What's Your Problem?

The Lead - What’s Your Problem?

Lead generation in our industry continues to be a hot topic of conversation. It seems like every other day I hear comments from PMs about lead flow, and ultimately growth being down. There’s any number of reasons why the leads might be down. I’ve heard all kinds of speculation on that. But that’s not what I want to write about today.

The health of a sales organization is made up of several components. Lead volume tends to be the easiest to get the blame. Why is that? Well, the first reason is because a lot of sales people don’t control it. There aren’t enough of them, they aren’t good leads. In many ways, we can call it an external factor. This is a common refrain, regardless of industry by the way.

While it very well could be true that leadflow is down, it’s an input into the machine. Before we throw our hands up and believe that the success of our sales organization is outside our control, here’s what needs to be examined.

Process- There are a lot of reasons to have a well established, and intentional sales process. Discovery, qualifying leads, a process for follow up, these components all play an important role in making sure you are providing a good buying experience, but also aligning expectations and eliminating bad fit prospects.

If you follow a consistent process, the other advantage is the ability to analyze the outcomes. More simply put, identify the holes in the bucket. At each stage, you can measure the conversion rates. How often do people advance in the process? How often do they drop out? How long does the sales cycle take? An examination of these questions will often reveal factors we wouldn’t have necessarily thought of.

People- The players out on the field can be one of the more difficult components to assess in a sales org. Sure you can look at the numbers and make a judgment. But a sales person operating a bad process, won’t yield optimal results. A sales person operating in a negative environment won’t perform to their potential. So how should we view the people involved.

The first thing to say is, there are more people in the sales organization than the person doing the selling. We have to view the leadership they operate under, the operations team that they work alongside. The reality is, it’s not just about one individual.

Now that being said, the sales person is crticially important. If you as the business owner do sales, are you able to devote enough attention to it? Does it give or take away your energy? Are you good at it? Conversely, if you have a sales person, what are the expectations? How do you measure performance? Are they just handling inbound leads, or responsible for generating their own? This all culminates to the question - am I putting my people in a position to win?

Message- Here’s the reality - consumers don’t know the difference between your company and the one down the street. They want to know your fee structure, how many 5 star Google reviews you have. Do you have a compelling message that goes beyond that, or are you satisfied to be viewed through that lens?

The problem is, too many companies are trying to attract such a broad audience that their message ends up being broad as well. The value of a specific audience is a specific value proposition. It allows you to understand the client you want to work with, and appeal to them.

Along the same lines, while our message is important, we shouldn’t confuse our message with a pitch. Your value proposition doesn’t really matter if it’s not aligned to a prospect’s need. Are you uncovering those needs? Are you offering your prospect clarity around how your solution meets the need?

So here’s where I’ll leave you - take a wide view of the health of business development in your organization. In my experience, the obvious answer is often a symptom. Factors can compound together. Is lead flow down? Maybe. But look at everything. Fewer leads is extra painful, when you’re already not doing a great job of converting them.