Many sales professionals are very comfortable maintaining long-term relationships and developing repeat business from existing clients. However, it is the goal of every company to retain existing business and to develop new clients and new sales. This involves identifying a pool of sales leads and converting some of these leads to new business.
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Key Points with Sales Leads
There are several key points when it comes to beginning work on developing your leads.
1. EVERY lead is precious, do not dismiss it easily.
2. Keep an open mind about every lead. Salespeople make assumptions about the potential of each lead, whether this person is likely to buy or whether they will be interested in our products. Unfortunately, clients that prove to have a huge spend do not come with a label on their foreheads! Work every lead until you have firm evidence that this is NOT a prospect.
3. Think of yourself as competing with another very good Sales Person rather than an opposing Company. If this lead is a real prospect, they WILL buy from someone. Is it going to be you, or is in going to be the other guy who gets the sale?
4. Plan how you will work those leads effectively, and develop a good personal management system.
Set Targets
Sales is a numbers game, the bigger the numbers the better the Sales Person! However, when it comes to managing leads, it is better to think in terms of conversion rates rather than flat numbers.