Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) waterfall,
As a sales rep, you’ve probably already felt the disconnect between the plethora of leads that marketing gallantly throws your way, and the qualities that a prospect must exhibit before you would even consider engaging that contact.
You’re not alone, and it’s not your fault. More likely than not, Marketing is working with a different set of goals and targets than you are, and though it may seem that a little sales and marketing alignment is in order, a quicker and less complicated solution is in dire need.
Make more calls!
IF we want to hit this problem head on, and without our heads on, we could just expedite the sales process, power through the convoluted shush bucket of leads that were dropped on our desk, and strain out the valuables.
Now about that final stage, the ‘straining’ out process. A painful and time consuming series of waiting, calling back, seeing what happens, and etc. Maybe you get a sales presentation, maybe it closes. More likely than not, you’re at boiling point with your marketing team, and hungry for some hot leads.
Let’s get our heads back on,
If this sounds like your current situation, you may be in need of a good old fashioned sales enablement solution. If you’re asking “what is sales enablement”, and you work in sales, then your days of suffering are about to end.
Sales enablement tools are the light at the end of the tunnel, or funnel (-sales), if you so please. Other than being a content management platform, it serves as a comprehensive sales analytics software solution.
Solving your own problem!
Using sales enablement, you put a filter on your MQLs and a magnifying glass on your prospects in a number of ways:
1) Leading Indicators
This is the filter referred to above. As much as marketing can get excited about a volume based quantity of leads, you can get giddy about sending them right back for lead nurturing. Leading indicators are proprietary analytic applications that let you determine what kind of contact a lead may be by correlating the contact’s indicators with others in the past.
You can ignore the bad leads, and double down on your more likely contacts.
2) Content behaviour insights
This is the magnifying glass. When you interact with a client, and send them content, you need to know how that content has been used. This kind of information feeds right back into your sales process and enhances your perception of the lead.
Sales analytics software can enable you to know who used the content, when it was accessed, where, and what specifically was viewed on the content that you sent. On your next call you can use that knowledge to provide a stunning level of insight into your customers unsaid needs.
3) Performance Dashboards
It’s not always bad MQLs that take up your time, and having the insight to see back into your actions can unlock patterns of success of failure for you to adjust for. It’s imperative that you take some time and look inwards every now and again, to see how you spent your time, where, and why.
With so many contacts, and seemingly endless hours spent on the road and back, you can get lost in the mix. Real sales enablement means insights that are both internal and external, for maximum sales performance measurement and improved ROI from selling.
Your sales process should be refined and efficient. If your managing of bad leads is taking more time then actually selling, you may be in need of some sales acceleration!
How do you handle MQL overloads? Or, does your sales enablement software handle it for you?
