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Sales won't follow up on our leads- how do I fix this?
Sales just absolutely will not follow up on the leads we are passing and I am getting no ROI. I need help. What advice do you have for getting a sales team to follow up on leads qualified by an inside sales team?
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5 Answers
"The leads are weak. You're weak!" - Glenngary Glenn Ross (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-AXTx4PcKI)
Agree with Steve - there is an absolute disconnect between your Inside team and Field sales. A salesperson who doesn't want leads is either a farmer (not motivated by new business revenue) or their plate is overflowing with opportunities or they should not be in Sales at all.
We had a similar issue where we put metrics in place to track lead performance, including response time and conversions. Field Sales was under pressure to follow up on leads in 2 hours from hand off. In the beginning, more than 80% of the leads were closed as "not a qualified opportunity". We got together as a team and found opportunities to improve the qualification and nurturing process. We also implemented a bonus for the Inside team based on won opportunities, which gave them additional ownership/incentive on lead quality. We flipped the funnel with these measures.
Nothing breeds success (and compliance) like success. If you cannot collaborate with the field guys to figure out how to tweak your processes/parameters to hand off "qualified" leads at the "right" time, you could enable one of your top performers on the inside team to take a lead through to close. Then run around the office ringing a cow bell and screaming "in your face, we don't need you Sales!"
Go into the office of the VP of Sales or the CEO and drop the pile of unclaimed leads on their desk.
When they ask what the pile of papers are, tell them it's (fill in dollar amount) of sales lost because the outside sales reps are having a pissing contest with the inside sales team. "And in the end you're the one getting wet (sir/madam)."
Some Sh** will roll downhill and there will be a lot of complaining and finger pointing, but very quickly everyone will play nice or they'll be sent home....permanently.
BTW - this kind of situation is the result of hiring the wrong people for the right reasons. But that is another story....
Hi Callen:
Wow - books have been written on this topic.To be brief, I think it boils down to: What does the inside sales organization think constitutes a lead, and what does the sales team think a lead is? My guess is that inside sales may be identifying someone who might eventually buy someday, and your sales team is looking for someone who will buy this quarter (or maybe even this month!)
Get a small group of your good sales people together and have a discussion with them. Document what they think a good lead would look like and compare that to what they are being handed as a lead. If there is a big difference, you are going to have to figure out what you need to do to take what may be a "potential lead" and nurture it until it becomes a "real lead" in the minds of your sales people.
As Steve says, sit down with your sales guys and agree on what is a sales lead. i.e. At what point in the buying cycle should marketing hand off a lead to sales. If you don't have a marketing automation solution, buy one. This will allow you to trigger alerts to the different members of your sales team, every time a lead is sales ready and is assigned to a salesperson. You can build accountability into the process by building Service Level Agreements (SLA) with the sales team, VP sales and the CMO/VP marketing in the loop.
You have to look at the www.thepartnersource.com site to answer this question it looks like. They are based out of Minneapolis, Minnesota I believe and they specialize in outsourcing Appointment Setting and Lead Generation.
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