Tag Archive for: Qualified Lead Flow

The Value of a Qualified Lead

As salespeople we are all excited about what we do, that’s why we do it. We are passionate about our products, services or solutions and will talk to anyone anytime about it if they show the least bit of interest. That’s what makes us great at what we do, but I also feel like maybe we’re giving the cookies away for free. It’s in our nature to “sell, sell, sell” anytime we can, but I’ve found that’s not always the best approach. You know you’ve got a great product, so don’t give it away the first time you talk to everyone. Make sure you have a truly qualified lead, before dedicating more valuable time. 

There’s a system of selling called the SPIN method that, if you’re not familiar with, you should take a look at. The method can be broken down into a few basic parts. SPIN stands for: Situation, Problem, Implication, Need/Payoff. This is how to qualify your leads: ask questions! Find out what their current situation is. Do they use a competitor? Do they have events or marketing goals they need to scale up to meet?

Then ask questions to identify the problems they are having. Is it lack of communication between sales and marketing? Are they filling their pipeline and losing customers in the mix? The implication is as simple as “What would your team do with…?” or “If I can solve that for you would you…?”.

These steps are all you should be doing to find a qualified lead. Once you get to that point you’ll know; if it’s a good fit and what pain points they have that you can solve. Hopefully, a bit of additional qualifying info such as: do they have a budget, are you talking to someone with the authority to make this purchase, and what is their time-frame for the need (classic “BANT” criteria).

From there you can decide if it’s worth YOUR time to spend more time with them, or nurture them and move on. Hopefully that 15 minute call got them excited to move to the next step: filling their need. Go ahead and set up that next meeting! Now you’re spending more time with qualified, interested leads and not giving the cookies away for free to every person you talk to.

Interested in seeing other ways Lead Liaison can help your sales process? Check out our Sales Enablement solution here!

Lead Liaison Reveals Its Secret Sauce for Managing Leads

Lead LiaisonIt’s not every day that a company pulls back the curtain and unveils the processes that make them successful. But Lead Liaison is different. Lead Liaison is known for unlocking the vault on marketing automation and lead management solutions. The decision to divulge their secrets is reflective of the company’s overall passion to support sales and marketing teams, to help businesses grow, and to be transparent in their developments. Their Automated Lead Flow Management Process, including a sample Qualified Lead Flow, lays the foundation for an ultra-successful nurture track intended to be carried out using marketing automation systems like their own. The company uses processes like this to help fuel growth in the marketing automation industry, since the company has the luxury of “drinking their own champagne” (using their own software), to achieve their goals. Businesses can do the same with the same exact tools in their own respective industries.

Sales and marketing tactics have evolved from a dialogue to more of a monologue in recent years. Potential buyers or customers have access to more information and more reviews – right at their fingertips. It’s time for companies to respond in a more relevant and meaningful manner.

How Does the Qualified Lead Flow Work?

There are many ways that businesses get inbound leads to their websites: web forms (Contact Us forms, Request a Demonstration forms, Free Trial forms, Free Consultation forms, etc.), content downloads, and explainer videos to name a few. The key is for a company to identify the primary ways that it’s website captures inbound leads. Lead Liaison identified its primary channels for inbound leads coming from key forms and video conversions.

Once the lead or inquiry comes in, that person will be sent through the Qualified Lead Flow process. First, there is an automation in place to distribute the lead to a salesperson. For Lead Liaison, that process is round-robin, because that’s how their sales team is structured. For other companies using this Qualified Lead Flow, that lead distribution could be based on other methods of lead distribution, like geographical location, performance, or any myriad of attributes about the person making the inquiry. Once distributed, the Qualified Lead Flow sends an email to the lead, giving them the contact information of their account manager. This message uses the lead’s name, making it personal, and in the case of Lead Liaison, includes the salesperson’s contact information. The automation then pushes the lead’s information into Lead Liaison’s CRM, OneFocus™.

Depending on the primary interest of the lead, which is typically gathered from the original inquiry, a company can set up very specific nurturing. Lead Liaison has identified their key areas of interest to be partnerships, CRM, or it could even be an agency interested in private labeling. The nurture track contains 8-10 emails with educational content that focuses on the lead’s area of interest. Once the lead has completed their interest-specific nurture, they flow into a mainline nurture and are added to the Lead Liaison Subscribers List. If, at any point in time, the lead become a client, Lead Liaison’s tool automatically moves them out of the respective nurturing tracks and adds them into nurturing tailored to clients. It’s here that messaging can focus on up-sell, cross-sell, and other opportunities. These strategies are discussed more in Lead Liaison’s Marketing Automation Playbook.

Lead Liaison’s Qualified Lead Flow has been proven time and time again, producing leads that are educated, familiar with the brand, and that are ready to move forward with purchasing a license. Director of Marketing, Jennifer Worsham, shares her experience, “Since implementing this Qualified Lead Flow, we’ve seen an increase of 68% in conversions. It’s something that took a little time and effort to set up, but has proven to be time well spent. Now, this flow runs in the background without us having to touch it. It’s fantastic!”

To see the diagram of the entire flow, check out Lead Liaison’s Library of Resources. The Automated Lead Flow Management Process is located under Guides.

About Lead Liaison
Lead Liaison provides cloud-based sales and marketing automation solutions that helps businesses accelerate revenue by attracting, converting, closing and retaining more prospects. Filling a void in the small pool of marketing automation providers that focus on marketing-centric functionality, Lead Liaison gives equal focus to sales providing sophisticated visitor tracking and additional website engagement tools to boost sales effectiveness. Lead Liaison blends ease-of-use, a flexible business model, deep external integration, marketing across social, web, mobile, email and offline channels and powerful functionality, all specifically tailored for mid-sized businesses, into a single platform, called Revenue Generation Software®. Lead Liaison is headquartered in Allen, Texas, near Dallas. For more information, visit http://www.leadliaison.com or call 1-800-89-LEADS (895-3237).