subject: Following Up Sales Leads [print this page] Following Up Sales Leads Following Up Sales Leads
Any sales leads that are produced by a telemarketing company will need chased up.
Sometimes however, chasing up leads can be a frustrating and time consuming process.
The reason is that people are busy, rarely do prospects sit at their desk free from doing any work and all the time in the world to take sales calls. Most people are busy, rarely at their desks; they are in meetings, doing site visits, sick, on holiday and when doing none of the above, working.
From a non sales' perspective, giving someone a call a couple of times without success means that the lead is rubbish and the enquiry was a time waster.
Following up prospective business has never been easy, however if you are not chasing the enquiry like a pit bull then chances are one of your competitors will be - and the client (when they are good and ready) will place the business (normally) with the one who shouts the loudest.
There are also, different sort of sales leads, split into two different sorts:
RFQ
An RFQ is a 'request for quote' and this means a lead has an imminent need. They are what we would deem 'a hot lead'.
An RFQ is a lead that has a definite requirement and interest.
RFI
An RFI is a lead that has an interest 'request for information' and has displayed an interest but no definite buying signal.
One thing to bear in mind is that no enquiry is set in stone. An RFQ even though it is showing a specific interest, may just be 'looking around' or 'comparing prices'.
Hot leads go cold and cold leads go hot.
This is a fact of sales and the way the world works. Orders that are 100% guaranteed can go off the boil for any number of reasons. Enquiries that are as vague as the day is long can (sometimes) turn into orders.
Again - this is the way the world works and the mystery that is sales.
People that are not involved in sales, do not really get this, do not understand how leads work, the process of reading and responding to buying signals and building up a 'sales pipeline'. Any sales company will understand the frustration of working with 'non sales people' of clients that do not appreciate the 'behind the scenes' work.
Following up sales leads is really a job for telemarketing companies; as they can dedicate the time and resource into following up the leads (as time does need to be set aside for following up leads).
