A Forbes study conducted last year showed that the average percentage of leads that get contacted by businesses is 27%. That means over 71% of inbound leads are not even reached out to, let alone being told about the product and closing the deal. This presents a huge opportunity for businesses since tackling this problem effectively helps businesses potentially double or even triple their annual revenues.
Reaching out to a lead and closing them successfully is the hallmark of an effective salesman. Unlike in the past, salespeople do not have to stay under the sun all day long to sell their products. Most of the initial discussions and negotiations are today done over the internet with face-to-face meetings required only two or three times in all. Here are some ways how technology can help businesses in closing leads efficiently.
Lead Generation:
Most businesses use their website primarily to capture information about their inbound leads. The average visitor-to-lead conversion ratio for an essential product or service is in the range of 5-8%. What this effectively means is that more than 90% of the website visitors who do not provide their contact information are never reached out to. This is a waste of a massive opportunity. There are a number of online tools available today that let businesses to actively track the business that is visiting your website and reach out to them. One such tool is Who Is Visiting; a tool that uses the IP address of the visitor to track down their company name, address, website and telephone number. You may use this information to make outbound calls to the business with your proposition. This effectively increases your targeted lead count by at least 100%.
Social Network Lead Information Search:
Sometimes, even the information obtained through reverse-IP-search do not provide us with sufficient information other than the business name. In such instances, social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn come handy. These websites are amazing tools for you to search for the decision makers from the business you are researching. By looking up the name of the IT Head or Marketing Head from these businesses, you may connect with the decision maker who will help you set up the meeting to sell your product.
Signing Deals Efficiently:
The product quality is not always the only thing that determines the success of a sales negotiation. Many times, the buyer is influenced by other emotional aspects including the earnestness of the seller or a general positive mood after a successful quarter. In such instances, it is likely that the customer might experience cold feet if there is a delay between an informal closure and a formal signing of documents. In earlier times, contracts took several days to be shipped and signed and this gave businesses ample time to take a relook at their decision. However, with the availability of electronic signatures, your business should ensure that the contracts are verified and signed with little delay to protect yourself from any last minute remorse from the buyer. Products like e-SignLive may be accessed via any device like the iPad or a laptop making it easy for the business to get the buyer read and sign contracts immediately.
Another way to sign deals efficiently is by using the online collaboration tools like Zoho or Google Apps. As any sales person will tell you, despite emails having reduced turnaround times by a huge margin, customers often require prodding over phone calls to get them to read their emails and respond. The best way to tackle this challenge is by having a ready draft of the contract available with you on your cloud. As soon as negotiations are complete, make the necessary changes in the document and share it with your legal team to ratify. Once ratified, you may take the document directly to the client to let them study and approve the proposal. This reduces the turnaround time from a matter of weeks or months to less than 2-3 days.
Closing a lead is the most important job of a sales person. Thankfully, technology has evolved sufficiently to make this job easier for businesses. With the right tools, it is extremely easy to study the prospect thoroughly. This not only helps you connect better with your customers, but also appeals to the buyer at an emotional level helping you sell the product more efficiently.
