It has become an epidemic! Thousands of dollars are lost every day due to neglect.. sales lead neglect.

Sales leads and sales departments have a love/hate relationship. Sales reps. want as many leads as they can get, as long as they are leads that convert to sales. If they have a bad experience and develop doubts about the quality of leads, they will not call them.

Here are 10 ideas to improve lead follow-up and lead conversion in your sales organization.

1) Agree On the Definition of a Lead

Although some may disagree, a name and address or a business card is not a lead. The person or business must have done something to qualify themselves as a possible buyer for your products or services. Clearly define the parameters of a lead for your sales team, then communicate them across the organization. Here are a few sample lead definitions:

• “A lead is: a business that has between 100 and 500 employees, located in the United States, that is not a current customer and has expressed interest in purchasing sales automation software in the next three months.”
• “ A lead is: a consumer, homeowner, located in New England, that plans to invest at least $500 in landscaping in the next 60 days.”

2) Develop Lead Scoring

Partner with marketing to establish parameters that score your leads based on the probability they will turn into sales. Use a combination of data, quantitative analysis, and qualitative feedback from your sales employees. Add the lead score to your database and CRM system, to help sales resources prioritize their time and focus on the best opportunities first. (If you are new to lead scoring, check out this article on The Innovative Marketer: “Lead Scoring, Enter The Matrix”.)

3) Pass The Lead While It’s Still Hot

Cold fries are bad. Cold soup is bad. And, cold leads are bad. Ensure that your company has a well tuned process to transfer a hot lead to a salesperson in an agreed upon time frame such as, “within 2 hours from customer contact”. Ideally, the lead pass should be automated and happen with your CRM.

A recent article on the Brain Sell blog, recommended calling the prospect back while they are “still in their seat and still have pain”.

4) Establish Lead Follow-up Standards

Establish specific, lead follow-up expectations within your sales department, which may vary depending on the lead source or lead score. The standards should include how quickly the follow up should occur, the methods of follow-up (e.g. phone, email) and the number of attempts to make contact.

Some business will purposely wait to call certain categories of leads (e.g. request for information) to see if the customer “self closes”, so that they do not have to pay a sales commission. I recommend that you test and track different lead types to determine the optimal follow-up times that help you capture the sale and manage costs.

5) Do Not Support Cherry-picking

Do not allow sales reps to choose which leads they will call and which they won’t. Cherry-picking leaves revenue on the table. If a sales rep. cannot get to all of their leads, transfer them to a rep. that can.

6) Create a Lead Capacity Model

Create a capacity model to determine how many leads your sales team can effectively follow-up on. If lead volume exceeds capacity, use your lead scoring model to call the most lucrative leads first. If excess lead volume is on ongoing problem (a good problem to have), consider hiring incremental FTE, if the ROI can support it.

7) Endorse The Lead Source

If sales managers outwardly and enthusiastically endorse the lead quality and the lead source(s), sales reps. will be more likely to follow-up on the leads. And…. vice versa.

8 ) Compensate For Leads That Convert

If you rely on a telephone based, cold calling lead generation team, ensure that their compensation plan includes allowances for both quantity and quality. If they are paid more when leads turn into sales, the quality of your leads will be significantly better AND will be followed up on more diligently.

9) Create Lead Reporting

Create a lead activity dashboard that monitors lead quantity, follow-up response times, time to convert, conversion percentage and conversion dollars. If you can measure it, you can manage it.

10) Build In a Feedback Loop

Some leads will be incredible, while other leads will stink. Develop a formal feedback loop from sales to the lead generation departments, so they can hear the good and the bad. This allows them to fine-tune their efforts and get you better leads in the future.

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