Bill Rice Internet Marketing > Developing Leads for Your Sales Pipeline

Developing Leads for Your Sales Pipeline

March 8, 2010 by

Bettercloser.com - Developing Sales Leads for Your Pipeline

Bettercloser.com - Developing Sales Leads for Your Pipeline

I came across one of the classic deadly myths of sales. It was in the form of a question on LinkedIn Answers. Let’s see if you can spot it:

What do you find works the best for developing leads? I am currently researching other ways to develop leads and eventually fill up my sales pipeline. I currently use the following: Jigsaw, LinkedIn, NetProspex

If you said, “names and numbers don’t equal leads or viable sales pipeline.” I would agree with you.

All passionate and energetic sales people fight this tendency. And with the glut of data available openly on the Web it can be a very hard battle to win.

We know in our gut that much of hitting our monthly goal has to do with large numbers. So, we are constantly hunting and gathering names and squirreling them away in our contact database or CRM. But, at some point you have to determine, enough is enough. It’s time to stop collecting and start processing.

The only way to avoid the idle list gathering trap is to understand that generating sales leads is much more than just collecting names.

The danger with simply seeking lots of venues to supply you with unsuspecting victims leads is that you forget the objective. A sales pipeline is not a list of names and numbers. It is a queue of leads–people and organizations that have potential need for your products and services. Determining who those folks are takes some effort, a lead generation process.

My guess is that most of you don’t need more names and numbers—especially unqualified ones. Most of your lists are already sufficient. In addition, your sales organization is probably filled with prospects, many of which have inquired or were already qualified in some manner.

Now dig into those names and learn who they are and why they might need your help.

Then figure out how to turn them into leads. This simple process gets you ready to take that list and turn it into an engagement plan–social media, conferences, trade shows, webinars, email, phone–this is lead generation.

The real beauty of processing those lists is that this effort will continue dumping new leads into your pipeline.

Bettercloser.com - Sales Leads

Bettercloser.com - Sales Leads

Related posts:

  1. Sales Pipeline Management, The GTD Approach
  2. Keeping Track of Leads
  3. 10 Ways to Improve the Performance of your Sales Pipeline
  4. Effectively Following Up On Sales Leads
  5. Internet Lead Workflows | Pipeline Management | Part 3
Filed Under: Featured, Lead Generation Tagged With: crm, Lead Generation, leads, social selling


About Bill Rice

Writer, Speaker, Social Selling, Lead Generation

Do you have a quick question? Email me: bill@bettercloser.com

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  • http://www.thecrapreport.com/ Chris Snell

    Preach on Bill! Great insight here. Names, numbers, and email addys do not, nor have they ever, equaled pipeline. I think a sure fire way to waste your sales team’s time is to hand them a list of “leads” like that. Spend some time and qualify those prospects and THEN pass them along (AS leads) to a hungry sales team.

    I don’t really care if people in-source (is that even a word!?) or outsource it – I’m more concerned that the value of teleprospecting gets raised. Teleprospecting is more than just “bothering” people or “interrupting their day.” It is a very effective way to work through a list that looks like the one you describe above.

    Good stuff Bill – thanks!

  • http://twitter.com/BusinessListPro Jeff Rutowski

    I certainly agree that most businesses have many of the leads that they need already in hand. It is a fact that it is more cost effective to earn greater wallet share from existing customers than it is to cultivate new ones. There was something posted either by MarketingSherpa or HubSpot that showed how long the lead time can be for new business customers. All of that said, customer attrition or turnover will always create a need to cultivate new leads.
    http://www.businesslistpro.com

  • http://www.imjontucker.com/ ImJonTucker.com

    Well said. I'm a big believer in really educating your prospects about the services that you offer and “the magic” it can do for their business.

    I conduct webinars and workshops that really dive into the “here's exactly how this stuff works, here's how it's done, and here's how it applies to your business”. I don't do it in a pitchy way at all…I've found that if you “show prospects the magic”, then they really start to understand how it works and realize it can work for their business.

    It's not a numbers game (past a certain point)…it's a value game. Prove you are providing value in a non-pitchy way, and they'll *ask* you to help them and work with them.

  • thomaskoletas

    I disagree with your point that simple contact information is enough data for a good sales team to close. If you cannot take the name and contact information of a viable prospect and turn it into a substantive lead, then your sales force does not have a compelling sales pitch. The key here is that the name is a viable lead- something that is easily substantiated.

    Clearly leads that have specifically requested information from your company are a higher quality and bigger priority, but successful sales organizations have different marketing techniques for different leads that are in varying phases of the buying prospect. My company delivers only qualified leads that are in-market, but I bristle at those that define leads narrowly.

  • http://bettercloser.com Bill Rice

    Chris,

    You are so right. I have seen numerous cases where adding tele-prospecting or a triage team to qualify leads in the front of a seasoned sales team turn big conversion improvements.

  • http://bettercloser.com Bill Rice

    Jeff,

    No question you need to keep that prospect wheel turning, even as you work the stored gold.

  • http://bettercloser.com Bill Rice

    Jon,

    I like your point–”show prospects the magic.” Nothing is as powerful in a sales process as having a prospect decide they want something as bad as you want to sell it to them.

  • http://bettercloser.com Bill Rice

    Thomas,

    My guess is that your lead generation process does more than just harvest the phone book or a business directory like Jigsaw. Creating some demand or intent (which I'm sure is what you do) is really my point. You need to get prospects to a point where they know why their in your pipeline, and to some degree they don't mind being there. My guess, again, is that this might be the value of your service. I'm I right?

  • http://bettercloser.com Bill Rice

    Chris,

    You are so right. I have seen numerous cases where adding tele-prospecting or a triage team to qualify leads in the front of a seasoned sales team turn big conversion improvements.

  • http://bettercloser.com Bill Rice

    Jeff,

    No question you need to keep that prospect wheel turning, even as you work the stored gold.

  • http://bettercloser.com Bill Rice

    Jon,

    I like your point–”show prospects the magic.” Nothing is as powerful in a sales process as having a prospect decide they want something as bad as you want to sell it to them.

  • http://bettercloser.com Bill Rice

    Thomas,

    My guess is that your lead generation process does more than just harvest the phone book or a business directory like Jigsaw. Creating some demand or intent (which I'm sure is what you do) is really my point. You need to get prospects to a point where they know why their in your pipeline, and to some degree they don't mind being there. My guess, again, is that this might be the value of your service. I'm I right?

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