Are you having trouble interacting with high-value clients? Many sales agents waste hours on multiple clients to achieve what they could with just a few dedicated minutes with a high-value client. The problem is that you have no way of knowing which leads to prioritize because you don’t know who the real buyers are. Having qualified leads could change that. When sales agents work with qualified leads, they only call buyers who are 100% qualified.
Understanding the Value of a Buyer
What is a high-value lead? High-value leads are buyers who are aligned with your target audience. However, they aren’t just valuable because they fit your demographic. These leads are actually ready to purchase. In fact, satisfying both characteristics is exactly what makes a lead valuable.
Why do so many sales agents get stuck wasting time on low-quality leads? It usually comes down to a perception issue. Sales teams often mistake “more” for “better.” As a result, they fall into the trap of assuming that there’s safety in numbers. They focus on lead volume by trying to bring in as many leads as possible. Using this “Las Vegas” style of lead chasing, sales agents assume that a certain number of leads will statistically convert. Seasoned and successful sales agents know that letting the chips fall anywhere is a recipe for a low closing rate.
Most leads never convert. There are many reasons why they remain stuck in the lead queue. The most common reason why leads don’t convert is poor nurturing. When sales teams put too much focus on lead volume, they don’t put energy toward the leads that matter. It’s easy for even a skilled sales team to fall into this trap when the right balance of consistent volume and lead qualification isn’t being achieved.
How to Fix Your Problem With Lackluster Leads
You may have just realized that your sales team is prioritizing volume over quality. However, you may not know what to do next to get out of this trap. The good news is that you can reverse the cycle of losing revenue, losing sales, and wasting time on the wrong people in days once you get to the root of the issue.
Make the switch to qualifying leads first. If the lead isn’t qualified, your sales team isn’t making the call. While this can feel scary at first if your team is in the habit of measuring “productivity” by the number of leads being juggled, it only takes a few days of better interactions with high-quality buyers for sales agents to become believers.
What does the full picture look like when you’re leading with lead validation? Validation becomes the starting point for a better, sleeker lead pipeline that ensures your sales team is nurturing each lead to the fullest extent. Your team is never worried that they missed opportunities because each lead progression is carefully planned and tracked. Here’s what a good lead pipeline looks like when the goal is to invest time in high-value buyers:
- 1. Use AI to Qualify Leads: As stated earlier, getting every lead qualified ensures that your sales team isn’t simply gambling with every moment spent contacting leads. They are going into every interaction with the confidence of knowing that the contact on the other end is a vetted, high-quality buyer. The odds are now in their favor. What kind of boost could this level of knowledge provide to your wavering team after months of low closing rates?
- 2. Validate Leads: Confirming that a sales team is working with a list of real, accurate contact information is incredibly empowering. Different companies take lead validation to different places. Some use it as a method for separating leads generated from specific campaigns and marketing efforts from other leads. Others use it to assign value scores to every single lead to help sales teams prioritize leads as high-value buyers.
- 3. Confirm Compliance: It’s important to make sure that sales agents are reaching out in full compliance with federal laws. When sales agents contact numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry, they put a company in jeopardy. Unfortunately, most large batches of unqualified leads contain numbers that are on this registry because real, quality leads have not been separated from generic bulk leads.
- 4. A/B Testing: While often overlooked during the rush of trying to contact every name on a new lead list as quickly as possible, A/B testing can play a crucial role in boosting closing rates for sales teams. A/B testing provides a quantifiable score for how every approach or script works.
- 5. Close in 90 Days: Creating a 90-day life cycle for each lead provides sales agents with a clear path to follow. At the 90-day mark, leads that haven’t been converted can be moved to other categories.
- 6. Purge the Lead List: Don’t cycle back to the same leads over and over again! Both unconverted and low-value leads should be purged after a specified amount of time that lines up with your company’s typical turnaround time for closing.
There’s no need to take on a huge tech burden to get this done. Companies getting access to high-value buyers are doing it by outsourcing and automating the qualifying process. You can learn exactly how to get it done by downloading our new eBook called “No More Cold Calls: A Foolproof Plan to Build a List of 100% Qualified Sales Leads” today!
