Sales leads are one of the most important things your business needs to thrive. Paying customers are THE most important thing, but you very rarely get a paying customer without them being a lead first.
Sales lead software can help you acquire and manage leads right from their very first indication of interest up unto the point that they make a purchase. Keeping track of where your leads are in your sales process is of great importance if you want to maximize your ability to make sales.
Automating the Sales Process with Sales Lead Software
Every business has an individual process, and because it is a “process”, there are parts of it that get repeated time and again. This is great in one respect, as all your customers will have come through each stage of the process and so will be primed to purchase.
But for the sales team, it can be time consuming and unproductive.
Imagine that every time a new visitor landed on your website, you had to manually send an email to say “Welcome, here’s some info about the product you looked at” – it would soon get frustrating. Especially so if you had a high volume of visitors every day, as your sales team would have all their time taken up by sending emails rather than selling products!
Sales lead software can monitor visitors to your website and take care of this process automatically. It can also monitor clicks in the emails that are sent, and further refine any future communication based on this. Estimations can be made on whether this particular customer is more interested in the function of a product…or the price.
This will lead to a better experience further down the line for the customer and the sales team as the needs of the customer will have already been identified.
Perhaps just as importantly, a lot of work has gone into getting this customer ready to talk to a human member of the sales team – but very few man-hours of work have been used, other than in the initial set-up of the system.
A further automated step can assign a task to the sales team to call or email the lead at a given time, and so the process is smoothly handed over from the automated system to the sales team.
Identifying the best leads
Every salesperson knows that every lead is not equal, and there are a number of pointers that will indicate which leads are the most likely to turn into paying customers.
These pointers will vary depending on your business, but by identifying them within the sales lead software will enable you to score every one of your leads. The higher the lead scores, the more likely they are to convert into a paying customer.
You might think this is unimportant – after all, there’s a lot of leads coming through, and they’ll all become customers eventually. While this may be true, it’s also true that every business needs an income to survive. Why wouldn’t you work on the easiest conversion first?
This assures cash flow and gives you the breathing space to spend the time needed to convert those trickier leads into customers – it’s a win-win situation as the sales are made and the team has the opportunity to bring in further revenue that they may have otherwise struggled to secure.
Sales Lead Software – Closing with CRM
To a highly skilled salesperson, closing a sale may be second nature. However, not every salesperson is gifted in this way, and even the skilled ones might like to make it a little easier for themselves.
As the sales lead software has tracked the leads all the way through the sales process, a profile has been built of their likes, dislikes, needs, and requirements. Sales team members will have been able to add notes and information to this profile, building up a comprehensive picture of the lead.
This gives a fantastic advantage to the sales team as they can make sure the product or service they are offering matches exactly what the customer wants.
By offering something that the customer wants and identifies with, the chances of closing the sale increase exponentially. The customer feels you are working in their best interest, and not just in the interest of the business. In truth, both the business and the customer are benefitting in this instance.
A true relationship has been built with the customer – even if the final salesperson is not the one who has dealt with them before, they’ll be able to read the notes and understand where the customer is coming from.
When the customer feels valued through a relationship like this, further opportunities open including the chance to make repeat sales later on. Remember, it is much easier to sell a second product to an existing customer than it is to sell any product to a new lead.
The Benefits of Sales Lead Software
Many businesses run without the use of sales lead software, and they are successful. The fact of the matter is that by using such software your sales team will have a much easier time handling leads and closing sales.
Additionally, you’ll be able to get an overview of your entire sales process. You can see how many people have just entered the process, how many are getting ready to buy, and how many are putting their hands in their pocket to pay. You can adjust your sales tactics as necessary to draw more quality leads through as needed, and change your brand awareness advertising if not enough new people are entering the system.
The biggest benefit of all is that sales lead software puts you in control. You are in the driving seat, and you can make the decisions that directly affect sales in an organized and planned way. You don’t have to guess who to call next, you don’t have to waste your time sending emails that a computer could handle, and you can focus your time directly on the leads who need it most.
And when this leads to building a lasting relationship with a customer, the value of sales lead software cannot be overstated. Looking for one? I’d recommend LeadSquared. Comes with lead capture automation, sales tracking and detailed analytics. Check it out for yourself.
