The Great Debate: Quality vs. Volume
Doyle Slayton | Nov 16, 2008 | Comments 19
I would venture to guess that every one of us has been in this conversation. Here are a couple of examples for how these opposing view points would approach Lead Generation or Appointments.
Lead Generation (in a short sales cycle sales environment)
Quality: “I only want leads that are going to convert within the next 30 to 90 days.”
Volume: “As long as they are qualified, I’ll take leads that that will convert now or a year from now.”
Appointments
Quality: “I only attend appointments with prospects that I’ve diligently pre-qualified.”
Volume: “There is no such thing as a bad appointment. I get in front of as many prospects as I can.”
I’m a big believer in the concept of both… in other words I like to say that “We need to work on ‘Quality Volume.’” That said, I have a strong point of view as to which direction I would lean if I had to choose one.
If you had to choose between quality vs. volume, which one would you choose?
Take a moment to choose your preference on the reader poll and use the article comments section to provide reasons for your answer. I will share the results in a couple of weeks!
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Filed Under: Blog • Featured • Fun-n-Stuff • Leadership • Reader Questions • Sales • SalesTaxi
I work on the volume method. As I need business on a regular basis a lead that will close next year is as valuable to me as a lead that closes next year. Being a sales training expert, there is no such thing as a bad appointment so I do not pre-qualify. In setting an appointment I clearly let people know who I am and what I do so it would be highly unlikely that I would arrive and find out that my prospect doesn’t sell anything. If they sell something (other than strictly over the Internet) they either use salespeople of distributors and I train both. If theperson has too few salespeople now, they might have more in the near future. If they don’t need sales training now they might in the future. If I handle myself with professionalism during the sales call, even if the prospect doesn’t buy from me right now they most likely know someone who IS a good prospect for me today and I always ask for referrals. Since prospects buy from people they like and trust (with rare exceptions) selling is about relationships. It’s difficult to establish a relationship with someone if you’ve pre-qualified them out. Until the day arrives that I’m so busy that I don’t have the time to do all my work and go on new appointments I’ll continue to use the volume theory.
Quality. I’m not saying that volume is not important, but I’ve had too many clients do so many ‘networking’ meetings and appointments, that they don’t get in front of enough people with a checkboo because they don’t have time and because they don’t focus on meeting people are by definition prospects. I have nothing against growing a large contact networking database–it can help mid and long term. The problem with volume alone is that it does not take into account how many meetings or appointments it takes to surpass your quota right now. In some cases, it might only take 1 good one. If so, why have 10 that don’t fit? So, go for quality, be time efficient and work with those can feed you dollars (or yen, or whatever), and then work on volume.
The Lead Management question defines every Sales rep as Proactive or Reactive and is much more useful to approach from a corporate level rather than a field level because the field rep gets very emotional about it (see “GlenGarry Glen Ross”). Honestly, a company needs quantity; a rep needs quality.
As an executive, you value a company by looking at things like future cash flow projections and sales cycle. Many companies don’t even track these things accurately but they are the defining points in valuation when selling a company. Future cash flow relies on market share, primary and secondary, and how well the secondary and subsequent markets can be defined and made productive. From this perspective, EVERY lead has value – but not to Sales. (Don’t freak out, just listen.)
Executives judge a sales rep by his close cycle – how many, how fast and how high. If a sales rep spends ANY time wading through raw or unqualified leads when there are good leads in his pipe, he’s harming his own sales cycle rating. A close cycle (in the door, to money in the bank) can be anywhere from ten minutes to ten years. A proper Lead Management System breaks this cycle in two: Marketing Lead Management and Sales Lead Management. By doing this, Sales becomes responsible for only those leads they can realistically close. Two years becomes two months.
Marketing should have responsibility for any lead not yet or no longer qualified. They should be kept in a bucket, accessible to Sales whenever they want to prospect, but separate. Marketing divides them into “People Who Know Us” and “Cold Leads” and they are marketed to very differently as Marketing takes the responsibility to educate them about the company and products/services offered. Once a lead reaches a certain pre-determined criteria, it gets pushed to Sales. These are the GlenGarry Glen Ross leads. These leads have been educated about the company and offerings, they have money, and they want to buy something from somebody. You just have to sell them your product/service.
Sales & Marketing is siloed for a reason. Marketing warms up leads for Sales. If this is not true in your organization, it should be. Search on “Lead Management System” and read the objectives of any of these technical solutions. Their product descriptions are road maps for how your lead management should work, whether you use a prepackaged system or not.
PS. Reactive Sales Reps live a precarious life. Use any spare time to prospect, not beg for more (unqualified) leads.
Sales is essentially a numbers game. More suspects = more prospects. More prospects = more customers/orders. This is the traditional thinking and in many industries and selling opportunities it absolutely holds true 100% of the time.
But what of the more complex relationship sales? While one could argue it’s still ultimately a numbers game, is it really? When you have to devote time and resources to research and identify opportunities then are you not in fact using the Quality over Quantity method right from the start?
The thing that troubles me with both of the methods argument is at no time does it consider what the customer wants or how he or she desires to be treated or approached. Even at the very beginning of the cold call process it would seem that demonstrating trust and credibility would be paramount in moving to the next step in the sales process. When we focus on the buyer, we become better sellers.
The saleperson needs as many needs and prospects as possible. The salesperson gets in front of the customer and can make the decision on qualification. The salesperson and the customer need to have a meeting of the minds, and that’ll decide on the quality of the lead.
