You are sitting in a meeting with sales and marketing and looking at the high price of leads. Marketing announces that salespeople burning leads is the issue, and sales have quality issues. An outdated company’s sales and marketing processes can create an endless cycle of struggle.
Today’s buyers are a different ilk from what they were, say, 10-15 years ago. Today, buyers control narratives and interactions and invest considerable time in research when they are looking to make a purchase. Salespeople have become nearly redundant as sources of information with the excess of information on the internet that can answer questions from reliable sources.
Companies invest tens of thousands of dollars in B2B lead generation, often seeing the leads dissipate to nothing. Marketing points the finger at sales, and sales points to marketing. The bottom line is buyers have changed, and salespeople have not!
Buyer behaviour is such that marketing will be the most trusted contact before salespeople. Buyers are comfortable providing their details to marketers as they know salespeople are more often than not, not going to follow-up. Salespeople burning leads by making one or two phone calls and then moving to the next person. They can stop marketing with a simple unsubscribe.
Can companies afford to cherry-pick salespeople when high-quality contacts are interacting with the business on topical subject matter and demonstrating interest?
The answer to the question is a resounding No.
Cherry-picking salespeople come from a bygone era with old-school tactics, and they need to be retrained on how to manage leads in the modern world. Sales insatiable appetite for leads needs to be managed as the B2B market often cannot provide sufficient leads to support this burning habit.
Sales and marketing must be aligned
to maximise the value obtained from lead generation.
Old School Thinking
For many years, it was widely recognised that there are four (4) distinct types or categories of leads.
- Firstly, hot prospects who are self-educated on your product, service, or solution and just require a salesperson to facilitate the sale.
- Secondly, warm prospects who require additional information or confirm technical information before they proceed with the order. This can be just a phone call and, in some cases, a demonstration or appointment.
- Third, inactive leads are prospects who indicate that they are not interested, do not wish to make a purchase at this time, or are satisfied with the current status.
- Finally, and fourthly, this is the group that asserts, “We are fine; we have a guy; please refrain from contacting us.”
This simple classification of leads is grounded in old-school selling tactics and is based on the salesperson’s interpretation of the opportunity.
The sales responses could be classified as
- They placed the order, and you happened to be the receiver. An order taker.
- They were ready to purchase and just needed to tick a few boxes before proceeding. An order taker.
- This is where the money is lying quietly, but salespeople move on in pursuit of getting fast orders.
- This response is from cold-calling. If they had a guy, they would not connect on marketing.
Cold Calling Is Dead
The old cold-calling technique fails to be logical in today’s world. The principle of using one of your most expensive resources to make outbound calls to unqualified people is flawed.
According to RingLead, 80% of phone conversations are directed to voicemail, and 90% of the initial voicemails are never returned. The average response rate to voicemail is 4.8%. Those unconnected are incinerated and never revisited.
According to Velocify, 94% of leads are contacted by the sixth attempt and sold by the eighth to twelfth contact. Most salespeople have moved on after three attempts.
If you extrapolate the number of sales needed based on those efforts to get to a sale, very few would deliver a return on the time invested.
Salespeople burning leads is understandable based on the enormous work required if marketing is not starting the conversation for them.
Managing Leads in a Modern World
Buyers today are great researchers. According to HubSpot, 96% of the sales process in 2024 is managed by the salesperson, leaving only 4% of the process to salespeople to close the deal. But you cannot leave buyers out there making their way as they can land on your competitors. Salespeople must be held accountable for the early intervention with the buyer and for nurturing leads.
Their measurement of conversion of the proposal to sale is now inconsequential, as most sales are handed to them from an already-in-play buyer. Close rates should be as high as 80%. The telling metric in the modern world is stages of lead conversion, with leads marked at different points of the sales process.
The Lead Nurture System
Nurturing leads is often pushed to the marketing department as sales have persuaded the business that they are not ready for purchase. With the abundance of marketing automation tools available, it seems like a good idea. Sending mass emails and information, hoping it will stick, fails buyers. Sending automation emails to specific buyer behaviours has become mainstream, and buyers are aware of the process.
In a true lead nurture system, the marketing department is not the only contributor to nurturing. For success, marketing and sales must align with the process refined. Sales is, and always will be, about conversations with people, and salespeople must talk with prospects early in the buyer process. Nurturing is about having the right conversations.
Marketing’s role is to make the company and salesperson credible and of value to the buyer so that the conversation can start. It is a highly tuned marketing process delivered as the start of discussions from the salesperson.
If you examine 1,000 leads, a lead is a buyer providing full disclosure of their contact details and interest and interacting with the company marketing on a specific topic.
Of those leads, only 3-5% are ready to buy at any time in a good market. 14% will require work by sales as they seek further information and may purchase within three months if managed well by sales. The closing ratio is high, with buyers having an immediate need.
The next 60% will take three to twelve plus months to make a purchasing decision, and the balance of 21% will make no decisions. The 60% is where you achieve growth. These numbers can vary according to the product/service you sell, but you will find they are a close guide in most cases.
A sales organisation that implements an effective follow-up and nurturing process will be capable of converting 60% of opportunities in the future. They have long nurturing pipelines of opportunities in play.
Salespeople need to be retrained to understand that hearing “No” is not the meaning conveyed when an individual declines to engage; rather, it signifies, “Not at this time.” The buyer may be in early to mid-stage research. They are not looking to be sold, they are researching options.
Buyers don’t understand the value sales can bring to the table as they are satisfied with their research. Sales need to bring more to the table than what is readily available. Marketing and sales must be aligned to assist the buyer in navigating their way and realise value in speaking with the salesperson.
Marketing operating drip campaigns of information alone do not sufficiently influence the buyer. The value of general information is low. However, salespeople sending emails that contain relevant case studies, industry statistics, current challenges, and problems that have been resolved become valuable, and buyers will be more likely to converse with them. The more tailored the information, the more value seen by the buyer.
Sales teams implementing a nurturing process that aligns with marketing will see prospects gradually re-engage in the sales process and warm up. When the buyer is ready to listen, the salesperson is best placed and accountable for demonstrating the value and justifying the necessity of your product, service, and solution.
Lead Nurturing Return on Investment
Sales organisations that implement an aggressive follow-up and nurture process generate an average of 42% more revenue by consistently disseminating content, sharing articles, industry developments, white papers, case studies, and how-to guides to their prospects than those that rely on ‘ready-to-buy now’ sellers or the marketing department to nurture them alone.
The cost of generating new leads on a weekly, monthly, or quarterly basis is four times higher than the cost of nurturing your leads until they are fully exhausted. A company purchasing leads at a rate of $10,000 per month, you could only allocate $2,500 per month and exhaust your current leads over time when a lead nurture programme is in place delivered by sales and marketing.
The bottom line is that the money is in the follow-up. You must establish an effective follow-up procedure to support growth and minimise marketing costs.
Another important benefit is that companies implementing a lead nurturing process will be less likely to experience fluctuations in business economies as the pipeline or sales funnel is built on a solid base of customers over a longer time. Buyers are becoming stronger and scoring higher in lead scores as the interaction between marketing and sales continues.
If you are tired of salespeople burning leads, it is time to take action.
If you are looking to improve the performance of sales and marketing, Sales Focus Advisory assists companies in devising viable solutions that will enhance their sales, reduce their marketing and advertising expenditures, and optimise the efficiency of their endeavours.
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