In this article, you will discover complaints sales people and their organizations have in identifying and securing qualified leads. I will review different prospecting methods and the level of effectiveness each delivers. You will then read about the common denominator that links both the methods and these complaints. We will define what a qualified lead is, and finally, we will review some ways to generate qualified leads using the common denominator, the telephone, to contribute to the success of sales people.

Complaints
I am always amazed to hear sales people complain about how difficult it is to build their pipeline and therefore meet or exceed their revenue target. I often hear gripes like:

• Marketing is sending me poor leads and I am wasting my time going after them.
• Prospects don’t call me even though we have a terrific product feature set advertised all over the place.
• I call new prospects but they never return my calls.
• I can’t get anyone on the phone to present what I offer with players that can buy from me.

The other complaint I hear from companies is that their sales people are not good at prospecting. These companies know they need a better qualified pipeline. They implement what everybody else has implemented to generate leads, from email campaigns, direct mailing, trade shows, seminars, and then some. Unfortunately, it only perpetuates what has failed to create the desired outcome of effectively and cost efficiently generating qualified leads.

Upon review of these pipelines, I find that few have qualified leads. I am therefore astonished when sales people act surprised when they are not meeting or exceeding their quarterly and yearly revenue target.

Achieving sales goals and meeting revenue target are a sales person’s responsibility. It is part of the job definition. We, as sales people, have no excuses at the end of year if we have not reached our goals and made the money we want to make. Whatever lead marketing or any other part of the organization comes up with is simply icing on the cake. Therefore, it is our responsibility to prospect and create the opportunities we will need to meet our objectives.

Type of prospecting tools and methods
The University of Carolina business school published the results of a research they did, dealing with the effectiveness of different prospecting approaches. Here is a brief summary of its findings:

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