COMMENTS
Giving up after the second call guarantees that this rep will eventually be part of the 40% that lose their jobs every year. Great salespeople, usually the top 20% always have a sales script for new prospects. Eric Lofholm the sales trainer teaches a great class on Sales Scripting. If a rep sneers that they don’t use scripts, they do, but it is never the same script and they wonder why they lose their job. The best reps continue to follow-up at least three if not four times before go into nurture mode. They nurture the inquirer with emails and even snail mail and an occasional phone call. Only 26% of the average inquirers will buy in the first six months. It takes 12 months for 45% of the buyers to make a decision. We have many articles on the Sales Lead Management Association site that address this issue.
I appreciate your candor and advice, James. I'm the guy who you're predicting will lose his job.
I recognize this is an area where I need to improve. However, there is only so much time in the day. Nonetheless, there are things I'm implementing with the help of our CRM administrator to help me identify the "low hanging fruit" that I may have touched once or twice that are MOST deserving of another touch or two.
I also think that marketing has a role to play in ranking and rating leads by quality and engagement, as well as bringing the leads back to the company website to signal to me that someone is ready for another call. All of this stuff, our marketing team is very good at. And our software helps me save a lot of time by highlighting the prospects that are most engaged.