[unlikelymordant]

What should you do with this information though? Should the salespeople focus on the customers that are most likely to convert? Or should the salespeople give minimal attention to those, and focus most on the ones less likely, but not 0 probability, to convert.

I think the most important outputs of this are understanding the factors involved in conversion to tune business processes, not necessarily using the outputs of the model to target specific users.

[rukuu001]

Yeah, the salespeople avoid spending time on leads unlikely to close.

They're all operating on this kind of information already (like the basic stuff - is this person a decision-maker, do they have budget etc etc).

I take this seriously because I've seen consultants making money in this space already (advising on leads unlikely to close).

[roenxi]

I think I agree, and we could make exactly that observation about syntax highlighting. It isn't like syntax highlighting is telling me things I already know, but it is a free win for my productivity while coding.

Making something that is already obvious cheaper to discover can help the people who need to act on it.

[jross225]

But then this has the impact of reenforcing model predictions (unless controlled for). This lead won't convert based on the model, so I won't spend time with them or give them any preferential pricing, so the lead doesn't close (and the converse is true).

This isn't a pure ML problem, and without "treatment" data I'm not quite sure how the blog is adjusting for customer propensity towards an outcome :/

[6stringmerc]

Maybe it’s like the nuance in music - knowing the notes not to play. I think the art is in weighing the variables as a human because they can change also based on competition in the room. Having a career ongoing in sales support I’ve seen first hand how erratic the decision trees can be for private or public organizations. While the general setup is similar “do business with X with Y” the ingredients can differ widely to get to the sale. ML might tell you to send a holiday gift but I bet the human has a better idea of what kind of gift to send than ML.

[spoonjim]

This is not like medical triage where some people will just recover on their own... there are vanishingly few customers who are going to buy without a focused sales effort. Your time is best spent on those most likely to convert because even "most likely to convert" in B2B sales is not someone coming to your office and pounding your desk and saying TELL ME WHAT I NEED TO DO FOR YOU TO LET ME BUY THIS

[tdeck]

Many B2B companies kidna bring this on themselves by hiding pricing and product information behind a sales wall, forcing you to do a little dance with them to get basic information without seeming too committed.

[dotancohen]

Look up the guidelines that emergency responders use when tending to incidents with a large number of casualties. The techniques are just as relevant to leads conversation.

Also, explore the BANT leads conversation ideas. Adapt it to your industry.

[standrews]

The answer here, as always, is "it depends".

It almost always makes sense to not waste time on "dead" leads. Best to start there.

You'll probably get the highest ROI when you focus on the leads that are somewhat likely to convert (ie. you'll influence those sitting on the fence).

But if you're short of people and have lots of high-quality leads, you'll probably want to focus on the leads most likely to convert.

Back at my previous company (fast-growing SaaS), we ran an AB test where leads were split into six groups: half received sales touches and half didn't, and there were three lead score groups in both (low, medium, high probability to close). Working with the medium group gave the biggest uplift.

[tl_donson]

“Working with the medium group gave the biggest uplift.”

Anecdotally, I’ve seen the same thing in a B2C context. The uplift in the highest probability group was so bad that we would leave those leads alone completely, even though the marginal cost of an email or sms is basically 0 as a % of revenue from a successful conversion.

[conductr]

You could charge more or less and optimize revenue