During tough economic times it’s very challenging to keep your sales reps motivated. Like the old saying goes “smile and dial”. But work smart not simply hard. Employ every available technique that will not only increase sales but also improve the job satisfaction of your employees. Remember, no matter how great your CRM or Internet sales leads maybe it always comes down to the people you employ genuinely going after closing the sale. No auto dialer is going to close a sale for you in this highly competitive marketplace.

Customer prospects want personal interaction and someone they can trust calling them by name. Purchasing insurance and refinancing their home are some of the top decisions anyone will ever make in life. Be realistic, certainly they are not going to rely on an auto dialer to close such an important step. The auto dialer may be a great reminder tool but it comes down to whether your sales reps are motivated to personally dial the phone number and create a relationship with the prospect. If this critical function does not occur often enough do not expect to meet your monthly goals.

Unhappy sales reps are generally a ticket to disaster. Motivate your team with high quality sales tools armed with competitive information clearly on a flash card located in each of their office spaces. While on the phone, there’s nothing more frustrating than being unable to answer a prospect’s question. This fatal missing information could be the tipping point that lost a sale.

Supply a general talking points telephone script that highlights the key information, costs, features and methods to close any sales. Make it precise, clean and crisp. Instruct sales reps to ask you or find on their own answers to question that may require a follow-up call.

Measure the individual and team progress making adjustments on the fly while testing new methods. Don’t be afraid to make changes, companies that succeed never remain stagnant. They are always innovating new and better developments.

Listen to the customers to gain critical feedback from the field on market trends, new products, competitors, etc. Empower your sales reps to think independently – working in some cases like entrepreneurs running their own business.

For the most part sales is a numbers game plus quality assurance. Pricing is key to success. Remember every Internet sales lead you contact has Internet access that means instant ability to shop around for best pricing 24/7.

Use contests and bonus prize incentives to make the job more urgent. It’s a great tool to motivate sales reps keeping them dialing. If they know it’s a $50 bonus, restaurant gift certificate or new flat-screen TV – be sure the dialing becomes much easier for most sales reps.  You bet those eager sales reps will be dialing like there is no tomorrow. I often place the bonus prize on display to add excitement i.e. put the flat-screen in the middle of the team office space for all to see as they work.

Finally, recognize good work. Even those that are not the top three reps deserve recognition. Perhaps, take your sales team out for a cost effective lunch buffet. This is a great time to gain feedback and motivate your sales reps to keep dialing.

There is a distinct difference between leads and a list of names. I call a list of names and numbers suspects. Data providers often mislead clients into believing that they are getting leads when they get these too good to be true prices on thousands of leads.

Make Sure You Have Leads

The fact is that a lead implies that the consumer has taken some intentional action on an offer. That may be calling an 800 number, requesting over phone to be transferred, making an email or contact form inquiry, or opting into an email campaign. Short of that you have a list of names.

Regardless of what type of lead data you are buying, you need to move each of them to a viable lead. Develop a sales process that assumes all your contacts are simply data until you make contact and convert them into “your” personal leads.

Turning Suspects into Leads

Here is the simple sales process I recommend:

1. Load all new data into a “suspect” email campaign
2. Power dial all new data with an intro message and phone number verification
3. Invalid emails and phone numbers are cleaned out of the suspect list
4. Positive responses to emails and phone calls get bumped up to leads

Now you can go into sales mode on these leads. All of the verified data now needs to make it’s way into your lead management software or CRM system.

Notice this initial process can easily be accomplished in-house or even outsourced–potentially keeping you focused on sales.

Turning Leads into Sales

With good clean leads in your database it is time to begin moving them towards a sale. I recommend again using a combination of email campaigns and regular calling.

Your emails should focus on education and market updates. These will give your customers confidence and build trust. It also allows for your calls to be more about touching base, checking for questions, building a relationship, and hopefully closing a deal.
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I see this in most sales organizations-a propensity for cherry picking. Really does it add that much to your conversion rate? I’ll answer that, “no.”

