Is your team suffering from sales fatigue? Tired sales teams are defeated sales teams. It’s not necessarily the “work” that fatigues sales teams. In most cases, fatigue is due to circumstance. Tired sales team members are distracted, wrestling with complicated schedules, and suffering with inconsistent communication. Sales teams are also vulnerable to specific issues related to the burden of managing leads.
Bad lead data can make a sales team grow weary. When a team is uncertain about the validity and value of leads, they become reluctant to give their all. What’s more, they are unable to prioritize valuable leads over low-value leads. That means they’re wasting all of their energy on leads that can’t go anywhere. The result is a fatigued, defeated sales team. Fortunately, there is something sales managers can do about it.
What Does Sales Fatigue Look Like?
While it may feel like your team is struggling with a unique problem of low motivation, the truth is that sales fatigue is more common than most sales managers realize. Here are some telltale signs that your call center is afflicted with sales fatigue:
- Sales team members are calling three times before giving up on a lead.
- Team members are behind in logging activity.
- Metrics are not being met.
- Team members are failing to follow up on emails, calls, and other methods of communication.
- Even easy goals are not being met.
- Your team has a high turnover rate.
When sales fatigue creeps in, morale hits an all-time low. Sales numbers also hit new lows. Unfortunately, this creates a snowball effect that leaves a sales team even more unmotivated. How do sales managers end sales fatigue? Once you’ve recognized the signs of fatigue, it’s time to pinpoint why your team is spiraling. In most cases, the cause is a lack of simple resources.
This Is Why Your Sales Team Keeps Giving Up
If your sales team is giving up easily on leads, this is a big sign that sales agents don’t feel like they have the resources to nurture leads the way they need to be nurtured. The biggest red flag of all is the three-call routine. When team members have fallen into the trap of calling up to three times before writing off a lead, this gives a sales manager a telltale clue about the psychology that’s at play in a call center.
Calling three times represents a “formality” that indicates that sales team members are interested in doing the “bare minimum” needed to check a lead off from a list. This method focuses on getting a task completed instead of closing a sale. In an effective call center, sales agents are empowered to analyze why they aren’t touching base instead of being content with moving on to the next lead on the list. Here’s what an empowered team would ask instead:
- What if there are other ways to contact a lead?
- What if you called at the wrong time?
- What if this lead responds to text?
Curious sales agents get the job done. However, there’s no value in being curious unless important data can be accessed to answer these questions. This is where attuned sales managers begin to notice that a sales problem is actually a data problem. Sales agents need good data to close.
Fixing Sales Fatigue With Better Data
Are you qualifying your leads before passing them on to your sales team? If you’re not, you may already have your answer for why your sales team is fatigued. Unqualified leads lead to chaos in a call center. Your team is doing triple the amount of work with just a fraction of the closings they could be getting if they had better data.
The problem with unqualified leads is that your sales agents can’t verify that they are using accurate, current contact information to reach out to people who have an actual interest or need in your product or service. A qualified lead is a prospect who has been evaluated to verify that they fit the profile of a brand’s ideal customer. The second half of this definition is actually the most important. In addition to fitting the ideal customer profile, a qualified lead also has the intent to buy. Having proper lead qualification is essential for developing a robust sales pipeline.
When you hand your sales team qualified leads, big changes happen. There’s no longer any need for your team to spend time trying to “figure out” or “chase around” buyers. They can instead spend every minute nurturing leads. Yes, that means more closings. It also means a higher morale that inspires your agents to do their best work.
You may be feeling overwhelmed by the idea of figuring out how to qualify sales leads. The good news is that this isn’t something you need to manage on an in-house basis. Call centers are now relying on Pipes.ai to get fast, dynamic lead qualification. Pipes.ai offers the fastest way to turn leads into live calls. Our team is offering a free e-book called “No More Cold Calls: A Foolproof Plan to Build a List of 100% Qualified Sales Leads” right now to help stressed sales managers start reinvigorating their sales teams. This free resource will help you learn what you need to know to start improving sales numbers without a heavy investment.
