A survey of more than 1,000,000 cold calls from thousands of sales professionals worldwide conducted by the Kellogg School of Management determined that leads get cold in 20 minutes or less. With some many websites now being the collector of potential customers (a.k.a. prospects) through the popular auto-responders, this turns what was previously known upside down.

Yet, it truly does make sense. When people visit your cyberspace storefront, they are probably searching for something specific because of an immediate pressing need. Then they read your information, determine if they wish to leave their contact information and if so sign up for your free white paper, assessment or even e-course. Now someone or something attracts their attention. Your products or services have just been moved to the back seat of their minds. As more distractions happen, your company, products or services are now in the trunk and soon to be thrown to the roadside.

Your challenge is not to leave their top of mind awareness (TOMA) where you stay in the front or back seats of the car. This action must be done in 20 minutes. Of course, if you can make that return telephone call in the first 5 minutes, this survey suggests there is a 21 times greater likelihood to secure that qualified potential customer than if you wait 30 minutes.

Here are eight quick marketing tips to help you maximize that very short window of time opportunity where sales leads get cold at the speed of light.

1. Make sure you request complete contact information within your request form from your autoresponder
2. Include a field about the greatest challenge or problem specific to the products or services you provide
3. Check your email every 10-15 minutes for notices from your auto responder specific to new sign ups
4. Send a quick personal email in a response to the challenge
5. Research the person on LinkedIn, Google, etc to determine the level of qualification
6. Place a personal phone call to the individual if you believe he or she meets your predetermined target market demographics and psychographics
7. During your telephone conversation, focus on her or him and not you. Acknowledge their sign-up and then ask if there is anything else you can do for her or him?
8. Depending upon the conversation, place them in your active marketing list and remember to continue to connect with them at least 3 times per month using a blended approach of email, phone call and direct mail

When you realize that you have less than 20 minutes to turn that B2B sales lead into a potential customer, then you will begin to find the conversion process a lot easier and realize your goal to increase sales.