Coffee for Closers | Leads360 Sales & Marketing Blog 

Find out how to maximize your weekend lead buys

Dec. 6, 2011 — In today’s competitive mortgage environment, working nontraditional work hours may give you a leg up on your competitors. A new study from Leads360 and QuinStreet found weekend leads perform better than weekday leads in certain key metrics.

As the mortgage industry evolves, lenders will need to adapt to meet the needs of busy consumers. Many consumers have more time on the weekend to catch up on their to-do lists and are less likely to be distracted by day-to-day responsibilities. So while it may seem like a hassle to work weekends, the opportunity may be worth it.

Are you maximizing your weekend lead buys? Attend our FREE webinar sponsored by Leads360 and QuinStreet to see how you stack up vs. your competitors on weekend leads purchased and how to properly contact and manage weekend leads based on research findings. Click here to register for this FREE webinar on Wednesday, December 14, 2011 from 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM PST!

This press release from the International Data Corporation out today makes the case that cloud computing, along with mobile computing, social networking, and big data analytics technologies, have all seen an increase IT spending this year. According to research spending in these areas is increasing by 18% yearly. It is predicted that 80% of all IT spending will be in these areas by 2020.

A year ago, “Cloud Computing” and “Software as a Service” were ideas that needed a little more explanation. But now, they have become mainstream to the point where legacy systems, based on building and maintaining in-house IT infrastructure are beginning to feel the heat. Or in the words of Frank Gens, IDC’s chief analyst, who led the study: “The incumbents are facing a huge transition.”

The reasons for companies switching to Software as a Service are many. Some of the reasons were explored in an earlier post on this blog. But the bottom line is: It is cheaper and easier to implement a SaaS platform in almost every case. Another reason why SaaS is the chosen solution for businesses of all sizes is that increasingly, business problems have almost purely technological solutions. Using Software as a Service gives companies the ability to leverage turnkey solutions to common challenges.

One great example of Software as a Service is Lead Management Software. A lead management system with an integrated lead dialer such as the one offered by Leads360 solves the problem of how to contact leads as quickly as possible after they have submitted an online inquiry. When this speed-to-contact solution was developed as part of the lead management platform and made available to clients, lead contact rates for clients were boosted significantly. The advantages enjoyed by the companies who quickly reach prospects are well documented.

This is just one example of how a cloud computing solution benefits its customers by creating features that solve business problems. Software as a Service providers only succeed when their customers succeed, so consider SaaS not only a cheaper and easier version of in-house IT infrastructure; consider it also as a business partner with vested interest in your success.

Are your sales tactics dated? A barrage of repeated call attempts and e-mails may feel like the way to go in sales, but if they annoy or overwhelm the consumer they’re ultimately counterproductive. To maximize ROI, it is important to mold sales efforts to today’s savvy on-the-go consumers.

And if you need convincing on consumer behavior, take a look at these statistics:
The United States has more than 300 million wireless subscribers and a recent study by Pew Internet showed that at least half of Americans ages 18 to 29 send at least 40 text messages a day and half of those ages 30 to 49 send at least 10 per day. That exceeds the number of calls they’re making by factors of eight and two respectively.

This doesn’t mean throw out all the tried and true best practices. What it does mean, is looking for a good mix of old and new sales tactics that will ensure a positive initial brand experience, and give you a leg up on the competition.

By adding automated text messaging into the sales funnel, a savvy sales manager can open up a range of options for reaching the consumer. Here are a few tips for using text messaging for sales success:

The new automated text messaging service offered by Leads360 are tailored to send texts with a timing and frequency balanced towards giving potential customers important, actionable information in a convenient, immediate package that ensures regulatory compliance. More importantly, the prospect’s replies go directly to the email box sales rep, eliminating the need to hand out cell phones to the sales force.

We’d like to hear from you. How do you plan to use text messaging to improve the consumer experience?

Every sales manager needs to track performance of their sales and marketing efforts and when it comes to lead management, understanding how leads perform and why one lead converted over another is critical.

