“Hello? I’m calling to…”
How do you make inbound lead follow-up effective? Millions and billions of dollars of pipeline later, here’s what makes the inbound B-to-B sales pipe-gen engine turbo-charged at Salesforce, and what can make yours be turbocharged, too.
1. Real-time response: There is no doubt that calling as soon as possible after the lead is created is key to successful conversion of the lead. Minutes can make a difference. It is critical to train inbound reps to know that quick followup will result in better outcomes, and to track it. This does not mean a blind call is the answer; a quick look at the company’s website and online presence (e.g. Facebook page) before calling is a great way to be intelligent about the customer’s needs and business. It’s also good to check on the customer’s past interactions with your company, if any, e.g. other products purchased, or other information viewed.
2. Evangelist-in-Chief: The rep who followups on an inbound lead is often the first person a prospect speaks with at your company. True, evidence shows that buyers are increasingly becoming educated about the product before they speak with a salesperson. However, it is still important that the reps know they are evangelists for the company’s products; also that they are the “first face of the company” and first impressions go far.
3. Persistent and Polite: Some prospects may be hard to connect with for a live conversation. Certain times of the day can be better to call, typically at the beginning and end of the day. The best reps know how to be persistent in following up: 5-6 touches, including phone calls and emails, ideally also sharing new and interesting information. Equally important, the best reps know when to give up too.
Many prospects may not be ready to buy yet. An important component is lead nurturing, ideally with marketing automation, or by the reps themselves, to warm up “cold leads” with periodic emails to touch base, provide useful information about the industry or the product. When a prospect is “warmed up” enough (e.g. the prospect has viewed demo and downloaded a white paper), then the lead is fed to the inbound reps for follow-up.
4. Asking the right questions: Key elements for the rep to know, or to try and uncover, relate to four factors: 1. Is the specific person the decision-maker in the purchase? 2. Is there budget available to purchase the product? 3. What is the need the prospect is trying to fulfill? 4. What time-frame does he plan to buy in? With these insights, the rep is in a good position to assess if the lead is a good opportunity likely to result in a sale. For larger customers, this expands to a discussion about goals, plans and challenges, to help with a more complex sale.
5. It’s a numbers game: Inbound demand management is about assessing metrics at every stage of the funnel, against internal and/or external benchmarks. Key metrics include speed of response, and number of calls, conversations, ensuing opportunities, closed deals and dollars. For example, a rep having many conversations but creating few opportunities needs to work on the quality of conversation. Similarly, strong results on number of closed deals but low closed dollars means a stronger focus on upsell is needed.
Clearly, building strong inbound demand management capabilities is a balance of many different elements. Any one element managed in a vacuum will fail in achieving the desired outcome, managing them all in concert is the secret.
“If you aren’t going all the way, why go at all?” – Joe Namath
Note: If you found this post useful, you may be interested in the previous post on outbound prospecting: “Sales Prospecting: Get your Message Thru”
Originally published on LinkedIn