Lead Scoring

This is an interesting technique to use if you’re in the position where you have a lot of leads coming in from whatever source and, even if you don’t, it’s useful to rate the customers you want to do business with.
Basically, it involves scoing each lead on a variety of factors, to make sure that your sales reps are working on the highest priority leads….those that can buy sooner, spend more, etc.
It’s also a good technique to employ in making sure your sales people (including yourself) are asking all the right questions of prospects.
What I’m going to give you is a list of attributes that make a good lead; what you should do is rate each prospect on a 5-point scale (worst is 1, best is 5). You might have more qualities, but these are a start.
1. Timeframe for buying (now is a five, x months out goes less)
2. The prospect has the budget for the project, or the sale (5 for yes, less for waffling; when would they have it, or might they lease?)
3. I have the decision maker (the person who’s signing the purchase order) on the line….five points for yes, less for no, depending on the levels of management I have to go through.
4. Who am I competing with (5 for no one, subtract a point for each competitor )
5. They’ve done business with us before (5 for yes, 0 for no)….why are they calling? What’s changed?
Clearly, if someone calling in scores 23 or on, your sales rep should be falling over him-or herself. It’s also pretty unlikely.
Try this out at your next sales meeting, and see how your reps react. They might be doing the process, but they should also document their conversations.
As hard as it may believe, we’ve found reps ‘burning’ leads by not getting all the information.
We estimate that the process above shouldn’t take more than five minutes.
Send me notes on how this goes; it’s a new process, and we’d like to know. I’ll probably post more on it in the future.