Are Your Sales Reps Bleeding Leads Dry?

As a sales manager, how many times have you provided your reps with leads on Monday, and at the end of the week they come to you and say — “I’m done! I’ve got no more leads to call – now what? I need more!”?

If you are hearing this, you need to give your team a wake up call, as they are likely throwing away money on underutilized leads.  For expansion stage businesses, wasting any cash is going to be detrimental to your organization. As you all know… leads don’t come cheap (unless you are in our portfolio and utilizing OpenView Labs Research and Analytics team!).

Unless every one of your reps’ dials has resulted in a qualifying/disqualifying conversation with the absolute only decision maker within an organization (HIGHLY unlikely) — their work is not done. And even in the case where the lead said, “No, I’m not interested”, are you sure that there isn’t someone else within the organization that may be interested who could have a buying power? Sales reps can’t make any assumptions, and they can’t fear being “too aggressive” or “too annoying”  when attempting to break into a company.

In a nutshell, just because a lead isn’t being responsive, doesn’t mean the organization as a lead should be given up on.  Find another person from the company who will hear you out, give you information, and help you build a bridge between your organization and theirs.

So where do you find these additional leads to call into?:

• The primary lead’s connections on LinkedIn
• The primary lead’s company page on LinkedIn
• The company’s operator/directory
• The company’s website

This is simple stuff, yet time and time again, I see sales reps giving up on a lead because one person in the company is giving them the cold shoulder. A good sales rep will bleed the lead dry. He/she will dial into a company as many times as it takes to get SOMEONE to hear them out and give them information about who is the decision maker.

Are you confident that your reps are bleeding your leads dry?