Should You Really Hire a Lead Generation Specialist?

Are your lead generation results falling below your expectations? You might need to find a lead generation specialist. Here’s a look at: 

• What lead generation specialists do. 
• How this profile can help your business. 
• How to determine whether it makes sense to outsource your lead generation services

What Is a Lead Generation Specialist?

Essentially, lead generation specialists provide a valuable layer of quality control before they pass your leads along to Sales. To achieve this goal, these specialists research and contact those leads as necessary, in order to make sure they meet your firmographic requirements.

For instance, you might decide that you can only work with leads from a specific region with over 50 employees. If that information isn’t clear right away, your lead generation specialist will dig deeper to get the answers you need.

In other words, you can make sure your hard-working sales team stays laser-focused on engaging viable prospects. This tactic can boost the volume and value of the deals you close because your sales team will be more satisfied and efficient.

The best lead generation specialists have excellent research skills, as well as an uncanny ability to extract relevant information from leads using a range of contact methods. Since this role is also flexible, you might decide that your lead generation specialist should play a role in both generating and qualifying your leads.

What Does a Lead Generation Specialist Do?

Since the roles of lead generation specialists are somewhat flexible, their exact responsibilities vary from one business to the next. 

But they do have some essential functions. To give you a better idea of the day-to-day responsibilities of a lead generation specialist, here’s a closer look at these essentials: 

Establish telephone and email contact.

To build links with new leads and learn more about them, lead generation specialists use a blend of phone and email communication. This tactic helps them determine whether a lead is a viable fit, based on its firmographic information.

To learn more about your leads and their unique needs, it’s important for lead generation specialists to be able to navigate conversations.

Update a CRM system.

It’s critical for lead generation specialists to be able to accurately relay their findings. In order to paint detailed pictures of your leads, these professionals will spend a lot of time navigating your CRM and other lead management tools.

Lead management in SalesRipe

If the lead generation specialist decides to pass a lead along to sales, the rich information recorded within the CRM system becomes a very useful tool for salespeople. It can provide an important foundation for salespeople to build on.

Liaise with sales.

In many ways, lead generation specialists are on the frontlines. Depending on the lead generation methods you use, they might be your first point of contact with your lead.

Often, your lead generation specialists are uniquely positioned to relay important insights about a particular lead. For instance, the specialist might uncover an important detail that they have to relay to sales. That small nugget of information may even help the salesperson close the deal.

Liaise with marketing.

These specialists are in a unique position in the lead generation process. They get to see leads come in, and they also find out which leads are viable prospects. These opinions and insights are useful for the marketing team.

For instance, a lead generation specialist might notice that leads generated from a particular landing page have a higher probability of becoming viable prospects. Alternatively, they might find that leads coming from a particular ad fall short in an important firmographic area.

These useful insights can help marketers adjust their messaging and approach.

Pros & Cons of Hiring a Lead Generation Specialist

Some businesses see lead generation specialists as luxuries, while others believe that these specialists are essential to the success of marketing and sales. 

While your perspective will largely depend on your particular marketing and sales configuration, there are general positives and negatives to hiring a lead generation specialist:

Pros of Hiring a Lead Generation Specialist

Flexibility and additional value

If you choose the right lead generation specialist, you might find that he or she can provide additional value to your business. For instance, the specialist might have a range of additional sales or marketing abilities, or he or she might serve as another pair of eyes during challenging times.

Generally, this role is also adaptable. Since lead generation specialists make direct contact with your leads, you might want them to play more active roles in organizing meetings than your Sales Development Representative would.

A dedicated member of the team

If you decide to hire a dedicated lead generation specialist, you’ll be bolstering your workforce, which will give you a host of benefits. For example, if you choose the right profile, you’ll benefit from a fresh perspective on your sales and marketing processes. 

You might also find that assigning a dedicated team member to focus on the generation and qualification of leads will have a demonstrable impact on both the efficiency of your sales team and your revenues. If your sales and marketing people have already identified the need for a lead generation specialist, you could really make them happy.

Insight for sales and marketing

If you choose a lead generation specialist with the right background, you’ll find that he or she can offer a lot of value for both your marketing and sales teams.

On one hand, lead generation specialists are able to relay valuable feedback to your marketing team. Since these specialists are on the frontlines, they can let the marketing team know about the quality and viability of the leads they generate during their campaigns.

On the other hand, lead generation specialists have privileged information about your leads. So they can use this initial contact to generate valuable insights for your salespeople, which will improve the chances that your salesperson will close more deals.

Cons of Hiring a Lead Generation Specialist

Significantly more expensive than lead generation software

The correct piece of lead generation software can offer you an amazing return on your investment. Some sophisticated tools offer accurate information and a host of convenient, affordable features.

With SalesRipe, you can easily build targeted prospect lists

The cost of these tools is often far lower than the costs associated with hiring an in-house employee. Since recruiting a new staff member is never cheap, you might find that the results vary, depending on the specialist you’ve hired.

Capable lead generation specialists can also command high prices. If you’re strapped for cash or need to invest in other areas, lead generation software is often a more sensible choice.

A limited bandwidth

A lead generation specialist is only human. As such, you’ll find that he or she has very limited bandwidth. While a productive, dedicated specialist could feasibly make 100 calls a day, he or she would be moving at a breakneck speed and sacrificing quality in the process. 

If you hire an in-house lead generation specialist, you’ll also find that you’re at the mercy of common challenges, such as illnesses and dry spells. While these factors can affect the output of a specialist, a lead generation tool is more reliable and can work exponentially faster.

Subjectivity

Lead generation tools deal in data, which means that your firmographic data is always clear and concise. In fact, you might find that lead generation specialists can introduce more ambiguity into your qualification process. For example, they might get lost in the details and make mistakes at some points, which you need to anticipate if you want to get a solid output from your employees.

Why Lead Generation Software Could Be a Shortcut For You

How does your analysis of these pros and cons look? It’s important for you to carefully consider whether a lead generation specialist will meet your needs.

If you decide that a lead generation specialist isn’t a viable option for you at the moment, you could always turn to lead generation software. These tools are cost-effective alternatives that can definitely accelerate the growth of your business.

Here at SalesRipe, we offer a robust lead generation tool that helps salespeople quickly identify and connect with the right customers.

Our platform offers these features to help our users get results:

• A database of highly accurate and up-to-date data
• The ability to quickly build targeted prospect lists
• Tools to target specific accounts
• Ways to track technology 
• A built-in lead manager

Conclusion

In the right conditions, a lead generation specialist can drive significant value within your business. But maybe you’ve decided you’d rather explore your lead generation software options. If so, you can unlock more value for your business today by starting your 7-day free trial with SalesRipe.