SalesNexus.com
The good news is that it’s not really that hard to do. The hard part is being consistent. It’s easy to "fall in love" with a lead. They have a way of telling you what you want to hear. It’s up to you to hold your team accountable. When they fall in love with the wrong leads, it costs you and them money.
How SalesNexus.com does it…
We decide upon a set of questions that must be asked of every lead and the answers that are "qualified answers". Some are obvious like "Are you the decision maker?" etc. In fact that is the most important and most often neglected question. It’s easy to excuse the sales team. They’ll say "We can’t get in to see the CEO initially. We have to start with someone else and earn their trust so that they’ll help us get the CEO’s attention. Maybe so but, a staff engineer is not the decision maker. If you haven’t spoken with the decision maker, then there are many things you should be very careful about delivering during the sales process.
One way to identify these questions is to look at your customers. What do they have in common? Maybe they’re in a certain industry or region. Maybe they’re of a certain size. Maybe they all shared a similar challenge when they purchased from your business. When I talk to clients, I like to ask them "What are the 5 or 10 questions you ask every new lead?".
Once you’ve identified the questions, you’ll need to work on responding to the lead’s questions and requests when they aren’t giving you the answers you want. Develop low cost, simple ways for your team to give the lead a data sheet or brochure or price list that answers most of their questions. Most importantly, you’ll need to teach your sales team to say NO. The lead thinks she’s qualified. She’s going to ask "Can you send me a proposal?", "Can you come in for a demonstration?"
There will be a period of trying things, learning and adjusting but, if you start trying, you’ll get better and better at it. The absolute most important step is to hold everyone accountable. Ask sales reps about the presentations and proposals they produced recently and ask them the qualifying questions. When they don’t have the right answers, tell them so. Keep a record of business trips, presentations, proposals, etc. done by each rep and sit down with them and decide which were really qualified and which weren’t. Remember, we’re talking about freeing up 1/4, 1/3, maybe even 1/2 of their time to focus on closing the best prospects and finding more prospects like them. This is in everyone’s best interest. More information at: http://www.salesnexus.com.
SalesNexus
(800) 862-0134
(713) 862-0001
sales@salesnexus.com
2855 Mangum, Suite 570
Houston, Texas 77092
http://www.salesnexus.com
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