What Makes Someone Good at Lead Generation?

by Catherine Brown, President

This last week I participated in our Initial Call Sales Manger training via conference call.   Although we were discussing specific strategies for getting into large companies, the conversation turned to individuals sharing with one another about recent phone calls they had while prospecting for clients.  Listening to the examples that our Sales Managers gave of recent conversations they had while prospecting prompted me to ask myself the question, “What makes someone good at this job?”  Put another way, “Why are some sales people better than others at generating good meetings?” 

There are, of course, many answers to these questions.  There are a whole host of qualities necessary to be good at generating sales leads.  Tenacity, courage, limited fear of rejection, professionalism, the ability to communicate succinctly what you are selling…These are all important qualities.  However, I have concluded that an often overlooked quality that is important for success in producing high quality sales leads is personal warmth. 

A dictionary defines “warmth” as  friendliness, kindness or affection. 

I am not sure you can really teach someone to be warm.  I think true warmth is inherent in some people.  Sure, you can make small suggestions here and there so people sound nice,  but it is difficult to maintain a personality on the phone that’s not really true to who you are.  If you are warm, your prospects sense that you are open and listening. Warmth communicates sincerity.  No one likes to feel “sold” on the phone, and a person who communicates warmly usually finds out what they want to know from the prospect on the phone just by being nice.  The warm inside sales rep can turn a cold call into a discussion while they are busy being themselves. 

Jim Logan and Ford Harding both have written articles talking about other implications of how good inside sales people do their jobs through listening and good manners.  I appreciate being reminded that character qualities matter in those whom we hire, and both of these articles speak to this topic in different ways.  I hope you are encouraged to keep these qualities in mind while doing your job of selling,  managing, and prospecting for business.   

Comments

[Mary Gospe]

Catherine - great point. Warmth and a genuine interest in helping others solve problems is key to engaging prospects in a meaningful conversation.