Four Critical Steps to Convert Your Agents and ISAs Into Lead Generation Assassins

There’s no question that you know your business better than anyone.  

You’re a master at lead generation and leave nothing to chance. You’ve built your business from the ground up due to your motivation, dedication, and most of all, your insatiable hunger to succeed. 

But there’s one problem… 

You’re spending way too much time on your business, and it’s killing you. It’s past time for you to start hiring new agents to sell for you so you can leverage your expertise to expand and keep the business growing. 

Don’t get me wrong, this is a critical decision, but most people wait too long to take action when it comes to hiring staff. The truth is that hiring new agents can create new challenges that you may not realize until it’s too late.  

Hiring any type of employee can rob you of precious time. Sure, it will save you time in the long run, but initially, you need to prepare yourself. Bringing on staff involves time to recruit, interview, and vet potential candidates. You also have to consider time for follow-up, background checks, and actually getting people through the front door.  

However, there’s one crucial part of hiring that can be the biggest time stealer of all. And that’s training. New agents need to learn the ins and outs of your business or else they will be worthless to you.  

You could just start off by giving them a list of leads to call, but that likely won’t go well for you either. Not only will it be ineffective, but you’ll also start to get complaints that basically amounts to your new agents thinking that your leads and lead generation strategy sucks! 

Obviously, that’s not the effect we’re looking for. Your new agents need to have the skills and determination to work effectively. It’s also not going to work if you’re still trying to bring in leads while you’re getting the new agents up to speed. 

Let’s take a look at a more effective way to train new as well as existing agents so that they generate leads for your business.  

The Four Critical Steps to Creating Lead Generation Assassins 

Regardless of any doubts you may have about delegating key responsibilities to new staff, it is possible to hire agents and ISAs and train them to be effective lead generators.   

And the best part is that you can do it without spending a ton of time to get them motivated, dealing with any excuses they may have, ignoring anyone who’s ineffective because you’re under a time crunch, or having to continue doing all the work yourself. 

All it takes is some deep training on four key areas, plus some patience and hard work. 

#1: Developing Positive Mindsets & Overcoming Call Reluctance 

It’s no secret that most people have at least a few reservations about getting on the phone to drum up business. The problem is that when a salesperson has a negative mindset about their capabilities, it can cause them to lose their enthusiasm. So, it’s no surprise that it’s critical for you to make sure that your team is clear of any negativity. Doing so will help them to generate leads, ask for contracts, and close deals effortlessly.  

If those negative thoughts exist, it’s your responsibility to replace them with positive ones otherwise all the training in the world won’t make a difference. With the right training techniques, you can help your team to cultivate positive thoughts and ultimately, boost their motivation and success. 

#2: Identifying Lead Types & Potential Sources

If you don’t know who you’re selling to, then neither will your salespeople. Any sales funnel starts with identifying your target audience. Without that key piece of information, your sales funnel is doomed to fail. 

First, you need to know who you’re selling to, where are the leads coming from, and identifying what perspective they have when you first contact them. Once you have these details, it is a must for you to share them with your agents. If you don’t, you’re definitely going to get complaints about your lead generation process, you’ll likely lose their trust, and your chances of getting those hot leads go right out the door. 

We all know that the true gold exists within the follow-up. If you train your agents how to work a database while setting the right expectations, you can keep your agents motivated to become a major player in the lead follow-up game. 

#3: Handling Objections & Perfecting Closing Skills

Once you have your team’s mindset turned to positive mode, it’s time to turn the focus toward how they’re going to handle objections. If your agents or ISAs aren’t prepared for what to do when a lead says “no,” then that positive mindset will be crushed.  

Not only will they lose confidence, but they will start to doubt their ability to generate leads. You can easily avoid this dangerous situation with the proper training. Make sure your team knows how to respond and perfect their closing skills. Train them to ask the questions that guide your leads into the sale. 

Instead of using the old school scripts used two decades ago, it’s much more important to ask a series of questions to unlock why a lead is objecting. By using a more sophisticated and personalized approach, they are more equipped to offer alternative solutions to achieve a more positive outcome. Since closing the deal is such a critical part of this process, you will also want to teach your agents to pick up on the best time to close during the conversation and take the necessary next steps. 

#4: Implementing Database Maintenance Best Practices

It’s time to tell the truth about Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems. Most of us have them, but if they’re like most and not properly managed, they are a train wreck that will only hurt you in the end. 

In fact, 50 percent of your agent’s or ISA’s business will come from a CRM as long as it’s maintained properly. If you can teach your agents to categorize leads correctly, they can easily see who their leads are, who to follow up with, and when. Once they understand upfront the importance of having their leads in one place, they can prepare better, and schedule follow-ups. If this doesn’t happen, your CRM is a waste of time, and you lose the leads you took the time and effort to cultivate. 

Even if your agents and ISAs claim that they don’t know how to use a CRM, you can still teach them how to use the system in a productive way. By training them to use it as a lead generation machine, they will find the CRM to be a useful tool that will increase productivity and results. 

Save Time with Your Own Training Resource Library for New Agents and ISAs 

It may sound overwhelming to go and create all this training for your new agents and ISAs, but once it’s done, you’re set up for good. You’ll have the option to combine all the materials into an online course that your team can access from anywhere. Or, you can develop an on-site library that’s accessible to every new hire allows for high-level training that doesn’t eat up all your time. 

You also have the option to handoff your training to a professional organization like Smart Inside Sales. We specialize in training new agents and ISAs and educate them on advanced lead generation and conversion techniques.  You can also take advantage of Our New Hire Training and Advanced Training open enrollment that starts at the beginning of each month.