The Definition of a Lead
I admit I have a real issue about how people throw the term "lead" around, as many in sales and marketing use the term incorrectly. Using the right definition is critical because its the only way you can protect yourself from using faulty data in determining the quality of your sales and marketing programs.
I have a very simple definition that has served me extremely well: A lead is someone who knows he's a lead. He's provided you some contact details by submitting an inquiry, downloading a white paper, starting a free trial, or some other acknowledgment that he has at least some indication of who the heck you are. Those so-called "lead lists" that are heavily promoted? (10 MILLION BUSINESSES! 45 MILLION HOUSEHOLDS! 9,000 VPs of whatever!) They are NOT lead lists, but merely contact lists (or technically SPAM lists if you use them to email people, or potential violations of the DO NOT CALL registry if you end up calling people on the registry, so be very careful). But at the very least, if they don't know who you are, never heard of you, did not initiate contact with you, they are NOT leads.
Getting this language right is critical to being able to seriously measure results and set performance/pay metrics like quotas. If you're handing a sales team a cold-calling list, then you should set fairly low expectations about close rates. These are not vetted, and only a tiny percentage of these will ever buy, so set your revenue expectations accordingly (I haven't had much luck with them, personally).
However, contact details collected from your website, if legitimate information, are absolutely leads - the trick in dealing with them is to decipher where each is in the sales cycle: Are they looking to buy in the near-term? Or are they merely kicking tires right now?
I find that the difference between an OK company and a high-performing one is often what they do with these leads that aren't "low-hanging fruit". Getting information to these leads periodically until they are ready to buy makes a HUGE difference, and it helps if this burden is taken on by the marketing department. A good way to track this is with the right Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution - one that has the ability to send out scheduled, automated emails. You can then easily set up different campaigns according to each lead type, put them on automatic, track the results, and continue tweaking each campaign to increase its performance. See this post for some tips on selecting a CRM solution.
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I have a very simple definition that has served me extremely well: A lead is someone who knows he's a lead. He's provided you some contact details by submitting an inquiry, downloading a white paper, starting a free trial, or some other acknowledgment that he has at least some indication of who the heck you are. Those so-called "lead lists" that are heavily promoted? (10 MILLION BUSINESSES! 45 MILLION HOUSEHOLDS! 9,000 VPs of whatever!) They are NOT lead lists, but merely contact lists (or technically SPAM lists if you use them to email people, or potential violations of the DO NOT CALL registry if you end up calling people on the registry, so be very careful). But at the very least, if they don't know who you are, never heard of you, did not initiate contact with you, they are NOT leads.
Getting this language right is critical to being able to seriously measure results and set performance/pay metrics like quotas. If you're handing a sales team a cold-calling list, then you should set fairly low expectations about close rates. These are not vetted, and only a tiny percentage of these will ever buy, so set your revenue expectations accordingly (I haven't had much luck with them, personally).
However, contact details collected from your website, if legitimate information, are absolutely leads - the trick in dealing with them is to decipher where each is in the sales cycle: Are they looking to buy in the near-term? Or are they merely kicking tires right now?
I find that the difference between an OK company and a high-performing one is often what they do with these leads that aren't "low-hanging fruit". Getting information to these leads periodically until they are ready to buy makes a HUGE difference, and it helps if this burden is taken on by the marketing department. A good way to track this is with the right Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution - one that has the ability to send out scheduled, automated emails. You can then easily set up different campaigns according to each lead type, put them on automatic, track the results, and continue tweaking each campaign to increase its performance. See this post for some tips on selecting a CRM solution.
Was this post helpful to you? I'd love to hear from you.
Since time available for selling is finite leads have to be carefull qulaified. The biggest differentiator between a successful sales manager and those that fail is the ability to ONLY spend time with prospects are truly interested in moving forward.
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Exactly. That's why it is important to tease out the timing of the buy decision and keep leads that may buy later out of the sales person's way, but still have regular follow-up to catch them when they are finally ready to buy - that's marketing's job.
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