If you’re looking for ways to increase your sales revenue in 2024, you need to focus on generating more sales qualified leads.
But what are sales-qualified leads, and how do you get them?
In this ultimate guide, we’ll explain everything you need to know about sales-qualified leads, including how to define them, how to identify them, and how to convert them into customers.
You see qualifying a lead is imperative as it saves time and resources, simultaneously making us both efficient and effective in our sales efforts. The objective is to convert leads into customers. If SDRs have a sophisticated understanding of their target audience, they will know how to provide a better customer experience, and ultimately, they will quickly convert their prospects.
Let’s start by understanding a sales development representative’s process to qualify leads.
How Do SDRs Get Sales Qualified Leads?
SDRs are responsible for qualifying leads and moving them through the sales funnel, from marketing-qualified leads to sales-qualified leads. This process involves sending emails, reaching out to prospects, and following up regularly.
However, SDRs may sometimes miss an email or two, which can affect their conversion rates. That’s why they use SmartReach, a user-friendly and convenient software that gives them crucial insights and metrics on their campaigns.
SmartReach also offers customer-centric features that enhance its efficiency. For example, SDRs can use merge tags to customize their emails with the prospect’s name, company, or other details.
SmartReach can integrate with various sources of leads, such as CSV, CRM, or LinkedIn. It allows SDRs to send automated emails and follow-ups to all their leads. It also enables SDRs to add comprehensive data about prospects by creating unlimited custom columns.
But not all leads are worth pursuing. Therefore, SDRs need to know the characteristics of a sales-qualified lead before they can define it.
What is a Sales Qualified Lead?
A Sales Qualified Lead, also called SQL, is a prospect who has demonstrated a high likelihood of conversion by showing interest in your product or service.
Once the lead shows interest, it is vital to maintain their interest because half of your work is done as soon as the prospect reverts. When qualified, a lead comes with the label ‘handle with care,’ meaning SDRs should be mindful of asking the right questions and participating actively while handling the queries.
While interacting with leads, two main qualities can distinguish a qualified lead from a dead-end one. That is:
- If a prospect shows a strong interest in your product or service,
- And is likely to complete the sales process as soon as possible,
By asking the right sales qualification questions, you will understand if the lead is qualified to purchase your product.
Why Do Sales Qualified Leads Matter?
Sales qualified leads demonstrate a higher level of interest in your offering and have a higher probability of becoming paying customers.
Below are key reasons why SQL is important to sales teams.
1. Better Conversions
Sales qualified leads have already exhibited an intent to purchase or take the next step in the sales process. This means they are more likely to convert into paid customers than leads that have not yet been qualified.
2. Improved Efficiency
By focusing on sales qualified leads you can better prioritize your time and resources. By targeting those who have shown a genuine interest in what you offer, you can avoid wasting your time and energy on leads that are unlikely to convert.
3. Better Alignment of Verticals
Sales and marketing verticals often have different goals and objectives. By using SQLs, they can better align their efforts and work together to achieve top-level revenue goals
4. Enhanced Sales Experience
By targeting sales qualified leads, you can provide a more personalized and tailored experience to prospective clients. This will help build rapport and trust, ultimately creating a more positive experience and increased customer satisfaction.
5. Superior Lead Quality
By focusing on sales qualified leads you can identify and target prospects who are most likely to become paid customers, leading to higher-quality leads and better overall results.
Now that we know the importance of sales qualified leads let’s understand how to identify them amongst millions of prospects.
How to Identify Sales Qualified Leads?
Developed by IBM in the 1950s, BANT is a sales entitlement assessment methodology that helps salespeople identify qualified leads by focusing on four considerations: Budget, Authority, Necessity, and Timing.
BANT’s primary goal for sales teams is to save time and shorten the sales cycle. Sales reps can use the BANT lead qualification process to filter out unfruitful prospects and focus instead on leads that are more likely to buy.
Budget
The first criterion to consider is the budget.
This means finding out if the prospect has the money to afford your product or service. You can ask prospects about their budget and how much they are willing to spend. This information can help you speed up your sales process and increase your conversion rate. If your prospect does not have the budget or is not willing to pay your minimum price, you should not waste your time chasing them.
Authority
The second criterion to consider is the authority.
This means finding out if the prospect has the power to make or influence the purchase decision. Sometimes, your contact may not be the final decision-maker, but they may need to consult with other stakeholders. If your contact does not have the authority to close the deal, you should try to get them to introduce you to the real decision-maker. In summary, you need to talk to the people who can make or influence the decision.
Need
The third criterion to consider is the need.
This means discovering if the prospect has a problem that your product or service can solve. Even if your lead has the budget and the authority, they may not have a real need for your solution. Focusing on the right customers for your business means that you are more likely to retain them if you can solve their problems.
