Get the most from bingo leads

If your company runs advertising or product announcements in trade publications, you regularly receive a stack of "Bingo" leads.

Ask most sales people what they think of bingo leads, and their response is likely to be a face that looks as if it had just swallowed caster oil. Ask those same people when they follow up on their bingo leads, and you’ll hear answers like: "When I get around to them" or "Never if I can help it" or " Only if I don’t have something else to do." Others answer: "I sift through them to see if there is anything good, respond to those and throw the rest away."

If that’s the case in your company you are not only throwing away bingo leads you are throwing away the advertising dollars that it took to generate those leads. And, you toss opportunity right out the window.

Every lead has potential, and every sales person alive has stories about the obscure lead that turns out to be the big fish. But, if you don’t follow up on all of them you never know about the opportunities you let get away.

All of selling is a game of numbers: Numbers of leads, percentages of conversion and dollars closed. Of all your lead sources, bingo leads may not represent those with the highest closing percentage. But they often do represent a large number of closable dollars.