WHY ISN'T UPPER MANAGEMENT FURIOUS about the 600# Gorilla in their living room named -- sales lead "Follow-up?"

The older I get, the more obvious it is that most business related decisions are being made in companies today for NON-business related reasons. Keep reading and you'll know what I mean.

Let me begin by stating that on my desk is an article from the (then) editor of Control Engineering magazine dating back to 1979. While both the editor and magazine are gone, I look at it every day.

In the article (from 30-years ago, mind you) the editor states that a CARR (Cahner's Advertising Research Report) identifies that less than 20% of sales leads ever get followed-up.

Today (remember, it is 30-years later) there are countless references being made to that exact same statistic (less than 20% of sales leads ever get followed-up.)

So again I ask... WHY ISN'T UPPER MANAGEMENT FURIOUS that after countless hundreds / thousands / millions of THEIR company's dollars are spent on print advertising, trade show exhibitions, Internet websites, company events, CRM installations, contact management software programs and other marketing campaigns -- more than 80% of resultant selling opportunities are being missed in the majority of resultant sales leads that don't get followed up? Are you beginning to see the Gorilla?

To back-up what I'm about to say, I need you to know that back in 1986 I founded a national sales lead response management service organization that American Airlines named "One of the most innovative companies in the country." And, I developed a process of managing sales leads that they also called a "Best-Practice" in trade show marketing as it related to a company's selling process. WHY? Because any company that used our service, and its process, was assured of 100% lead follow-up. GUARANTEED!

I should also make clear that over the course of my 2+-decades in the service business, my company processed more than 1,000,000 sales leads, made more than 1,600,000 telephone calls, transmitted more than 127,000 faxes and emails, and shipped more than 370 tons of client literature around the world. And yours truly actually made more than 1,000 personal sales calls trying to sell my company's service to people that couldn't care-less about the fact that less than 20% of their company's leads were being followed up. And I mean COULDN'T CARE LESS. Many even said that their follow-up rate was less.

In fact, when the 20% follow-up statistic was brought up during most of my sales calls, marketing people reacted as though they were happy to be within the "norm," rather than motivated to fix the problem. When I quoted that statistic to sales people, they naturally came up with excuses and got defensive. And when I quoted it to upper management they took the position of... "That isn't happening in my company. And if it is... you need to talk to so and so." (Who I eventually found couldn't care less.) 

I could write pages about other push-backs I got during sales calls, for the obvious threats I made to the status-quo over the course of the 1,000+ sales calls. But instead, I'll fast-forward to today and simply state, here, that based on a lot of my own personal experience (some might call it street cred) I found that clearly... VERY FEW people really want to take ownership of the poor lead follow-up problem, or even consider taking the initiative to solve it. And here is what this writer suspects are reasons why.

Upper management people seldom wanted to look into the problem of poor lead follow-up. Especially if it meant they would eventually have to get involved in solving it, because they wouldn't be able to visit their company's trade show location where the leads are being generated. Especially when the trade shows are located in the 3 biggest playgrounds in the country... Orlando... Chicago... and Las Vegas.

BTW - If you have ever experienced upper management visiting your company's trade show... how long were they in the booth? Usually only long enough to make their presence known, then they disappeared, right? And maybe it was just a coincidence that they had their grandkids with them in Orlando, their wife in Chicago, and/or who-knows-who in Las Vegas with them.  I'm just sayin...

I recently saw attendance figures from a significant trade show stating that 24% of the show's overall attendance was made up of Senior Management. I challenged the show organizer to verify how many of the (Senior Management) names appeared in exhibitor sales lead counts. They didn't want to do that, and I'm not at all surprised as to why. Because I doubt that the Senior Management walked the show floor and/or expressed interest in buying anything. They just wanted everyone to know they were there.

Further... I found sales people and/or their sales manag ers that certainly didn't want anyone to "rock their boat" with the reality of poor lead follow-up. Because they already had their budgets in place, lifestyle built around their income, and favorite dealers, distributors and reps to fish, play golf, and party with. Is the reason for the Gorilla becoming more noticeable?

And lastly, I found marketing people that certainly didn't want to take ownership in fixing the poor lead follow-up problem, because they are measured by the "numbers" of leads generated. And any process changes would have to involve their personal  interaction with the sales force over in that "other silo", who would throw marketing under-the-bus in a heartbeat for muddying their waters of status-quo.

So marketing just throws the leads over the fence to the sales department and hopes for the best. And there's the 600# Gorilla just sitting there in the living room. And everyone chooses to ignore it.

If you have awareness of this situation, today, you well know that in most companies today, sales rules and marketing drools as the all too familiar blame-game marches on.  Hup, two three, four.

Marketing has been blaming sales for poor lead follow-up, and sales has been blaming marketing for poor quality leads for more than 3-decades that this writer has actually experienced. And it will no-doubt continue. All while companies continue to invest jillions of dollars in CRM and marketing programs that get more leads to their sales force faster, so they can do nothing with them sooner.

Due to barriers of communication technology, today, sales people can't even reach anyone. So they are forced to  live with their existing customers and ignore their prospects, all while pipelines, hoppers, sales funnels, CRM and contact management are all nothing but buzzwords, fluff and distractions from the Gorilla that's getting bigger and bigger.

The fact of the matter is that VERY FEW people want to fix the problem of poor lead follow-up, because God forbid someone might have to do something different, make a sales call, or actually talk to someone they don't already know.

The answer to the pervasive problem of poor lead follow-up and sales "prevention" is deeply rooted in "people" and the difference between sellers and order takers. Leads simply have to be processed differently in the marketing department to make it easier for sales people to follow-up. So... WTF?

WTF = What's The Future in lead generation, handling, and conversion to sales when individual self-interest is being put before company prosperity in every company but yours - right?