Editor’s Note: Leaky sales pipelines are a big contributor to $2 trillion in annual lost revenue for B2B companies. In this “Plugging Sales Pipeline Leaks” series, we’ll look at common breakages, how to spot them, and how to fix them.
You can read Part 1: Lead Generation here.
For a broad overview, you can also read “How to Identify and Plug Sales & Marketing Pipeline Leaks.”
Below, we take a deeper look at the problems that show up during the qualification stage.
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Sales pipeline leaks can pop up in any stage, and determining the cause — or causes — is often hard for operations leaders. Narrowing the scope to the Qualification stage usually helps, since those challenges heavily impact the entire pipeline. Thankfully, solving those Qualification issues makes a huge impact too.
Organizations depend on lead qualification to determine the suitability of potential customers, often unaware that inefficient qualification criteria and processes let accounts in that aren’t a great fit — and lets important opportunities leak out. This leakage directly impacts revenue potential, and sales and marketing productivity.
There are great ways to help refine qualification criteria and methods and keep sales and marketing focused on targeting the right customers, like:
- Giving revenue teams access to centralized sources of dynamic, robust customer data, and
- AI-powered predictive analytics tools to accurately and confidently interpret that information
Dive in as we present the symptoms of a leaky qualification stage and explore how organizations can leverage data and tools to achieve an efficient lead qualification process.
The Symptoms of Leaks at the Qualification Stage
Leaks at the qualification stage lead to a geyser of wasted resources, with both time and money spent on leads that will never convert. Revenue teams can become overwhelmed and frustrated, wading through a sea of unqualified prospects — which diverts their focus from genuine, high-value opportunities.
This doesn’t simply impact immediate revenue generation. In the longer term, continued pipeline leaks at the qualification stage can erode team morale, hinder the ability to forecast sales accurately, and impede the organization’s growth trajectory.
What’s the solution?
Let’s revisit the fictional Acme Corp. that we introduced in Part 1 of this series and see what its leader of Revenue Operations does to diagnose and fix the leaks discovered during the qualification stage. After doing a bit of digging, she determines that:
- The lead qualification criteria is inefficient
- Unqualified leads are entering the pipeline
- Misalignment between sales and marketing is leading to inefficient processes
Here’s how she went about fixing all of that.
Inefficient Lead Qualification Criteria
Pipeline leaks often happen during the qualification stage when the criteria used to measure a lead’s value as a potential customer is incomplete or inaccurate, or doesn’t align with the company’s ideal customer profile.
Without a reliable filter, the pipeline gets filled with leads that have a low likelihood of conversion. In addition to being a waste of valuable time and energy, unqualified leads prolong the sales cycle, diminishing the overall efficiency of the sales process.
Solving this problem starts like this:
The first step is for its operations leader to look into the current lead qualification criteria.
To do this, Acme’s ops team gets feedback from sales. Sales reps will often report challenges advancing leads through the pipeline when the leads don’t match the ICP. If that’s the case, the numbers should back it up:
- Low Conversion Rates: A low conversion rate post-qualification is a major red flag and indicator of ineffective qualification criteria
- Low Engagement Metrics: Low engagement (like email opens, click-through rates, and meeting acceptances) from “qualified” leads can indicate that many leads are generally not a good fit
- High Time on Unqualified Leads: Sales reps spending a disproportionate amount of time on leads that don’t convert can mean there are inefficiencies in the qualification process
- Overly Long Sales Cycles: This is another signal that reps are spending too much time on leads that should’ve been disqualified sooner
- Disproportionate CLV to CAC Ratio: If the cost to acquire a customer (CAC) is high relative to the customer’s lifetime value (CLV), it can mean that too many resources are being spent on unqualified leads
As it turns out, Acme’s lead qualification criteria are missing the mark. Fixing this entails removing outdated or irrelevant criteria, shifting from generic criteria to market segment-specific criteria, and gaining more comprehensive insight into potential leads to make sure they’re a good fit for the business.
Acme Corp. decides to take the following steps:
- Reconsider its method of lead scoring, and switch from MQLs and SQLs to a dynamic lead-scoring system
- Use intent data to refine qualification criteria and focus on leads that are interested and engaged
- Implement segment-specific qualification criteria for various market segments to align with its unique needs and behaviors
Unqualified Leads Entering the Pipeline
Sometimes refining qualification criteria and implementing a new, more accurate method of lead scoring isn’t enough to plug pipeline leaks at the qualification stage. Unqualified leads can still make their way into the pipeline.
