Out with the old, in with the new… right?

by | Mar 3, 2023 | General

 
Everyone loves new Sales Leads. A fresh enquiry, from a perfect prospect, who’s in the market right now. Those Leads are great, and we’d all love more of them!! But hang on, what about the old Leads…? What about the hot Leads we got last week… last month… last year? The hot ones we didn’t quite manage to convert… what are we doing with those? It can be all too easy to focus on the new Leads, and therefore neglect the old Leads. A client of mine did just that. They had been working the new Leads and converting around 30% of them to clients. They were really happy with those results, and so they should be. But then I asked them “What happens to the 70%?”. There was a silence. We then spoke some more, and the Marketing Director told me it was the Sales People’s responsibility to follow up their own Leads… so I asked “Do they follow them up? If they do, how do you measure their follow-up activity?”. Another silence. This particular client was in a fortunate position where a 30% conversion meant that their Sales People were hitting their targets, and the business was getting a decent ROI on its Sales & Marketing efforts. But, a good ROI doesn’t mean we should neglect old Leads. We should always be looking for ways to improve things. We’re now working closely with this client to:
 

  1. Close the loop… the progress of every single Lead is traceable, and there is a clearly defined process for establishing which Leads remain the responsibility of the Sales People, and which Leads are passed back to us to nurture and re-qualify. No Lead is wasted.
  2. Call the backlog… the client has also passed us a “backlog” of Leads – around 1,500 companies – and we are calling, cleansing & engaging with these prospects again. Just 3 months in and we’ve already passed the client several Leads from this activity.
    Their 30% conversion is now steadily on the increase. Perhaps you’ve got a similar situation… maybe you have a database of old prospects which is just sat there., gathering metaphorical dust. I bet those Leads were hard-earned… I bet they cost you time and money to generate them… so, what are you going to do with them…? Thanks, Luke.