Here's the Second Session of training material for Administrators.

1. Dialer Initiatives, Step 1
2. Dialer Initiatives, Step 2
3. Dialer Initiatives, Step 3.1
4. Dialer Initiatives, Step 3.2
5. Response Loop Setup - Basic Options
6. Response Loop Setup - Advanced
7. Response Loop FAQ

The following are topics every InsideSales.com system administrator should master. I get asked a lot if there is some place these topics are stored. Here they are. Each topic is a like to more detailed information from the InsideSales.com Community Site.

Training 1 - System Basics

1. Logging Into InsideSales.com
2. Basic Site Navigation
3. Tasks and Events
4. Advanced Searches
5. Mass Update Feature
6. Exporting Lists
7. Importing a file Step 1, Preparing the spreadsheet
8. Importing a file Step 2, Uploading a file
9. Layout Groups, Basics
10. Layout Groups, Step 1
11. Layout Groups, Step 2
12. Personal Information
13. Company Information
14. Billing Information
15. E Mail Manager
16. VoiceMail Manager

Keeping the interest of a lead after conversion is one of the biggest obstacles to overcome for any business. There is a balance between providing leads with enough information to make an educated choice, and just annoying the heck out of someone. The goal is to find the middle ground.

The first idea to keep in mind is the person who just converted from your website did so for a specific reason. They wanted to download a case study, they want a free trial, or they wanted to see how much your product costs. In each of these situations they are willing to give you their contact information for something of value. This means their information should hold value to you as well. So the real question is, how do I configure my e mail and phone response to this lead to get the most value out of it, every time?

Through practice and experience I have found the answer to that question. There is little variation to when and how often you should be contacting new web leads, regadless of the industry or business you are in.

First Contact

Your first contact should be no longer than five minutes after conversion, and by phone. This means you need to require a phone field on your web form. Do not respond by e mail first, unless you do not plan on responding by phone at all. Most companies have automatic e mail responders. A recent study of the Alexa top 250 shows 47% of companies responded to web inquiries through e mail. 7.5% responded by phone. Only 0.6% of those that responded by phone did so within five minutes. By being the first to contact a lead, while your company is still on their mind, you are positioning your company with a true competitive advantage. The same study showed the odds of qualifying a lead increase by 21x if attempted within five minutes versus 30 minutes.

Succeeding Contacts

After the first contact you should have a standard strategy for contacting leads. Don't be too overbearing by attempting to contact them every day for three months. Don't be bashful and only attempt one call and give up. There should be balance. I've found the following strategy to work the best.

Calls

Your calling strategy will depend on your bandwidth. The more resources you have available for lead generation, the more success you will see down the pipeline. The first day you should attempt to contact a lead through calls up to four times the first day, leaving one voice message. The next four days you should attempt to contact through calls a maximum of twice per day, leaving one voice message per day. After the first week, you should attempt contact once every other day by phone, until the lead is a month old. At a month old, it should then be moved into a never contacted status, attempt contact once per month by phone. Keep in mind these limits are for leads that you have not yet been able to contact. Once contacted and dispositioned, the strategy changes.

E Mail

In today's world E mail contact is just as important as giving someone a call. After the first e mail response you should be e mailing less than calling. People can keep track of your e mail trail much better than a missed call trail. Don't become spam.

E mail two should happen on day two, right after the call and voice message. E mail three should come on day three, right after the call and voice message. E mail four should come on day five. E mail five should come just after one week, so day eight. You should then be e mailing a maximum of once per week until the lead is a month old. After a month old, you should e mail a maximum of once per week.

To sumarize, you should send at least four e mails in the first week, with one e mail per week in each successive week. At a month old you should e mail a maximum of one per month, into perpetuity.

Again, keep in mind this assumes the lead is dispositioned as never contacted. Once this status changes these strategies change.

The overall goal is to get the most out of your leads. Be plesantly persistent. Don't be overbearing. Don't be shy. But attempt contact enough to give yourself a fighting chance.

In a time when the economy is facing uncertainty, companies are looking for more and more solutions to lower costs. Companies want to discover new ways to do more with less. The days are over, for now, when money for capital investment is plentiful. Weather you are one person, or a top Fortune 500 player, the objective is similar. How can we save money? How can we do more with less. I propose a solution that may seem counter intuitive yet has a more dramatic effect than most others. Add new sales reps.

You may be asking, save money, hire a new sales rep? How is that logical. I'll show you.

The structure of most sales organizations is designed such that the individuals involved can focus on one or two aspects of the sales process. The idea of segmentation in the sales process is a fairly aged concept. Most organizations don't realize they are neglecting, and possibly even skipping, the most essential roles in the sales process.

The Fronter

As new leads enter the sales funnel, most organizations route these leads based on some type of routing rule. The most common, and least effective, is region based. When a sales representative gets a new lead, he or she initiates the evaluation process. They start to ask themselves qualification questions based on prior experience. It's like getting judged when you walk into a new car dealership based on the current car you are driving, the clothes you are wearing, and how good looking you are. Everyone of us has had this experience. It is a biased disqualification. But why should a sales representative waste his or her time on a lead they think will never close? This is a fundamental error in most every sales team in every company in the world. The objective is to take the pre-qualification step away from the sales person and give it to someone who's goal is not to close the lead, but to qualify the lead. Thus, we further segment the sales process.

By moving the qualification step to a separate individual, we pass on only those leads who are interested and qualified. Because the goal and compensation of the fronter is based on qualifying and setting appointments, they are highly motivated to do so. In a recent study done with MIT it has been found that close rates increase by almost 7% by simply adding this step and combining technology to increase a fronter's dialing capacity.

This is just one step a sales organization can take to do more with less. In most organizations the current sales staff will be unable to handle the volume of appointments handed to them by a quality fronter. This is one of those good problems to have.