No matter how good your sales team is, there is often a problem at the first step of the sales process: prospecting. Although you may be able to motivate your sales team to produce results for a campaign or a promotion, what you want as a sales leader is a consistent, proactive sales team that effectively finds qualified leads, follows up on leads, and works on targeted accounts.
You have likely noticed that sales representatives generally prefer to stick with what they know. This can lead to overserving their favorite accounts instead of prospecting for new ones. Even though your sales team may understand the value of regular prospecting, it’s difficult to pry them away from their comfortable habits.
You can insist that your sales representatives take time every day, or at least every week, to generate and qualify new leads, and this may prove to be quite successful. However, chances are that this success will only be temporary. Active accounts may develop pressing needs, or new promotions may take precedence – there are numerous reasons why prospecting gets placed on the back burner. Without a strict prospecting process in place, your results can drastically rise and fall from one quarter to the next.
It is not unreasonable to want a sales team that is just as great at opening as they are at closing. However, generating and qualifying leads takes a lot of time – time that your sales representatives may not have. You may consider hiring staff that are solely dedicated to prospecting, but it can take six months or longer for them to be at peak productivity. Working with an experienced B2B call center will have an immediate impact on your business that is consistent week to week, month to month, and quarter to quarter.
It may be time to accept that you have a great team of closers, but you are lacking openers. Rely on York Consulting to achieve consistent results, and look to your sales team for follow-ups.
