Why Salespeople Don't Follow Up Good Leads

No matter how much effort marketing puts into delivering high-quality, actionable leads, most salespeople remain convinced that marketing-generated leads are lousy.

The problem usually isn't the leads, however; it's how salespeople follow up on them.

Let's look at a typical experience from the salesperson's perspective.  He gets 100 leads. Marketing promises that these leads are golden. The tire-kickers have all been screened out. Each is an inbound lead from someone actively looking to buy - prospects who called the toll-free number or clicked on a web page asking for information.

The salesperson blocks out precious hours - hours that he's taking away from existing customers and deals already in the pipeline, and starts calling.  By the time he gets to the bottom of the pile, he's won exactly two sales.  Next month, he gets another 100 leads and gets the same results.  The month after that, he gets another 100, but by now he's not getting any sales from them because he's shoving them into a bottom desk drawer to ignore them.

So where's the disconnect?

Tune into my next blog. :)