I was recently asked to be part of a small group of database system providers that were being evaluated for a CRO’s sales department. The CRO wanted to locate a database/system provider that would help their sales department generate more leads, which I interpreted to be a need for a fruitful lead generation system. The comparison revealed that current providers offer databases containing companies and excellent business intelligence, but they were not helpful or easily accessible to the sales teams to assist with generating new leads for potential business. No matter the size of the company, the challenge continues to seem to be how to get more leads into the sales pipeline and the database alone is not the answer.
SALES-LINK has been providing lead generation services on an outsourced basis since 2006. Recently, we started leasing seats on our advanced system. This system coupled with our expert training has proved a successful combination that even the most inexperienced member of a sales team can use to generate leads.
When maintaining and using your own lead generation database, we recommend that you adhere to the following SALES-LINK practices:
- Garbage in, garbage out. Know your data source. Are they willing to update if the data is old?
- Have a plan for how to maintain data once it's in your hands.
- Use it everyday and cast a wide net.
- Have a process to connect comments from industry.
- Use search results to quickly narrow down contacts with specific characteristics so you can do more with targeted messaging.