Good Notes – The Bridge Between B2B Lead Generation and Sales

Posted by JasonB on October 6, 2009

Sales success starts with finding the key decision maker at an organization you want to do business with. You have to be talking to the right person. Typically, that person is the one who has the authority to choose vendors or has the responsibility to evaluate and recommend vendors to use.

Having found the right person, you now need to establish a meaningful dialogue with them. If all you sales resources have is a list of names, it’s difficult to know where to begin. A good lead generation process should provide your sales resources with insights into a prospect and their organization.

There are many types of information that are critical:

Qualifying Information – Is a prospect a good fit? Your database should be designed to capture information that helps determine the fit of a prospective client and give your sales resource a starting point to understanding that prospect’s needs. How many employees to they have? What is their annual budget? Who is their current supplier? Etc… With this knowledge, a sales resource can tailor information to a prospect that better illustrates how your company can fill a specific need or overcome an issue the prospect is having.

Anecdotal Information – Is the prospect buried in their current workload? Are they trying to get through next year’s budget planning?  Are they having issues with their current supplier? Good written notes, observations, or insights are invaluable in getting a better understanding of the current mindset of a prospect. With this, a good sales resource can make sure they are helping a prospect out and not contributing to their current set of issues. A good lead generation database will be structured to capture significant, relevant notes in an organized, concise fashion.

Voice Recordings – What better way to determine a prospect’s interest level or the severity of the issues their facing, then to hear it in his or her voice. Look for a lead generation service that can provide you with recordings of the calls between their operators and your prospects. Not only does it provide you with valuable insight into a prospect, but it also allows you to audit the quality of the lead generation service, and ensure that you company is being represented in a professional, high quality manner.

Having available the types of information referenced above can mean the difference between success and failure. The more insight your sales resource has into a prospect, the more likely they are to understand the issues or opportunities facing that prospect and be able to custom design the right solution for the right time.

Good luck, and good selling!