How to Qualify and Close Leads

In my last post, I wrote about the various ways businesses can get leads. Now that you have collected all these leads, what do you do with them? In this post, I will discuss how to qualify and close the leads you get.

Prior to calling on the leads you need to do the following:

1 Read the business cards looking for notes you jotted down about where you met the contact and something about them. (A phrase or keyword)

2 Enter this information into your CRM software.

3 Do this for all the leads you receive.

Next you need to plan a form of action. You need to decide your method of contact. Are you going to call the people on the phone, email to follow-up, market to them through direct mail or make a cold call in person disclosing that the prospect contacted you about your product and services?  The method that you choose will depend on the kinds of product you sell and the size of your business/territory.

I am going to focus on the email follow-up and the in person cold calls.

Following-up via email

You should write the following:

Dear Mr. Smith:

Hi it’s Dan Galante.  I hope you are doing well.

We met at XYZ. You saw a demo of product xyz. /We discussed__________.

I would like to speak with to know your thoughts. If you are interested or have any questions email me at Dan@dangalante.com  or call 1-555-555-5555.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Dan

Dan Galante

This letter asks for feedback from the prospect without being too pushy.

Based on the reception you get from this letter, you can qualify the prospect as a Cold, Warm or Hot lead. This activity needs to be logged in your CRM software.  This letter could be followed-up with a phone call or an in person cold call.

Making an in person cold call

I spoke about how to make a cold call  in an earlier post.

To do this successfully you would need to the following:

1 Make friends with the Gate-keeper.

2 Ask to speak with the decision maker.

Being that you are following-up on a lead; you already know the decision maker and can ask for them by name. When the gate-keeper asks why you are here to see the decision maker you should say that they contacted you about your product.

If you get to speak the decision maker; build rapport and be ready to deliver your sales presentation. Make  sure to ask for the sale. Also be sure to qualify their objections.

If the decision maker is not around; try to get an appointment.

Whether or not you make the sale, make sure to log this activity in your CRM software.

It is important to follow-up on all your sales activities and to keep records!

This is how to qualify and close leads.

Until next time, thank you for reading.