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Your convention team returns from a trade show with 100 leads.  You don’t know much about any of the leads except that they visited your booth and expressed some interest in your product.

 Most seasoned professionals can categorize a lead into three categories.

1.       Deals we almost always win because of existing relationships.

2.      Deals we almost always lose because of existing relationships with competitors.

3.      Deals with the possibility to sway either way because of a lack of existing relationships.

 “Fish where the fish are.”  That’s what my grandfather always told me.  If we stick to that idiom, we should cut bait when faced with category 2 leads (deals we always lose).  The odds are long against us making the sale any time soon.  Instead, we’ll put them in our marketing program, keeping our brand top-of-mind with minimal effort. When they are ready to consider a change, they will know all about the rewards of doing business with us.

 Assuming we win all of category 1 and 50 percent of category 3, our closing rate jumps from 50 percent to 67 percent, just by not wasting efforts on leads with low closing rates.  The challenge lies in filing each of those 100 leads into one of the three categories.

 Segmenting leads is as simple as asking four questions.  With real answers even the sales novice can categorize a lead.

1.       Money

Is there a budget for a purchase?  If the answer is no, it could be because there is no budget, or because the decision maker has dedicated that budget to your competitor.

If the answer is yes, the lead is still alive.

2.      Authority

If your contact has the authority, and freely admits it, chances are the lead is active.

3.      Need

Where there is a need, there is interest.  If there is no need, chances are the product isn’t necessary or they are content with their current provider.

4.      Timeframe

If there is a timeline to research and make a purchasing decision the lead is hot.  If not, the lead is probably extremely cold.

 The answers must all be correct to land a lead in the category of possibilities.  If not, you probably have bigger fish to fry.