After taking steps to improve their lead qualification criteria, Acme’s ops team identifies other causes for unqualified leads entering the pipeline — and ways to prevent them.
Over-Reliance on Demographic Data
It turns out that Acme’s sales team has been focusing mainly on demographic data for prioritizing leads. Demographic data, while important, doesn’t reveal:
- A lead’s current interest in your product or service
- Their position in the buying journey, or
- Their specific pain points and needs
It’s also static, and doesn’t change in response to a lead’s interactions over time.
Empowering revenue teams to make use of behaviorial data makes a huge difference in ensuring the quality of qualified leads. Having insight into certain behaviors, such as visits to pricing pages or engagement with specific product-related content, can indicate a stronger buying intent that revenue teams can use to verify a lead’s qualification.
Acme Corp. tackles this problem by equipping its revenue team with 6sense, which integrates behavioral data into its lead scoring model. This integration provides a more comprehensive view of each lead, combining demographic data with real-time behavioral insights.
6sense makes things even easier for Acme Corp. sales reps by removing guesswork when it comes to interpreting behaviorial data. AI-powered predictive analytics look at a wide array of demographic and behavioral data points to determine which leads are most likely to convert, enabling sales reps to identify qualified leads fast and with certainty.
Poorly Targeted Marketing Campaigns
Marketing campaigns that are not targeted effectively can attract unqualified leads, particularly when they are not aligned with current market dynamics. This misalignment often results from a lack of accurate market insights, an unclear understanding of the target audience, or outdated strategies.
By adopting 6sense, Acme Corp. was able to remedy this problem as well. Not only do behavioral data and predictive analytics offer critical insights for sales, but they help inform focused marketing campaigns as well.
6sense also has capabilities for determining which channels are most effective for reaching your target audience, allowing for an optimized channel strategy that engages prospects where they are most likely to see your messaging, with messaging that resonates best.
Inadequate Lead Engagement Tracking
Without proper tracking of lead interactions with content and marketing efforts, unqualified leads can end up in the sales pipeline. Clear insight into how leads are interacting with emails, website content, social media, and other marketing efforts is critical for gauging a lead’s interest level and readiness to buy.
This was another issue that Acme Corp. discovered 6sense could easily solve. 6sense tracks a wide array of lead interactions across various platforms and channels. This not only verifies that a lead is interested in their solution, but also gives them insight into which content pieces are resonating the most.
Engagement also plays a role in 6sense’s data-driven lead scoring algorithm, the 6QA. A 6QA, or 6sense Qualified Account, is determined based on objective data that includes, other than engagement, account fit and whether or not an account is in-market. Focusing on 6QAs ensures that leads with higher engagement and interest are prioritized.
Revenue Team Misalignment and Inefficient Processes
There are other factors that can cause leaks in the qualification stage that don’t necessarily have anything to do with data types or quality, and a common one is revenue team misalignment.
Sales and marketing may have different ideas about what constitutes a qualified lead, or messaging and strategies might be inconsistent or poorly targeted. A lack of clear processes for handing over leads from marketing to sales can also result in valuable information being lost.
6sense helps Acme Corporation with this common problem, too. The platform is uniquely designed to support account-based strategies, which require tight alignment between sales and marketing.
Both teams can access and analyze the same set of customer data. This unified view ensures a consistent understanding of what constitutes a qualified lead, based on shared data and insights.
Lead handover is also no longer an issue since all relevant information, including engagement history, lead scores, and predictive insights, is attached to each lead, reducing the risk of valuable information getting lost. Sales reps also stay in the loop with real-time notifications about lead activities and behaviors, enabling them to act promptly on leads as they engage.
6sense keeps messaging and strategies consistent, too. As a centralized data source, it offers insights that help in crafting messages and campaigns that are more likely to be effective, and ensures that sales and marketing are aligned in how they communicate with audiences across channels.
Conclusion
With a data-driven approach to qualifying and prioritzing leads, as well as tools for marketing to them with a laser-focused, omnichannel approach, Acme Corp. was able to plug the leaks in the qualification stage.
Notice anything similar happening with your org’s qualification processes? Worry not, because there are things your ops team can do to optimize it, and a solution like 6sense can help.
Stay tuned for the next article in our series, where we’ll take an in-depth look at pipeline leaks in the nurturing stage.
