Speed to lead is a powerful technique used by leaders, entrepreneurs and CEOs to gain an advantage over their competitors. They get ahead of the pack, build a fantastic team, and ensure they are always on top of their game.
The speed to lead is the time it takes your organization, on average, to respond to a qualified prospect from the moment they become an inbound lead. This moment when a potential client becomes a lead can vary by organization, but it's generally when the prospect fills out a demo request or contact form.
Speed is critical in a multiplayer business world because the race to act can be sneaky. Sudden changes are frequent, and perfecting your ability to spot them before they happen will make all the difference in your marketing efforts.
The longer you wait, then everything that happens after that point could decide whether or not you'll get broad market exposure at fantastic cost savings.
Not only is this concept is a sign of your customer care team's diligence, but it also plays a vital role in the conversion rate of potential customers.
A key point here is that it isn't just about responding quickly: it deals with all touchpoints for a potential customer.
If you're marketing your product through Google Ads, then every time someone clicks on your ad and lands on a sales page or confronts a live person, that's part of the touchpoint.
For instance, if a lead is ready to purchase your product and the affiliate marketer behind them can't make that conversion happen immediately via phone call or email, you could lose out on big money.
I don't think it is, and as long as you are measuring your speed to lead in a way that works for you, there's no set formula.
Some companies replace speed to close with closing ratios these days. Others focus more on IPOs versus new orders — whatever works best for the company depends on its unique business model and specific situation.
But I think in today's world of just about every rep getting an email from their Sales Development Representative Manager about who they should be reaching out to next, there needs to still be some measurement system in place.
It's too easy for reps to see the value of filling out a form in their CRM, even if that lead was acquired yesterday (or today by default), but it would have no impact on your business moving forward.
Answer: 5 to 20 minutes
Yeah, I know. It's a significant number. But if you step back, think of this as something like the gap between your lead qualification and your sales cycle time.
Every IVR company can boast that they take an average of 1 business day to qualify leads (it makes sense when you look at their entire CRM). Ten such companies would make up a 50-day sales cycle—seems solid enough!
But what if you had 25 businesses? How long could it take those 250 agents working together to qualify those leads? Of course, we know the answer to that one: 524 hours.
So, 50 days = 10 x 25 = 250 leads, each of which would take one whole day to qualify; therefore, allowing all those steps (and potentially even hitting on some fraudulent ones) would require at least two weeks. It's a lot of work, and it takes time.
Texting leads is an easy way to improve your response time. If a seller texts you and you don't respond, they start wondering if it's going to happen or not. In this case, when someone reaches out to you, they're already subscribed to your content, so they know what kind of responses they're going to get.
Many companies use SMS for lead management in a certain way.
It's quick and easy to pull up the handle information of each lead you receive by sending them a text message with their name, phone number and handle ("Market Professor & The Money Plan: Giving Hope And Solutions To People Who Want More" offers "a much more realistic approach to money issues while presenting strategies which will empower you in handling your finances.").
That may sound extreme, but I think it's a fair benchmark for the entire industry.
Why this question matters:
While lead funnelling is often found on various job evaluation surveys and employee reviews, I remember very few people being asked about return on investment of their time spent qualification methods by phone reps.
These questions were usually geared at sales (and are still some of the better ones), but there need to be similar scale measurements across all levels of customer service in most places.
The speed to lead is a concept coined by Andy Grove, a former CEO of Intel. He says that the only thing that matters is how fast you can move, so that's what we're going to discuss in this blog post.
There are two types of speed: physical and mental.
Physical speed refers to your actual running or walking pace; it's something you can measure and see with your own eyes.
Mental speed refers to the rate at which you process information; it's something you need to read between the lines and figure out on your own. Speed directly impacts performance; if you want to excel at anything, you must improve both physical and mental rates.
That's all for now! See you later with a different topic!
