The value of sales qualified leads cannot be discounted. Before your salespeople can deliver their winning elevator pitch for landing a new customer, they’ll have to know who they should pitch to. If leads are passed to your sales department before determining their likelihood to buy your products or services, the conversation won’t deliver results.

How should you know which leads are through with window shopping and ready to buy? Having an air-tight lead qualification process will help your marketing mavens and sales squads pick sales qualified leads or SQLs.

What’s an SQL?

An SQL is a prospective customer that’s analyzed and vetted properly by an organization’s marketing and sales departments. A prospect is first researched by a company’s marketing department and then it’s cross-checked by its sales team. Once prospects are ready to enter the next stage of a business’s selling process, they’ll become sales qualified leads.

SQLs can also be prospects who may have expressed interest in your offerings to some degree and have connected with you through outreach campaigns or organic means. Once the prospects have expressed interest in your offerings, they’re introduced to your sales team who’ll vet them and gauge their sales-readiness.

The process of analyzing whether a prospect is an SQL is very similar for almost every organization with a marketing team and sales department. Besides, understanding what your SQL may look like is integral for your sales reps to work smartly in the future. Let’s dive deep into the value that accurately identified SQLs carry for a business.

The value of Sales Qualified Leads for a business

Saving time

Your sales staff already has a lot on its plate. That’s why you should do everything possible to help your sales personnel save time and boost their productivity. Having an idea of who your SQLs are will enable your sales team to prioritize time and work efficiently. For instance, a sales qualified lead will help your sales team to establish an SQL program so that it can pinpoint potential clients who are likelier to become your next big customer. Armed with this information, your sales team can gain a valuable client and quit wasting time on other leads who’re less likely to convert. Over time, you’ll fine-tune your SQL program and will identify customers accurately and quickly. In the long run, finding more SQLs will give you more opportunities to grow your customer base.

Delivering direction

Most sales departments have a hard time finding direction. That’s why a sales team may end up wasting a truckload of resources that could’ve been used more judiciously. SQLs can help your sales team discover actionable insights that can be used to develop sales strategies for effectively targeting prospects. With the help of SQLs, your sales team will be able to develop a set of criteria for identifying the contacts who are likelier to use your services or products. Besides giving your sales team direction, a comprehensive analysis of SQLs will help your company target better, convert faster, and grow stronger.

Saving money

Are you looking for an effective cost-takeout strategy for your company? Are you finding novel ways of saving money? If so, implementing an SQL program will help your business focus on clients who have a high probability of using your products or services. You may also integrate the BANT model into your SQL program. In the BANT model, the acronym BANT is expanded as budget, authority, need, and timeline. Under the BANT model, you’ll have to find the answers to the following questions.

  • BUDGET: Will the prospect be able to afford your services or product?
  • AUTHORITY: Does the point of contact carry the authority to make the buying decision?
  • NEED: Does the prospect require your services or products?
  • TIMELINE: At what point will the prospect need your products or services?

By finding answers to these questions, you’ll figure out which prospects are actually SQLs. With an idea of who your SQLs are, you’ll not spend money and resources on leads who don’t intend to buy from you in the first place. This way, when your SQL program has a simple BANT model, it’ll prevent your business from overspending its money on prospects that aren’t sales-ready.

Identifying the value of sales qualified leads accurately

Your sales qualified leads are likely to become paying clients. By getting the leads vetted from your sales department, your business will take a step toward optimizing its sales process while saving money and time.

However, the key lies in identifying SQLs accurately the first time. If you’re still relying on a trial-and-error method, you won’t be able to identify SQLs at speed. Delays in identifying SQLs will eventually throttle your business’s growth.

That’s why it’s essential to have an outsourced sales agency that has the expertise to help your sales department identify SQLs accurately and quickly. Your search for an experienced outsourced sales partner ends with our team of sales specialists at LeadJen.

We have years of expertise in offering outsourced sales solutions that’ll help your business discover prospects who are ready to become your SQLs. With our experience in helping businesses with optimizing their sales processes, we’re trusted by leading brands. Get in touch with our sales experts today and discover a quick way of identifying prospects that are ready to be qualified as SQLs.