What do you do with your sales leads?
Leads are the lifeblood of business but leads do have a ‘best by’ date and quickly go stale if not acted upon and exploited.
So, how do you handle yours?
If you are like most businesses, big and small, this is what happens:
You meet with clients, don’t take notes and although you remember the two most important issues forget the two or three subjects that come up that represented opportunity.
While watching Fatal Attraction on a Sunday evening the bunny boiler scene reminds you that Easter is coming and you make a note to contact the prospect who runs a chocolate business and might need your products. You don’t write it down and don’t remember until Mother’s Day and the opportunity is lost.
Your company bought a booth at a trade show and attended at great expense. The marketing department ran several events and gathered contact details of interested parties – the list was sent to the sales department who was not sure what to do with them and so did nothing.
In fact, a Cahners CARR Research report uncovered that on average 70% of the leads generated by marketing activities were never contacted at all – ever! And of those abandoned, 43% ended up buying something from a competitor over the next 13 months.
Leads come from many sources: marketing, sales, existing clients, referrals, web and social media but does your sales process define an automated action plan that ensures leads will be promptly and fully managed?
Wait, do you have a sales process?
A sales process outlines in complete detail how you get your leads and what happens to those leads through the entire customer journey – from the first client touch point throughout the prospect nurturing process until they become paying clients. Then that sales process manages that client experience throughout the life of that client?
I guessed not!
In fact, if you said yes you would be very unique!
For any company to fully manage the customer experience takes a big investment in time and effort but it is possible and within the reach of every business.
Truly imagine the client journey with your business, imagine walking that journey with your client? That is what a sales process accomplishes – it is unbelievably powerful for your business!
Get a sales process – Never a wasted lead, never a neglected prospect and a client relationship that always gets all the attention it deserves.
Doesn’t your business deserve a sales process?