Current sales industry research by Marketing Sherpa in the last 24 months brought to light that 3 out of 4 sales leads are going to buy in the next 18 to 24 months.
Simply put, the commonly heard complaints about the lack of potential in their sales leads are at least a little bit misguided. A portion of the leads aren’t going to convert immediately, or even during the rep’s desired timetable. But even if it’s not going to take place tomorrow, serious prospects really are looking for solutions.
This fact shows that it can be just as vital to engage in long-term lead nurturing, even if progress towards being a valid prospect is likely to be slow—and a dialer can be a important element of a long-term lead generation program.
However, mangement teams need to be careful that a lead nurturing program doesn’t become a crutch, or a fallback for initial contacting, qualifying, and lead generation activities.. Suddenly “Lead nurturing” becomes an excuse for not performing vital prospecting activities like immediate response and consistent follow-up.
This can be an absolute disaster for future sales performance, because as the Sales 2.0 Network has said, a failed opportunity is usually caused by two core problems—your company wasn’t even a good fit to begin with and you never really had a chance, or you hands-down got outsmarted by someone else.
A long-term lead management system is potentially valuable, but immediate response techniques are just as vital, because they help prevent both scenarios. Immediate response means reps have a much higher probability of making contact. Appointments increase, needs analysis happens more frequently, and it happens in less time. Furthermore, fast lead response creates a good first impression. You give yourself a better opportunity to know immediately whether you’re you actually have a realistic shot of closing the deal, as well as give yourself an environment of trust in the immediate moment, and into the future.