5 Ways To Fill Up Your Inbound Sales Pipeline With Warm Leads
If you’re a sales consultant or a business owner, you find joy seeing new leads come in your inbound sales pipeline. You have success in converting them through your website content, ads, or referrals. But having new leads doesn't always mean they’re going to become your clients. Sometimes you’ll get a phone call from someone who seems like a warm lead at first but decides to ghost you when you follow up. You never hear back from them again, and you wonder what went wrong.
“Was it something I said?” “Did she change her mind to go with my competitor?” “Why isn’t he showing as much interest as before?” These are typical questions salespeople wonder about when they never receive any feedback from leads.
You have all these new leads flowing in, but not all of them are good leads. Sometimes people decide to leave the page during the purchasing process. What makes them want to do that? It can be frustrating. It’s in your best interest to know which leads deserve more attention instead of spending time chasing after cold leads. You need more clear data to see if you’ll reach your sales goals by the end of the month. There has to be a better way you can make sure most leads in your pipeline are warm.
Here are the 5 ways to fill up your inbound sales pipeline with warm leads from Closers.com:
1. Cold Leads Vs. Warm Leads In Your Sales Pipeline
Your sales team should identify which leads are cold and which leads are warm in your pipeline. The cold leads who you know aren’t likely to convert doesn’t deserve as much attention from your sales team. Don’t waste time on the wrong people. Only focus on helping leads who want help from you.
Swap out the cold leads with more quality leads in your sales pipeline. You and your sales team should already have a decent idea of who the cold leads are. They’re the leads who make your salespeople feel dreadful to follow up with. They never answer your calls, open their emails, or complain a lot. Trust your gut feeling from the first interaction you had with them. How much interest did they show in your services? Did they ask to hear from you again?
If your salespeople have trouble converting leads, it can be one of three reasons:
- The buyer is not well qualified.
- Your product or offer is not good enough.
- The salesperson is doing something wrong.
If any of your leads have a lot of objections and obstacles for you, then it’s a sign they might not be pleasant to work with. Perhaps they’re not ready to buy at the moment, or your services aren’t for them. So if they don’t sound ready, your salespeople don’t have to follow up with them. Don’t hold onto the sale because you might not sound as genuine in wanting to help them. Keep focusing on warmer leads instead.
Spend time qualifying good leads for your sales pipeline. This is a crucial role for your sales team whenever they get new leads. Any salesperson should ask questions and get to know the lead during the first phone call. The more information they can get, the better you can serve them. Are they a good match for your business? Are they worth following up with? If leads don’t meet your criteria, you can still add value to them and hope they’ll reconsider your services in the future.
2. Know Who Your Leads Are Before Getting To Know Them
Before anyone on your sales team gets on the call with leads, they need to do their due diligent research first. It’ll make it easier to understand who the leads are and who you’re talking to. How did they find out about your business? Did they click on your ads or emails? Find out which offer they have an interest in and follow their buying signals. If you see leads who have been following your social media for some time now, they must know enough about your business. You’ll know how to communicate with them better. When you track their behaviors, you’ll have a good idea of the lead’s intent.
It’s also helpful to know basic information such as where they live, how old they are, or what they do for work. For example, you may come across a lead who’s a working mom. If you find out that information beforehand, you’ll be able to connect with her better since you understand her background a little more. What does this person care about? How will your services benefit her situation? You could even share some of your experiences to show her how you could relate. This will build trust in the relationship and get more leads to buy from you.
3. Give First, Then Take
The best action to take when trying to convince leads to do business with you is to provide value first. When you provide value, you’re also building trust, establishing authority, and improving your brand reputation. People like to buy from businesses they can trust.
“If people like you they'll listen to you, but if they trust you they'll do business with you.” – Zig Ziglar, Author & Motivational Speaker
To avoid many follow-ups with leads, your salespeople can cut that process and close the sale faster by adding value. You wouldn’t want them to make more effort in asking leads if they got their emails or missed calls. What if they’re willing to buy from you within the first few engagements? Try to keep away from leads in your sales pipeline that’ll give your sales team a hard time.
If you provide value to your leads, you’re already convincing them without talking to them more. They would appreciate the thought when your salespeople send them valuable content and information. You can keep adding value by offering insights and sharing relevant news that leads might find helpful. They’ll see you have what it takes to solve their problems. The value you add will prove you’re educating them on the right solutions with your products or services.
4. What’s In Your Sales Script?
There are some things you need to drop from your sales team’s script. Leads aren’t going to buy from you if your salespeople are getting names wrong, pushing your promotional deals, and taking the majority of the phone call. At the receiving end of the call, leads are thinking they shouldn’t trust you because you lose their interest by not listening to their needs. And did your salespeople remember to add value to them first?
Don’t have your salespeople talk about how great your company is and why your leads should buy from you. Your close rates will drop by 19% within your sales pipeline. Your salespeople need to listen more and allow the natural flow of the conversation to take over. So don’t go by the script every time. It’s for them to take a peek at during necessary times. Have a natural conversation with your leads, human-to-human. They’re going to feel more comfortable opening up to your salespeople about their problems. And you will be the hero with the solutions!
You can have your salespeople use better wording when closing. For example, they can use more collaborative words like “we” instead of “I.” This will help increase your conversion rate because leads will feel more comfortable knowing they have support. Find out how you can fine-tune more words and phrases in your sales scripts. Your goal is for your salespeople to sound more helpful and relationship-driven. Always show empathy before you get leads to pay.
5. Separate Your Sales Team’s Responsibilities
One of the biggest mistakes most business owners make is not delegating the responsibility of inbound leads to specific people. You might have a dashboard listing out all the untouched leads and waiting for someone to take care of your sales pipeline. Are you aware of who’s responsible for which leads though?
If you let everyone from your sales team become responsible for any of your inbound leads, that might not be the most efficient process to work with. You should give each salesperson their specific leads. There needs to be a clear process in place for everyone to follow.
When you assign leads to the proper salesperson, they’ll be responsible for taking the appropriate actions. They will follow the right sales process and won’t miss out on any sales opportunities. Everyone in your sales team will know their position and handle what they can.
If everyone were responsible for every lead, there would be a loss in focus. It’s better to focus on what each salesperson specializes in. You will give each salesperson a chance to stand out and generate the most revenue for you. Your sales team will improve on their closing skills much quicker when they have a clear focus instead. And when a specific lead calls, your sales team will know who to hand the phone over to.
We’ve listed 5 ways to help you fill up your inbound sales pipeline with more warm leads. You can use these ways to improve your sales team’s performance and help generate more revenue for your business.
Remember to research more about your leads and add value before approaching them. And make sure each of your salespeople knows their responsibilities in your inbound sales process.
You’ll find faster results when you have a structure throughout your team. If you need more salespeople who understand how to communicate and attract warmer leads, contact us today and schedule a free consultation!
