“But wait,” you say “Qualifying leads is an important part of the sales process. I don’t want to waste time trying to sell to someone who can’t or won’t buy my solution, right?”
I couldn’t agree more. So why would I say “Your Sales Team Should Stop Qualifying Leads”?
Well, for one because it makes you read the article.
But more importantly, because it makes more sense for your sales team to focus on selling not qualifying.
I am not saying you shouldn’t qualify leads. I am saying it is a waste of time for sales to qualify leads.
In fact, salespeople don’t even want leads so why should they waste more time on what they don’t want?
I know, I know, I am just full of contradictory statements today, aren’t I? Let’s look at a scenario. You are in sales. It hasn’t been a great quarter so you are a little down.
But wait!
You get a hot lead from the marketing department for “Derrick”. You immediately pick up the phone to follow up. You get his voicemail.
That’s ok, you can call back. And it was his cell phone so you don’t have to get through a gatekeeper. Bonus!
You call back after lunch, voice mail again. Fine, you can call before close of business. You do and get his voicemail. Again.
You try again the next morning and…Derrick answers! Angels sing, trumpets sound! All is good with the world!
Right up until you find out Derrick is a college student doing research on the market.
Or a competitor. Or someone else that has no chance of buying.
Now, how excited are you going to be about the marketing leads if you keep getting “Derricks”? Not very, right?
Like I said your salespeople don’t want leads; they want sales and leads are only the first step to getting a sale. There are many steps between the two.
What your sales team wants are qualified leads. Qualified leads are leads that are already…well….qualified.
Your Derricks are weeded out and only “good leads” remain. And Good news, properly done, inbound marketing excels at generating qualified leads.
How Inbound Qualifies Leads
Marketing and sales get together and discuss whom sales want to talk to. Marketing builds personas for each target audience. The leads that they give to sales already meet those criteria so are “qualified leads” (We call them MQL’s (Marketing Qualified Leads) because there is no need for sales to qualify them).
Just think how much more effective your sales team could be if you remove the qualifying and prospecting out of the sales process, and give them better-qualified leads that they have a chance to close.
They can concentrate on the MQL’s and get a better close rate and make more money for themselves and the company. Awesome, right?
With inbound marketing, your sales teams can spend more time closing sales (generating revenue) and less time in business development and qualifying (not generating revenue).
How Your Marketing Team get MQL’s
One of the main tactics of inbound is content marketing. With content marketing, you create a variety of collateral that educates potential customers and illustrates the benefits of your solutions. Each piece you design appeals to a buyer persona and helps lead them down the funnel to become a qualified lead.
This means that not only does your salesperson get an MQL, but they also find out the interest points of potential buyers. Did they read an infographic about your solution vs. others in the market? Did they download a case study about how you were able to solve a particular problem for a customer?
That Information is Gold to Sales
Inbound is Sales Enablement: Did you know that with the help of the internet your customers go 60% of the way down the funnel before they even talk to a salesperson?
Inbound fills in the gap between your prospect discovering they have a problem and contacting your company.
Your content educates the customer about your solution, the benefits, and frames the problem. And if your content does that successfully don’t you think you are more likely to get the sale?
Another benefit is that your content not only appeals to specific persona but also to where that person is in their sales journey. Some content will appeal to a person at the beginning of their journey. Some will appeal to someone who is ready to make a decision and is choosing between different providers.
In fact, your collateral can even supplement the information that your sales teams shares with your prospects after they make contact.
Closing the Loop
Inbound can also help with a prospect who doesn’t buy initially. Let’s take the scenario where you give an MQL to sales, but the prospect doesn’t buy. That’s not ideal, but it is OK.
Traditionally you just cast off the lead and move on. But now you can put the prospect in a specific funnel that appeals to their demographic and buyer cycle. When you publish information that applies to their persona, those prospects automatically get that information.
If they heat up again, marketing knows. And better yet with more advanced inbound marketing automation your salespeople can know as well and pick up the phone at the exact right moment.
Want to learn how to start your inbound marketing campaign? Contact me and let’s chat.