What is a qualified lead?

You may think that you have plenty of leads – you get calls every day from potential customers and your website gets loads of hits. Aren’t they all good leads? Not necessarily. In fact these “leads” are probably just “enquiries”. What you need are Qualified Leads.

Enquiries and not qualified leads

If you think carefully about how many of these enquiries you receive turn into sales, your hit rate is most likely quite low. In fact many of the enquiries you receive are probably considered by you to be leads, but really they aren’t. The reasons for this are varied:

• They have called you to find information which wasn’t on your website
• They quickly realise you are not in their area
• They learn that you don’t actually sell what they were looking for
• They accidentally ended up at your website when they were looking for something else
• They are calling for advice or information and have no intention of buying anything from you

You need qualified leads and the services of a lead generation company will take your enquires and check they are qualified leads before you even have any contact with them at all. But how do they turn enquiries into leads, thus giving you the best possible chance to turning the lead into a sale?

A genuine interest in your product

The method by which your qualified lead comes to you includes them making a specific search on the internet. They will have been looking for your product right from the start. At this point the leads generation company know that this customer wants information about your product and could be interested in buying it.

If they become a lead, you know that they have taken the extra steps required to give your lead generation company their details and is willing for them to be passed to you. This shows real commitment and above all shows the following:

• They are the decision maker when it comes to purchasing your item. They have allowed their name to be taken and want to be contacted. You can be sure they are willing to talk to you about your product and will be happy to decide if they will make a purchase.
• They are likely to have enough money to buy your product. They will be aware of the costs (at least at a superficial level) and they have agreed to take their enquires past the information stage and on to the potential purchase stage.
• If relevant, they will live in your business area and will be looking for a local company to help them with their purchase.

When you receive the details of your qualified lead there is only one thing missing – you. You need to convince your lead of the benefits of your product and the fact that they need to purchase from you and not from one of your competitors. The lead generation company can only do so much and at some point you will need to close the sale.