Hello all! As a sales person, you know that not all leads are equal. Some are “hot,” ready to make a deal, while others are “not” and need more time and convincing. But how can you tell the difference? Although many sales professionals rely on their gut feeling, there are ways to professionalize and automate this process. Here are five steps to get you started:
1. Define Good Leads
The first thing you need to do is identify what parameters define an excellent lead for your business. At a minimum, you must use the following categories:
- Company data (such as size, industry and life stage)
- Personal information (such as role and interest)
- Behavioral data (such as what read, what clicked on and what previously purchased)
- Budget and timeline (such as when a project will play out)
2. Build the Fields in your Sales Platform
Once you have determined which parameters are essential, you must build these fields into your sales platform. Necessary: these should always be choice fields, not free fields.
3. Set the Scores.
Now, you must assign points to each answer that adds up to 100 for a “hot” lead. This means some responses have more “value” than others, indicating a potential buying intention.
4. Build Scores into your Sales Platform
Most CRM systems can create a scoring field based on information in other fields. Use this feature to implement your scoring system.
5. Set up Alerts for Sales Reps.
Finally, you must set up alerts for salespeople when a lead reaches specific points. For example:
- 50 points -> Marketing Qualified Lead
- 75 points -> Sales Qualified Lead
- 100 points -> 🔥lead
Done! Now, you can sit back and enjoy the ride. But if you want to go one step further, I have a few pro tips for you:
- After six months to a year, analyze the correlation between parameters and between the parameters and actual deals. Can any adjustments be made?
- Have leads assigned to your sales based on the parameters they excel in?
Qualifying leads is an essential part of the sales process. I hope these steps help you streamline the process and close more successful deals.
Happy sales, lovely people! Hopefully, I’ve made it a little easier to fish out the actual leads quickly again.