Tuesday's Tidbits - How the heck is that a Lead?

Welcome to Tuesday's Tidbits! Thank you for stopping by. We hope you're able to get something out of this post, as with all of our other ones, and if you do, feel free to comment below on what that is, or even with a follow-up thought!

Happy salesperson!

This week's Tuesday's Tidbits post is about one of our favorite topics of the Sales world - Leads! Every salesperson loves a good lead, because those are obviously the easiest way to generate conversations, transition those conversations to sales, and hit your numbers. Leads come from so many different places that we're absolutely not going to dive into all of them in one post, because we're pretty sure you don't have 9 hours to read during your workday...So instead, we're going to hone in on 3 ways that good leads can turn into duds.

First, some context - This topic comes from a consistent complaint I've heard from SDRs and Account Managers/Salespeople alike, and the complaint sounds like this: "Man, my SDRs keep passing on trash leads", or "I'm booking meetings like crazy, but my AM can't close anything!" The compliant changes based on who's doing the complaining, but they're both saying the same thing - This person can't do their job!! It's super easy for people to blame someone else for shortcomings, but that won't cause a better or more efficient team, and definitely won't help cross-team teamwork. That's why our 3 ways good leads can turn into duds that we describe below doesn't call for finding better quality people or readdressing your talent pool. Instead, we're taking a step back and looking at what leadership can do, and to see improvements that can be made in higher-level strategies.

Differing Definitions

Collaboration!

If your business/company has a typical Sales model, you'll have Lead Generation (BDR/SDR), Closers (Account Managers), and high-level Closers (AEs/Enterprise/Global). If you're a small company, you'll have less teams until you grow, and obviously larger companies have multiple sub-sections of Sales teams to fit their clients' needs. Obviously this isn't any type of high-level rhetoric that I'm sharing, but here's the first point with all this - Can you imagine a company with 5 different levels of sales teams and each one has their own definition for what a lead is? I can easily do that, because I've worked for companies like that and I know people who work in companies like that now!

So, what exactly is a lead? That's not something I'm going to tell you, that's the first question you need to be asking to see if your cross-team Sales strategy might need some fine-tuning. Entrepreneur's article suggests everyone on the sales-side of your organization should be able to answer this, and the answer should be consistent across the board. The problem is that for many organizations, the Lead Gen team may have their definition, the Closers have their own definition, and Leadership has a third definition. If this is the case, your teams are absolutely letting good, qualified leads fall through the cracks, often times in lieu of less-qualified leads or non-leads. The definition needs to be clear, concise, and recitable for every part of your sales team to make sure everyone is on the same page. To sum this thought up, Communication is the biggest reason some great leads can turn into duds.

Communication and setting clear expectations should be one of the foundational pillars for creating your sales team and sales strategies. One sign that you should revisit this Communication would be if your teams have different opinions on what a lead truly is, especially because the sales world is so diverse and people have been trained in many different ways by many different people. To some, they've been taught anyone who picks up the phone can be a lead, and others haven't been taught anything about a cold lead. Sales leaders need to find the definition that works for their sales teams and their business goals, then make sure that everyone has the same definition in mind with clear Communication. On top of that, leaders should be encouraging positive and critical feedback for every team on their handling of leads, pivoting if necessary. Notice - Positive and Critical feedback, not negative feedback. Negative feedback doesn't help if it doesn't help diagnose and create a solution.

In short, any qualified lead that falls through the cracks is a lost opportunity, a lost sale, and a hit to employee efficiency. As we mentioned before, many people want to blame individual skillsets, or a lack of skills to be specific, because people are so quick to issue blame to another person to avoid improving themselves or their team's strategies. It's the easy way out mentality, and it's not uncommon, but here's the thing - No company grows by taking the easy way out. No sales person gets better, and no sales goal gets reached by taking the easy way out. Why am I even bringing this up? Because the easy way out mentality creates the perfect environment for differing definitions on what constitutes a qualified lead.

Hoping this isn't a picture of my readers

Think about it - We, as humans (assuming I, Robot isn't real...yet), are wired to put ourselves before others. There's an innate selfishness inside of us all that we have to fight back for the sake of others, or at least that's what I believe. With this assumption, it's obvious to see where an easy way out mentality would come from, and why so many people would embrace it - Because people want the easiest way to advance themselves, whether it's socially, economically, or in any other part of society. So is it shocking that people would adopt easier definitions of their daily tasks? Of course not!

