Why You Should Actively Disqualify Leads

Many methods of thought in the sales world argue that treating all leads as if they were buyers falls into the law of large numbers. If you go through enough leads a certain percentage will buy. Therefore, you need to power through as many as possible.

While this makes sense it does not take into account the time involved in nurturing those leads, especially in high-value sales situations. It all comes back to efficiency. If your sales team chases every lead no matter how good or bad, they are spending lots of time on dead ends. By putting in processes to disqualify poor leads, you will watch your profits rise.

There are a variety of reasons why interested people will not end up purchasing. It could be they are comparing you with your competition. They could lack the funds at the time. They could be researching options for future expansion. Quickly diverting attention from these dead ends as soon as you recognise them will result in a higher revenue per hour from your sales team.

Developing a system for disqualification, if you don’t have one in place, will be a great start to a higher efficiency sales process. Your sales manager will need to figure out metrics best suited to your clients and industry. Some common reasons for disqualifying a lead are a lack of response, general email addresses, no funds, or a poor fit. It will be up to you whether these leads get put on a maybe later list (such as the no funds example) or if they are taken off all your marketing efforts (like the non-responders.)

Whatever system you choose or build, disqualifying leads will increase your bottom line. By focusing on the leads that show no or few signs of a dead end, your team has more time to dedicate to the organizations that are more promising.

Originally published at blog.leadware.io.