How to Find Qualified Leads

If you're a salesman who wants a long and happy career, lead generation is the most important of your job. Leads are what keep your career alive. The customers that buy, and keep buying, from you are how you keep your career thriving. Unfortunately, finding leads is difficult - especially when sales reps are expected to find their own. Luckily, there are 3 steps that make finding qualified leads extremely effective.

It's also time-consuming. The 2011 Sales Optimization Survey reports the average salesman spends 24% of their time researching and finding leads. This is time that should, for your wallet's sake, be spent selling. If you're a rep pulling double duty finding your own customers, you know how much of a hassle it can be.

That's why focusing on the right leads is so important, it removes the stress from sales. Leads come in all shapes and sizes, you should go after whichever is your favorite. That's a cute way of saying - go after the customers that are good for your business, the ones that are qualified.

Here's how you can find qualified leads:

1. Focus on your industry - If you sell medical devices you won't need to locate any hardware stores, but hospitals might be interesting to you. It also pays to get creative, target businesses that supply hospitals, or find smaller clinics that might have a use for your product if only the right sales rep came along.
2. Find the decision maker - You'll need to get past the gatekeeper - the secretary or assistant who takes calls and accepts visitors. Maintaining a positive attitude and understanding the benefits your product will have for the company (and the higher-ups) is essential. Getting past the gatekeeper creates an opportunity for a pitch with a decision maker. It might happen right there or you might get an appointment later - be ready for either.
3. Create a relationship - It's no secret that sales are a result of relationships. People buy from people they trust. They know you're trying to sell them something, but they also need to know you have their best interests at heart. The sale might not happen right there, but if you come off as trustworthy you'll gain a contact that could be a future customer.

Unfortunately, you'll still need to find your leads. Imagine how much more effective (and wealthy) you'd be with the weight of lead generation taken off your shoulders. Luckily for you and your soon-to-be customers, Badger Maps has built-in lead generation.

Badger understands how important a steady stream of leads is to sales reps. That's why our lead gen tool works across every industry, and seeing it on the map is as simple as typing in what you're looking for.

Here's how you become a quota crushing machine using lead generation in Badger Maps

Now you have a handy list of leads to refer to anytime. You can change the status of these leads as they progress through your sales cycle so that each is organized as efficiently as possible. Enjoy all those extra sales!