Unqualified Leads: Follow-Up or Forget?
Unqualified Leads Piling Up In SalesForce?
“What Should I do With My Unqualified Leads In My SalesForce Account? Should I continue to follow-up or just forget them?”
Depends on your definition of unqualified.
What is an Unqualified Lead in Salesforce?
For me, a lead in salesforce is unqualified when a prospect has one or more of these three things are missing:
- A problem that I can help them solve;
- Power to make or at least influence a decision to purchase;
- Ability to afford my solution to their problem should they decide they want it.
If they are missing any of those things, they are not qualified. At least not at this moment.
Smile and Dial Days
In the days of smile and dial, we were taught to deep-six the leads that weren’t qualified. Hang up and dial the next one. That is a huge mistake because as long as the lead meets certain parameters to be a suspect, even though they may not be qualified right now, that doesn’t mean any one of those three criteria can’t change at a moment’s notice.
Example: You could be speaking with a decision-maker today who could afford your solution if they wanted it but doesn’t need what you offer only to have a “trigger event” happen two weeks later and now needs a solution like yours. (I’ll explain what a TRIGGER EVENT is in a minute)
Unqualified Leads in SalesForce Create Sales Pipeline Jams
On the flip side, I’ve seen way too many sales reps miss quota month after month because they keep following up with the same unqualified leads over and over again. You have to know when to mark the lead status as “archived” in your SalesForce account.
Sure, the unqualified prospects take your calls, are friendly to you and you even feel “safe” calling them. You also fool yourself into thinking that you are doing a “good job” and are “building the relationship” yet you are wasting time and money and your manager is missing out on his/her bonus because you aren’t hitting your numbers. Too many unqualified leads in the sales pipeline. This is a bad situation to be in.
Nurturing Unqualified Leads – The Power of a Drip
Here’s what I’ve found to work best when dealing with unqualified leads… Have a drip email marketing campaign in place that nurture’s your unqualified leads automatically on a consistent basis. Think of it as “catch and release” when it comes to fishing. You’ve got a prospect that doesn’t measure up to having all three needed criteria for qualification. So you throw them back and let your drip email marketing take over. This way you stay in contact with them without bogging down your phone time and when a trigger event happens, they contact you. Now you’re dealing with a warm lead.
What’s a Trigger Event?
OK, so what’s a trigger event? It’s when something happens on the prospect’s side that makes them realize they need a solution.
All prospects have it and it’s the only thing that will make a lead “warm”. They become hand-raisers. And if you’ve been nurturing unqualified leads that matched your ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) when a trigger event happens on their end, you’ll be ready to help when they need it most.
Should All Unqualified Leads be Nurtured?
No. If the lead does not match your Ideal Customer Profile, mark that lead status as “Archived” in your SalesForce account as fast as possible and move on.
– Michael Pedone
Michael Pedone is the founder of SalesBuzz.com – an on-demand sales training company inside sales teams.
