1) Talent(less) Pool – When running a lead generation campaign, companies must ensure that the employees making the sales calls have the appropriate background and skill sets. Typically a college education, two years of selling experience and familiarity with the client, product or service is a good start.
2) Lack of Lead Definition – How will sales reps know when they have a lead if they don’t know what a lead looks like in the first place? What does the sales and marketing alignment look like and who has the sales pipeline responsibilities? Businesses can qualify a lead by company size or revenue, and advance the prospect to a closed sale by confirming more advanced information like budget, authority and timeframe.
3) Poor Messaging – A message that does not resonate with prospects, or that is difficult to understand, or one that is difficult for sales to deliver is going to hinder any lead generation campaign. Organizations must have clear and concise messaging that speaks to the needs or pains of the prospect to generate the greatest results.
4) Wrong target – This can be created from not properly building or acquiring a list of prospects or by focusing too much on the influencer and not the decision makers. The prospects could also be out of the scope in terms of the size of the organization or where they are located.
5) Poor Lead Handoff – Sometimes this may mean a lead that is not properly qualified, or leads that are sent to the field late – well after the prospect has forgotten about the conversation with the lead generation team. Proper lead definition and warm lead hand off can help businesses avoid both of these situations.
Share with us your thoughts. What has worked in your organization in lead generation and what are mistakes you have learned from in the past?
