As a marketer I get requests from sales teams all the time.  We need more leads!  The only issue with this request is that the number of leads is only half of the equation.  The number to focus on is your conversion/close rate.  From that number you can work back and determine the optimal number of leads needed to hit sales goals. Of course, the quality of the leads is important and sales teams often use poor quality as an excuse to explain for their lack of sales.  Most of the time these sales people are in the wrong job and don’t realize it.  Those folks just want to take orders and have the sales come to them.  We use the term ‘sales leads’ for a reason.  A sales person needs to ‘lead’ the prospect to buy.

A friend of mine pointed out the movie/play Glen Gary Glen Ross and this one scene about “what it means to be a real estate salesman”.  This play was later turned into a film with this scene written specifically for Alec Baldwin. This scene is used in a lot of sales trainings along with Hard Ball Selling techniques.  Many companies are against this style of forced selling but it is still a great scene and makes you appreciate every lead you have.   It has some vulgarity so if that makes you uncomfortable don’t watch. It’s pretty intense.  If you haven’t seen it, enjoy.

So before you ask your marketing team for more leads take a second and ask yourself  – Have you done everything you can to sell to the leads you have?