Finding someone who’d benefit from your product or service is one thing. But finding someone who’s ready to sign on the dotted line (with the budget to back it up) is a whole ‘nother ballgame.
You’ve got leads in your sales pipeline, and logic says that the first ones you nurture should be the ones with money to spend (especially if you’ve got a huge list you need to whittle down). That’s the quickest way to big wins when you’re racing up against quota. But how do you know which ones those are without having a direct view into their budgets?
We can’t offer you a crystal ball to show you your prospects’ purchasing plans, but we’ve got a few strategies that can get you close. Here’s how you can figure out which leads to prioritize based on the possibility they’ve got budget to spend.
Everything starts with your ICP.
As with all prospecting, your first course of action is to think about your ideal customer.
Addressable markets can get really big. So how do you narrow that down to see the leads with the need (and budget) for your solution?
If you’re lucky, your organization has laid out a lot of details about what kind of prospect best fits your ideal customer profile (ICP). With those characteristics in mind, you know what you need to search against to find your prospects. As an example, you might be looking for HR directors at tech companies with headquarters in the US that have at least 500 employees. That’s something you can find easily using Lusha’s prospecting platform and layering filters.
But even doing that, you might get a huge prospecting list. And as nice as it is to have a lot of options, that’s a lot of work to get through, and could be a waste of time when you’re looking to close deals quickly. You might want a few more layers of information to narrow it down even further. So here are some additional indicators that can help you find your ready-to-buyers.
1. Funding data gives you a peek at company growth.
If you reach out to a company at the peak of their growth, then you have a higher chance of closing the deal. After all, that’s the time when they’re seriously investing in their own progress– not to mention they have money to spend.
The most direct way to know whether a company has money to spend (and therefore probably intention to spend it) is to learn if they’ve recently received funding.
As part of Lusha’s Warm Outbound capabilities, we offer users the ability to identify companies in their ICP that have recently raised capital. With filters that give clear insights into the funding date, stage, type, and amount, you can conduct smart outreach that increases your chance of closing deals.
By prioritizing leads with recent funding rounds, you can capitalize on that upswing to create a mutually-beneficial relationship.
2. Intent data shows you ready-to-buyers.
Research by Bombora shows that only 15% of your potential customers are ready to buy at any given time. So even if you have a rock-solid ICP and a clear message, 85% of your prospects aren’t in the market.
Using Intent data, you can get insight into which companies in your ICP are currently actively looking for a solution like yours – meaning they probably have some budget set aside already.
Here’s how it works.
Companies’ online actions – content consumption, searches, and other activities that show they’re researching a topic – are measured against a baseline. There’s always going to be some level of activity, but the real trick is finding out when that activity reaches a level that shows actual intent to buy. That’s where intent scores come into play.
In the Lusha platform, a company with a high intent score for a topic related to the solution you offer means it’s showing a significant amount of activity. That means their intention to buy is high.
So if you want to prioritize the companies that are most likely to have budget set aside, look for the ones with a high intent score. If they’re actively seeking a solution, they’re much more likely to be ready to buy.
3. Track job changes to get in front of the budget-makers.
It’s an accepted truth in sales: access to the budget lies with decision-makers. And one thing to keep in mind is that decision-makers who are new to their position are taking a good, hard look at the budget. Statistics show that new stakeholders plan how to spend 70% of their budget within their first 100 days in a role.
That’s why it’s a good idea to get in front of people who are fresh in their positions: they’re ready to make an impact and are likely to be actively seeking new solutions.
Find them ASAP by using Lusha, where you can filter your search based on how recently someone entered their role. You can also set up job change alerts to know when decision-makers change at a target company or when key prospects move to another organization.
Key Takeaways
- Prioritizing customers with the budget to buy helps you close deals quickly.
- You can narrow your addressable market and find customers who are likely ready to buy by looking at funding data, intent scores, and recent decision-maker job changes.
- Funding data, Intent, and Job Change Alerts are all available for users on Lusha’s Scale+ plan.
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