What is “No Lead Left Behind?”
When you read our blogs or other content on our site, you'll see something very important repeated many times. Our slogan of "No Lead Left Behind."
But what does that mean?
No Lead Left Behind is one of the most fundamental sales enablement strategies in any organization.
A significant component of your business is generating and responding to leads. Successful companies must follow up with new and repeat clients and turn them into closed deals, or they will soon fail.
Every lead is essential, and none should be left behind or ignored.
Every sales organization should understand that your business must respond and follow up with leads. Whether you generate your own or find leads another way, they cost your organization valuable time and resources to secure, so follow-up on each lead is critical to ensure none are left behind.
As part of the follow-up process, you will need to have systems and procedures in place and a means to enforce adherence. This can be accomplished by consistently using your CRM and having your sales enablement manager follow up with your sales team to ensure everyone is meeting the guidelines, goals, and deliverables set up.
One way to ensure your sales team follows up on leads is to require that you and your staff are always engaged in the CRM (customer relationship management) system. In our article about what causes CRM failure, we discuss how you need to be in your CRM to avoid leaving leads behind.
Leaving leads behind needs to be everyone's concern.
Leads, including repeat business, are everyone's concern. It is true that when it comes to sales if you have more leads, you have the potential to make more sales. That much should be obvious. But what should be just as obvious is that if you aren't effectively using the leads you already have, your sales team and the company are missing out. Sales commissions will be lower, and the company will have wasted money obtaining leads.
Follow up or lose sales
You will miss out on potential sales if you don't follow up on every lead. As a sales team leader or salesperson, missing sales means you'll make less money; the average sales team loses $100,000 annually by not following up on their leadsi. Additionally, your competitors will take advantage of your lack of drive and win over those customers. With Auto Follow-Ups in TigerLRM, automatically tracking and responding to leads is easier than ever.
Your company’s reputation is at stake
Your business reputation can get damaged by not following up on leads. How many of you reading this have reached out to a business and never received a response? Will you shop there again? Probably not. So why would you do the same behavior to potential clients? It will only lead to negative reviews and bad word-of-mouth, hurting your business. You need to follow up.
Techniques for following up on Every Lead
Now that we understand why it's so important not to leave leads behind, here are some strategies to follow up with every lead.
Get a system now
Every business needs to have a system in place to manage its leads. Previously, companies may have used a shared spreadsheet or just paper notes. But those times are long gone. You need a CRM. You also need a CRM with Sales Enablement built in. Furthermore, as part of the system, you need to have exact steps built-in to your process flow. You should know precisely how many times you need to reach out – based on your industry – and then have a series of questions to ensure lead attempts have been made, other communications used, and all requirements adhered to.
Examples of these questions could include:
- Was the lead entered into the CRM?
- How quickly was the lead responded to?
- How many attempts to reach the lead were made?
- What departments were notified?
- Have all possible communication methods been used?
- Has the sales enablement manager ensured all policies were followed?
Get automated
Using automation as part of your no lead left behind the process is essential. Automation allows your team to nurture leads, move them up the qualification ladder, then assign them to the right team members after the lead communicates that they are ready. With TigerLRM, you can use an automated email or sms text response, or a combination – depending upon the buying stage of the client – to let them know the company is paying attention to them. As you engage in this process, you can advance leads to the next level.
Using AI for automation
With AI, you can automate the processes of:
- Lead Scoring – This uses lead behavior to assign a score of how likely a prospect the lead will be.
- Lead Qualification – Automatically asking questions to a lead to see how far along the sales process it is.
- Lead Nurturing – Engaging the lead, asking questions, and sending personalized messages and content relevant to them.
AI can help improve closings and conversion rates.
Assign leads
Be sure to set criteria for lead distribution and assign leads to specific teams or individuals. Every salesperson must understand that they are responsible for lead management and follow-up. By automatically setting leads with your CRM, sales team leaders can free up time to upskill salespeople and help them improve. Be consistent, but you can set up your lead distribution based on industry, geography, or whatever works for your business.
No Judgment
There is a tendency for salespeople or even sales team leaders to pre-judge their clients. While sales can be emotional, even very passionate, pre-judging a client based on name, location, or another irrelevant factor can hurt individual salespeople and entire sales teams. Thoughts of "It might not be a good lead" are instant deal killers. Salespeople should never go by feelings. Instead, they should look at the data and learn more about the client before coming to any conclusion. All leads need to be treated equally.
Have your sales enablement manager train and coach.
Your SE professional should also offer specific training and collateral tailored to the types of clients and products or services offered. Sales and client service team members should be able to find any information they need when using the playbook.
Use a variety of communication methods to respond
Email and phone calls are just two ways to reach people – but not everyone responds to those methods. You can also use social media, chatbots, direct mail, texting, and other methods, or a combination of those methods.
NEW FEATURE ALERT – We've added WhatsApp integration, and soon your customers can use their WhatsApp accounts to reach your client services and sales teams immediately.
