Recalcitrant Reps

Much has been written about the definition of a "qualified lead." And way too much money has been spent on Contact Management Systems. But when you're generating leads for salespeople, the one thing everyone assumes is that the salespeople actually want the leads.

After all, isn't getting a good lead the most important thing to a rep? Isn't it better to have someone else open the door for you? Well, the answer is usually yes, but sometimes it's no.

Just like a company that can have more business than it can handle, a salesperson may have too many prospects in the bottom of his funnel (i.e. close to closing,) to have time follow up on new leads. So he may turn them down.

The most important factors in whether the rep wants the leads is usually how they're doing against their quota, and when you're talking about. If they're running 130% of quota and it's December, expect a chilly reception. If they're at 75% and it's June, let 'em rip.

By the same token, they rep who's ahead in December could say to himself, "I need to fill the pipeline for next year, so I'll take anything I can get." And the rep who's at 75% in June might be there because he's just bad at the job, and you'd be throwing the leads down a rathole if you give them to him. So the maturity of the rep is equally important. (We'll talk about Prima Donnas in another post.)

This is where good Sales Management comes in. Start from the assumption that a regular flow of good leads is better than trying to time the rep's demand for leads - as an extra bonus, this will help smooth out the boom-and-bust cycling of revenues. Then teach good territory management techniques - ones that balance working on C, B and A prospects simultaneously, rather than dumping the funnel every few months.