The Right Number Of Sales Leads Can Improve Lead Conversion

Nothing kills sales production faster than the wrong number of leads. Too many causes lots of wasted money and complacency. Too little can be even worst--bored sales agents and frustrated compensation. Learn to tune you lead generation and distribution to optimize not only sales resources, but sales performance.

Measure Twice, Cut Once

Dad always said, "measure twice and cut once." I think the same rule applies to sales leads. So often we get a snippet of data and react with little thought. In online lead generation this can waste a lot of money changing strategies and damage evolving marketing successes.

As this applies to supplying the right number of sales leads you have to be very careful. Over supplying is certainly counterproductive, but so is under supplying. Attempting to maximize your sales production each month means hitting maximum throughput on your sales capacity. Often that means pumping more, not less through the sales engine.

Of course, the trick is efficiently managing that supply so that nothing gets wasted. This is where lead management come into play.

Sales Capacity is an Individual Thing

Sales capacity is truly an individual metric. Each sales person's capacity is effected by a myriad of influencers. If you are trying to determine overall sales capacity you have to create a weighted scale, not a flat average.

Whenever I am asked, "how many leads each sales agent should get?" I always ask, "what is their velocity?"

This has a lot to do with sourcing the appropriate lead flow. Sales agents will have a variety of conversion ratios, call volumes, and performance levels. These will all effect proper lead distribution.

Here are some of the factors I always review:

• Sales call volume
• Average attempts before a sale
• Average attempts before a withdraw
• Sales targets and quotas
• Commission tiers (you will be amazed at the glass ceilings this causes in sales)

Remember, sales team(s) are made of human beings. They will perform as such, each as individuals. Calculate your lead generation on the combined demand of the individuals, not an average of the group.

Distribute Leads Based on Sales Performance

As you dig into all of these numbers stick with the golden rule that will always serve you well: "Buy leads for performers."

Poor performers will always hoard and waste leads. So, feed your top performers and starve your poor performers--both groups' sale numbers will improve with this strategy.