Convert Leads Into Customers – 5 Steps

Posted on 21. Oct, 2011 by Duncan Macdonald in Lead Generation, Lead Management, Lead Management Blog

So you have become good at filling the funnel with raw leads, the key question to the success of any sales process remains “How do I convert more leads into customers?”

Here are 5 Steps to convert Leads Into Customers

1. Keep filling the funnel

Lets face the facts, not all leads will convert, some will take longer than others and some will stall along the way. It is important to understand that you will need a constant flow of leads into your sales funnel. At the end of the day sales and marketing is a numbers game and although you must work on improving the quality of leads you create, without the flow there is nothing to convert.

2. Address the Problem  

Identifying  problem will allow you to demonstrate the value of your solution. This might be in showing a  financial saving, an increase in efficiency or output or just making the prospects life a bit easier. This should be an objective of both marketing and sales in the early stages of engagement to establish the problem.

3. Define Needs

The goal is to prove there is a real need for your product by identifying who or how problem impacts, then establish that this problem cannot be ignored. Until this step is achieved there is little need for the prospect to act. Now this may be an obvious step and can be addressed by your marketing but with more complex B2B sales this may require a sales persons skills talking directly to a customer.

4. Evaluate offering

If you understand how your prospect will evaluate your offer, the criteria by which it will be judged, and the objections you face then you can prepare yourself to deal with them before they arise. This will help the prospects decision process when evaluating vendors.

5. Overcome Concerns

Overcoming the concerns expressed by the lead is the final step and when you get to and complete this stage you should not be afraid to ask for the sale.

The above steps would normally be known as a  sales process but the way prospects buy is constantly changing and so too must the way these steps are applied.

The key is to work out for your business where the responsibility lies between sales or marketing to undertake these steps. The role of lead nurturing plays an ever important part in addressing these steps but for some this will be the responsibility of the salesperson dealing with potentail customers and for others where striking up that face to face contact so early in the sales process is not practical, marketing will have a greater role to play.

B12Leads is an online lead management tool to capture, distribute and convert leads. Everything you would expect from a CRM tool but with a focus on keeping track of leads and your sales teams. An affordable solution that has everything you need to take control of your sales pipeline.

Tags: Lead management, Sales and Marketing Alignment