Speed

The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong.

— Ecclesiastes

Before you agree with Solomon, consider: 50% of sales are closed by the B2B sales rep who's first to call back an online lead, according to CEB.

That's daft, when you think about it. Speed is more important to a lot of B2B customers than efficiency, effectiveness, professionalism, or product knowledgeable.

You snooze, you lose.

And lot of reps are asleep.

According to Harvard Business Review, B2B reps take an average of 42 hours to get back to an online lead.

That's crazy, HBR says, given that the reps who call within 1 hour are 7 times more likely to reach the lead than reps who take 2 hours to call—and 60 times more likely than reps who take 24 hours to call.

According to Salesforce, 87% of B2B customers expect a rep's text-message response within 1 hour, and 67% expect a rep's email response within 1 hour. According to Shopify, 77% of B2B buyers won't wait more than 6 hours for a rep to respond.

With that degree of impatience, it's no wonder the race goes to the swift.

Reps need to wake up and quit ignoring online leads.

They may not all be qualified, but they're apparently ready to buy.