Cherry Pickers Lose

Humans are always driven by intuition and “gut” feelings, but unfortunately these are often wrong. Like the classic optical illusion tests, which are a longer lines or bigger tables, our eyes often deceive us.

The same holds true for cherry picking and sales. Our eyes gravitate toward large loan amounts or fresh new leads. Meanwhile, statistics don’t conclude that those eye catchers have any greater propensity to close more often or faster.

In fact there is a great deal of evidence to the contrary.

Power Dialing Wins

At the end of the day most lead sales performance data points to consistency and persistence as the winning combination. Calling leads consistently and following up on every contact in a timely fashion dramatically increases contact rate and conversion.

It certainly makes sense. Leads sitting in your CRM or email unattended are unlikely to call you.

What’s more, as anyone that purchases aged mortgage or debt leads can tell you this can be a huge advantage. You competitors’ cherry picking is creating an enormous opportunity. They are leaving money on the table.

He (or She) with the Most Contacts Gets Rich

That’s right the path to success with Internet leads is simple-he with the most contacts wins!

Pay a lot less and get some of these neglected aged leads and test the theory yourself. Don’t cherry pick, call more and you will make more this month.

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Chances are that you have a lot of customers in your CRM that you could be engaging directly with social media or in your existing social networks. But, how do you connect them?

Here is a quick way to connect your CRM and your social profiles.

Segment Your Consumers

The first step is to segment a group of prospects you want to target on social media. These could be new prospects, aged leads, or maybe some demographic that you think will be more responsive to social media marketing.

Export this list to a spreadsheet, vCard, or other format that Gmail accepts.

Use Gmail

I suggest setting up a new Google Mail account just for this process, but you can use your existing Google Contacts. When you are ready import your prospects list into Gmail.

Now you are ready to select your favorite social network.

Connect in the Social Profiles

I suggest you start with Twitter. Twitter tends to be a bit more open environment. Connections are more open and people are expecting to be connected to by people that have like interest, but are not necessarily closely connected.

This means you will certainly be able to follow what makes them tick and you may pick up several new followers.

Listen for Opportunity

Now you have a great listening post for prospects in your current sales database. Listen closely for opportunity. Learn a little more about them.

If they follow you, then you have a double bonus. You are also going to get the opportunity for them to see you in action-helping and providing advice on mortgages to debt settlement. It is like getting a highly qualified opt-in email list.

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There is no question that CRM or other lead management software will make you more productive and effective at converting aged debt, loan modification, and mortgage leads. However, making the right decision can be difficult.

Although I will not give any specific endorsements I will give you an introduction to some of the ones I have found that you might want to check out:

Debt Management Software

• Debt Manager 2000
• Prime Debt Soft
• Credit Soft

Loan Modification Software

The loan modification is a much newer space. Therefore many of these software systems are going to be brand new. So, be cautious and make sure you get some sort of free trial.

• Direct Capital Software
• Casimod
• Broker Outpost also had these suggestions

Mortgage CRM Software

• Kaleidico Sales Manager
• Top of Mind Networks

Give these CRM software providers a try. Tell me what you think and if you have other recommendations.

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There is nothing more important to being effective with aged leads than persistence. Aged leads, by definition, are more challenging to convert (hence the great price). However, the persistence and doggedness that your competitors lacked can be you key to success.

Building a persistence machine

When you buy aged leads you should take a few extra minutes and plan your persistence campaign. This should be a combination of touch points: email, phone, and direct mail.

Know how you are going to sequence these touches and how often you think it is important. Then test your process and then improve it.

Importance of CRM

It goes without saying that if you are buying thousands of aged debt or mortgage leads you had better be using a good debt or mortgage CRM. The human fact is that you will waste a lot of money and opportunity if you are just trying to work through a spreadsheet.

Here’s why:

• You will lose track of where you are
• You will lose or lack important notes
• You will mis-call, over call, or under call the leads
• You will be overwhelmed and frustrated
• You will quit

Don’t skip the CRM software. Even the cheapest and most inadequate system will beat a spreadsheet for conversion.

