Coal VS Diamond Sales Leads

I have sold many things over the years. Some of the companies I worked for provided decent leads, while others were awful— like mining for coal.

If you have a decent sales team, they already have a good idea if the lead is a diamond or coal. So, they pick and choose. Thus, lots of your coal leads go into an old coal pile and never see the light of day again.

Your sales team wants good leads, but most of the ones we give them, even with a decent marketing program, will end up being coal, and only a few will be a diamond.

What is the most effective tool I have run across to produce diamond leads for your top closers?

Hire one or two hard-working part-time researchers (dirt diggers) to go mine for them.

The best people for this role have some sales skills where they had to build their client database from scratch. They would have worked at small to medium B2B recruiting, insurance, finance, real estate firm, or anything similar and lasted at least 2 -3 years.

These individuals have learned some excellent skills in getting a diamond lead up to the point where a good closer can come in and make the deal.

Before any lead gets passed on to your top closers, the diamond hunter should provide them with at least this information:

• Company’s annual sales
• Are they growing or stalled
• Number of employees
• Top executives and background
• International or Domestic
• Industry/vertical
• Five names and contact info of key decision-makers within the company
• Problems they are experiencing
• Using what competitor’s services or products
• Current news articles, ads, LinkedIn and Facebook page links, trade shows they attend, webinars they have put on, and YouTube videos.

Now, do your top closers a favor. Spend some of your marketing budgets on a diamond hunter, and less on an email drip campaign to “coal” leads. Everyone will be happier and make more $.

Let Nanette know if you need a Diamond Hunter—She has years of experience and can help you:

[email protected].