Numerous studies and our own research have shown that contacting new leads quickly can dramatically impact conversion rates. Therefore, number one and two on our list of “must track” key performance indicators (KPIs) are speed-to-contact attempt and speed-to-contact. The other three come in the order all leads must go through, and when used together, these KPIs can be powerful in helping to measure the performance of sales processes, campaigns, lead sources, and more.

Here are the top five KPI’s every sales manager should track:
1. Speed-to-Contact Attempt – How much time it takes to call a lead for the first time regardless of whether or not the call is connected.
2. Speed to Contact – How much time it takes to contact a lead for the first time.
3. Contact Rate – The percentage of leads that have been contacted (meaning a sales person actually spoke to a lead on the phone)
4. Qualification Rate – The percentage of leads that have been qualified (meaning the lead is a fit for your product and could buy within the next 90 days)
5. Conversion Rate – The percentage of leads that have been converted to customers.

Company #1:

Company #2:

Above are examples of two dashboards, from two separate companies, tracking the top five KPI’s. Let’s drill into these numbers a bit and see what we can learn.
As you can see, company #2 is performing much better than company #1. So what’s going on, for company #1 the qualification rate is low at 14.8%, while the contact rate is relatively high at 70.2%. This drives one to conclude the quality of the leads is poor. The sales manager in this instance may want to drill into this data to determine where the lower quality leads are coming from. For company #2, contact relative to qualification rate is where we’d expect.

Now, if we look at the conversion rate of 2.7% for company #1, again this isn’t a great conversion rate, a sales manager might be scratching their head wondering why. The lower conversion rate is likely tied to one of four things or a combination of these (1) the company is not competitive in the marketplace (2) their sales people may need more training (3) lead quality may be poor as noted above, or (4) the poor speed-to-contact may be factoring into the conversion rate.

Company #2 on the other hand is performing much better on their speed-to-contact metrics, which could ultimately be having a positive impact on their conversion rate.

As you can see, the power of these four KPIs together can provide valuable insights into your sales processes, campaigns and more. Leasd360′s innovative lead analytics and sales lead tracking software makes it easy to monitor key success metrics. We make critical data useful, simple and actionable.

What do standards do for a sales organization? In their simplest implementation, they draw a line in the sand that says, if you can’t perform at least this well, you cannot work here. The most common standard is the quota. Quotas have been around forever, and they are effective, if a little unrefined. What the quota says is, “Just get yourself to this level of earning; I don’t care how you do it.” And this approach may get results, but it leaves quite a few things up to chance. When you are protecting or building your brand, it’s important make sure your reps are treating prospects well as measured by any number of factors.

The good news is it is possible to establish standards for sales reps that ensure that your leads are being handled in accordance with your company’s policies and proven best practices. With a lead management system you aren’t limited to being able to establish only sales quotas, but you can also establish and enforce standards around several other key metrics. For instance it is possible to establish standards around speed to contact. Make sure that leads are contacted within the first minute that they enter your system. If a rep is consistently unable to reach out to leads in a timely manner, it may be because their pipeline is experiencing a bottleneck. In such a case, the flow of leads will be automatically slowed to such a user.

Contact Rate, Qualification Rate, and Conversion Rate are three more metrics that are easy to track on the Leads360 dashboard. Establishing standards for sales reps at different stages throughout the sales process results in leads being consistently well managed by sales reps. Well managed leads not only mean a higher return on your marketing spend it helps you protect your brand and reputation as a provider of first class customer service.

How quickly and consistently are your agents following up with prospects? It’s well known that speed to contact is the single greatest contributor to successfully establishing a relationship with a new prospect. (For the unconvinced, check out this study on the effect of speed on lead conversion rates).

And that when it is not possible to reach a prospect immediately, following up with them via emails and phone calls strategically, (i.e., in accordance with proven best practices) is the next most important step that a sales rep or enrollment counselor can take to try to establish a relationship.

So are these things being done? Are calls being made immediately when leads are received? Are leads being followed up on? If you’re using a lead management system, it’s easy to take steps to ensure that every lead is called immediately, and followed up on appropriately. It’s automatic.

