Let’s talk about two important factors due to which Lead Generation fails. Today’s discussion won’t be on the ‘Operational Part’ of lead generation failure which includes poor sales script, inadequate process, and team, wrong target market, etc. We will consider the Management’s perspective – how the Vice President of Sales or CEO of the company thinks when it comes to lead generation.
1. Let’s Not Confuse Lead Generation with Sales:
The first key factor is to understand that Lead Generation and Sales are not the same. A lot of people get confused with that. They are neither similar nut two different teams and departments. They are consequent to each other but they are not the same. Let’s look at the impact of this confusion.
Mistake of expecting ROI
Across many organizations, management and team members make the mistake of expecting ‘ROI’ from Lead Generation, in terms of Sales. It’s a wrong objective – one that cannot be achieved. It’s wrong to expect Lead Generation to bring sales. Your Sales team should take care of the sales function, and not the lead generation team.
What value should you expect from your Lead Generation team?
The value lies in the lead generation team leveraging your company, services, and product in the target market, getting a response from the market, and then processing it through sales.
Purpose of lead generation is to understand market demands and prospect requirements. The team might not be able to sell, but they are trying to penetrate and capture the target market, increasing market awareness. This is the value, that the lead generation team should be creating. They should not focus on sales at all.
2. Incorrect Sales Process Design:
Lead generation eventually fails if Sales is inadequate to take care of an aggressive lead generation engine.
- Often Sales is too passive and Lead Generation engine is too aggressive
In my observation, Sales is too passive and lead generation engine is too aggressive in many organizations because of which sales is not able to catch-up with the lead generation team and the work they are doing.
- Sales Response isn’t Registered or Reciprocated
Often the response from outreach, received by the sales team, after a lead was passed on to them, is not registered and reciprocated to Lead Generation team. So there is a gap in the cycle of lead generation and sales in your organization, because of which your Lead Generation team suffers.
Many a time, lead generation teams have immensely marketed the company’s services or products through fabulous pitching and impressive approaches. The target prospect has got extremely impressed yet the lead has gone cold, with sales taking over.
- Strong Start yet Journey Lost Midway
When Sales team isn’t able to do justice to the simulated interest that the lead generation successfully brings, it can be safely concluded that Sales team isn’t capable to shake hands with Lead generation team and generate success for the organization. So, after a strong start with lead generation, the journey is slowly lost when the sales team takes over.
The video is available on our YouTube channel, should you like to check out.
