Comments on: Ever wonder how much you spend managing leads collected from Trade Shows?

By: Victor

Victor — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 16:12:02 +0000

My inside sales team was solely responsible for turning over leads. They were required to fill our what we called a turnover form that my Sales Directors had to sign prior to handing over to their Direct sales reps. This turn over form was worth $200 to each inside sales rep. Telemarketers I believe can be deployed in a similar fashion depending upon your product. I was selling a large enterprise application that had a sales cycle of 8 to 12 months. If you have a product with a shorter sales cycle you can possibly train a telemarketing team to close.

By: Becky

Becky — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 14:50:12 +0000

Explain to me the qualification of your Inside sales folks compared to telemarketers? What would be the differences between the two job descriptions?

By: Twitted by DSfanatek

Twitted by DSfanatek — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 15:30:23 +0000

[...] This post was Twitted by DSfanatek [...]

By: Victor

Victor — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 20:33:58 +0000

Thanks for the comment David.

By: David Morgan

David Morgan — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 19:39:54 +0000

Completely agree with Ian’s post. Why waste money, time, and energy following up on 60% of unqualified leads? A targeted follow up campaign with focused resources allows for an opportunity to engage your prospect with promotional offers that are relevant to them and their needs. Why follow up by giving unqualified prospects something cheap when you can follow up to qualified leads with something valuable at the same net cost?

By: Victor

Victor — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 18:42:24 +0000

Completely agree. What I find interesting is most of the relevant incubation companies were exhibiting at Dreamforce and none of them qualified on the spot. I believe this is a missed opportunity on their behalf in that it may take another month to get their attention again and by that time the opportunity may have changed. Thanks for the comment Ian. Means a lot coming from you.

By: Ian Michiels

Ian Michiels — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 18:29:33 +0000

Great post. I also think there’s an opportunity to shorten the sales cycle and bring in revenue faster when leads are qualified on the spot. Early qualification helps marketers immediately deliver the most appropriate nurturing campaigns. Many organizations are forced to treat all tradeshow leads the same, which means mass-email follow-up. But if you can qualify the opportunity early, you can deliver targeted follow-up campaigns or promotional offers.

Even sales-ready opportunities will need some marketing love (collateral, educational material, etc.) There’s an opportunity cost for failing to deliver segmented marketing follow-up. Conversion is much higher when marketing material is relevant and timely. It makes sales more effective and efficient. It’s difficult to monetize this, but it’s another cost to consider.

By: Twitted by GESatCES

Twitted by GESatCES — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 06:49:46 +0000

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By: Victor

Victor — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 17:27:36 +0000

Thanks for your comment Vish. I always find it amazing to see the value of qualifying at capture.

By: Vish Agashe

Vish Agashe — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 17:24:17 +0000

Excellent blog post. I agree with your commentary around

1. Time is of essence to avoid decay when collecting leads and managing those leads subsequently…..

2. Upfront qualification/categorization of leads will help you get Maximum Efficiency out of the time/$ invested in collecting leads.

Great Post.

Vish Agashe