We’ve all heard the concept “nurturing leads.” If you haven’t, it’s the strategy where you take a lead and you put them into some sort of a cadence where they receive touches from you on a regular basis. The idea is if you touch them enough they will eventually become a customer.
Remember that kid in your 2nd grade class who couldn’t keep from touching everyone? Sure you do, because you spent recess each day making sure he wasn’t anywhere near you.
The worst thing was when he was behind you in line as you went to lunch. While in line you had to determine what was a worse fate — having him touch you five times or having to eat the school lunch of tuna casserole. Just saying the words “school lunch” probably causes your stomach to curdle and your throat to swell up.
Relax, you’re out of school! No school lunch for you to worry about!
Most likely your nurturing strategy is no better than that creepy 2nd grade kid! It’s one touch after another, with each one bugging the person just a little bit more.
In the last couple of weeks, I’ve received 3 emails and 3 voicemails from the same salesperson. Each one claiming I must be missing his other messages and we need to talk. Each message was about the need to get in touch, but nothing about why it would be of importance to me. I’m giving this salesperson the creepy 2nd grader award.
We can argue his emails and phone calls aren’t taking too much of his time, so it’s worth it for him to keep contacting me, but is it?
The most valuable asset you have is your time, followed by your personal equity. If all you’re doing is executing nurturing campaigns that go on and on, then I ask you to look at the definition of insanity. Go ahead. I’ll wait.
If you’re not bringing new value to your leads and prospects each time you communicate with them, you’ll do nothing but destroy your personal equity. The most damaging thing of all is you’ll become discouraged and demotivated. I’ve seen this happen with far too many salespeople.
It’s time to stop acting like the creepy 2nd grader you had forgotten all about until now and start being the leader you know you are.
Nurturing campaigns are great, but only if you know the person you’re targeting has a profile that lines up with your perfect customer. If all you’re doing is blasting out email after email to somebody who signed up for a webinar or downloaded an email, my bet is you’re wasting your time. People who tend to sign up for webinars and download ebooks are most likely not your decision maker, unless what you’re selling has a low price point and a short sales cycle.
Your goal is to be spending more time with fewer prospects. This is something I’ve been preaching for a long time and it works.
It’s not only the strategy my consulting clients use, but it’s also the one we use here at The Sales Hunter. I’d much rather be spending my time with people far down the sales funnel than poking time after time people at the top who are not going anywhere.
Oh, I forgot to tell you… that creepy 2nd grade kid you avoided in school? Yes, the one you kept telling your teacher about. That kid wound up attending Stanford, launching a bio-tech firm, just took it public and is now worth 100x more than you…
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Copyright 2017, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog. Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Results.
One Response
Many thanks Mark, great post as usual and always appreciated. – Barry.