Converting Leads Into Deals

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And finally, when you will get that contract

/// Day 1: A sales person goes from office to office from business cluster to business cluster. In some cases he is aided by the tele-sales team, which fixes appointments for him. But otherwise he has to carry out that rigour himself. Positive response: None.

Day 2: There is no respite from the rigour. However, today, towards the end of the day, he meets a company, which shows some interest in his products and solutions.
...
...
Day 10: A few new leads have been generated. One seems to be piping hot. But the prospect of Day 2 has stopped responding to the follow-up calls or mails. In the evening, the sales person learns from his competitor that some third company has bagged that order by offering the best price.

The rigour continues. \\\

Sounds familiar? Most sales persons undergo this gruelling experience every day, especially those from the technology solutions industry.

The lead generation exercise involves dedicated efforts by the par

tner organisation. But despite these persistent efforts, only a few leads are converted to deals. For retailers, the conversion rate can be as low as 40 percent, but for solution providers, it may even get below two percent!

Both enterprise and SMB customers are very price sensitive and for a given product, they compare prices from three to four suppliers beforehand, which makes it a challenge to convert them into buyers. Also they are aware of the severe competition in the channel space that to get a better price, they simply talk to more suppliers and delay the buying decision by a couple of days. But that lengthens the lead generation cycle and increases the wastage involved in the process.

When leads go waste:

A lead going waste, i.e. not leading to sales, has a three-fold negative impact on a partner's organisation.

Every lead that does not get converted to a deal costs time. The sales and the presales executives, the telemarketing teams, and the