To an SDR, whose success and commission is determined by meetings booked, it's not shocking at all that some would want a looser definition of what a lead is, just as an AE, whose success and commission depends on the amount of deals closed, would want a stricter definition. I've heard SDRs book meetings simply because someone picked up a phone, and I've heard AEs refer to leads as people who are ready to buy with a credit card in hand. In my opinion, neither of these are healthy definitions, but it's not uncommon to hear, and definitely isn't shocking to see. As a sales leader, you should be wary of and always be looking to fight against the easy way out mentality of your team, or else your team's efficiency can take a serious hit, leading to lost revenue and fractured relationships among your sales team.

To keep it simple:

• It's easy to see why people could easily adopt an easy way out mentality, which leads to differing opinions of what a lead actually is

• Nip the easy way out mentality by having a clear definition and expectation across the entirety of your sales teams of what a lead is and how to appropriately follow-up with each type of lead

• Know your employees. Know their conversion rates, their most successful tactics, their strengths, their weaknesses, etc. This will help you keep everyone on the same page for expectations and tracking success

• Be ready to pivot and readdress your strategy based on the needs of your clients, the current sales trends/atmosphere, and your current team's skillsets

Overloading your Teams

This one absolutely hits close to home, because we're about to talk about one of the most debated topics in the sales world - Metrics. Oh man, I love hearing people talk about metrics. You hear some crazy extreme opinions on which metrics matter and which ones don't. I've heard some people tell me that anyone who emails people or tries to prospect on social media is wasting their time, and I've heard people say as AEs that they wouldn't be caught dead cold-calling. That's someone else's job. Again, I don't agree with either of these approaches, but some people are pretty aggressive about them!

Like the first part, I'm not here to say what the appropriate Metrics are for every business, and that's actually one of my major points throughout this entire post - There is no one size fits all approach to sales anymore. I think there used to be an idea of this, but there is no 1 approach that works in 100% of businesses. Your sales approach and metrics should be customized to your businesses' individual client base, goals, and employee skillsets. Shameless plug time - If you want to diversify and add to your current employee's skillsets, check out our Soft Skills Seminars, where we use our background in entertainment to drive a higher engagement in our seminars, leading to a higher attainment of the methods and tactics we cover in each course. You'd be amazed how well they work and how much people enjoy them, so contact us today to set one up!

Behold the glory!

Alright, I'm done with that, but back to the main sub-topic here - Your sales approach and strategy should be unique to your business, but one thing is consistent - Don't overload your employees. Whether by having too many leads to follow-up on or whether the expectations are strictly out of their reach, an overwhelmed employee will quickly slow down and stop operating at a high efficiency. Worse than that, there's a high chance they'll start being disengaged with the team and the company, which can lead to them looking for other opportunities, especially if you pair that with a lowering employee happiness. It's the same as a doughnut machine at Krispy Kreme (yes, I know what this says about me, and I don't care! KK is amazing!) If the machine can handle 1,000 doughnuts an hour, asking for it to all of a sudden handle 2,000 in the same time will overload the machine and cause it to shut down. Time to get a 2nd machine, or in this case, a 2nd SDR, AM, or AE!

This actually blew my mind, but Insight Squared has an article that says "Many folks agree that SDRs should handle between 150 and 300 leads per month, depending on your business and conversion rates." Based on the conversations I've had with SDR managers, leaders, and directors, that number would be a joke. I feel like I know more people who are asking their SDR teams to handle upwards of 800-1,000 a month at this point in time, but here's the thing - That can be okay, but only if A) That doesn't overload your employees, and B) You have numbers behind why you're asking that. If the conversion rates are very low for your team, you may want to figure out why, but you can also justify asking a higher level of activity. If your conversion rate is 20% on leads at the time, asking this level of activity sounds great, but you're absolutely going to ask for quantity over quality, and you may be losing leads in the process.

Summary time:

• Know your business inside and out when coming up with a sales strategy. Know your place in the market, know what your competitors are doing, and know what the trends are in not just your verticals, but for the verticals of your clients

• Know the numbers of your team. Know their conversion rates, the medium that you're having the most success at converting leads, and other factors that add to your team's success

• Customize your expectations based on where your current business/sales goals are and the talent you have. There's no cookie-cutter mentality to creating a sales goal

Not Being Flexible

Strategizing should be a weekly thing!

