The End of Lying to Salespeople
How do you tell if a lead is “hot”?
Is it what they say?
Or, what they do?
Rarely do we reach out to to salespeople to say “I’m a really hot lead, and I’d like you to convince me to buy!”
(We’re more likely to guard our true intentions from sales people. Even if this means politely feigning interest, when we’re not interested at all.)
We can lie in what we say.
But we can’t lie in what we do.
And the way we behave before a sales interaction is the strongest signal of buying intent.
To gauge whether a lead is likely to buy, we could track how many interactions a lead has with our brand, prior to buying.
Do they visit our pricing page?
Do they look at case studies or testimonials?
Do they download a white paper?
But even a single behaviour can speak volumes.
A study from Kissmetrics show ecommerce leads are 64-85% more likely to buy after watching a single video.
In traditional (offline, rep-driven) sales, the effect of certain behaviours is amplified.
A client recently discovered their leads are roughly 3x more likely to buy if they’ve read a simple pre-sales info-pack.
The pre-sales info-pack answers common questions about the product, and it’s sent to all leads. But not all leads take the time to review the information it contains.
When a lead had spent a few minutes reading the info-pack before a sales call, the sales process improves. A sales rep is free to speak in-depth to the customer’s needs, and how the solution benefits them.
But when a lead had NOT read the info pack, sales reps spend most of the call detailing how the product works – instead of how it benefits the lead.
By tracking which leads read the info-pack, and focussing sales reps on those leads, reps now give far more focus and attention to better quality leads.
The result is a far greater return from sales efforts.
Behaviour-driven hot-listing is a massive sales advantage over traditional “gut-feeling” hot-listing.
But it’s not possible to track lead behaviour with traditional selling. Behaviour-driven sales require a level of automation inside the sales process.