How do you keep the sales team engaged?

Over the past few weeks, I’ve frequently discussed online leads at the Ligier Store and the Experience Store Doesburg with my managing director Gerard Franken. Occasionally, we miss a lead, and in a way that makes me think from a distance, it could have been better or different. To put it in the right perspective: we then didn’t call for the fourth or fifth time, instead of missing the first call attempt. But missing is missing!

Now I wonder, as Gerard does: should you be so closely involved in every lead? Or should you monitor the process at a high level?

The process at our end is clear. The online lead comes in, is immediately called within a minute, and if the customer doesn’t answer, another call attempt is made within five minutes using a different number. An email, SMS, and WhatsApp message are also sent immediately. So the customer has several options to respond.

Some leads don’t respond at all!

Sometimes, and this happens in at least 20% of cases, customers don’t respond at all. Not to the calls and not to the SMS, email, or WhatsApp messages. You can see that the email has been opened, but that’s where it ends. It’s also a challenge for us to keep trying. After all, marketing has invested money in the lead, and without contact, it always results in a negative ROI.

The SMS is fully automated with Calldrip Automation AI – Alice, but the calling, emailing, and WhatsApping must be done manually in the second phase. All these steps are described in the process, but are they actually taken?

Back to our initial question: how closely should a sales manager want to be involved with their salespeople? Do you follow every lead, or do you monitor the process and inspect it randomly?

In our case, we eventually follow every lead. After all, every lead is an investment. One costs € 32.95 (ViaBOVAG call), the other has a CPL of € 50 via Google Ads. The investments have been made, and where one seller doesn’t see the opportunity, another pair of eyes might. By being able to score each conversation and provide a summary via Calldrip Automation (see below), you actually have control over your process.

Inspect

As a sales manager, you inspect the results you expect to get from your online leads, to ultimately get the sales results that justify the marketing investment. Sales doesn’t dictate that marketing should make other investments because the campaign isn’t ‘working,’ but it works the other way around. Marketing must gather opportunities/leads, and sales must create a minimum conversion of opportunities/leads into sales.

It’s not always easy to review all leads, but just do it daily. Review the new leads and the appointments that have been made every day. No more and no less. If you look once a week, the list of leads is already too large to go through individually. If you then randomly review a few leads, the ‘exception’ always wins over the rule. Why was this lead not called…?

So the advice to Gerard is to review all leads from the previous day with Duncan daily, as well as all incoming calls, summaries, and appointments. Every day and every week, to achieve the best result.