Compensation for Self-Generated Leads

So, for all you Owners/Managers out there, who all LOVES reps to self-generate leads?

If not, why not? That should be a discussion we should have!

If you do, are you getting all the self-gen leads you want?

Again, if not, why not? I would venture to say it’s 1 of 2 reasons:

1. you don’t have an established (in writing) program for it, or
2. the program you have doesn’t motivate your reps to spend their free time generating leads for you.

Would you like to fix that number? Good. Then, how many of you compensate your reps let’s say, just 50% of what your average lead cost is? Anybody?

I can hear the remarks from here:

1. No one pays that much for self-gen leads.
2. They aren’t worth that much.
3. I’ve always paid ___ for self-gen leads. Why pay more?
4. Please feel free to enter your own here ______________________!!!

I have a saying, “Every decision an Owner/Manager makes, either motivates or demotivates the sales reps.” I’ve been doing this 40 years and I’ve seen it, heard it, been there, done that and got the t-shirt. Trust me on this one.

Now, it may seem like I’m taking the reps side, but that would only be partly true. I see this blog as creating a win-win for the rep and the company.

It creates loyalty.

If you regularly pay $500 for a lead, (and we’ll for the sake of argument say it’s a qualified lead) why WOULDN’T you pay your employee $250 instead of a stranger $500? Really.

Better quality leads.

Who better than your trained sales rep can qualify a lead (that they get to run) for your company? You DO make sure that the rep who GENERATED the lead on their own time actually gets to RUN that lead don’t you?

If it’s possible for you to remember back to when you were running leads, would you go out on your time and beat the pavement (so to speak) to generate leads for what you are paying your people? If so, good. And is paying them that amount incentivizing them enough to generate the amount of self-gen leads you’d like? If not, there might be a disconnect there somewhere.

Issues I’ve seen over the years (believe it or not!)

Self-gen leads going to “another” rep.

A self-gen lead being counted as a “regular” or worse, a company lead

It’s one thing to be hired to do that (canvassers), it’s another to be asked to do it, and a whole different thing to be TOLD to do it when it wasn’t originally part of your job description.

I worked with a national HVAC/Plumbing/Electrical company you would recognize that did the latter and then the sales manager gave the leads to his “favorite” reps. Did THAT stop the number of leads and I mean, now? The Sales Manager was just corrupt and ignorant enough to not have a clue about it. Sad.  

I believe we would all agree that a motivated rep is a productive rep. If you give them (as an example) $250 for a regular $500 lead, don’t you make $250 as well on that lead? $250 Pure Profit? Please share with me how you could argue with that “concept”. And really, what do you have to lose? The love of your lead company? Who cares?

Tell you what, for you Doubting Thomas’ out there, try the idea as a Pilot Program for a month or 2 and drop me a line and let me know how it went!

You can do it!