Sales Lead Management Today

A Bigger Box Isn't The Way To Solve The Sales Lead Management Problem

 

 

 

 

Some companies think that by getting a bigger box they can solve the sales lead management problem.    A bigger box for some may be more active sheets on a spreadsheet or a word table.   Neither

Stop Cussing the Mule and Start loading the Wagon!

We can always take time to point to someone else not doing their job, but I think it’s time that we stop cussing someone else and start tending to the work at hand that will increase sales.    Its time sales started loading the wagon.

We’re heard comments such as, "Salespeople aren’t following up the sales leads" "Marketing doesn’t give us any leads" "Salespeople aren’t using the CRM system" " Marketing isn’t giving us qualified sales leads" "That trade show sure was slow" "We’re not getting leads on the stuff I have a quota for."

 Now I’m not saying that these statements don’t have some truth in them, and good managers are open to hearing the truth and doing something about the complaints, but we can also let these truths stop us from loading the wagon.  Let’s take the issue of sales lead follow-up:

If salespeople aren’t following up leads marketers have four choices:

Are You a Marketing Quitter, Camper or Climber?

 Marketing Quitters use the words ""Can’t"  "Won't"  "Impossible” and other phrases such as "We’ve always done it this way" "That doesn’t work" "Done that" "Tried that" "Can’t measure that" "Can’t follow-up those leads"  "Salespeople won't use the CRM system"  "Salespeople won't close the loop" "Can’t measure that lead gen program."

Sales are tied to sales lead performance which is tied to your marketing budget!

While most managers realize that build-and-ship schedules  are tied to sales performance, few understand that sales performance ultimately is tied to sales lead performance and the marketing budget.