Sales Lead Management Today

Research on the Biggest Problems Facing New Members of the SLMA

In the last few months each person who joined as a member of the SLMA was asked about their biggest problems. 117 new members answered the question; these are their answers. They could choose up to three issues (some choose more and we included them). The surprise to us is that Proving ROI was the least of their problems; Generating Qualified Inquiries ranked first with the most mentions.

Generating Qualified Leads 31%
Generating New Inquiries 24%
Managing Inquiries 17%
Working with Sales Management on Follow-up 15%
Proving ROI 13%

What are your biggest problems?

Gee Thanks! Marketing Automation Continues to Surprise!

Marketing automation is growing in its capabilities and its promises.   We at the Sales Lead Management Association believe that the proactive nature of marketing automation can deliver  sales increases in 90-120 days, virtually guaranteed.   Maybe Marketing Automation can't yet give thanks via sky writing, but it probably isn't far off.

 

 This cartoon is sponsored by CartoonLink.  If you would like to sponsor a cartoon on sales lead management, CRM, marketing automation or marketing ROI contact:  Ron Goodman at [email protected]

Sales Lead Leakage #1: You fail to sell to 100% of the sales leads you don’t follow-up.

Lack of follow-up by sales reps is the number one failure for lead generation campaigns.   If salespeople can’t do it, get a marketing automation program.  

Unless the potential customer is willing to over-look the lack of follow-up and buy without hearing from a salesperson (usually B2C sales leads) your company has a huge sales lead leakage issue and you're failing.

Industry stats, articles, research and pundits report a 75-90% failure in sales lead follow-up by most companies.   This isn't a minor leakage issue it is a massive problem because it says that the marketing failure is in direct portion to the lack of sales lead follow-up. 

The stats people keep quoting are 45% of the salespeople give up after the first phone call.  Here are a few things I teach sales reps:

-Nearly half of all sales leads turn into a sale for someone.

-75-90% of all inquiries and leads are not followed-up by anyone in sales.