Are You Looking to Improve Your Sales Process?
Lead management isn’t as easy as it sounds. While the process itself sounds simple enough, seasoned marketers and business owners will tell you that one little misstep can when managing your leads can prove to be very costly.
To bring home the point, a LeanData survey consisting of 527 sales and marketing professionals report that there’s an industry-wide struggle when it comes to making the transition from leads to customers as smooth as possible.
Don’t let that discourage you, however.
For every failure, there is always great potential for future success. And in this article, we’ll look into some of the most potent lead management advice from industry experts.
After all, what better way to achieve success yourself than by taking advice from the best the industry has to offer, right?
Want More Quality Leads For Your Business?
Here are 11 Expert Tips to Generate More Quality Leads & Sales for Your Business
Let’s check out some of the best lead management tips shared by the top marketers and sales consultants.
Let’s hop right in.
Tip #1 – Organize & Prioritize Incoming Leads
Ben McCarthy, Managing Director, EMPAUA (Empaua)
Ensure that reps have the facility to prioritize. Looking at a list of Leads with no insight into how these people came to you or how interested they are is a big downside. Using marketing automation tools and lead scoring tools can massively improve how your sales reps sell and engage with prospects.
Tip #2 – Put Your Customers First
Jason Sauers, CEO, Founder, and Cloud Architect at (Phidiax)
Don’t be a salesman, be an advisor. Always provide as much value to your customers as you can.
Tip #3 – Find the Wants & Needs of Your Target Customer
Alen Mayer, Sales Performance Consultant, North American Sales Training Corp. (www.AlenMayer.com)
Your mission as a salesperson should be to find companies that have immediate wants and needs. This means that something happened or is happening to them – a move, a merger, new investors, etc. You have to look for any event that might create the opportunity for you, or better said you are looking for event that can trigger the sales for you.
To start the sales process you need to find out who could be in the market today, and then recognize your selected customer’s wants and needs.
Searching for trigger events is the first step forming three main keys of every sale that are:
Researching and qualifying your customers
Being in front of them
Being there when they are ready to buy – timing.
Without the trigger you don’t really have a need to buy someone’s product now. Some studies show that companies with a trigger event buy 400% more often than ones without these kinds of events.
You need to differentiate, and trigger events will make this possible. You will have tools to create the opportunity for you.
After discovering trigger events, the next steps are to develop the customer’s perception of your unique value. What can you do for them? How your solution can actually create value to them?
Trigger events will give you the clue about the timing.
Trigger events are here to help you differentiate prospects from suspects.
“All needs are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.” – Alen Mayer
Tip #4 – Keep Your Promises
Gemma Crawford, Marketing Automation Manager at ClickFunnelCreator
My no. 1 tip would be “Do what you say you will.”
After a couple of years of working with different entrepreneurs in the coaching industry my main issue is that sometimes they’re too quick to move from one idea to another and they don’t fulfill promises that they’ve made to clients that have already purchased from their business. This has a massive impact on trust & integrity and reduces the speed at which the business could grow.
My overall strategy would be:
Give great content – people will feel that you’ve taught them so much that they owe you & purchase given the opportunity to do so, so that they can return the favor.
Use ActiveCampaign (Love it! Does everything!) and take advantage of their scoring system to create a strong, committed audience that are massive supporters of the work that you do.
Create a hub for the community you’re creating (e.g. Facebook group) and be an active part of it.
Create a fully automated product eg. 1 month of daily coaching videos & activities & sell it to your core audience.
Introduce an affiliate system and invite your buyers to be affiliates for 50%.
Communicate! If you decide to stop offering a service, talk to your customers. Don’t just ignore them and move on to the next target audience.
Keep up with new technology! (Messenger bots are crazy successful marketing tools at the mo!).
Tip #5 – Stay Productive & Monitor Progress
Paul Minors, Productivity Blogger & Consultant (PaulMinors.com)
I’m all about productivity. So using the right tools, like Pipedrive, are essential for helping me to stay on top of leads, track important metrics and ultimately, close more deals. Pipedrive makes it easy to strike the right balance between closing and prospecting so you never have to go through feast/famine cycles again.
Tip #6 – Keep Your Customers Engaged
Geoff Ables, Managing Partner, C5 Insight (C5 Insight)
Lead Gen: On every page of your website, have a top-of-funnel lead gen option (such as a free white paper or demo), and a mid-funnel option (such as a paid assessment).
Make Activities the Center of Your Wheel: When working with leads, you’re working through a lot of records in most CRM systems – leads, accounts, contacts, opportunities. It can be tough to keep your priorities straight. Follow a disciplined process that every action has a follow-up: (1) schedule the next contact – even if it is a year from now, (2) nurture – let marketing work the lead until they come up again, or, (3) disqualify – no more contact.
Be The Expert: Your company probably has a blog, white papers, and other assets. Keep an easily available list of these available (such as in OneNote). You can add some of your favorite external links to the list as well (such as magazine articles). When a lead is disengaged, send them an occasional link to one of the resources that speaks to their current situation. It positions you as an expert and keeps you front of mind with them.
Tip #7 – Utilize Lead Automation Software
Dmitry Davydov, Bitrix24 Chief Marketing Officer (Bitrix24)
Our tip would be to use lead automation software (especially since there are many great free options on the market) to automate as much as possible. You can not really take lead prospecting and management to the next level if you have to do everything yourself manually.
Tip #8 – Good Communication & Responsiveness
Jake Goldman, President & Founder (10up)
Always respond to initial contact from a lead within 1 day, to illustrate your service and responsiveness early on.
Always follow up an initial conversation with a lead with a short note within 4-5 business hours – taking the time for a thank you note goes a long way.
Tip #9 – Always Qualify Leads
Ben Lack, CEO, Interrupt Media (Interrupt Media)
Consider building a lead grading (identifies lead quality) and scoring (identifies lead engagement) model for your prospects as this will help your sales team prioritize which leads to work first.
Tip #10 – Build Strong Customer Relationships
Michael Brito (Participation Marketing)
At the end of the day, leads are people. And people relate more to people more than they do a logo or branded email. That being said, sales teams must be equipped with data, training and good content in order to engage with prospects in a relevant and human way. In my book, Participation Marketing, I have a created a blueprint for business leaders to mobilize their employees to to participate and become brand storytellers. This goes for sales people too.
Tip #11 – Build A Strong Sales Foundation
Paul Thompson, BSc Honours, MInstLM Senior Business Master Coach And Accelerated Mentor (Paul Thompson’s Consultancy)
The key to successful lead management is to use a set of methodologies, systems and practices. Lead Management is the precursor to sales management and customer relationship management. Other business best practice should also be used once you have developed a brand such as, marketing, advertising and sales.
The benefits of effective lead management in the business world is the generation of new business revenue, increased visibility and most importantly will improve the general attitudes of potential clients and in general the public at large for future business development.
Apply these Lead Management Tips to Improve Your Business
In the final analysis, some of the crucial tips to consider for a successful lead management is to implement lead scoring and management processes that put the buyer’s intent and needs to the forefront.
If you don’t deliver value to your target audience, don’t expect to receive value in return.
By following the tips mentioned above, you’ll go a long way into setting up a business environment where both marketing and sales teams are always able to see eye to eye on what truly makes a qualified lead. With that done, the sales funnel becomes clearer, and, in turn, better executed.
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