Seven Steps to Increase the Productivity of Your Sales Team

A new white paper released by the Sales Lead Management Association provides some insight into the question of why some businesses fail to see a satisfactory ROI on their high-quality, real-time leads.

The main reason is that the majority of leads are simply wasted. A survey performed by the SLMA found that 75 to 90 percent of all leads turned over to salespeople are not followed up. According to these findings, it has gradually become common practice among sales teams to discard all but the "hot" leads, even though about 60 percent of leads will eventually turn into customers after a few weeks or months of nurturing.

Considering all of the time, effort and money that go into generating quality leads, you definitely want to get the most value possible from every single one. So how do you know whether your salespeople are following up on each lead, and what can you do if you find that they are not?

1. Track your ROI. A separate study by the SLMA found that more than 60 percent of businesses do not do this, even though most sales software comes with ROI tracking built into the program. Finding out if you have a problem in this area, and to what extent, is the first step in resolving the situation.
2. Identify and isolate issues related to meeting your ROI, and establish a plan to overcome these issues and meet your ROI goals. Include some of the steps below to increase the productivity of your sales team.
3. Establish a policy that requires 100% follow-up on leads.
4. Observe whether your team is spending too much time between calls. Minimizing distractions will make it easier to proceed to the next call.
5. Use progressive dialing, which will automatically start to dial the next number in line as soon as the salesperson ends the current call. One feature you should avoid using when calling your highest quality leads is predictive dialing. Unlike progressive dialing, predictive dialing automatically dials a number, and then connects the call to the next available agent as soon as a live person answers the call. This results in that obvious pause, which most people will recognize as the sign of an automated call. This will prompt them to hang up immediately.
6. Next best call routing is also an excellent tool. It eliminates the need for the sales rep to stop and analyze which call will be the best one to take next, which can eat up a surprising amount of time. The system will select and route the next best calls to each rep, based upon criteria selected by the company owner or manager.
7. Make certain your leads are being properly nurtured. Have a plan in place for following up on leads that do not result in a purchase on the initial call. These are still very valuable leads but are often ignored by salespeople. Be sure your team knows that you value and want to keep in contact with these prospects until they are ready to make a purchasing decision. Regularly check the results of the nurturing process to see which follow-up offers work best and to determine the optimal amount of time between calls, adjusting your program accordingly.

By taking these simple but effective steps, and continually tracking your results using the ROI tracking aspect of your sales program, you should see a higher percentage of your leads turning into customers.