Nearly 60% of B2B lead generation specialists and SDRs miss out on their quota.

Why does that happen? What are the lead generation specialists missing out on?

There are several reasons for lead generation specialists not to attain their monthly quotas, but the key one is poor quality leads in the pipeline. Poor quality leads will lead to an account executive having to do more qualification work before considering it ready for closing.

This slows down any deals that lead gen specialists can send into an account executive's pipeline resulting in fewer deals closed by the end of the month. It also means that deals take longer than required so they start expiring and requiring re-work at a time when there might be the less available capacity from existing accounts.

How do poor quality leads enter the sales pipeline?

The main cause for this is a lack of a complete picture of accounts and leads. Concentrating on sending warm leads from your existing customer base can lead to an incomplete picture when it comes to account profiling and lead qualification.

What companies should be doing instead is initiating campaigns that target specific industries or verticals with detailed lead scopes to see results that come from a complete lead-to-account presence in the market.

This would require developing an active prospecting program, but it will pay off because you'll have a better overall view of your market opportunities and where they lie so lead gen specialists can lead more targeted campaigns.

In this article, we explore how you can become a high-performing lead generation specialist by following some simple strategies and tips.

Follow industry best practices and sales playbooks

Industry sales playbooks for lead generation specialists provide a road map to sales success.

Before considering your next steps, you must familiarize yourself with how sales development practices have changed in the last few years.

In addition to knowing about new sales technologies that can help you become more productive, you must understand how sales tools and processes must change.

A sales playbook provides guidelines and best practices for sales professionals and sales teams on how to achieve their goals while managing sales operations and activities efficiently.

The best approach is using an online lead generation software solution that has some of the following features: lead scoring; automation; prospecting; qualification; pipeline management; reporting; and sales intelligence (BI). 

The sales playbook for lead generation specialists should include:

1. Creating a targeted list of accounts and prospects based on industry, size, location, and other criteria;

2. Scoring the opportunity to create a sales pipeline that is prioritized by account size and sales potential;

3. Qualifying your leads and updating new customer data in real-time; Automating key sales processes like email campaigns and drip marketing campaigns; and

4. Segment your lists into target accounts, suspect accounts, warm prospects, hot prospects, potential referral partners using sales automation software.

If you were to follow the latest trends all the above three steps in a sales playbook can be done using AI-powered lead generation software.

Execute sales playbooks with the help of AI prospecting tools

An AI sales prospecting tool can help sales professionals to prospect and qualify sales leads in real-time based on the ICP definition, which is developed by sales and marketing managers.

The sales playbook is not only about the sales process but also about sales best practices and sales technology.

If you're looking to boost your sales performance, you must use predictive sales tools that automate processes like prospecting, research, email campaigns, and lead nurturing campaigns.

For example, AI sales prospecting software allows you to build a complete profile of each lead using data gathered from websites, social media profiles, online forums, etc. These apps learn who the target account decision-makers are so they can find more leads within them with ease.

Thanks to this type of data enrichment, business development teams have access to sales-ready leads that have the highest sales potential.

Lead generation specialists can also use AI sales prospecting tools to learn from sales best practices and sales playbooks to concentrate on following up with warm, qualified leads right away.

Spend less time prospecting, more time selling

Lead generation specialists spend most of their time performing prospecting activities.

After lead gen professionals have developed an active prospecting program, they must convert more sales-ready leads using a lead qualification process.

Companies that implement predictive lead technologies are more likely to generate high-quality sales opportunities at scale while reducing conversion costs by up to 40%.

That means spending less time on prospecting can help lead generation specialists find more qualified opportunities and reach out to them in a personalized manner based on their needs like AI lead nurturing software does. It also allows lead generation specialists to lead them towards the buying process as lead scoring does.

Thus, lead generation specialists can generate more sales qualified opportunities for reps to focus on while marketing teams are creating new content and lead nurturing campaigns.

Leverage your professional network for warm intros

One of the best ways to prospect and generate sales-ready leads is for lead generation specialists to leverage their professional network (also called personal network) by reaching out to warm referrals that they obtained from business contacts.

According to a survey conducted by InsideSales, "sales professionals who prospect using warm intros generate five times more appointments than those who prospect cold."

So it would be better if lead generation specialists could use AI prospecting tools like Truebase to find warm intros in their address books and social media networks.

These tools can search through your contact lists and provide you with email addresses and social media accounts of people working at target companies.

Lead generation specialists should add such data about prospecting partners to prospect lists and send cold emails, making sure that they're personalized and warm.

This way lead generation specialists can:

• prospect more leads in less time

• generate more sales opportunities with warm intros from within their professional networks

• boost prospecting performance by increasing the number of leads per prospecting activity

• meet revenue goals using prospect lists tailored to each rep's skillset and prospecting style

So lead generation specialists don't need to do much prospecting work: just integrate prospect lists generated by prospecting tools into prospecting software and send prospecting emails to warm leads.

Personalize emails at scale for higher conversion rates

Email personalization is the act of customizing sales messages to individual consumers or business contacts by sending content that's relevant to them based on an analysis of who they are, what they want, and what motivates them to take action.

Lead generation specialists personalize cold emails to increase their chances of converting prospects into paying customers.

However, personalizing each email is time-consuming and requires lead generation specialists to dedicate significant resources just for personalization activities.

Personalization automation helps lead generation specialists personalize cold emails at scale while reducing the time spent on personalization activities by up to 50%.

Personalization automation is the process of using personal data gathered from social media profiles, websites visited, search history, and other sources to personalize an email message with content relevant to the lead.

For example, personalization automation can insert personal data points like job title, company size, location, and pain points into personal emails at scale. Personalization automation helps sales reps prioritize their outreach efforts based on each lead's background that they learned about via personalizing emails.

Lead generation specialists should use AI personalization tools that automatically refine their prospect lists by adding personal details gathered from across the web so they no longer have to manually research for personalization points while researching leads online.

Add Truebase to your sales stack for higher performance

Truebase is an AI-powered sales intelligence software that automates prospecting for you and your team. With proprietary machine learning algorithms, Truebase gets you the best leads that fit your ICP from the web and 3rd party data sources.

With personalization points and warm intros, Truebase increases the conversion rate for your email campaigns. Still don't believe in the power of AI in sales prospecting? Hear this: High-performing lead generation specialists are 2.2x more likely to use AI than their low-performing counterparts.

Want to crush your quotas and join the leagues of rockstar lead generation specialists? Start by signing up for å free trial of Truebase today.