Timing
The fourth criterion to consider is the timing.
This means finding out how urgent the prospect’s purchase is. You can ask your prospects how soon they want to solve their problem. You can keep pursuing the lead if they want to solve their problem in the next few months. If the prospect plans to make a purchase decision in a year or more, you should stop tracking them and follow up later. Alternatively, you can create a sense of urgency by offering limited-time discounts on your products or services.
Finding and Converting Sales Qualified Leads (Steps)
1. Know Your Customer
Establishing a buyer persona helps the marketing and sales team know the exact type of leads they should be going after.
Having a clear understanding of who the customer is, ensures the marketing and sales efforts are targeted to the most appropriate audience or ICP. This includes creating content and lead magnets addressing pain points that are unique to your buyer persona.
Additionally, having a clear understanding of your target audience helps weed out leads that don’t fit the criteria. Lastly, it is important to keep updating your ICP and buyer persona depending on the data you receive about your existing customers.
You should know the following about your target audience
- Their demographic
- Their pain points
- The industry they belong to
- The age and income range
2. Make a List of Qualified Leads
Once you know your ideal customer profile, you can make a list of them to be more organized and effective. This list should include their name, phone number (optional), email address, and job title. These are the people who have essentially expressed interest in purchasing your product or service and stand a high chance of converting from qualified leads to customers.
This includes building a list of prospects based on your ICP and persona using prospecting software such as ProspectDaddy, a LinkedIn Email Finder tool that provides business email, LinkedIn profiles, designations, current company, city, etc.
The main motive to create a list is to basically save your time and also because it will help you to be more structured. While making a list the only thing that should be kept in mind is to make your list informational.
Sales engagement software like SmartReach.io provides a pre-sales CRM that enables prospect categorization and tagging systems. It helps to manage a large number of prospects. The categorization feature enables the easy identification of prospects based on their status, including whether they have converted, expressed interest, indicated disinterest, or opted for “do not disturb”. This allows sales teams to prioritize their efforts and tailor their outreach strategies to individual prospects
3. Have a conversation, not a sales call
Always try to converse with your prospects rather than selling them your sales pitch because they only need information about your service or product and how it will fit into their lives. If SDRs are focused only on the pricing rather than how their product/service will add value to the prospect’s lives, the sales call will automatically lead to a dead-end.
To do this, one may always tailor their pitch to their prospect’s situation as doing so will make you more relatable to them and increase their sense of connection. Be sure to tailor your pitches to each of your prospects.
4. Study and sell
It’s hard to get someone else all geared up about what you are selling if you are the one who is not confident enough about your product. Know your product or service inside out before you take any action to sell it. Anticipate all the questions and get ready with concrete, meaningful answers.
In addition to pertinent facts and figures, share examples of how your product/service has helped companies similar to theirs. Whether you are speaking to your target audience via cold call or via a post on LinkedIn, the secret is to talk about your product or service in a way that addresses your prospect’s pain points so they want to be part of what you offer.
5. Capture Unsatisfied Customers of the Competitor
Another excellent place to find qualified leads is your competitor’s social media platforms. These are leads who are not happy with your customer’s service and have left a negative comment on your client’s social media or on Google reviews. This is your chance to win them over. Reach out to these leads and see if they’d be interested in a free product demo.
Sales Qualified Leads: Conclusion
Although the job of a sales development representative might sound easy, it isn’t. From researching and managing tons of cold emails to dealing with multiple prospects all day to get qualified leads for their firm, the job of SDRs never ends. But what plays an essential role in their everyday life are the sales-qualified leads they generate with all their hard work.
A sales-qualified lead is a prospect that shows interest in the product or service that an SDR offers. Not every lead converts to a sale, so to know which lead is a qualified one, SDRs must understand the qualities of a qualified lead: the amount of interest a prospect shows and their willingness to buy the product or service and the timeframe in which they want to close the deal. If the sales team has a healthy number of sales-qualified leads, it will help them to close more deals quickly.
Sales Qualified Leads – F.A.Qs
Q. What is the difference between marketing-qualified leads and sales-qualified leads?
A. A marketing-qualified lead is interested in learning more about your product. However, this person is not ready to become a customer yet. On the other hand, SQL is ready to learn more about your product, has the budget to purchase from you, and is a decision-maker.
Q. What are the requirements for a lead to be a sales-qualified lead?
A. A sales-qualified lead meets the following requirements.
- They are ready to purchase from you
- They have a reasonable budget
- They are a decision maker.
Q. What are the next steps once you qualify for a lead?
A. Once you’ve qualified a lead,
- Send them valuable resources via email (address their pain points)
- Engage with them on social platforms
- Work toward getting them on a sales call
