Some independent sales organizations are providing qualified leads to sales agents as incentives so they will work harder. The tactic tends to motivate the agents while enabling the ISO to spend less on incentives than they would through monetary bonuses, according to some observers.
More ISOs are providing “qualified leads or appointments” to their agents, says Todd Ablowitz, president of Double Diamond Group, a Centennial, Colo.-based consulting firm. Qualified leads are the names of potential customers that have demonstrated an interest in the product or service the agent is selling. With qualified leads, an agent may “have a [sales] close ratio north of 50%,” but with “a traditional [cold] call you would have a lower rate,” Ablowitz says.
Indeed, agents typically make many cold calls when searching for new clients, and that makes qualified leads from ISOs valuable to them, says Cliff Gray, an associate and merchant processing and a product-services expert at The Strawhecker Group, an Omaha, Neb.-based consulting firm. One ISO Gray consulted with discussed a program that gave the best leads to sales agents that ranked highest in sales among their coworkers. They were “ranked higher priority as a sales agent and potentially would get better referrals,” he says.
Agents “always are asking” to receive more leads, says Denny Kammer, vice president of sales at ReliantPay Inc., a St. Louis-based ISO. The company recently booked spaces at two upcoming trade shows that will attract area business owners, he says.
“We’re letting agents work those for free leads,” Kammer says, noting the agents like the idea of being able to meet so many business owners in one location.