But if you are not using a lead management system, there is still a way to see how quickly leads are being called and how consistent is the follow up. Secret shop your reps. Get a Google voice number and submit a bogus lead with it. See how quickly it gets called and how often. I think the results might surprise you. Even in the biggest for profit schools, mortgage lenders, and insurance carriers sometimes earn failing grades when it comes to following up with leads.

That’s a good question. Who needs a call right now? Who has been called enough, who has not? Whom did I tell I would call back today at 2:15? These questions are simple enough, but answering them is not. Answering the question, “Who is the best lead to call at this exact moment?” requires knowledge of the following factors:

Is there a lead with whom I have scheduled an appointment?

Which lead is brand new?

Which lead came in today, but has only been called once?

Which lead is being ignored by a colleague and is available to be taken by way of shark tank distribution?

Answering these questions would give you a list of leads among which you would find the next best lead to call. But answering each of those questions takes time. And each step of the way there are opportunities for distraction and the temptation to quit researching and make the decision based on partial information.

The sales manager or small business owner may be inclined to say, “So what? This is the sales rep’s job, to keep track of their opportunities and do what it takes to close deals.” And this is true. Administrative drudgery is part of everyone’s job. But when there’s a simple shortcut to take to cut through all of that type of work and focus on selling, shouldn’t reps take that shortcut? Shouldn’t they spend more time selling and less time figuring out to whom they should be selling.

Demand Connect is a feature that is part of Dial-IQ, Leads360’s intelligent lead dialer. With it, it is possible to pull the next best lead with the click of a button. Let sales reps put an end to the endless estimating, reconnoitering, and prioritizing. Get them on the phone with the lead who most needs a call.

I was filling out a subscription form the other day that asked for my birthday. I accidentally entered December 2011 instead of the year of my birth and a prompt came up – “Are you really from the future?” I had to laugh, but at the same time, I thought to myself, if I knew what December 2011 had in store, what a powerful place to be.

To know what was going to happen with consumer spending this holiday season, mortgage rates, other trends that might impact the consumer sales market would give me insight and a competitive advantage. So that got me thinking, while we may not be able to see the future, why not use all the information at hand to make the best possible predictions?

In consumer sales the volume of leads and the time to close is so short that time is money, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to dump leads on sales reps and let them sort it out. More sophisticated consumer sales organizations use lead scoring based on predictive modeling, using a combination of information the consumer supplied, plus supplemental data provided by 3rd party services. That predictive score, along with data about sales rep performance, helps the system decide which leads get top priority and even which rep gets assigned. All designed to improve the close rate, of course.

So if you’re shopping around for a lead management solution, keep in mind there is more to the Lead360 solution than just distribution, and that difference might be just want you need to predict the future and edge out the competition.

Alec Baldwin’s legendary monologue in the movie Glengarry Glen Ross is concluded with the following sentences, “These are the new leads. These are the Glengarry leads. And to you, they’re gold. And you don’t get them. Because to give them to you is just throwing them away. They’re for closers.”

This oft-quoted monologue may or may not be your idea of motivational speaking. But putting aside the discussion of the virtues of tough love, this last part of the speech is a fundamental reality on many if not most sales teams. If you can close leads, you will be given leads. If you cannot, you will not. The incentive to succeed is more opportunities for success. The consequences of failure are fewer opportunities.

Given that this principal is so prevalent on sales teams; it stands to reason that any tool that aims to help sales managers and small business owners manage their funnel should have features that facilitate this doling out of opportunities.

One of the principal benefits of using a lead management system is the ability to quickly and intelligently distribute leads to sales reps. But truly intelligent lead distribution rewards successful sales reps by automatically increasing the number of leads they are eligible to receive based on their hitting performance goals.

Similarly, in order to really make sure your leads are winding up in the most capable hands, it must be necessary to be able to temporarily halt the flow of leads to sales reps whose pipelines are experiencing a bottleneck.

When one sales rep is exceeding his performance goals and another is overwhelmed by all the leads coming into his funnel, it should be possible to re-route new leads so they land in the most fertile soil. With lead management software, it is.