You don't need more Leads

Leads are not what your business needs. Your business won't grow simply because you have more leads.

Your business growth will come from "qualified leads".

Not all business is good business. There is such a thing as bad business. This is business that ends up costing you more than you make or business that doesn't even bring anything at all.

Now, that is not to say that all leads must become customers. There will always be a drop off in terms of leads to customers. But our job as marketing people and business owners is to minimize that drop off as much as possible through lead qualification.

Why Lead Qualification is important

This is something that doesn't get talked about enough in our line of work, and in our part of the world.

Agencies are ever-ready to sing to the tune of a prospect when they may not have the budget to warrant the time investment into research, data analysis & proposals.

And I get it. You're ambitious. You need to grow your bottom line. The problem is you don't see your time as money.

In the service industry, your time is literally money. If you're in the B2B service industry, you sell brain power by the hour. That's literally your product.

Every hour that you spend on nurturing a lead is an hour that cannot be gotten back; it is an hour that you cannot use for other business tasks; it is an hour that you cannot use to generate other forms of revenue.

So before you invest time that you will not get back into nurturing a lead, it might do you some good to actually check if your services and pricing are right for them.

If the lead doesn’t meet your criteria for what makes a qualified prospect, then you can "disqualify" them. Disqualification may sound like a bad thing, but in reality, it saves you time and allows you to focus on more promising contacts.

The bottom line, lead qualifications allow you to quickly assess whether or not you’re talking to a person that has the purchasing capacity as well as any real intent in buying what you’re selling.

Trying to close every deal that comes along is only going to result in dead-ends with poor fit prospects, while you neglect prospects likely to buy.

A starting point in lead qualification

There are dozens of articles online about how to do this, but here are some thought starters:

• Budget: This is an important one because you want to avoid tire-kickers. At the very least, get a range for what they can afford to spend. Also, consider asking about other initiatives they are currently spending money on. This helps understand their financial capacity in general.
• Company size: A decent company size is usually (not always) a good indicator of financial muscle. How many people do they employ? What is their geographical coverage?
• Business need: Understanding the exact pain point & challenge of the lead is critical to assessing whether or not you're a good fit for each other. You can also directly ask what they believe would be the ideal solution to their problem to know if this is something you can offer.
• Timeline: While a lead may be a good one, you also want to understand how soon they are looking to sign up for your service. If they are just beginning their search for a supplier, they may be an important lead, but not an urgent one. This helps you prioritize resources accordingly.
• Pricing: I know. You're wondering if this isn't related to "Budget" above. Somewhat, but with a slight twist. An alternative to flat out asking about the lead's project budget is, using your pricing. You can use a minimum price as a neat tactic in gauging a prospect's buying power by saying something like "So we typically charge $2,000 per month for this kind of service. Depending on your exact needs & scope it may be more. How does that sound to you?"

In conclusion, many business owners & salespeople hate to disqualify prospects and shrink their pipelines.

Their natural instinct is trying to work as many leads as possible, but this isn’t the best approach. The quality of your leads matters more than the quantity.

As I mentioned, in the services industry, your most precious asset is your time, and it’s far better to spend it on a handful of your best prospects than spreading yourself thin across dozens of leads.