『Leads Are The Lifeblood Of Sales』のカバーアート

Leads Are The Lifeblood Of Sales

Leads Are The Lifeblood Of Sales

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Salespeople cannot rely entirely on marketing to keep their pipelines full. Marketing may generate enquiries through search engine optimisation, online advertising, white papers, eBooks, webinars and social media, but sales professionals must also create their own opportunities. This is especially important in Japan, where gaining access to a new business-to-business buyer can be difficult. Receptionists and gatekeepers are trained to protect busy executives, unfamiliar suppliers are treated cautiously and salespeople often give up after one unsuccessful attempt. The solution is to understand your sales numbers, identify your ideal prospects, reserve time for prospecting and persist until you reach the right decision-maker. Why are sales leads so important? Leads are the lifeblood of sales because every new client, appointment and contract must begin with a potential opportunity entering the sales funnel. Marketing teams work hard to generate inbound leads. They segment databases, develop content marketing, improve SEO performance, purchase pay-per-click advertising and encourage potential buyers to download reports or submit enquiries. These activities are valuable, but they are rarely enough to support every salesperson's revenue target. Marketing controls the campaigns, budgets, timing and targeting. Individual salespeople cannot simply sit back and wait for qualified prospects to appear. Professional salespeople therefore take responsibility for generating additional opportunities through referrals, networking, cold calling, dormant-account reactivation, industry events and direct outreach. Do now: Calculate how many active opportunities you currently have and compare that number with what you need to achieve your annual sales target. What are Key Activity Indicators in sales? Key Activity Indicators, or KAIs, measure the controllable actions that eventually produce sales results. Revenue is a lagging indicator. By the time a salesperson discovers that sales are below target, it may be too late to recover. KAIs provide earlier warning signals by tracking activities such as telephone calls, prospecting emails, LinkedIn approaches, referrals requested, appointments secured, proposals submitted and follow-up conversations completed. The important step is to calculate the conversion ratio between each stage. For example, how many initial approaches produce a conversation? How many conversations produce a meeting? How many meetings produce a proposal? How many proposals become contracts? These ratios allow salespeople to replace hope with mathematics. They can work backwards from the revenue target and identify the prospecting activity required each week. Do now: Start recording your approaches, conversations, appointments, proposals and completed sales so you can identify your true conversion ratios. How can salespeople calculate the leads they need? Salespeople can calculate their required lead volume by working backwards from their revenue target, average deal value and conversion rates. Imagine that your annual target is ¥30 million and your average sale is ¥1 million. You therefore need approximately 30 completed sales. Suppose one out of every three proposals becomes a contract. You would need around 90 proposals. If half of your initial meetings develop into proposals, you would need approximately 180 meetings. If one meeting is secured from every ten meaningful prospecting conversations, you would need around 1,800 conversations. The actual numbers will vary by industry, territory, product complexity, brand strength and sales cycle. Enterprise software, professional services and capital equipment may require longer sales processes than lower-value transactional services. Nevertheless, the principle remains the same: your target should determine your activity. Do now: Work backwards from your target and convert the annual requirement into monthly, weekly and daily prospecting numbers. How can salespeople identify better prospects? The best prospects are companies that resemble organisations where you have already produced meaningful results. Salespeople often waste time approaching companies simply because they are large, famous or nearby. A more effective approach is to define an ideal client profile using industry, location, employee numbers, business model, growth stage, decision-making structure and likely business problems. Existing clients provide valuable clues. If you have helped one five-star hotel in Tokyo improve its sales performance, competing hotels may face similar challenges. If you have solved a leadership issue for one technology company, other firms expanding across the Asia-Pacific region may be experiencing the same problem. This does not mean revealing confidential client information. It means converting your experience into relevant insight. Buyers are more interested when you understand their sector, competitive pressures and likely operational difficulties. Do now: ...
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