Sales Lead: How Many Qualified Leads Are Enough?

Well you would suggest, the maximum the better as

Maximum Qualified Leads = Maximum Sales = Maximum Profit

In my opinion, "no, not at all!!" and you ask "why ?!!!, what you mean ???"…

Well let me explain, bear with me!

Sales Team Effectiveness & Qualified Leads

You need to know how many qualified leads can your sales team handle effectively in one single business day. 

For instance they (your sales team) can handle 15 qualified leads in a single business day.

  

Next Step!

   

Next step is, you need to know how many qualified leads result from a given direct marketing campaign, for instance direct mail to five thousand prospects result in 10% qualified leads in fifteen days, that is 500, 33.3 qualified leads per day.

And you know that your sales team can handle 15 qualified leads effectively in a single business day, which means remaining 15.3 would not be handled effectively.

This would result in

1.    Loss of qualified leads

Not just that, after couple of unsatisfactory inquiries your customers (qualified leads) won’t bother to inquire or contact with you ever again, that means losing them forever. And worst  happens when you handle those qualified leads ineffectively … that means customer/client dissatisfaction with bad word of mouth.

Fact: According to a study, from 69 to 74% of the customers in the U.S consider the following factors to be major cause of dissatisfaction ⁽¹⁾.

Being responded late ⁽¹⁾

Have to contact multiple times ⁽¹⁾

Poor customer service ⁽¹⁾

Delays ⁽¹⁾

Fact: Studies have shown that 10% increase in word of mouth increases sales by 1.5% along with that word of mouth has been found to be major force behind 20 to 50% purchasing decisions ⁽²⁾.

Fact: According to a Harvard Business Review study, customers who had negative experience with a company told 10 or more people ⁽³⁾.

2.      Damage Company reputation

Imagine what they would think about you even when you have great offer, quality product/service but you are unable to handle their inquiries, dealings with you effectively. Resulting in bad word of mouth consequently damaging company/business reputation.

Fact: Company reputation makes up about 63% of company market value ⁽⁴⁾.

Fact: According to studies it takes almost three and half years to recover from reputation damage ⁽⁵⁾

3.6 years in Europe ⁽⁵⁾

3.5 years in Asia ⁽⁵⁾

3.2 years in North America ⁽⁵⁾

3.      Employee overload and poor performance

Off course if they can handle 15 qualified leads in a single business day and you burden them with more than that, then surely that is overloading employees consequently resulting in poor performance, not just that it will also result in high turnover, employee dissatisfaction etc in the long run. And with high turnover you will then need to hire and train new guys and that costs too.

Fact: According to research better employee performance can restore customer trust ⁽⁶⁾. In other words poor performance can damage customer trust and trust is everything you need right ?!

Fact: According to couple of more studies/researches, customer’s expectation about a brand can be sustained through (better) employee performance ^{(7) (8)}. 

In other words, poor employee performance can damage, hurt customer expectations from a brand. And when they don't expect anything from you, you will end up selling nothing!

In a nutshell identify the number of qualified leads that your sales team can handle effectively then try to achieve qualified leads according to that, according to your sales team capacity.

And in case you aren’t satisfied with your sales team or want to increase your sales, then focus on improving the effectiveness of your sales team. 

Over to you guys!

Please share if you liked it!

And don't forget to subscribe!

References:

1.      http://www.accenture.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/PDF/Accenture-Global-Consumer-Pulse-Research-Study-2013-Key-Findings.pdf

2.      http://www.forbes.com/sites/mckinsey/2014/02/14/can-a-goldfish-show-you-how-to-excite-your-customers/

3.      Harvard Business Review, “Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers” by Matthew Dixon, Karen Freeman, and Nicholas Toman, July 2010

4.      Weber Shandwick’s Safeguarding Reputation™ KRC Research

5.      “Corporate Reputation 12 steps to safe guarding and recovering reputation” book by Dr. Leslie Gaines-Ross   

6.      Kuehner-Herbert, K. (2009), “A growing defection: more clients ready to switch as trust wanes”, American Banker: The Financial Services Daily, available at: /-1_americanbanker_ may1409_interbrand.pdf . www.interbrand.com/./-1_AmericanBanker_May1409_nterbrand.pdf (accessed 29 June 2009).

7.      Ind, N. (2003), Beyond Branding: How the New Values of Transparency and Integrity Are Changing the World of Brands, 1st ed., Kogan Page, London.
  

8.      Ind, N. (2004), Living the Brand: How to Transform Every Member of Your Organization into a Brand Ambassador, 2nd ed., Kogan Page, London.