If a company cannot provide its Sales Force with a full pipeline of high quality leads, then it is forcing its sales reps to do what does not come naturally to sales reps—cold call to find prospects. The end result is low productivity, demoralized sales force, and exodus of the best sales reps leaving only the mediocre to continue in unproductive work.
If you don’t have sufficient pipeline of quality leads, you are better off shrinking your sales force, freeing up cash to build your leads pipeline, and then hiring more sales reps only if you can feed them with a strong pipeline of sales leads. Here is why.
Sales Reps are no Good Cold Calling
Prospecting–calling to find prospects–is what we refer to as a high-volume, low touch interaction. The sales rep must typically make 60-90 dials a day just to get 4-6 connects, of which perhaps one or two may be qualified prospects. Most of these dials go either to voice mail, or to a receptionist. The few conversations typically last 1 minute or less, just long enough to make an appointment for another time.
This in direct contrast to what most Sales Reps are good at, which is low volume, high-touch interaction. Most sales reps are very good at meeting with, building rapport with, and engaging prospects through the sales lifecycle, hopefully to a successful close. They can do maybe 8-10 of these per month.
Asking Sales reps to make cold calls in the hopes of finding their own leads is like asking a 10K runner to win a 100 meter dash. Both may involve running, but they are very different kinds of running and success in one will not directly translate into success in the other.
They typical sales rep hates cold calling and will likely not spend more than a couple of days a week making a handful of dials. What is this rep doing the rest of the time?
Live at the Mercy of Precious Few Prospects
If your sales reps don’t have a strong pipeline, then they tend to think “scarcity” instead of “abundance”. They start thinking that they can’t afford to lose any prospects. Now, they are at the mercy of savvy decision makers who know they can get a lot of information and help from the sales rep without having to pay for it—all they have to do is make the rep think that she still has a chance of winning a deal.
Nothing wastes a sales reps time than to be strung along like that. And nothing burns through a company’s funds than payroll for non-productive people who are working hard, but not adding any meaningful value.
Sales Exodus
While the average sales rep may stay because they need the job, acting busy when he or she doesn’t really have much in his or her sales funnel, the good ones will leave because they are used to making real money–salary alone won’t be nearly enough for them. The really good sales reps expect and need to make big commission checks, and these won’t come unless they close deals regularly. If they have to cold call to find leads, they will leave for a company that provides them the leads they need.
In the end, the company is left with the most mediocre sales reps, and still paying salary for sales that don’t materialize.
On the other hand, if you feed your sales reps with high quality leads and provide them with solid pipeline, then they spend their time doing what you hired them to do—work with interested prospects towards a successful close.