up with a list of motley leads ( the majority of which are low-quality), and hands it over to sales, without filtering. The sales team then again spends comparable time and resources, only to deliver results that are far from satisfactory. Meanwhile, the founders and the CEOs start losing patience, as well as faith in their own products. It becomes difficult to understand why the products they strongly believe in, are not able to sell.
The problem with the above approach is the lack of structure, focus, and organization. The sales team works with raw data on the leads and just tries all kinds of strategies to see what works and what not. It goes without saying that this is not quite efficient and usually causes wastage of time and nothing else. Even if the members of the team are some of the best communicators, they can’t convert when the leads are just not a good fit. You can’t sell something to someone if they don’t really care about the product, or don’t even need it.
To minimize wastage of valuable time and resources, you must identify the right companies that will buy from you. An important step in this process is filtering your leads on the basis of quality, and then diverting all your attention, resources, and time, on those companies with which there is a better chance of a conversion. Here is how you can do that:
How to develop a Lead Profile
In every business, every single customer matters. Thus, you would want to do everything possible to convert a lead who is interested in buying from you. However, making that happen involves a lot of lead nurturing. You will need to contact the said lead several times, learn about them in the process to nudge them in the right direction, and finally make some adjustments to get a confirmation. This all takes a lot of time and effort. Plus, if you later find out that the lead you had been working on for so long is non-qualified, this all would have been for nothing. On the other hand, spending too much time vetting leads can cause a loss of momentum in your sales department. Thus, there must be a balance between the two- which can only be established by developing a standard profile of high-quality lead.
Now, of course, your marketing team must be having a general idea about quality leads for your company already. However, to get better results you must improve it greatly. The more are the details on the company profiles, the easier it will be for the marketing team to filter the leads. You must go beyond the standard BANF (budget, authority, needs, and timeline). Add other factors such as company demographics, history of purchases, cash flow, social media influence, etc.
Questions to be asked from a qualified lead
Once you have a standard high-quality lead profile in place, the process becomes a lot easier. You now know where to hit, but what is the best way to have a conversation (the first conversation) with these potential leads? This is where business acumen comes into action. By asking the right questions you can easily find qualify leads, and save time.
- What role do you play in the decision process?
It is surprising how many sales reps overlook such an important question. They assume they are always talking to the decision-maker, when it may not necessarily be the case. So many times a sales rep talks to a potential lead, for good 15 minutes, only to hear in the end- “Thanks. I will send this to the corporate and see what they think”. Such a shame.
- Has your company ever used a product like this before? If yes, how was your experience?
By learning about the company’s past experiences with a product like yours, you can get a better idea of what they are looking for. If you feel there is a mismatch here, you may as well ditch the lead now. If you feel adjustments can be made with your pricing, or the product itself, then things could be different.
- Are you considering other providers?
Companies often have other solution providers that they might be considered apart from you. Thus, it is important to listen carefully to what they have to say about them. If they seem confident with their options, you shall mark them as “unqualified”.
- Based on what you have learned about our product so far, do you think it could be a good solution for your requirements?
This helps in establishing a mini-agreement. You can get a good idea where you stand with your prospect, and how committed they are. Depending on their response you can decide whether they are worth pursuing any further.
How does Sales Automation help in generating qualified leads?
Sales Automation tool like Clodura does everything a struggling lead generation model needs-
- Cold Campaign Elimination: The days of the cold campaign are long gone, and yet so many companies have to waste time on it, mainly due to a lack of better options. Clodura replaces your outdated cold-campaigns with a radical software device that streamlines your entire lead generation system.
- Low-hanging Fruits Identification: Clodura helps you identify easily convertible leads, which your sales team can work with first. Once these have been dealt with you can then move on to other leads.
- Targeted Approach: With Clodura you won’t have to shoot in the dark and hope for the best. It lets you focus your energy in the right direction. Thus, the conversion rate improves instantly, and dramatically.
Clodura is not just another "lead generation platform", but a lot more than that. It is a robust platform with tools of its own. Thus, by equipping your sales team with this revolutionary system you can take their efficiency to a whole new level, and watch leads convert far more easily and quickly
