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Finding alternate lead sources within your company

Guest post by: Kendra Lee

Article Overview: Many sales reps often overlook valuable lead sources within their own company, and spend precious selling time looking for leads outside their office doors. They attend networking events, travel to conferences and trade shows, partner with other sales reps, and research potential external lead sources, but rarely consider all the invaluable sources of information around them.

Finding alternate lead sources within your company

Many sales reps often overlook valuable lead sources within their own company, and spend precious selling time looking for leads outside their office doors. They attend networking events, travel to conferences and trade shows, partner with other sales reps, and research potential external lead sources, but rarely consider all the invaluable sources of information around them.

What they fail to realize is that some of the best sources for leads and customer information are fellow employees who work with current customers as part of their everyday job. For example, coworkers in customer service, human resources, accounting, and administration are dealing with and speaking to important customer contacts every day. They are often made aware of key information in their ordinary conversations that could be very useful to reps. This information can help reps adjust their sales strategies and ultimately lead to significant sales. If a sale rep can determine who "touches" their customers on a regular basis, they can establish a steady information and lead source within their own company.

By first considering the kind of information they would like to gather from a source, a sales rep can begin to develop potential internal sources and guide their sources' conversations with customers. Desired information might include insight into the account, if there are nay new contact people in place, if there are any pending organizational change, or if new products or services are being introduced. Using this information, a sales rep can very likely discover additional needs within an existing customer organization that they can help to address.

Some ways a sales rep can guide and train internal sources to provide leads:

Providing a list of questions or information to gather as the conversation allows.
Including them in account planning sessions or territory reviews. This elevates them to be part of the team and communicates your vision and direction.
Following up on a consistent basis. This reinforces how serious you are.
"Giving back" with some form of bonus. A gift certificate or dinner out are always appreciated, and will keep you in their mind whenever an opportunity arises.
Mutual respect and better communication are critical success factors in generating internal leads and creating internal partnerships. A sales rep and internal resource must respect the role each person plays in the company and their unique value to the customer. Internal partnering will open the lines of communication between different departments, ultimately strengthening the company while also generating additional sales.

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Article Tags: conferences, consistent basis, conversations, coworkers, customer information, fellow employees, human resources accounting, insight, internal sources, invaluable sources, networking events, office doors, organizational change, sales rep, sales reps, sales strategies, sessions, significant sales, sources of information, territory reviews



Related Forum Posts
Cold Calling ain't that bad - "Go for No" interesting concept and Jen great use of it. I'm working on a project right now and I think this concept/perspective can help. Thanks ppl. I try as mush as possible to convert a cold-lead into a warm one. Email is definitely one of my tools. I keep it short and add some value (e.g. article of the company in the paper) and that I will be contacting them on a particular date or time with their permission - much like what's been said before. I also try to find out if a company is running a blog or some extension of their company online and build rapport with the person maintaining the site - that usually will lead to an introduction to the person pulling the strings. Other times there just isn't time to build rapport and you just need to pick up the phone.
Re: FILL IN THE BLANK: When I'm feeling down about my business I - This is a great question Evan but I find it difficult to answer without sounding obvious. All my previous experience has been in engineering, brewing and now training. All of these jobs are challenging but were and are a lot easier to evaluate or seem to be than Internet Marketing. I know we have various means to check stats and lead sources etc but in many ways we seem to be dealing with something that quite often defies logic when it comes to finding and keeping customers, you can lead a horse to water etc etc. If my Internet business dips or seems to be stalling then I always liken my actions to a soccer match. The goalposts are constantly shifting as are the conditions but I figure that if I remember my basic skills and keep shooting as often as I can then eventually I will score again. just my thoughts, Mal.
Re: Keyword Phone Tracking - Google PPC - Hi Jeff, Thanks for the heads-up. No, I hadn't heard of the company. I understand that the company tracks phone call leads, but does the company also set up a recorded message for the client so that leads will hear the message and have the option of leaving a message? Or is the phone call redirected to the webmaster's business line and either fielded by the website owner, or a member of staff, or a call handling system that the business owner has set up entirely separate from the phone tracking company? What I mean is, is the tracking separate from the action the lead takes, just as with an ad tracker, where the tracker redirects the lead to a target web page while registering the action in the ad tracker control panel? Thanks, David H
Re: Kevin's Case Study #6 - Marketing an information resource? - Hi Sebastien, I'm wondering about two things: 1) What is your current revenue model? 2) Why would franchise owners choose to sign up with you over the lead generation companies? Is there some kind of quality control certification that you could award them to say that they are a World Franchising certified franchise? I'm not clear on what benefits a company seeking to franchise would really get from your site beyond the lead generation component.
Re: Kevin's Case Study #6 - Marketing an information resource? - Hey. have you done any surveying etc. to find out if the franchisors WANT and NEED the type of information you are looking to provide? What do you mean by saying you dont have what it takes to compete? Perhaps you arent thinking Blue Ocean Strategy enough? it means instead of competing, differentiate (which is what you want to do I get that), but how will the new revenue model work? would a company then have to list on both a lead gen site and your site?? would they do this? I would suggest a coffee with some of your clients and get their feedback on your ideas. Or perhaps finding a strategic alliance with one of the bigger lead gen firms? J


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