Database Marketing

Don’t forget the long-term value of these leads. People change, finances change, needs change-a “no” today could very easily be a “yes” tomorrow.

Create a lead nurturing program that continues to add value to these leads. Provide market updates, helpful debt or homeowner tips. Stay top of mind for each lead in your database.

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Aged debt leads can be a great marketing approach for mortgage and debt companies, particularly if they are managed correctly. Typically they work best in a telemarketing or call center environment, but if you are comfortable on the phone and have an aggressive sales attitude, will serve you well.

It can be a bit of a learning curve, but with a few basic tips and techniques it’s well worth the time spent in mastering this marketing opportunity. Whether you have old leads you’re working through again, or you received aged debt leads, these are some tips that will make the process much more productive.

1.    Cold Calling. The first step to working aged leads is simply getting on the phone and starting a conversation. Use mortgage or debt CRM program is the best way to make this process efficient, and track the kind of response rate you are getting. With debt leads, the good news is, most people will be in more debt now than they were weeks to months ago when they first requested help.

You can use this to your advantage, particularly in the case of consumers that are having trouble making ends meet in this down turning economy.

2.    Pipeline Management. The second key is effectively managing your sales pipeline. Getting pipeline management right will help your entire organization better manage marketing, sales, and revenue goals. You may even consider hiring someone to help you manage your pipeline and processing of deals, freeing you up to land the next deal and ensure that the customer you have on the hook gets a smooth experience all the way to their final debt solution. Set up a prioritization system to help you work through the aged leads and keep track of new clients.

Work with your sales team to build a pipeline that will help you move quickly, and make follow ups easier.

3.    Lead Management. We touched on this briefly above, but you really can’t neglect managing your leads. Any business needs to be organized, but it is even more important for a debt management company to have their leads categorized, prioritized, and tracked. If you are relying on an old database to manage your leads, consider upgrading to a web-based debt CRM software package.

Assign specific team members to lead management to help them follow-up on and track the leads, and see which ones are most likely to result in a debt consolidation or management deal.

Aged debt leads open up many possibilities for companies of all sizes, but they are particularly useful for debt management companies. You’ll be able to quickly grow your business if you take the time and make the effort to go through your older leads.

Lead management is part of that success and does not have to be difficult, and the first step is getting everything organized and consistent with your sales process. The time that you spend collecting leads and managing them can be streamlined with effective sales pipeline management. Although this does require extra resources as well as time, in the long run, your lead ROI will bear improve.

Cold calling is just one way to reach out to your aged leads, but don’t forget about the power of email marketing either. This centerpiece of online marketing has never been stronger and the possibilities are endless when utilized correctly.

Turn this down market to your advantage by following these easy steps and you’ll end up recession proofing your business.

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How you manage your sales funnel will directly correlate to your sales success. Here are some critical components that will make you more successful with mortgage or debt leads.

Get Your Leads in the Funnel

First, and most importantly, get your leads into the funnel. This means your favorite mortgage CRM. There is no way to move a prospect to a sales without some way to track and measure your progress to that goal.

This should be a very efficient process. Either have leads posted directly into your lead management system or work out a simple way to load in spreadsheets. It is very important to quickly get all of your leads in one place, including your old ones.

Track and Status Leads

Once leads are in the pipeline, use simple statuses and flags. This will help you track good and bad trends. It will also help you to forecast sales results, seeing if you are on ore off your goals.

Do not get to crazy with these statuses. A simple methodology is all that is required, like: attempted, contacted, applied, closed. You can get more complex as your sales process matures.

Measure Movement

One of the beauties of status tracking is that you can see movement. A sales funnel should be in constant motion. This motion is critical to measure.

Metrics help you to quickly see what is working and what isn’t. It will also give you insight into where prospects get stuck in your sales process…Is there a confusing step in your sales process? Is there a fee, feature, product, or rate that is causing fall-out?

Improve Sales Process

All of these elements of the sales funnel comes together to improve your sales process. Improving the sales process will pump up your revenue.

A sales funnel is like having a personal sales coach at your side constantly.

