A virtual assistant can be enormously helpful to you and your business in generating and converting leads, in other words, attracting a potential customer who may have an interest in your business or even may never have heard of your business and turning that lead into new customers. This lead conversion process would consist of several stages and, if all goes well, ending up with a sales pitch. Sales teams applying several key operating models to reach their goals, where the eventual goal is to increase revenue. Achieving this goal requires a strong team, as it is often challenging even for experienced salespeople.
When it comes to operating models, businesses have countless ways they can generate leads. For example, some companies focus on increasing their revenues by attracting new customers and maintaining satisfaction with existing quality service. Other businesses focus on increasing customer” life” expectancy. Whichever of these methods the company uses, they all fall into one or more categories:
- Introducing new products or services.
- Cross-selling or existing customers.
- Converting potential prospects into paying customers.
Sales Development Cycle
A sales cycle is a series of events or phases that occur during a product or service sale. In some cases, a company may ask its sales representatives to run lead generation campaigns. This relationship-building process is called the lead generation cycle and has four stages:
Prospect Leads
This stage involves searching and determining potential prospects by identifying an ideal customer or customers interested in a company’s product or service. This phase aims to build relationships with prospective customers by engaging with them through a communication channel depending on the business or type of prospect.
Lead Nurturing
After identifying a potential prospect, sales executives aim to present the product or service to convince the customer that the product will solve or overcome the buyer’s issue and help them meet their needs. Therefore, it is crucial to demonstrate how using the product will improve day-to-day operations for your client.
Lead Qualification
During this stage of the sales cycle, the leads are vet as much as possible to determine whether they meet the requirements to purchase your product or service. At this step, sales executives try to find out if the contact person is a decision-maker, and if so, whether they are interested in purchasing your product or service and are able to buy it.
Lead Closing
In this final stage, sales executives try to convert potential customers into actual buyers by enabling them to purchase a product or service. The sales development cycle is an ongoing process, as, after this stage, a Sales Development Rep continues working on tracking leads to allow sales reps to close out real buyers.
Recommendations for improving sales development efficiency
To stay afloat, business models must change and adapt over time. Your business in the form in which it exists now, in 10 years, may look completely different. Therefore, all of your current activities should be focused on your company’s future and other similar companies.
- Therefore, when considering the effectiveness of sales development, the first thing we recommend is to define your goals.
- The second important step to ensure continuous improvement of your operations is hiring the right people for your sales team. Try to recruit people for their talent, not their skills. Finding trustworthy, hardworking candidates and having a strong sense of responsibility is key for long-term success.
If employees continually striving to attract as many potential customers as possible to close many deals, there is no time for quality. This approach is counterproductive because the more you drive to close deals and attract leads, the more likely you will face resistance from potential customers. This, in turn, may lower the conversion rate, which means that salespeople generate fewer leads per hour than before.
To improve your sales, you shouldn’t try to impose leads and close deals. Instead, your company needs to develop a new business model based on value creation for the customer rather than generating a profit for yourself.
