Sales Lead Management*

How To Successfully Manage Leads

Lead management is crucial to optimize revenue when the initial inquiry and a closed sale are separated by an interval of time. Here are several principles of successful lead management.

Use Lead Qualification Questions to Gather Information
Standard practice is to ask and record four pieces of information from B2B leads,
and three pieces of information from consumer leads:

1. Purchase time frame, such as:
30 days, 90 days, 6 months, 9 months or more than 1 year.

2. Quantity to be purchased, such as:
1, 12 or 100.

3. Status of the project (for B2B leads only), such as:
under consideration, budgeted or funded.

4. Prospect’s role in the decision, such as:
(for B2B) recommends, specifies or approves purchase.
(for consumers) decides, decides with spouse or family member, spouse or family member decides.

This information is used to classify leads.

Classify Leads Based on Information Gathered
Based on the above information, some companies classify leads as “hot,” “warm”
and “cold.”

A more detailed approach is to numerically score leads. Scoring may be cumulative or discrete. A cumulative scoring system might use a scale of 1-100 with each of the 4 lead qualification criteria worth a maximum of 25 points. A discrete scoring system assigns a separate score to each qualification question. For example, a discrete system might use a scale of 1-5 with leads rated as 3435 or 4234, etc. Each position in the number corresponds to one of the 4 different lead qualification questions.

When long-term leads reach a certain maturity, scores may even be used to begin to project sales. Whatever your approach, classifying leads is the first step to managing them, thus enabling your enterprise to optimize sales.