I t is time to take the gloves off and focus on the national tragedy that has plagued B2B sales for 50 years; and it is all the making of sales management's failure. The tragedy and failure lie squarely at the doorstep of sales managers that are given inquiries and leads and do not make it a policy that their salespeople follow them up.  Policy, however, unless sternly implemented will also fail without a sales engagement platform.

Everyone (usually marketers) complains about the failure of salespeople to follow-up leads, but marketers are just as much to blame. The excuse that “the salesperson didn’t do it” is no longer valid.   A research report from Velocify proves it.[i]

Of course, this was a valid excuse prior to marketing automation’s debut, but since then, the hemming and hawing by marketers that ‘prospect follow-up is a salesperson’s job and not our job,’ is belatedly being debunked.

Title:  2017 Sales Effectiveness Report: Lead Follow-Up

Published by/Authors:  Conversica

Gated: Yes

Download Link    Download or read it online

Highlights:  This is the third year for this study.  Conversica commissioned an independent research firm to secret-shop 866 companies and evaluate their response using four key elements:

Thomas Paine once said "What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly, 'tis dearness only that gives every thing its value."

We believe the lack of sales lead follow-up by salespeople (a persistent rumor of 75-90%), has to do with their disrespect for the time, effort and cost marketers expend to find the inquirer.  They don't know how much it costs to find qualified prospects.  Plus, most don't know the that nearly half of the inquirers they get will turn into a sale for someone. They obtain sales leads too cheaply with little effort on their part. 

Why its Important:

"Half the B2B inquires created by marketing will turn into a sale for someone.  Ok, maybe not half, only 45% on average."

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You have permission from the Sales Lead Management Association and the Cartoonist, Stu Heinecke to copy and distribute this cartoon as is with attribution!

Ask a salesperson what they want from marketing and they'll tell you, more sales leads. Ask them again after you've given them more leads what they want and they'll tell you that want more qualified leads.