Telemarketing Software Featured Article

Managing leads tends to be a costly and often less-than-optimal proposition for inside sales.

The following Yankee Group (News - Alert) statistics paint that picture, showing that between 40 and 80 percent of sales leads are lost or never qualified between marketing and sales. Meanwhile, research and advisory firm SiriusDecisions reports that 80 percent of business-to-business prospects in a company’s sales funnel will be that organization’s product or service in the next couple of years.

A new whitepaper from VanillaSoft explains how businesses help close that deal via better lead management. The paper, titled “Mastering the Lead Management Process for Inside Sales”, takes readers on a journey of best practices they can follow to gain that mastery.

It all starts with writing a step-by-step plan that addresses your company’s value proposition and allows sales reps to easily follow a prescription for when to place calls and trigger emails for optimal results. Of course, that requires ensuring that sales reps are reaching out to the right prospects, and prioritizing them in the right way. As the paper suggests, leads need to be evaluated to decide whether “they are qualified for sales reps or should be buried in the graveyard.”

The paper also discusses how to define a qualified lead, how to institute a lead qualification team, how to distribute leads and establish workflow, the difference between list-based and queue-based lead systems, the various kinds of leads, and the need to handle different types of leads differently & how best to do that. It also addresses email marketing’s how to track leads, stats, and more; how to do quality assurance; the role of recording and training in lead management; and what analytics can bring to the table.

“Consistency in your lead management process is key,” as the paper notes. “The success of a good lead management plan relies on the development of repeatable processes, shared templates, and definitions. While you can manually implement these “must have” elements of your plan, you are leaving the process open to human error and inefficiency. When you put queue-based sales CRM automations to work for your team, you will see an increase in sales productivity.”

To download a copy of the whitepaper, click HERE.