All I Need is a Larger Volume of Leads?
We officially have an epidemic and I like to call it OCLG…Obsessive Compulsive Lead Generation.
Businesses and professionals attempt to generate so many leads, only to burn through way too many leads unnecessarily.
Today, healthcare solutions providers are preoccupied with getting more sales leads – whether it’s from online lead generation mechanism (email marketing, SEO, PPC ads, etc.) or even with traditional outbound lead generation strategies like cold calling and direct mail.
It’s a big mistake to think that because someone requests information to be an easy sale or quick conversion to a customer.
Assuming an inbound lead is warm and going right into a pitch can be a fatal mistake.
You risk losing the sale and the relationship by moving too quickly.
If you’ve suffered from this symptom, don’t worry, you’re not the only one with this classic problem.
Here are a few key reasons why many, including myself have burned sales leads:
Initial Lead Qualifying Might Not Be Accurate Enough
This happens so often that it might shock you, however it’s true – often when companies get new sales leads, they don’t have any initial process in place to properly qualify the new leads. They somehow get stacked with the rest of the leads.
A lead is nothing more than an action, which indicates a possibility to have a conversation. In other words, a lead isn’t by any means a deal that’s about to close. Initially, the trust building stage starts with asking poignant questions in order to nd out more about how ready the buyers are to make a purchase.
Instead, what I’ve observed is that leads are handed off to the sales team with the hope of him/her closing a deal.
In my opinion, this is a massive mistake because you’re not get- ting any real insights into these new prospective customers.
You might automatically assume that you have what they need where in reality you don’t know what they need, you don’t know how urgent their situation is, and you don’t have any basis for starting an authentic conversation.
It’s fair to say that way too many bad sales leads get mixed in with the “good” ones. As a result, your sales team might get overwhelmed by chasing the wrong leads and the good opportunities get lost.
Even for the best leads, timing may not be right NOW
Obviously it would be ideal if every lead had both a business need, which your product or service met and the means to satisfy it.
In reality though, many genuinely good long term prospects see that your product or service can help them, however they may be missing one of the three core elements needed in order to make any deal happen:
1. A Specific Problem
2. The Available Budget to fix the problem
3. Trust needed to have your product or service fix the issue
Look back at some of the deals that haven’t gone through in your pipeline in the last 3 months.
My hunch is that in all of those deals that didn’t materialize into anything is that one of those three elements listed above was missing. Therefore not allowing the potential client to pull the trigger and execute the deal.
Managing sales leads is a long-term, never-ending effort of communicating, listening, building trust and establishing credibility. My belief is that you’ll be more likely to win over customers’ trust over time and tap into a well of abundance that’ll never dry out.
We assume they will “get it” when they see your solution, but in the decision makers mind, it is hard for them to conceptualize and dig into the issues as in most cases their plate is full.
Focus on the problem you are solving and determine first if it’s even a priority for them to solve.