Lead Management Software
Lead Management Software – Capture, Distribute and Track leads within your sales teams.
Building Sales through Lead focused CRM
Posted on 30. Nov, 2011 by Duncan Macdonald in CRM, Lead Management, Lead Management Blog
Every successful salesperson understands the importance of the sales cycle and the need to work through each stage to convert leads into deals. All stages are important, but one of the key elements is the initial engagement with leads.
The term leads, means different things to different people. Generally a lead is a prospect with whom you have had interaction with and have captured some way of directly communicating with.
Some will tell you it’s not a lead until there is a specific need or demand but really they are all leads with just varying degrees of readiness to buy. However you define a lead, each will go through these stages and in order to build your sales. To get them there you need to work on lead management strategies that focus efforts on progressing leads to the next stage.
To do this well requires planning and the tools to help develop prospects into future leads, capture those leads, their interests and then qualify and convert leads into sales.
Here are 7 tips to get more sales from you CRM
1. Get yourself a Lead focussed CRM tool – CRM is a catch all for all sorts of strategies and software.
Not all CRM software is created equal with many only providing basic customer management and tracking. This is not Lead Management.
A CRM tool with a specific focus on Lead Management will let you score, automate the distribution of leads, then help you understand the conversion rates and how sales are performing.
2. Include everyone – Lead Management depends on leads being generated and this is typically a marketing role. If you do this well and in any volume then typically you will have a sales team or use a sales channel.
Either way everyone should be working and pulling together with to the same goal – producing better leads and converting more. For that reason everyone involved in this process would have access to the CRM tool. Marketing will know the results of their work and Sales will have a steady flow of qualified leads to work on.
3. Encourage immediate lead follow-up - Research shows time and again, that the quicker a lead is contacted, the greater the chances of you winning the deal.
Sounds obvious but in reality many companies are poor at this. Remove obstacles and excuses by making sure the lead is distributed to sales quickly and then all you need worry about is setting response targets. Your CRM software should be able to automate as much of this process as possible.
4. Nurture your leads. – Deals are not always made in the first conversation. Usually, the lead has to be encouraged and nurtured.
Persistence and patience are key but all too often it is easy for sales to drop the lead, especially if a new and exciting one pops up.
However in most instances, patience does pay, so teach your sales team the value of nurturing a lead and provide the lead management tools to identify leads that are going cold, stalled or need refreshing.
5. Knowledge is Power - The more you know or more importantly your sales teams knows about the lead, the greater the chance you have of converting.
Capturing as much information about the leads interests, source, interactions and building a previous history is vital.
6. Feedback from Sales – Ok it is great knowing which leads and how many leads became customers. Of course this is important but make sure you get feedback from sales about why leads didn’t convert.
Lost reasons will give you insight and are a great way to improve the quality of your marketing and the campaigns you use. This feedback loop should be an integral part of your lead management software.
7. Account for every single lead – Track each and every lead you create. It is the only way to get a complete picture of your Lead Management strategy. Only then will you get a better understanding of your sales cycle and only then can you begin to refine your efforts for greater rewards.
Generating leads is only half the story. Lead management requires a good clear strategy and a CRM tool to support.
B12Leads is an online lead management tool to capture, distribute and convert leads. Everything you would expect from a CRM tool but with a focus on keeping track of leads and your sales teams. An affordable solution that has everything you need to take control of your sales pipeline.
