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Tip
of the Month: August 2006
Separate your leads into Hot, Warm, and Cold
Check out what Parker the Performer has to say from this excerpt from my book The Four Kinds of Sales People: Your Personal
Path to Breakthrough Achievement.
“I use a very simple system. Some people subscribe
to a complex time management system. I’m sure it works for them. But I’m
not a real detailed analytical person. This is what I do. Which opportunity is
hot? Which opportunity is warm? Which opportunity is cold? I simply focus on
hot until the deal is closed or until it is determined that it should be in one
of the other categories. Then I try to move warm to hot or cold as fast as possible.” Parker
went on, “This one is big, kid, so listen up. Do everything that you can
every day to advance your deals into sales. If you’re not advancing your
opportunities to a potential ‘yes’ or even a ‘no,’ then
you’re not selling.”
Page 51– Chapter 2, Parker the Performer
I could not have said it any better myself. In fact, I did say it in my new
book which all of you should read. Parker is cutting right to the core of managing
your sales opportunities:
“HOT, WARM, and COLD lead management.”
This is where the BEST are masters of managing their lead flow. They know exactly
which opportunity is “HOT because they’ve learned to identify a real
customer from an imposter. Their ability to qualify a lead and determine if they
are dealing with a potential “real” customer is paramount to efficiently
managing their time and their immediate sales success. I cannot tell you how
often I observe sales people spending their precious time chasing a sale that
will never come to fruition. The reason is that they don’t know how to
determine if they have a potential real customer or not. Well, the very best
do because they’ve determined the answer to these questions:
Does the potential customer have a real need?
Does the potential customer know they have a real need?
Can my product/service meet that need?
Can the potential customer pay or qualify to meet their need?
Are they going to have that need met by somebody or some company and if so when?
Depending on the answers, the very best know if that potential customer is a
HOT, WARM, or COLD lead and from there, they know how to manage their time.
Get next to a top producer and ask them how they manage their business and nine
times out of ten, they will lay out a version of HOT, WARM, and COLD lead management.
By the way, they didn’t actually “ask” the above questions
to determine the answers, but more on that later.
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