An Interview with one of the "50 Most Influential Sales Lead Management Professionals":
John Foley, Grow Socially

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Who are your mentors and why?

What is the most helpful advice you've received to improve your business?

What is the most helpful advice you can give to help others improve their businesses?

How do you give back to the professional community?

What is your favorite business book?

What's your recommendation of the 4 steps?

Which 4 basic skills or process steps do you recommend?

With regards to Sales Lead Management, I think that there are actually 5 steps.
1. Determination of Organizational Goals
2. Assessment
3. Evaluating Risks and Opportunities
4. Marketing Strategy
5. Implementing and Monitoring Marketing Plans

In your opinion, the best book on marketing is:

Your reasons for choosing this book are:

What would you say to someone who asks what to do first in managing sales leads?

I would tell them to figure out a way to qualify.

If someone wants to nurture sales inquiries what process would you recommend?

Plan:
Define the Customer.
Define the difference from an inquiry to a lead.
Define what qualifies a lead.
Define your messages.
Deploy a Content/Knowledge management system.
Define what/if tracks for leads.
Execute.
Measure.

What steps would you suggest to measure the ROI for sales inquiries?

Obvious answer is closed sales all the way back to the campaign cost. We tend to measure everything from the channel to the media to the response to the inquiry. Then, we look at the inquiry to the lead to the sale.