Hello again! Lesson number 6 of the warm calling course focuses on validating leads. Validating leads is the most important aspect of the warm calling process, so we’ve split this down into 2 separate modules. The first module focuses on a number of methods I use to validate my leads.

The first thing I do when I’ve identified a potential new customer is to check the credit report. This is important as it shows if a customer has good credit worthiness and highlights how many employees they have, their potential turnover, and this allows us to identify potentially how much they spend on PCBs.

During this process, if I’ve identified any C customers, I will automatically remove them from my list. This is because warm calling process is quite time-consuming, so we want to be certain that for any customer that does convert, it will make an impact to our local business and the rest of the Group. So, we will only be targeting B class customers and above.

With this in mind, it’s important to dream big. We should be targeting the A+ customers. Until we’ve been told otherwise, we have to believe that the service and solution that we are offering will help with a need that we’ve already identified.

And finally, Google Street View. Before, the only way you could visit a customer is by jumping in your car and driving to the customer and seeing it for yourself. Times have changed, we can now enter any business in Google and stand outside their premises at the click of a button. It means that we can get a feeling of what the customer looks like.

Often, when you look at a website, it’s very difficult to actually identify how big that potential customer is. Sometimes, the smallest customer can actually have the best website, and this can trick or mislead you when validating leads, so this gives you a useful insight to potential new customers and their potential size.