{"id":7997,"date":"2011-08-30T18:05:24","date_gmt":"2011-08-30T18:05:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/?p=7997"},"modified":"2014-10-01T18:07:37","modified_gmt":"2014-10-01T18:07:37","slug":"sales-leads-vs-closing-which-matters-more-to-sales-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/?p=7997","title":{"rendered":"Sales Leads vs. Closing % &#8211; Which Matters More to Sales Success?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>What&#8217;s the bigger challenge for B2B sales teams?\u00a0\u00a0 Finding and creating leads or closing them?<\/h2>\n<p>We asked that question on our LinkedIn group, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/e\/vgh\/2414575\/\">Sales Readiness<\/a>, and started a pretty spirited debate between members.\u00a0\u00a0 Probably the most thoughtful reply was this one from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/profile\/view?id=3763701&amp;authType=name&amp;authToken=L-UI&amp;goback=.gmp_2414575&amp;trk=anet_mfeed_profile\">Sandy Horner<\/a>, <em>&#8220;<\/em><em>If a lead is not closed, there is no sale. Therefore closing is critical. However I believe that a properly qualified lead that is well managed will close naturally, without the need for engaging in clever &#8216;closing techniques.'&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Consider your own sales organization.\u00a0 Which is more important to you, generating leads above your sales funnel or getting better at closing deals already in your pipeline?\u00a0 While the easy answer is to say both, force yourself to really think through the equation.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s one approach to determining the answer: <strong>change your win rate<\/strong>.\u00a0 Take it from 30% to 50% (or 15% to 25%) or whatever is a meaningful jump.\u00a0 Without getting better at any other stage of your sales pipeline &#8211; and keeping the number of incoming new opportunities steady &#8211; will you make your sales target this year?\u00a0\u00a0 That&#8217;s one way to start looking at things.\u00a0 Just realize if changing your win rate gets you to your goal in this calculation, you will actually have to <strong>change your real win rate!<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Of course the opposite side of this calculation is to increase the number qualified leads entering your funnel.\u00a0\u00a0 Keeping everything else the same, double or triple the new leads you receive and see what happens to your revenue goal.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s a template to help you run these scenarios.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/3forward.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/Lead-Calculator.tiff\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-4244\" title=\"Lead Calculator\" src=\"http:\/\/3forward.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/Lead-Calculator.tiff\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/3forward.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/Lead-Calculator.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-4245 aligncenter\" title=\"Lead Calculator\" src=\"http:\/\/3forward.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/Lead-Calculator.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"758\" height=\"459\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Most companies find that increasing leads is a much more sure thing way to get to their target.\u00a0\u00a0 Get better at both lead generation <strong><em>and<\/em><\/strong> closing and you&#8217;re on your way to Best In Class results!<\/p>\n<p>Try our Do I Have Enough Leads Calculator to help you work through this challenge.\u00a0 It lets you adjust many variables at once, or just one at a time.\u00a0\u00a0 It&#8217;s a revealing process and will help you focus your efforts to where the impact will be greatest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What&#8217;s the bigger challenge for B2B sales teams?\u00a0\u00a0 Finding and creating leads or closing them? We asked that question on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7997"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7997"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7997\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7998,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7997\/revisions\/7998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}