Set Reminders
Set up your CRM to issue reminders – automatically – so that you don't lose leads. Depending on your CRM, this can be an email, text, or phone call.
Talk to them
You should always reach out to potential leads using automation and the human touch. Understand that different people have different communication preferences, such as email, text, phone, or face-to-face. You can record this in your CRM so that the teams in your company know the best way to reach out.
Get personal
Make sure you genuinely touch your leads and communicate with them personally, paying attention to their particular needs and use cases. According to Salesforce, getting personal will help close 18% more sales. Additionally, ensure your Sales Enablement professional follows every lead and touch attempt.
Sales Enablement
All businesses need a person or team in charge of Sales Enablement. Sales enablement is the process of following the client's buying journey and having your sales team follow that journey. Be sure to assign someone on your team as a Sales Enablement Manager. TigerLRM also offers sales enablement experts on an as-needed basis. Reach out to us for more information.
Get the No Lead Left Behind Template
You will receive the template after filling out the form below:
How many touches do you need to close a sale
A key aspect of "No Lead Left Behind" is the number of touches by salespeople. A "touch" means an attempt to reach the lead. This can be accomplished by text, phone, social media, chat, in-person, etc.
Sales is a challenging job, and you might be surprised that to make a business-to-business (B2B) sale, it takes an average of 8-12 touches to convert a lead into a sale. Salespeople in business-to-consumer (B2C) industries have it a little better, with about 5-10 touches to make a sale. But in either case, many salespeople do not follow through. Sales Hacker, a community dedicated to B2B sales professionals, stated that it takes a minimum of eight touches to make a sale, but it depends upon your business model. Their article suggests that a good generic benchmark is a 12% response rate. Additionally, you'll need to record your outreach efforts to gain an understanding of your specific industry.
Read these facts:
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50% of sales happen after touch number 5
If your salesperson gives up too early, they will likely lose out on the sale. Ensure your sales process includes monitoring how often your sales teams follow up on leadsii. Experiment with this to find out what is effective in your industry. Try different numbers of touches and document the results. Then you can find out what is most effective for your business.
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It can take up to 8 times – or more – to reach a prospect
On average, it takes eight cold calls to reach a prospect, and most sales calls aren't answered.iii
How sales enablement impacts "no lead left behind" and your sales team.
One of the other terms you'll see on our website is "Sales Enablement." As a sales organization, a key element to making sales is to align with your leads and clients' buying journey during the sales process. If you can follow your clients' buying journey, you'll be following the mantra of "No Lead Left Behind."
Sales enablement is critical to "No Lead Left Behind." Sales enablement is the missing link in your sale process because it organizes your processes and procedures. It supports your team members in finding collateral where they need it and guides salespeople on matching the customer's journey.
Your sales enablement program will strongly impact, empower, and support your sales team. Here are some of the ways:
Knowledge and training
SE provides the training, resources, and knowledge to effectively sell products and services and match the client's buying journey. Salespeople who use sales enablement are far more effective in addressing customer needs, expectations, and objections.
Monitoring phone calls
One of the best ways to improve the performance of new sales team members is to have them and their trainers monitor calls and other communications. Once they start selling, have them listen to their own calls. Listening to yourself while under pressure can be uncomfortable, but it's the single most enlightening experience a salesperson can have. It is the quickest way to improve and have growth as a salesperson. It allows people to see areas where they can improve for the next sale.
Productivity and efficiency
By streamlining workflows, implementing automation, and optimizing the sales process, SE can sharply reduce "busy work" and free up time for managers to manage and for salespeople to focus on existing leads and clients.
Shared content
Another vital component of sales enablement is a shared database (a DAM, Digital Asset Management) for customer-facing content that sales teams need to address customer concerns and objections. With one central database, your marketing and sales team leaders can be assured that your clients receive the correct, up-to-date information, including collateral, presentations, white papers, and more.
Consistency
As your marketing team will tell you, consistency in messaging is essential. Sales enablement ensures that your sales and client services departments deliver consistent messaging.
Improved customer service
Sales enablement gives your sales and client service teams the resources, training, and tools to engage effectively with new and existing clients. Working with your CRM, your team can provide individualized content, isolate pain points, and offer relevant solutions. This creates high customer satisfaction rates and increased upsells and cross-sells.
Conclusion
Not leaving any leads behind is critical for the success of your company. Our current business environment is very challenging. Following up on your leads increases your company's bottom line and your paycheck. Start now if you don't have these processes and procedures guiding your company. When you sign up for TigerLRM, we onboard you to help set up your CRM and leads. This way, your CRM is ready to use in just a few hours. We can also help you build these processes and systems using our "Sales Enablement Services." You can hire our professionals to help you effectively achieve your system's tasks.
How to assign a user to become a sales enablement professional in your TigerLRM Dashboard.
To assign a sales enablement user, simply go to Administrator > User Management > Edit User.
Once you are on the user's information, you can select if you want them to be "Non-Admin," "Admin," or part of the "Enablement Team." Save this information, and your desired user will have the right access.
You can access your Dashboard here.