| Most companies have the classic problem of spending | | | | because they don't believe that they're of good |
| money on the marketing side of the fence in order | | | | enough quality. The telemarketing or inside lead |
| to generate leads only to see that those leads are | | | | qualification function is a very important one to be |
| not followed up effectively by the sales team. This | | | | able to make sure that you patch the hole and stop |
| classic leakage of leads to unnecessary expense and | | | | the leakage of sales leads between marketing and |
| definitely inhibits a company's ability to accelerate its | | | | sales. |
| sales. | | | | Another thing you can do is you can add sales lead |
| If your company is experiencing this problem there is | | | | follow up as key criteria in your performance |
| a solution, it's quite easy for you to reengineer your | | | | management system and metrics for measuring and |
| marketing and sales process and connect the dots so | | | | rewarding your sales people. With today's CRM |
| that you don't have any discontinuity between the | | | | systems, it's easy to be able to track whether or not |
| functions that are generating leads and those who | | | | your sales people are actually following up on leads |
| are supposed to follow up on them. | | | | that are passed to them by marketing; with a quick |
| Here are a couple of quick ideas on how you can | | | | click of a button you can easily see whether those |
| stop the leakage of sales leads in your pipeline. First, | | | | leads are actually being touched and what the lead |
| if your sales people are complaining that your leads | | | | disposition is. Hold salespeople accountable for making |
| are of poor quality, find another way to qualify those | | | | sure that they're constantly following up on those |
| leads and nurture those leads before you hand them | | | | leads. If you bring lead follow up into the mix of key |
| off to the sales team. Most companies use inside lead | | | | measurement criteria and you tie their incentives to |
| qualifications specialists who are telesales or | | | | the performance of that function, you'll find out how |
| telemarketing professionals to do this function. Best in | | | | quickly they actually change their attitude and start |
| class companies realize that the sales leads often | | | | following up on every sales lead that's passed to |
| times need to be further qualified and nurtured | | | | them. These are just a couple of ideas about how to |
| before they're handed off to field sales | | | | stop sales lead leakage in your organization. |
| teams...otherwise sales people won't work on them | | | | |