Why Leads are Like Potato Chips
Doctors tell us to have a diet of nutritional foods that are low in calories. Instead, many of us (me included!) tend to eat foods that are filling but have little nutritional value (think potato chips).
Then we wonder why we’re not hitting our goal of optimum health and weight. Potato chips are “empty calories”. That is, the calories we consume from potato chips provide minimum value. Could that possibly be the case with leads?
I work with a company who gets 460 inbound leads a month and yet they’re starving for more.
The problem clearly isn’t lead flow. The problem is the nutritional value of their leads. They simply aren’t high quality. And lead quality has been at the center of the “marketing vs. sales” debate forever. “More leads” isn’t the answer to your sales problem – just like eating more junk food isn’t the answer to poor diet. But potato chips are satisfying and lots of leads make us feel we’re accomplishing something.
Leads: The Sales Productivity Killer?
In an attempt to bolster the amount of time spent talking to prospects, we generate leads. Leads are the primordial source of sales.
But leads aren't necessarily prospects and if they aren't prospects, they won't be buyers anytime soon. Too many poor quality leads will kill your sales productivity, lower your revenue potential and limit your ability to exceed sales quota.
The key to more effective lead generation programs is crafting offers designed to achieve your objectives for both lead "quality" and lead "quantity".
Lead quality and quantity tend to have an inverse relationship: if you want a high volume of leads, you'll sacrifice quality.
Why Leads Are Like Potato Chips:
And just as bad for you
By Nancy Nardin, Founder, Smart Selling Tools
Or at the very least, you’ll lose a disproportionate amount of time trying to determine which leads are the worthy ones.
The more that poor quality leads make their way through to Sales, the less productive salespeople will be.
But what if salespeople don’t have enough quality prospects to talk with? Shouldn’t they pick up the phone and start calling?
Not necessarily. Teleprospecting and selling require somewhat different skill sets.
In Lead Generation for the complex sale, author Brian Carroll says “Salespeople, it seems, usually do not have the skills or personalities to be teleprospectors, nor should they be expected to spend all of their time on the phone.”
Carroll further states “To use phoning as an effective lead generation strategy, consider creating a specialized teleprospecting function within the sales group.”
It was Mr. Carroll who created the term “Sales-ready lead”. He makes a distinction between an inquiry and a lead. Inquiries are not leads. An inquiry is an interested party who has requested information or needs some level of assistance.
A lead on the other-hand, is someone who has expressed interest and also is seeking a solution to a problem. In other words, leads are not just food, they’re food with substance.
And that difference is key to understanding why the company who receives 460 “leads” a month is left feeling hungry for more. They weren’t really receiving 460 leads. They were receiving 460 inquiries and salespeople don’t get a lot of nutrition from inquiries.
Sources: “Lead Generation for the Complex Sale” By Brian Carroll
See also: http://www.startwithalead.com/
