Cartoon for the Weekend: Sales Lead Management Can't Be Easily Understood.

Jul 01, 2021

You have permission from the Sales Lead Management Association and the Cartoonist, Stu Heinecke to copy and distribute this cartoon as is with attribution!

This is certainly the old way to think about sales lead management. Today there are many departments, dozens of software products and as many vendors involved in managing sales leads. For instance on the vendor side:

Sales Lead Management and Fulfillment Firm
Direct Marketing Agency
Digital Agencies
Telemarketing Inbound
Telemarketing Outbound (qualification and lead generation)
Telemarketing Sales
Content Agency
PR Agency
Branding Agency
SEO Agency
Business Intelligence
Database Providers

Plus, there a dozen or more internal departments (a more detailed list here):

Sales Department
Sales Operations
Demand Creation Department
Inside Sales
Product Management
Marketing Communications
Marketing Department
Content Management (grading of the inquiry)
CRM Management (grading of the inquiry)
Lead Nurturing Services
Marketing Automation Management
Two major departments compete on rules establishment and daily management (sales and marketing)
Marketing Operations Department
Website Management
Social Media Department – blog, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, iTunes, YouTube and Pinterest, to name just a few.
Public Relations
Investor Relations
Data Entry (includes screening for duplicates and competitors)
Fulfillment – electronic and mailed, which includes warehousing
Literature Control – creation, reprinting and inventory management
Sales lead acquisition devices at trade shows and conferences
Sales territory management: which can include territories by zip code, telephone area code, counties or even major city streets. Not to mention grandfathered account and major account assignments, inside vs. outside vs. independent reps, and lead assignments based on product and revenue, and country or state. The “if this then that” maze is formidable for sales lead assignment.
International Channel Management
Sales Channel Management
Field Marketing Management

If you were to consider software:

CRM - hundreds if not a thousand companies to review
Marketing Automation - Hundreds
Telemarketing auto dialing
Business Intelligence or Artificial Intelligence
Reporting modules
Fulfillment Software
Email
Website management

Daunting and confusing isn’t it? This is the most challenging process within the company which is why it has been so seldom solved. But once solved, the returns are magnificent.

Cartoon by Stu Heinecke author of How to Get a Meeting with Anyone, Heinecke explains how you can use your own creative Contact Campaigns to get those critical conversations.

A vailable from Amazon. #1 Best Seller in Direct Marketing