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Sales Success Is Yours When You Track Your Leads
Sales leads are not typically covered in sales training books or courses as thoroughly as other parts of the sales process such as closing the sale. The sales process begins with generating leads, so it is important to understand as much as you can about them in order for your business to be as profitable as possible.
Are you able to name the number of leads you got over the last month? Most people can answer that question with a handful of leads that have high potential or resulted in a sale, but a large number of potential leads fall out of the process, sacrificing possible sales.
So, what’s the big deal anyway? The more you know about your leads the more successful your business will be, because generating leads is the first step to making sales. And, wouldn’t it be worth it to use some of the things you learn about your leads to cut marketing costs or the time you spend getting leads?
Your first action plan is to create a way to track key information about the ways that you generate your leads. Here are a few areas to start analyzing:
1. What is the main venue through which you get your leads? Before a lead becomes a lead, they are only prospects – someone who visits your website or that you meet at a networking group. Identify your main sources for gathering prospects, such as the Internet, trade shows, networking events, or direct advertising.
2. What “specific sources” do your leads come from? Organic search, PPC, a specific networking event, another website, response to a blog post on someone else’s blog, or a specific advertising campaign are all examples of specific lead sources.
3. Last, what quality would you rank the leads you get from the sources you defined in the earlier steps? An effective way to come up with this is to assign a percent value to every lead a source provides. So, if a lead actually results in a sale, it receives a higher percentage value than one that expressed interest but didn’t get past the proposal stage.
Once you know where your best leads originate, you will find you are able to spend your marketing dollars and your time much more efficiently.
Get more small business success strategies and claim your free white paper: “7 Ways Your Stone-Age Accounting System is Stealing Money From You Every Day … And, How to Get it Back This Year” to learn about an online accounting program that makes it simple to track your leads and conversion rates.
How To Increase Sales By Tracking Leads
Most sales training books and courses spend a lot of time on closing the sale, but very little time is spent on discussing the leads that, well, lead to those sales. The sales process begins with generating leads, so it is important to understand as much as you can about them in order for your business to be as profitable as possible.
Can you count the number of leads you received over the past 30 days? Most mentally review and can name a handful of quality leads they talked to, but a good amount of potential leads are lost every month.
What’s the big deal? Because a company spends so much time and money to get leads, the more you know about them, the more profitable the business will become. And, if you can use your newly found information to either reduce the cost of your marketing or the time that you spend, wouldn’t that be worth it?
First, you need to be able to track specific information about how you get leads. Here are a few areas to start analyzing:
1. What is the main venue through which you get your leads? Before a lead becomes a lead, they are only prospects – someone who visits your website or that you meet at a networking group. Identify your main sources for gathering prospects, such as the Internet, trade shows, networking events, or direct advertising.
2. Then, answer the question, what specific sources do you get your actual leads from? For example, specific sources could be a particular trade show, an online blog a direct advertising campaign, an existing client referral or a pay per click advertising campaign.
3. Finally, what is the quality value for each of the leads you receive from those general sources and specific sources? I have found that this is easiest to derive by assigning a percentage value to every lead received from a source. So, if a lead actually results in a sale, it receives a higher percentage value than one that expressed interest but didn’t get past the proposal stage.
You will be able to spend your marketing budget and your time much more efficiently once you understand where you leads come from and the quality of those leads.
Get more small business success strategies and claim your free white paper: “7 Ways Your Stone-Age Accounting System is Stealing Money From You Every Day … And, How to Get it Back This Year” to learn about an online accounting program that makes it simple to track your leads and conversion rates.