03/05/2019
Conversation with a manufacturing prospect.
Me: After I do a sales audit, but before we put the process in place. I do what is called lead scoring. This is where we see which leads you are following are working and which are not.
Prospect: No, you don't need to worry about leads. We have plenty of leads.
Me: Do you know if they are converting?
Prospect: Well, if they are not, it's the sales teams fault.
Me: But what if they are bad leads?
Prospect: There are no bad leads.
Me: Yes, there are. And if you continue to give bad leads to your sales team, you will burn them out and have high turn-over.
Prospect: No, we just need better salespeople. Can you help with that?
Me. Yes, I can, but no, first we need to fix the quality of leads.
Prospect: Any lead is a good lead.
Me: That's wrong and let me explain it in a way you'll understand. You produce your product. (Not giving away what they produce to protect possible figuring who they are.) Do you use any random material to create it? Anything will do right?
Prospect: No, we have specific materials that we use.
Me: Why? I would be cheaper and easier to use anything you want.
Prospect: No, if you use poor materials it produces a poor product that doesn't compete in our industry.
Me: So, garbage in, garbage out?
Prospect: Yes, exacty.
Me; Just staring at them.
After a minute or two
Prospect: Oh, I get it now. If I give better leads to my team, I'll get a better result.
In my mind: Lights and fireworks going off!!!!!!
It's wonderful when a business owner finally gets a small part of sales. Not a lot of them do. Sales is not their background. But if I can't teach them part of it, I can't work with them.
