This is a guest blog post from Megan Tonzi

68% of best-in-class companies use lead scoring in comparison to only 28% of laggard firms (Aberdeen Group, State of Marketing Automation 2014) therefore, there is a large possibility that as a sales professional you will likely receive leads from marketing. When you do receive a lead from marketing, do you dive right in with a prospecting strategy comprising of a call plan and well-written, personal emails?  Before you get started, do you really take the time to see how they landed onto your leads tab to fully understand the interactions that they’ve had with your company thus far?

According to Direct Marketing News, 84% of companies with a CRM have a lead scoring process in place, so if you’re prospecting out of your CRM then you should be confident in the quality of leads that you are prospecting.  Let’s bring this conversation back to when marketing set ups their lead scoring rules.  Sales professionals, did you have a conversation with your marketing team to decide on the qualification metrics together?  You should have qualification metrics for scoring marketing leads so that only optimal leads are passed over to sales.  Both, marketing AND sales should be active in that decision making process and both should agree on exactly what parameters are scored and to what extent.

If you’re coming into a sales position where these discussions have already taken place then it’s in your best interest to understand how the whole sales and marketing process works.  How can you accurately prospect leads from marketing if you have no idea why they’re a fit or have any background on the interactions that they’ve previously had with your company?  And we all know if you don’t do your research then you’re only cutting your own corners and ultimately revenue.

Before you pick up the phone do your research so that you can answer these questions:

1. Why is this prospect on your leads tab? (New list, sent over by marketing, etc.)
2. If your prospect is sent over by marketing or due to reaching a lead score threshold then what interactions have they had with your co-workers, company, website, and/or content?
3. If they have interacted with marketing’s content then what have they clicked through or read, and most importantly what areas do they seem most interested in?
4. Have they been on your company website’s pricing page or about us?  How familiar might they be with your service or solution?

Knowing the answers to these question will better prepare you for when you pick up the phone and make a first impression. As we all know, pre-call research is necessary for outbound prospecting, so why wouldn’t you equip yourself with the same preparedness for prospecting MQL’s?

Megan is the Director of Marketing and is responsible for QuotaFactory’s marketing strategy, monitoring and analyzing social media channels, creating valuable content for sales and marketing professionals, overseeing the Sales Wars blog, and collaborating with guest authors. She also bridges the gap between the sales and marketing processes by taking on sales enablement responsibilities to adhere both departments. Connect with her on LinkedIn and Twitter!