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Sales leads: the good, the bad, and the opportunity

Guest post by: Linda Richardson

Article Overview: There are cold leads, warm leads, hot leads, targeted leads. But is there a commonly accepted definition as to what a good one actually is? Jim Brodo, Richardson's SVP of sales review the various categories of a good lead and how to optimize and allocate resources for following up and nurturing the various levels of leads that are developed.

Sales leads: the good, the bad, and the opportunity

The claims come in all forms: emails, calls, direct mail, Web pop-ups. "We can increase your sales leads" "Tap into our exclusive real-time Internet leads." "We deliver the highest-quality business and consumer sales leads in the industry."

Their ubiquity is inescapable. And still there is that age-old debate between marketing and sales over leads: "Marketing gives us junk leads"; "Sales never follows up on the leads we give them."

There are cold leads, warm leads, hot leads, targeted leads. But is there a commonly accepted definition as to what a good one actually is? Is a lead someone who...

• Works at a targeted company whose name appears on a purchased mailing list?

• Drops a business card in a fishbowl at a tradeshow?

• Downloads a white paper or article from a website?

• Visits a particular page on a website?

• Opens a prospecting email?

• Fills out a form on a website?

Clearly, leads may take many forms and be classified on many levels. Marketing automation tools like Genius, Marketo, Eloqua, and others that track user movements and visits to websites make the collection of leads a snap. Yet knowing what to do with these various names and pieces of information, and aligning them within a company's sales process, can be remarkably complex.

Does the marketing group follow up on all supplied leads? Does an inside sales team pre-qualify these leads? Is this follow-up outsourced? Do all leads go directly to the sales team? There are myriad possibilities that compound the complexities of defining leads.

At Richardson, we work directly with our sales team to create what is too often an elusive yet essential element of success: alignment. Together we have aligned our marketing and sales efforts, and we have defined five basic categories of leads. While the categories are fairly generic, they can be modified to fit the structure of any organization. The key is to develop categories around a set of criteria based on target markets and buyers for each level of lead - and to optimize and allocate resources for following up and nurturing the various levels of leads that are developed.

Five Basic Categories of Leads

1. Marketing Accepted Leads

These are leads that meets basic market criteria, but need further follow-up, qualification, and nurturing by the marketing team before they can be handed over to the sales function. Typically, there is only a name of someone who seems interested, but no true need has been identified. These could be leads that, for example:

• Develop from either an outbound marketing campaign (trade show, email, advertisement) or inbound campaign (downloads or visits to a website)

• Need qualification for fit with target market and buyer profiles

• Lack the required needs identification

• Lack a budget indication

• Lack a purchasing timetable

2. Sales Accepted Leads

These leads are similar in makeup to the previous category, but are further qualified as being on a salesperson's Tier 1 or Tier 2 prospecting list. These leads should be directly turned over to the sales team to further identify and nurture the prospective buyer's needs.

3. Direct Sales Opportunities

These are the leads everyone loves; they're the Super Bowl of leads, because they're real winners. They fit the defined market criteria and have a clear need identified. Most of the time, more qualification is needed - say, budget or timing - but they should go directly to the sales team. Quite often at Richardson, these are included in pipeline forecasts as a Stage 1 opportunity; we track these types of leads and typically close 60% of them.

4. Future Nurture Leads

While these leads don't fit exact market criteria, they are worth saving. The names should be put into a database for future outreach campaigns. Consider this a "you never know" category.

5. Non-Accepted Leads

There's little to be done with non-accepted leads except to throw them away. These tend to be people who don't enter full names into download forms or use fake email names. Don't waste your time. Just get rid of them.

In the critically acclaimed 1992 movie Glengarry Glen Ross, Blake (Alec Baldwin) dangles promising leads to his sales team; the top two sellers will get them, the others will be fired. "These are the new leads. These are the Glengarry leads. And to you they're gold, and you don't get them. Why? Because to give them to you would be throwing them away. They're for closers."

Fast forward nearly two decades. The traditional selling paradigm has been radically altered by Web technologies and social media. Buyers have more knowledge and competitive leverage than ever before, and both developing and converting leads into closed sales is becoming more difficult.

To get those golden sales leads today takes a concerted effort and smart work. Organizations, regardless of size, have to find, nurture, qualify - and categorize - their sales leads appropriately.

The interaction between marketing and sales has to be seamless, with efforts truly aligned. Then, when inbound or outbound leads are developed, there can be an effective structure in place to allocate the right resources to the right leads. And to turn these opportunities into solid sales and ongoing relationships.

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Article Tags: jim brodo, Richardson Company, Sales training



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Re: Conversion rates - Great point Kevin, word-of-mouth is a great way to convert leads as they are being recommended by someone they trust. My job is converting website visitors into leads, and of the leads we get from the website/s we convert around a 12.5% (of leads). At this point I think our website is the best leads vehicle right now.
Re: Online Sales and Marketing vs Traditional - [quote="ltrahan":31w9r2iz]Hi Evan, I am noticing that many of the posts in the Sales/Marketing section deal with online marketing, SEM and and SEO and Affiliates. I was wondering if it might be a good idea to separate that section into two; 1) Online Sales and Marketing; 2) Traditional Sales and Marketing[/quote:31w9r2iz] I second the request...
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