I tend to be a volume sales person for the exact same reasons stated. Never pre-judge,if not sold today:network for the pipe-line,for timing is everything. I would say however, that the preference would be quality. Then my work is half done for me. Timing usually isn’t an issue, just education and the transfer of value.
taking a volume sale, although it may not help in building credibility, it does lead to other leads and potential sales. As a manager in sales every sale is unique and every situation requires different techniques to close every sale. you have to be like a chameleon and change your techniques with the way of the times. in this economy,you need to be pro-active and take all the sales you can especially volume due to the consumers fear of the economy and whether or not they would be able to make the purchase in the future.
I like to think of it in 3 stages with the ultimate goal being quality. 1. At the start, you need volume. (Talk to anyone any time is the motto)However, volume becomes the old “numbers” game. Which, in my opinion, eventually causes burn out. At some point it needs to be converted or it will cap out. There are only so many hours in a day to go after blind volume. 2. You slowly turn that volume into quality. At this point, you are doing about 50/50 volume vs quality. 3. This is when there is enough quality to replace 100% of the blind volume. I believe this is where you want to be.
Quality always before volume. It may take volumes of activity to find the quality leads or pre-qualified appointments that I want, but there is no substitute for quality. Quality always makes sense, whether it be leads, appointments, products or services, quality provides me the one thing that I can not recreate once it is gone and that is time. My time is valuable and critical to my success. I can not waste even a minute going on an unqualified appointments or calling leads that are useless.
Productivity = Efficiency times Effectiveness.
Simply put, if your leads all lead to the same amount of sales, it doesn’t matter if there is an 80% efficiency at getting to leads and 60% at converting them or vice versa.
Of course life is not so easy. We’re discussing the ‘backpack problem’. Time is the backpack and only so many hours can be packed into a sales period. The goal has to be prioritizing leads to maximize value.
The million dollar lead with a 10% chance is less worthy than the 100,000 dollar lead with a 50% change of conversion. Next period that million dollar lead may be the first thing put in the pack.
I prefer to spend my time with quality leads, however, I believe in the law of reciprocity in that the time I spend with someone now could pay off later. Also, there is practice to be gained from volume. Experience can be an integral key both to becoming more efficient and being able to identify quality vs. volume.
It depends on the situation and how busy you are otherwise. If things are hopping, you spend most of your time on the most likely and qualified leads and appts. Go for the “low-hanging fruit.” But even then, you need to spend maybe 20% of your time on those prospects that need more time to develop. Otherwise you’ll close the more urgent sales and have to start from the beginning with those longer-cycle sales.
This is a sticky subject because these choices do not quite give me the leeway I look for and practice. When I look at sales it is definitely a numbers game therefore volume is the king, but at the same time it is useless for me or my staff to wast time with prospects that may never turn into sales. The approach I take is to combine both methods – take as many leads as you can get your hands on and then go through a process of culling them down into prospect categories. By doing a modicum of pre-qualification you are able to focus yourself and your staff on the best prospects for the short, medium and long term and weed out those that have little to no chance for real business.
I practice the voulume method to both – And my reasoning is very simple. You do not know what the potential client needs until you meet with them. I am a networking Queen, so when a potential client needs something, I more than likely have a relationship with someone to help them. Then if they are ready to buy my product, they will, and if not, when they are ready…I will be the name they remember, because I am in it for the long run and not the short sale – but sales relationships!
Ideally, quality should lead the way. However, I believe this discussion must involve sales and marketing as a team.
Most marketing efforts require sales people to qualify the lead because the marketing medium involves some sort of interruption to the prospect (think print ad, non-opt-in e-mail, direct mail and cold calling).
What if marketing efforts caused prospects to voluntarily raise their hands and indicate that “yes” I have an interest in your product or service? I think social media marketing tools make this lead type very achievable.
With sales and marketing working in concert with each other, I’d take quality over volume any day.
Hi Doyle.
I have been on both sides of the quality versus volume debate. Being in outside sales, and dealing in deals in excess of $100K, I will always take quality since my time is limited and the sales cycle is 6-12 months.
However, on the flip side, back in my early years of smaller deals, I would take volume since it is more of a numbers game, in my opinion when you are working on smaller deals. By smaller deals, I am referring to under $10K.
Best Regards,
Mark Secko
Mantralogix
msecko@mantralogix.com
http://www.mantralogix.com
I feel that there is a slight trick to this question. Yes we would all like to be handed a database, or list of high quality, relevant leads who have all been pre-assessed for interest in the type service, or product we wish to provide them.
What this fails to take into account is that no matter how detailed the research you have conducted you will never achieve 100% conversion of prospects to deals. This can be due to anything from personal commitments to good old fashioned acts of god, which can only be assessed once you meet/speak to the client; and sometimes not even then.
If you are working from a low quality, high volume list of leads which has a low conversion rate it is simple matter of increasing the number of pitches you are making or meetings you are attending. However if you have a fixed volume of high quality leads there is no way to offset the unavoidable reduction in conversion rate. Therefore it is my belief that, in terms of revenue, sales is a numbers game!
Its got to be quality. The trick is in defining what quality means in a given business. Sending only the most “close-able” leads or appointments to your sales team is by definition more profitable.
The problem is that too many businesses just haven’t figured out how to get enough of them.
Brian Carroll’s “Lead Generations for the Complex Sale” is a great book on how to design a flow of leads for maximum quality that can be dialed up for needed volume.
Quality & Volume to choose before either onr, I have to look into type of product which I sell and type of industry where I sell. If it is high value goods we need to have volume based enquiry where very few enquiiries get qualified later and when it comes low value again it boils down to volume based enquiries are important. In any case we need to have pool of enquiries and sales team has to be well aware how to qualify the lead. Today world is to create a need in the customer place and not to just selling a product or services. Customer expect from a sales person solution rather a product. Of course the product or good which sells it to customer have to meet his need. I feel volume based leads are more important which would help in a long run to have more sales. More & more leads which help sales person to meet his forecast and his target.