Unqualified Sales Meetings

Today’s case covers a common issue within sales departments, when salespeople waste unnecessary time with unqualified leads. This often happens when appointments are set by marketing or poorly trained SDRs, leading to inefficient use of time by highly paid salespeople.

Luckily we can spot this common case easily when salespeople express frustration with the poor quality of leads they receive, and the data show an unreliable pipeline. And the corrective action yields substantial results.

Follow these three steps to identify and correct the “Unqualified Meetings” problem, and optimize the effectiveness of your team.

Symptom: Unqualified Meetings

In this real sales organization example, the problem was evident due to discontent among highly paid salespeople, who felt the quality of appointments set by the SDR was low. It could also be seen in the data, showing both low numbers of appointments set and poor conversion rates. 

Unqualified meetings waste salesperson time, diminish effectiveness, and create discord on the team. It happens when the inbound team and SDRs aren’t trained, coached, and reinforced in the right qualifying skills.

Diagnosis: Poor SDR Skills

Wrong people?

In some cases, the SDR (Sales Development Representative) was scheduling meetings with the wrong people inside prospect companies, failing to get the salesperson in contact with the CEO or other decision maker.

Wrong companies?

In other cases, the prospect company wasn’t a good fit because of its industry, level of pain, budget, or other factors.

Magic!

Once the problem is diagnosed, this company used the magic of their own sales methodology (Salesstar) combined with Membrain’s tools to quickly give new SDRs the right skills to do a better job scheduling highly qualified meetings.

Prescription: Clear KPIs and Better Accountability

Now that we understand the problem, we can develop better KPIs and accountability to ensure SDRs are setting better meetings.

• An interactive scorecard measures qualification criteria.
• Embedded training videos help SDRs gain the skills they need.
• Effective KPIs hold SDRs accountable to their core numbers.

Once this system is in place, SDRs are better equipped to deliver higher quality meetings, and highly paid salespeople can better spend their time on activities that move the needle. In this case, the new system created a healthy, robust pipeline as well as a sales environment in which the highly paid salespeople and the SDRs are happy and performing at their best.