Some of the most common bottlenecks in Sales Effectiveness have been languishing in the Sales Problems folder in our Macs for quite some time now. If you ask any Sales Representative, he will nod his head in approval at us have been able to pinpoint a number of his concern areas.

It is important to address each of these concerns one by one. But more important is to prioritize them. This will help us raise the Sales Effectiveness quotient a few notches higher. As it is said, a problem well identified is half done. So, topping the charts of the Sales Effectiveness Bottlenecks is a ‘Dearth of qualified leads.’

Problem #1:

Dearth of total leads, which leads to a dearth of qualified leads

Solution #1

To address the first, something needs to be done to increase the number of leads. The marketing team needs to focus on getting more leads, ramping up the pipeline by analyzing the current promotion mix, the spends, the spend to media ratio, the spend to lead generation ratio and so on. The team needs to do a thorough analysis on:

• Is our media mix right?
• Is our content right?
• Are we reaching the target audience at the right time in the right place?

The analysis will throw up a lot of opportunities for improving the promotion process. This should then sort out the lead generation process for some time. OR

Problem #2:

Lack of a process that qualifies or disqualifies leads based on their quality. Lack of a Lead Quality Controller or a Lead Qualifier.

Solution #2

This problem is more quality-based; it says that the leads that are going to sales from the marketing team are not qualified leads. This is a bigger problem and is disturbing many organizations.

The leads may be good in numbers, but when measured for their ‘fit’ to the defined ‘lead’, they drastically fall short. Marketing and Sales are usually caught in a crossfire as to whose mandate this is. To resolve the issue, it is important to plant a person or a small team that acts as a Lead Qualifier.

This team or person should go through the leads generated and qualify or disqualify them based on some predefined parameters. This will go a long way in helping the Sales team to save time spent on poor leads and invest time in nurturing the qualified leads, leading them closer to conversion. This will clearly help in boosting Sales Effectiveness for the organization. If you like this blog, do read about our sales transformation blog to drive business growth in 2021.