Best-selling author, speaker, executive coach; peer advisory boards #ChampagneMoment www.ExactlyWhereYouWanttoBe.com.

Sales calls and marketing content are both integral operations for the success of your company, but without conversions, they aren’t worth much at all. You can define the best sales processes, employ the smoothest sounding sales reps and hire a stellar marketing team, but it’s all for naught if your prospects don’t make the final decision to use your product or service.

The ability of your team to close sales is closely tied to their ability to generate leads and manage their pipelines. It is important to generate qualified, relevant leads rather than ones that will only end up being a waste of time. You must also ensure that you are targeting the right kinds of leads. While it would be nice if you could sell to anyone at any time, the truth is that you run a specific type of business that caters to certain industries and individuals.

Let’s take a look at some of the ways to improve your prospect targeting and lead qualification.

Target the right prospects.

If your company sells auto parts, you won’t get very far if your sales algorithms target clothing manufacturers. If you sell age-specific items, you should likewise try to target the relevant demographics. While more calls often lead to more sales, you want to make sure you are making the right calls instead of spending hours only to find out that you were speaking with people who aren’t even in the market for your product. Work smarter, not harder.

Fortunately, if you spend a little bit of time upfront with prospect targeting, you are likely to benefit from much higher conversion rates in your sales efforts. Instead of just opening a spreadsheet full of leads and blindly dialing, consider taking some time to make sure you are targeting the right people.

One of the keys here is making sure that your sales reps understand exactly what they are selling. Some people can smooth-talk their way through almost any conversation, but if they don’t connect with the prospect on a functional level, they’re never going to make a sale. Provide adequate training on your products and services, and you’ll have an educated sales force who will know what sort of prospects to look out for.

Pare down your lead lists to focus on adjacent industries and companies that can actually utilize your services. The size of the company here is important too because some larger corporations won’t even consider working with small startups until they reach a certain revenue level.

Listen to your marketing team and compile a database of social media users and interactions. This will help you understand the types of people who are interested in your company and will allow you to reach out to them in larger numbers.

Qualify your leads.

Now that you are able to target certain markets, you will need to move on to qualifying the leads within those markets. A qualified lead is one that has met specific criteria required to become a customer for your company. You can qualify a lead by speaking with the key decision-makers and determining whether or not it is worth it to move forward with the sales effort.

Basically, a qualified lead is a company or individual who has expressed interest in the types of products or services that you have to offer and has the ability to purchase from you. They might not have specifically said they want to work with your company, but at least you know they are seeking similar items to those in your catalog.

It is far more worth your time to go after qualified leads, even if you experience some pushback in the first place. Your sales reps should be able to dig and find some pain points they may have with their current providers. After all, why would they be in the market if they aren’t at least a little bit interested?

Unqualified leads, on the other hand, may ignore your calls for months, or even worse, string you along out of politeness but have no intentions or ability of ever actually buying your product!

Manage your relationships.

There is no better way to improve sales than to stay organized and set goals for every single prospect you speak with. In my experience, you can’t do this efficiently with a spreadsheet or a notepad. One of the best things you can do for your company is invest in a quality customer relationship management program.

A good CRM does most of the work for the sales rep, allowing them to focus on what they do best — sell! Instead of wasting valuable minutes between calls scheduling follow-ups and taking notes, the CRM will do that and will remind them when they need to make their next call. Even better is that the CRM can provide you quick access to all of your data, so you can see what’s working and what isn’t.

Sales are the lifeblood of your business — if you don’t excel in this area, your business can wither and die. As a business owner, you have a choice: you can work harder or you can work smarter. The leaders who make the most progress are working smarter. They are improving their sales conversion rate.

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