The Staggering Cost of Chasing Bad Sales Leads
John Ternieden
$218,000.
That’s how much you’re losing per sales rep over the course of a year because your team is wasting time chasing the wrong deals, according to the Altify Buyer/Seller Value Index, co-sponsored by XANT.
What the new research reveals
The Buyer/Seller Value Index is designed to inform those on both sides of the negotiating table and expose the dangerous myths and misleading statistics that are hurting the sales industry.
Altify crunched the numbers and discovered that salespeople with a quota of $1 million and an average deal size of $100,000 suffered a loss of $218,000 over the course of a year by pursuing the wrong leads and opportunities.
That’s a lot of money to leave on the table, especially when you multiply that number by all the people on your sales team.
Sellers need to do a much better job qualifying engagement early, so they can avoid wasting energy and resources on unfruitful deals.
Early failure is better than late failure
A lost opportunity is disappointing regardless of when it happens. Sales and marketing teams work hard to hunt down leads and wish all their prospects could see the light and become customers.
That said, if you are going to lose a prospect, it’s better to do it early because the longer you spend chasing somebody who will never buy, the more expenses you’ll rack up. Not to mention the opportunity cost of lost time you could have spent on more profitable deals that you could have closed.
Imagine the money that could be saved and earned if reps were able to divert their attention away from deals that have no chance of ever closing, and spend it pursuing real buyers.
Evaluate leads across entire sales funnel
Sales teams should evaluate their leads right from the beginning to determine which ones are worth pursuing. Unfortunately, salespeople often don’t know whether deals are worth committing to until they’ve gone too far down the rabbit hole.
Traditionally, most sales models include a human element for some aspect of their lead scoring. These models suffer from shortfalls associated with human efforts, such as biases and finite energies and timetables. So results are inevitably flawed, skewed or, at best, not comprehensive.
This is where data and the power of predictive analytics come into play. By analyzing multiple data points and comparing them to past outcomes, a predictive engine can determine the likelihood that a specific lead or account will convert into a customer.
For example, the XANT NeuralView application draws on insights from more than 90 billion sales interactions and counting to accurately sort leads, make smart recommendations and enable your sales team to work smarter and close deals faster.
But the power of predictive analytics to improve sales outcomes doesn’t end with lead and account scoring. As you know, lost sales don’t just stem from poor leads but also opportunities that go bad further down the funnel.
Identify pipeline risk
In addition to lead scoring, sales teams should leverage technology that scores their opportunities to help them prioritize which deals to focus on.
InsideSales’ HD Forecast is specifically designed to remove the guesswork from sales by blending historical data with sales judgment and predictive analysis.
Salespeople can use data and predictive analysis to zero in on what’s changed in their pipeline, spot risks and determine what it will take to save deals that are on the bubble.
With a strong predictive engine, sales reps will no longer have to guess which leads or opportunities to pursue, translating to less money lost chasing bad deals and more revenue won.