Closing sales is ultimately about persistence. But, persistence needs discipline and a process. This is where sales sequencing comes in.

Before you leap into your sales day today, let’s think about a brief sales plan. Think beyond todays’ calls and emails. What are the next 5 things you want to do with each of the prospects in your sales pipeline?

What Troy? That sounds ludicrous–I have hundreds of prospects. I don’t have time to plan a specific plan of action for each.

Of course not, I say. But, I am going to suggest a smart way to get very close.

Status

Create a group of 4-5 statuses that you can use on every lead. Pick something that uniquely and discretely describes what is currently happening with that lead. Some ideas might be emailed, contacted, in processing, awaiting docs, etc.

This will allow you to easily sort your prospects and clients in your mortgage CRM, lead management system, or Excel spreadsheet. I will show you how to use this to improve your follow-up and communications strategy.

Segment

Use those statuses and/or product types to segment your sales pipeline. This sorting and segmentation will change daily. As you move deals forward you will see a nice flow of suspects to prospects and prospects to clients. Not only is it going to help you accelerate deals through your pipeline it is going to be daily feedback (and hopefully motivation) on how your sales are performing.

Sequence

Now you can see what deals are promising and have a good indication of the sales process. The next step is to think about what you should be saying to customers as they enter and exit each segment of the sales process. Here are some ideas:

• Should I make another attempt on the two previous failed contacts
• Should I make that follow-up evening call on the work number voicemail
• Should I be calling them back to check for questions on the GFE
• Should I send an email to follow-up on the application give them a docs checklist
• Should I give them a follow-up email to remind them I have still not received docs
• Should I email them to warn them their closing date is in jeopardy

Build a 3-5 point communication plan for each of your statuses–call scripts and emails. Then use sequencing to put your sales process on auto-pilot, while increasing the number of deals you close each month!

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Chances are your CRM is full of leads and prospects, but every month you are below your sales goal. So, is your CRM lying to you?

Technically, no. But, you are certainly measuring the wrong things. The number of leads in your database is not a reflection of your future opportunity–unless you are moving through them. Creating a systematic way to work your leads is the key to success. Knowing how to prioritize and follow-up is critical.

Status

Probably the most important step to getting your debt or mortgage CRM in motion is to status your leads. Develop a methodology to mark your leads according to where they are in the sales process. This will give you continual, snapshot visibility into the effectiveness of your sales process. Are things moving from prospect to sales? Are you getting referrals from closed deals?

Adding status to your leads will push you and the rest of your sales force to move deals forward.

Track

Deals moving forward is going to be immediately evident as you look at what leads are in various statuses. However, as you get that level of visibility you are going to start wanting to get more efficient. This is where tracking comes into play. How smoothly and routinely are leads moving from one status to the next. Are there choke points? Are there consistent points where deals fall-out? Why?

Tracking your leads and status progression will give you a sense of the effectiveness of your sales process.

Measure

As the old adage goes, “what gets measured gets improved.” Sales is no exception. Begin to measure week-over-week, month-over-month sales performance. You will have more immediate feedback on what is working and what isn’t. Maybe even who is working and who isn’t. THe most important element of measurement is the establishment of benchmarks and results.

Benchmarks and results help you to understand the results you can yield from a specific level of lead flow and effort. Assisting you in learning to scale your business.

Software

Back to the CRM. The lead management software you use is important. However, it does not need to be the most complex. In fact, simplicity has its benefits. Your CRM software should allow you to status, track, and measure with little or no effort. It’s primary function should be to help put your leads in motion. This means taking those elements and establishing priorities–making lead selection an automated process.

So much time is wasted in CRM systems selecting and sorting leads. Pick a debt or mortgage CRM that makes this simple.

Expectations

Expectation (goal) setting is second only to status in improving the performance of your leads. It is funny how setting a goal or expectation for your performance often leads to its accomplishment. There is something inherent in human nature that likes to take a goal and achieve or even shatter it.

Make sure your expectations for yourself and your team are clear. Post them front and center in your CRM, on the wall, in your work space. It will happen!

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