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Guest Author: Corbin Grimes
“Leads are a starting point, not a closed deal. Think of a lead as the seed, and you are the gardener. The effort you make and what you do to nurture that seed is directly related to its growth and what comes from it next.” – Corbin Grimes
Setting Expectations
Every sales professional in the world wants to work with a lead that’s ready to buy. It’s a common mentality that all sales professionals have – I call this “hot lead tunnel vision.”
Hot lead tunnel vision is a pitfall that can keep you from tapping into many other good resources – resources that you should be utilizing to fill your pipeline.
Before you go out and spend your hard earned money on leads, you need to understand several things about them.
1.) There is no easy button. There is no miracle pill in sales. There is no silver bullet.
2.) There is no such thing as a perfect lead. You’re not going to find leads that will always pan out sales.
3.) There is no “one size fits all lead”. Not all lead programs are going to be a good fit for you.
4.) There are inexpensive leads, and more expensive leads – that doesn’t always equate to quality.
Conversion
Converting a lead into a sale is 100% on you. You may not close many, and in many cases you may not close any at all.
Leads are funny that way. You can give the same list of leads to 5 different people and each will have their own degree of success with the list. With one individual, you might give them the hottest lead on the planet, and they will not convert it. With other individuals you could give them the worst lead on the planet, and they will find a way to convert it. I’ve actually seen this take place amongst sales people using the same list of leads over a period of time. Sales person A worked list #1 for almost an entire year and managed to get one sale. Needless to say, sales person A wasn’t around much longer. The company gave the same list (that had already been called on) to sales person B. Sales person B had only been in the company for 3 months, and has already exceeded their goals for the quarter using the exact same list.
My point is this: sometimes it’s not the lead, sometimes it’s the sales person. It’s important to own up to the fact that sometimes you’ll fail to convert even the best of leads because that is just the nature of sales. Or, perhaps you are not a sales person at all; you’ll need to eventually own up to that as well. It’s important to stay positive and keep your head up and not lose faith as your next sale could be right around the corner.
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For more resources, see our Library topics Marketing and Social Networking.
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Author Info: Corbin Grimes is a small business consulting firm located in Denver, Colorado offering affordable internet marketing and business solutions including search engine optimization (SEO), web design, e-mail marketing, project management and more. Corbin Grimes has a highly specialized team of web designers, software developers, graphic designers and internet marketers designed to take on any business project while placing an emphasis on affordability, reliability, service and professionalism.
