Want to significantly increase your B2B lead conversion rates and get your salespeople to provide near 100 percent feedback on lead status? Then stop sending them sales leads— seriously!
Instead, set up an online lead distribution system that requires them to request each and every lead. This simple change can have a profound effect on your conversion rates. Why?
It starts with human nature: all of us value something more if we have to pay for it or request it. When something is given to us for free or without consideration, we tend to value it less. Similarly, sales leads that are “pushed” out to the field tend to receive less attention by salespeople.
Second, leads that are requested are more likely to be followed up immediately. And, as everybody knows, the faster a lead receives follow-up, the more likely it is to convert. Independent research has shown that, on average, the likelihood of a lead converting to a sale decreases by as much as two percent each day that it languishes.
Third, sales people are much more likely to provide feedback on lead quality and status since they requested it in the first place. This will enable you to fine-tune your lead generation campaigns, eliminating media or initiatives that produce inferior leads.
Finally, when sales people must request leads, they are less likely to get too many at one time and the leads they do receive are more likely to get immediate attention. As any veteran demand generation professional can attest, when lead quantity increases, lead conversion rates often plummet.
Today, with the advent of secure, web-based tools, setting up a lead management system that requires sales people to request each lead is far easier to implement than it used to be. Make your sales leads a privilege, not a right, and watch your sales conversion rates climb.
