So how fast do you believe leads stay hot? Or would you prefer this question, how fast do you believe leads get cold?
A month?
A week?
A day?
An hour?
A minute?
Both these questions were answered through a study conducted by Dr. James Oldroyd of the Kellogg School of Management. In a recent study, Oldroyd examined over a million telephone cold calling actions from 50 companies in a variety of industries.
How quickly leads get cold was only one of the three critical pieces of information from this intensive survey. Two other penetrating pieces of information were:
The best day of the week to schedule cold calls
The best time of the day to actually make the telephone call
Getting back to the question, what is your belief about the time that hot leads stay hot or cold leads become cold?
Depending upon how busy you are, you may say a day or a week. However, think about your own pressing needs and wants. Do you wait a day less alone a week for someone to call you back when you want something?
If you are thinking leads get cold in one hour, you are correct. How quick leads cool makes sense given how much information each person is processing on a daily basis. Just a one need or problem surfaces another one is waiting in the sidelines to quickly replace the one on top.
So if your goal is to increase sales and hot leads can quickly turn into cold leads, what are you supposed to do especially if you are a busy salesperson? Here are five suggestions.
Check your voice mail every hour.
If possible, check your email every hour.
Have a system to process new contacts and track their progress
Be committed to following up on all sales leads. (Sales Coaching Tip: Almost 50% of all leads are left hanging on the vine to whither and die.)
Understand that 80% of all sales are make between the fifth and twelfth contacts. In other words do not become discouraged when that first call to your hot potential customers (a.k.a. prospect) is not returned.
Remember being the white rabbit who shouted “I’m late, I’m late for a very important date” will leave you not only late to the tea party, but to sales success.
Chicago Sales Coach Leanne Hoagland Smith helps with selling through this free sales skills assessment to leadership, sales management training and coaching.
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