Sales is a numbers game. I hate to say that, but it is. And one needs to understand the numbers to make the anticipated revenues at the end of the year.
This game starts with a very important process; that of lead generation. Without leads there will be no revenues. Some people, thankfully not many, believe that by onboarding a couple of customers that signed up somehow without a steady and well managed lead generation process, they will still make the targets. They will find out sooner or later that this is not true and the war on finding and working with leads is huge.
Leads versus qualified leads
Although definition differs between different people, when we talk about leads these are our addressable targets companies and individuals; these are not yet qualified. We need to make sure they can potentially become clients, but at this initial stage, we don’t know that yet. Qualified leads are those that fit better not only to our target market but also to some other qualitative criteria. They are qualified to buy. But, they are not yet in the process of buying.
The process
One needs to reach a lot of leads. A LOT! We will talk about conversion in a different article but think about x10-x20 at least of what you need to close. And this needs to be a continuous process. Reaching out to ten leads will get you nowhere. Guaranteed! Chase them up, people receive tones of communication, the big part of them missed your previous communication. In a world that we are also buyers, we see the quality of all of these messages. How boring some of these are. Personally, I hate when I understand they don’t have a personal touch. Improve the quality of these messages. Make them personal.
Everything starts from lead generation, put some extra attention on this.
Happy selling!