The Best Small Company Sales Lead
Program I’ve Ever Seen

The owner of a local company recently asked me, “How can I generate sales leads with a limited promotional budget?” He went on to explain that his company represented home security and home theatre product companies with the best known brand names in both industries.

He had tried a professionally designed web site, newspaper and radio advertising and some direct mail with very limited success in generating leads for his two sales people.

My answer to his question was to tell him a true story about generating sales leads that has a lesson that could apply to almost any company that sells everything from high end consumer products to business systems and services. Here's that story:

In the second year after I left my vice president’s job at a large computer services company what I thought would be a one or two man marketing consulting business had grown into a 20 person company that had just moved into its own small office building.

We needed a new telephone system. Without much time to look for one, I called the local phone company. Two of their sales people dropped by to show me literature describing their systems and to ask questions about our phone usage.

At the end of a half-hour they said they would schedule an engineer to do a needs survey, after which they would recommend the system we needed. They advised we could have a new telephone system in about a month.

Coincidentally, that same morning when our receptionist was away from her desk and I picked up an insistently ringing telephone. The call went like this; “Good morning, may I speak to the person in charge of your telephone systems?” I replied, “That would be me.”

The person on the other end continued, “Great, I’m with Ajax Telephone Systems and I'm calling to see if you’re currently considering a new telephone system for your company.” I answered, “As a matter of fact, we are.” She continued, “Wonderful, would it be better for our local sales person stop by at two o’clock today or at nine tomorrow morning?”

At two o’clock the Atlas sales rep showed up carrying a small laptop computer. His opening words were: “Thanks for seeing me. You look busy, so to save time I’ll just tell you that Ajax is the largest installer of telephone systems in this area and that we carry virtually every one of the top rated telephone systems available. We sell more systems than anybody and we guarantee our prices to be the lowest you’ll find anywhere.” OK.

With no further small talk he flipped open his computer and began asking questions that sounded like input for a credit check. As he entered the information, I asked him what he was doing and he replied, “To save time I’m filling out an order form for you. I’ll add the details about the telephone system you’re going to need after I go over all the options with you.”

I said, “You haven’t sold me anything yet and you’re already filling out an order form? “ He replied, “I’m going to have to fill out an order form at some point and since we carry all the leading systems, from basic to high end, I know we’re going to be able to put in the system you want. Plus, if I send this order in today I can schedule your new telephone system to be installed next weekend, rather have you wait or interrupt your work week.” That was a Gotcha!

Needless to say, I ended up buying a telephone system from Atlas (the name is changed to protect the innocent), which was specified by the sales rep after a walk around the office and a few questions. The deal was done is less than an hour, without the need for an engineer or further decision making.

Impressed by his assumptive style, I asked the sales rep how many leads he received and he replied, “We have two sales people and we each get six appointment leads a day from our telephone contact people."

I asked, "And how many of those leads do you close?" His answer amazed me, "We close an average of four of them." Thinking I had not heard him correctly, I said, “You close 67% of the leads you get?” “Yes” he said, “in fact I already closed three before I came here.”

I had to know more: “Tell me more about your telephone contact people.”

He replied, “They work from yellow page listings of companies e-mailed to us quarterly by a national data company. There are about 7,000 companies with telephone-intensive S.I.C. codes in the three counties we cover. The companies are listed alphabetically within zip code and they're called that way to save us time between appointments. “

He continued, “Our telephone people call every company and ask just one question, “Are you currently considering a new telephone system.” If the answer is “Yes” they try to make an appointment for that day or the following day. If the answer is “No” there's no further sales pitch, they say “thank you for your time, have a nice day,” hang up and go on to the next listing."

“For every hundred or so companies they call they get six appointments. The actually speak to about fifty decision makers a day so, with call backs, hang ups, wrong numbers and holidays they're able to cycle through the entire list of 7,000 companies in about two months. Then they start all over again.”

The lesson here is that sales lead generation is a numbers game. The keys to success are:

1. Start with a comprehensive, up to date prospect list specified by criteria that fit your company’s prospects, such as company size by number of employees and/or annual sales, Standard Industrial Classification Code (S.I.C.), zip code, county, state and country, credit score and other data items, such as personal income or house size. When contacts are selected by these criteria they form your "hit list." For information on one good list source go to http://www.infoUSA.com/.

2. Continually contact your hit list by telephone, e-mail and direct mail. Repetition is key. With a correctly specified, up to date hit list a surprisingly large percentage of your prospects are already looking to buy what you sell. You need to be there when they are, so call and write them often.

3. Send your sales people enough qualified prospects to be successful. A really qualified lead is one that identifies who is in a decision cycle for what you sell. The day when you could send sales people out with a briefcase and a telephone directory and expect them to find cost-effectively find prospects is long gone (transferring a telephone directory to a computer with a CRM system isn’t the answer either). Once you crack the code on how many calls it takes to generate a qualified lead you can adjust the number of calls it takes to keep your sales people busy.

Note: Smart companies now send their sales people appointments with prospects they have pre-identified as being in the buying cycle for their products and services, and then measure success based on orders closed.

4. Provide your sales people with a Unique Selling Proposition (USP). In the case of Ajax Telephone Systems their USP is that they carry all the leading telephone systems from major companies. These brands had instant credibility with me, the customer. Why should I be limited to one system the local telephone company offered?

Your company may or may not have that advantage, but I guarantee you do have a unique selling proposition, whether its years of experience, service capability, size, breadth of product line, a local showroom, or your credit terms … you have something to say that’s both true and is viewed as a benefit to your prospects.

5. Train your sales people to make winning sales presentations. Sales people who make professional presentations featuring your USP will win a majority of the new prospects they call on. Training your sales people to prepare and make winning sales presentations is probably the most effective thing you can do to immediately increase sales.

A good first step in a training program is to assess the skills of your sales people as they present of your products and services. Chances are you'll find that very few of your sales people have prepared and perfected an effective sales presentation.

For a free management report on how to plan and manage sales assessments, go to http://www.SalesJudge.com/.

Epilogue: Did Atlas Telephone Systems consciously go through the steps listed above? I really don’t know, but I do know one thing, they sold me a $3,500 telephone system with a one call close. And their sales rep sold four of them that day.