The easiest and fastest way to grow sales is to effectively follow-up 100% of sales leads received. Sales lead follow-up is the engine of sales growth.
It’s not a difficult thing to do, but what’s holding people back?
Various studies have found that approximately 50% of sales leads are not followed up, and of those that are, many are left to go cold before being contacted.
Consider this; vast amounts are spent each year on new car, used car and after sales marketing, in both traditional and online media types to create prospects for car dealers. But if 50% of the leads generated by this incredible investment are not seen as worthy to be followed up by the sales teams, this means that effectively half of that marketing spend is wasted each year due to sales not making that important call! Worse still, if someone is attracted by that marketing and nothing happens, then it leaves a worse impression than if they hadn’t made contact in the first place.
I have never understood that reluctance to call. Sales professionals have a choice, they can either talk to people who have reached out to them because they have an interest in their products and services, or they can spend hour’s cold calling and try to generate sales opportunities from people who have not proactively shown an interest in talking to them.
The sums are compelling and by challenging sales professionals to focus on lead follow-up in a timely manner, with a quality telephone response, sales growth is absolutely possible.
Therefore, rather than adopting “it’s a poor lead” mentality, I believe that sales people need to adopt the “No Lead Left Behind” approach and make sure that they follow-up 100% of leads. How will they know for sure if a lead really has no sales potential if they can’t be bothered to call to find out. There is no such thing as a poor lead, just poor follow-up – which includes casual email responses. Selling is about qualifying the lead, countering objections and going for a close – if only to achieve an appointment for a test drive. It’s impossible to qualify-counter-close by email. The customer has too many ways to avoid professional salesmanship.
TrackBack has been developed and is used by many manufacturers across the globe to accurately measure sales lead follow-up, and all are enjoying the success of our “No Lead Left Behind” approach.
For more information on TrackBack, visit our website.