Friday, December 4, 2009

Qualifying A Lead Fast!

What is a lead? Do you really know what a lead for your company is? Do you know when a prospect has everything lined up to buy form you. Or are you sitting there with the old “if they can fog a mirror they are a lead” mentality?

In the business to business (b2b) world, specifically in telemarketing a sales ready lead is defined as “someone who has engaged in a meaningful conversation and has a defined purchasing project of need, a timeframe to buy, a budget and a willingness to further the conversation with you or a person on the sales team”. To get your sales and marketing team all on the same page you need a steady diet of qualified leads. This is ongoing never stopping. The bridge between these two departments is your telemarketing professionals.

When you are able to put together your criteria and apply it to revenue generating then adding in accurate data into your customer database and pass on highly qualified to the salespeople. Sadly 20% to 40% of all online leads turn out to be duds. Yes, tire kickers to toss into the circular file. Why waste your salespeople’s time on leads that have no revenue generating value? Then in addition to that, of the remaining names only 10% are viable leads that should be pushing on the sales team, immediately. The rest of the 50% to 70% need to be nurtured along, slowly. Telemarketing can munch through those names faster, quicker and with less pain. The average telemarketing professional has skin so tough, the no’s bounce off them like nerf balls.

Larson Notes: Qualifying raw leads with telemarketing allows marketing departments to identify which data sources are producing the highest conversion to sales leads. When using this kind of “intelligence” to pinpoint your attack you are actually drawing more business to your company, faster. In the world of lead generation, quality over quantity is the better way to go. It keeps moral higher and conversion rations above industry benchmarks.

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
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P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.

P.P.S. An American Company, marketing American Companies! Call or email to get an appointment to pick my brain (a $125.00 value) for 30 minutes.

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