Take a long, hard look at your sales organization. Do you have a perfect balance of account managers and net new hunters? Are you winning the big deals, while effectively capturing small and mid-size opportunities? Do you have an effective lead follow-up strategy designed to nurture and win long-term opportunities? If you hesitated in answering any of these questions, a dedicated teleprospecting and lead development team can help you.
Below are three sales scenarios, which benefit from a formalized lead development team, built in-house or through an effective outsource partner like TeleNet.
1. Great Account Managers– Your customers are growing and they are renewing their business with you year after year. Your sales team spends a lot of time keeping them happy and looking for ways to grow them. How is that a problem? Well, technically it is a good problem to have, but it’s still a problem. There is a reason park rangers tell you “not to feed the bears.” If they get too used to it, they won’t hunt for themselves. While your sales team may do a great job keeping and growing customer relationships, they may not spend enough time hunting for new ones, which will hurt your business in the long-run. A dedicated lead development team focused on prospecting can make sure you’re always diligently hunting for new logos.
2. Elephant Hunters – You have a great team of hunters. Except they just like to hunt for the elusive, found only once a year, great white elephant. When those hit, it is a big win for them and the company! However, if you have too many sales people hunting for an elephant trophy, you’re missing a lot of valuable small to mid-sized opportunities. Augmenting your elephant hunters with a prospecting team dedicated to the rest of your market will balance your approach and lead to greater success.
3. The “Get Them While They’re Hot” Approach – Your sales reps automatically follow up on incoming leads immediately upon receipt, which is great. However, what procedures do you have in place to nurture and work your info-gathering prospects and unresponsive leads? Multiple studies have shown it takes at least 5 attempts (some show 10+ attempts) to reach a prospect, even if they have initially engaged your company in the first place. If your sales team is only trying to “get them while they’re hot” and not trying again (and again, and again!), you are missing out on opportunities. This is another way a dedicated lead development team can help you.