Lead Management

Take a look at your customer base. How many of your customers came to you as a lead (just a name with a phone number and maybe a street address and/or email address). It doesn’t matter if they were a referral, a web lead, a call-in, a walk-in or a neighbor to an uncle’s friend’s cousin’s dog walker; they were at some point a lead.

Now look into your crystal ball. Do you foresee a change in the future, or do you think that all of you future customers will come from leads as well?

Now ask yourself, how many of your customers came from qualified leads. I would hope that it is all of them. If that is not the case, then I am sure you have had your fair share of unhappy customers.

No matter how you get customers, Lead Management is an integral part of your business. A Lead Management Strategy can be the difference from closing golden leads that drift along on the surface of your lead pool and being able to facilitate a journey of discovery that ultimately helps a lead to choose to become a qualified prospect of yours when the timing is right.

A Lead Management Strategy consists of when you contact your leads, how you contact your leads and who contacts your leads. The key to a good, nay a GREAT, Lead Management Strategy is knowing who your leads are. Here are some good questions that can help you develop your strategy.

· Is your lead typically ready to buy today?
· Is your product or service one that requires high level buy in?
· Is your lead actively looking for your product and/or service?
· Are there aspects of your service or product that disqualify certain leads?
· Do you currently have any brand name recognition within your industry?
· Do your leads need to be educated about your offering?
· How many leads do you get?
· Where do your leads come from?
· Do your leads come from lists, real time interest, referrals or other?

The Primary goal of these questions is to determine what your first interaction is going to be, either nurture them (Marketing Team), qualify them (Lead Qualification Team) or sell them (Sales Team).

This is the first step in a Lead Management Strategy. I will be following this article up with articles that discuss Nurturing Strategies, Qualification Strategies, Sales Strategies and ultimately how to create a Lead Response Management Strategy that bridges all three of the above options.