Scheduling an Appointment With an "Uncloseable"

Posted by Dan McDade

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on Jul 24, 2017 1:58:01 PM

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A competitor in the teleprospecting business recently published a list of B2B companies based on how easy or hard they were to work from a lead-generation standpoint. They listed those that they had had success with on top. At the bottom of the list were what they called “uncloseables,” meaning these were companies that this competitor was not able to generated leads from.

One of the uncloseables on their list was a company from which PointClear generated a sales-qualified lead that we turned over to a client in the middle of 2016.

How can one company be considered an uncloseable to one lead generation services firm and a success to another?

At PointClear, we approach our client’s lead generation, lead qualification and lead nurturing by combining persistence with professionalism.

We know how to navigate the prospect, to find the decisionmaker, to pinpoint the need, and to move the lead to sales-qualified status. We don’t bug prospects, or annoy them, but we also don’t give up too soon.

To demonstrate, take a look at the touch summary for the “uncloseable” that our competitor identified:

Date Stamp

Entry

04-Aug-16

vm 1

04-Aug-16

email 1

10-Aug-16

vm 2

10-Aug-16

email 2

12-Aug-16

no email just vm

18-Aug-16

zero out

24-Aug-16

vm 3

24-Aug-16

email 3

24-Aug-16

Dean called me to ask for more information for Mike Smith

30-Aug-16

follow up voice mail

30-Aug-16

follow up voice mail

30-Aug-16

email to request call back

30-Aug-16

I'll be on vacation from 24 Aug to 2 Sep and will have limited access to email

30-Aug-16

call scheduled for 8 Sep at 11

06-Sep-16

sent invite to confirm call

08-Sep-16

call

12-Sep-16

sent email to schedule a meeting with sales exec

16-Sep-16

confirmed appointment for noon Wed 21 Sep

 

Notice we used a multi-touch (18 touchpoints over approximately one month) cadence and utilized multi-media (calls, voicemails, emails) to get this prospect converted to a sales-qualified lead for our client.

Had this prospect not converted to a lead, we would have used multiple cycles (multi-cycle) to stay on top of the prospect over the months or years until we got them converted.

All the details about the number and type of touches and each disposition is reported to the client. We also track touches to disposition (an outcome, see below), touches to lead and the number of cycles used for every project. 

On a regular basis, we test more and fewer touches to see how the disposition rate and lead rate is affected. It’s our secret sauce—we know how to manage a lot of moving parts. Many if not most firms in our industry lack the automated capability to track touches and cycles.

Another way we differ from our industry brethren is that we believe a lead is not the only positive outcome of a multi-touch, multi-media, multi-cycle campaign. This blog talks about how to triple your return on marketing campaigns with scientific nurturing. Here is a list of desireable outcomes and and explanation of why each is desirable.

Leads are one desirable outcome of teleprospecting, but there are others

  • Lead. A sales-qualified lead tops the list of course. That's what's needed to meet your revenue goals.
  • Pipeline. This is what we call opportunities that are qualified, with perceived interest and need, but not quite ready. Twenty to 25% will turn into leads with additional, scheduled contact.
  • Nurture. These are also qualified opportunities, but we have yet to perceive interest and need. We will stay on top of these targets, maintaining our cadence. On the next touch cycle, we will get 150% of the lead rate the first touch cycle generated. We might invest up to 3 to 5 cycles before hitting the point of diminishing return.
  • No Response. These could be qualified opportunities, but we have exhausted the touch cycle. We did not reach them and they did not return our voicemails or emails. We will invest additional activity across additional touch cycles and will drive a much higher lead rate on these as compared to Not Qualified outcomes.
  • Not Qualified. We have confirmed their not-qualified status and will never need to try to reach them again—at least for this client. Taking out (and keeping track of) Not Qualified accounts means we have less work to do the next touch cycle—making it more productive.
  • Bad. We’ve confirmed that the data on this target is incorrect. Again, we pull them off the list and keep track—making the next touch cycle more productive.

What to watch out for in your lead generation efforts:

  1. One and done campaigns. Don’t skim leads off campaigns and disregard the rest. If you do, you lose the value that results from nurturing pipeline and nurture dispositions or outcomes—value that can triple your lead-generation ROI.
  1. Lack of persistence in lead follow-up by sales. We have a mini-course we present to our clients’ sales forces to help them increase the number of leads that get converted to sales opportunities. A sales-qualified lead that’s not effectively followed up is wasteful from a budget and revenue point-of-view.
  1. No testing. If you are rolling out an untested campaign you are likely wasting a LOT of money. Everything is testable. The telephone is one of the best and least expensive ways to determine if you’re on point with your market, message and media.

Want to discuss this? Email me at dan.mcdade@pointclear.com


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Topics: Lead Nurturing, Lead Qualification


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