You already have a sales and marketing team, but have you thought of leveraging the rest of your employee base to help generate leads for your company? Who says all the glory is reserved only for sales?
So how do you spring them to action? We have a few ideas.
Offer incentives to the sales team to source their own leads
Yes, at first glance, it does sound redundant, and they should be sniffing out new leads each and every day. That expectation is perfectly reasonable, but the truth is if you are providing them leads from other sources like Call Motivated Sellers or incoming leads that your marketing team gains from the website, they can get complacent and stop seeking those hot opportunities on their own.
Try lighting a new fire under your sales team by adding an additional one or two percent to their commission if they make that sale from a lead they found themselves. We’re not saying have them do cold-calling or anything random. Their goal is to find new opportunity from the relationships they have already groomed in their travels and to make their networking more goal-driven.
Engage all of your employees for qualified leads
An engaged, passionate, and motivated population of employees can give you and your organization an additional edge. They can use their existing relationships with your clients to identify new opportunities to build more relationships.
Think about it. Your top sales rep initiates the relationship, shakes a few hands, and buys lunch. Once the sale is made, your operations team is up next. They are the rockstars that keep your customers happy and delighted with how they serve them. These are also professionals in their area of expertise, so they are likely to have contacts in their industry outside of the organization. Those contacts are potential leads or can make that connection with another.
Develop a plan
An incentive program for your employee population should be as thoughtful and comprehensive as your sales incentive program. Your goal should be to develop a culture of practice in always seeking out new opportunities instead of a limited-time offer.
Make sure your plan lays out all of the details, from how employees will seek out leads to how the qualified leads are connected to the employee for compensation.
All employees, from the office staff to direct service providers, should be empowered to leverage their relationships with your customers as a method of seeking out new opportunities. Be sure to involve an ambassador from each department as you brainstorm ideas and craft together how the incentive programs will look. By including them in the development, their enthusiasm will spread through the organization and get your entire population buzzing around the idea.
Here are some ideas to get them primed, but let your team take it and build from here.
Front-facing employees
Those who work directly with your customers, even on-site, can leave business cards to hand out to friends, colleagues, and neighbors. Have their name on the card, even if they write it in themselves at first (with as inexpensive as business cards are, go ahead and spring for the look of professionalism with their name printed). If a qualified lead is generated from one of those cards, provide a reward, perhaps $10-20. If the lead becomes a sale, offer a small percentage of the sale as a co-commission, around 1-2%.
All other employees
Provide cards to all employees, even office staff, to have available to share as they network and meet new people. Always have them in good supply whenever they attend an industry-specific event. Even if their purpose isn’t to sell, it’s a prime place to make meaningful connections. Offer a similar incentive to them when that card makes its way back to the company as a qualified lead.
After a successful transaction, prime your employees to ask that satisfied customer if they know anyone who would benefit from doing business with your company. They may hesitate to give a name and number, however, they are usually agreeable to forwarding a link to that person. That gives your customers a chance to sing your praises and encourage them to learn more.
Be creative about incentives
While we are mentioning some incentive ideas, we encourage you to think outside of the box to what will delight your employees. Some employees want cash, while other rewards are just as fun to receive. In the spirit of competition, a traveling trophy is very inexpensive, and bragging rights are priceless.
If your company has a recognition program, leverage your incentives through the program. If you like the idea, but your company doesn’t have such a program, Work2Live is a program that has a Lifestyle Savings Account and easy enrollment.
Whether it’s structured or informal, make your incentives and the entire experience memorable!
Have employees help spread the word on social media
If your company has a presence on social media, make sure your employees are connected. Come up with an incentive plan to entice them to share company posts with their audience and get the word spreading about the organization. Those who share are identified easily within the social media page. Try a small reward for those who respond, like, and share every post for the month or the first person who shares ten posts wins. Get your marketing team thinking on this one. They can craft just the right posts for such a contest, thus putting more emphasis on the message.
This kind of behavior works three-fold. First, it spreads your brand beyond your list of contacts. Second, it broadens your potential for new customers. Third, for those who click through and explore your website, it benefits your search engine optimization (SEO), boosting your reputation in the eyes of Google.
Embed a meeting scheduler on all email signatures
Make it easy for leads to get in touch and schedule time to learn more. You can do this easily with the use of a meeting scheduler. Have all of your employee emails be a source of generating leads through their daily email correspondence. Embed a meeting scheduler tool on the email signatures with a catchy message for the reader to attract their attention. The scheduler will set an appointment for the contact and a member of the sales team. Hubspot has a free meeting scheduling tool that syncs with both Google and Office 365.
You don’t have to designate a sales representative necessarily either. You can set up a round-robin meeting link, and your prospect can schedule a meeting with the sales member that best fits their schedule.
Call Motivated Sellers catches everyone in-between
Never miss out on an opportunity to use your reputation and positive employee experiences to grow your business. Call Motivated Sellers is here to bring new qualified contacts to your sales team that have yet to experience a great business relationship with your organization. Take a look at our testimonials and imagine what we can do for your sales team. What are you waiting for? Let’s get started!