This is probably the point most people will ignore or roll their eyes at, but it could be argued that it's the most important point. Today's sales environment is light years different from what it was even 5 years ago, and I know that, because the conversation and expectations of sales teams have changed so much in the companies I've worked for in just that small amount of time. The tactics of mass mail-merging and requiring a set number of calls a day on threat of punishment if you don't reach them...these tactics are far from effective, and more organizations are starting to pivot their strategies away from the older methods of sales that have a lower ROI.

I'll say it one more time - I'm not here to tell you what your sales strategy should be or what methods you should use, because that's not my role, but what I AM here to say is that out of the conversations with hiring managers, sales leaders and directors that I've had over the past 5 years, I can't think of a topic that more people have talked about more than being flexible. Sales leaders who aren't changing their game and expectations to fit the current market are slowly being phased out and labelled as "old-school", and I've known a few that have gotten that label from some companies. In today's analytics-heavy atmosphere, there are so many numbers out there to see what's currently trending and working, and people who continue set in the old-school way of sales are likely not leading to

If you're seeing a high conversion rate from mail-merges and disingenuous voicemails to phone numbers that haven't been confirmed since 2012, that is freaking awesome. Keep that up! This message is more to encourage people not to stick to only 1 method of success in sales. There are so many effective strategies out there right now, and the Sales community has never been more vocal and encouraging. I absolutely recommend not only engaging in the ongoing conversations with other professionals inside your company, but externally as well. There are so many great posts of strategies on LinkedIn that you can find, and so many people talking about what's currently working for them. There are also so many different tools for tracking success within your company, that you'd truly behind the times if you don't know your greatest areas and tactics that lead to the highest levels of success - And that goes for Sales leaders and Sales people alike. As an SDR, AM, AE, or any other role, you should know what your biggest success factors are. When do people pick up the phone for a cold call most often for you? When do people respond fastest to your emails? What is the billing cycle and fiscal year start/end for most of your clients? What leads to higher conversion rates - Calls/Voicemails, Email, LinkedIn, Mailing Campaigns, social media marketing campaigns, or something else? These are all basic questions you should want to answer no matter your role, because if you don't have this information, how can you know what to spend more of your time with?

Not only should leaders stay flexible and be able to help their teams pivot based on the environmental changes in your specific vertical, but employees should also be flexible to change the way they pursue leads and close sales. Most of the most effective sales teams I've been a part of and have spoken with all have these 3 things in common:

1. They're flexible on the approaches they use, and try multiple different tactics based on their conversion rates and the audience they want to reach

2. Their leaders promote this flexibility and encourage open communication to spread internal success stories, so others can try similar solutions to see if they'll work for them

3. The entire team is always encouraged to try new tactics and track the results

These 3 things can not only lead to higher conversion rates, more successful conversations, and more closed sales, but they also give the employees a sense of purpose and value, which leads to a higher engagement with the company, a higher sense of motivation and effort, and a greater happiness in their roles. It's the sales professionals that don't get to voice any input whatsoever, and are told "This is how we do things, get used to it" that usually lose their motivation and start going on auto-pilot mode, which obviously doesn't help them reach their own goals, let alone the company goals.

So basically what I'm saying is:

• Allow your team the freedom to try new approaches, new ideas, new approaches, and new strategies. This will not only help them feel like their efforts are mattering more, but it may provide you with a more efficient sales method in the form of an email that's working well, a voicemail that gets a lot of return calls, etc.

• Encourage a high level of communication among your team. This will help them try new methods, stay confident by being themselves throughout the sales process (within reason), and help them engage more with your team/company. They will be and feel more valuable, which is way more important than a lot of leaders assume

• Don't go into a new position or come up with your annual sales strategies thinking there's only 1 effective/correct way for your team to reach their goals. Allow for creativity to take hold, and encourage those new ideas, but also make sure that the new methods are being tracked. Having stats and seeing the numbers can help you decide which tactics work best and which ones to stop using

That's it for this one! 3 basic ways that great leads can turn into duds. There's a lot to unpack there, so thank you for everyone who made it to the end. Again, feel free to comment on your take, whether you want to add to the conversation or mention something that worked/works for your team. We definitely encourage positive or critical feedback to all of our posts. If you want more information on anything, you'll find us at www.sweethartentertainment.com, and you can also email us at sweethartentertainment@gmail.com!