Managing Sales Leads

Turning Cold Prospects into Hot Customers

Nothing happens until a sale is made. You can’t make a sale without a qualified sales lead. These two simple statements explain why sales leads are the lifeblood of every business organization, regardless of product or service. And the author, James Obermayer,  President of Sales Leakage Consulting and a 25-year sales and marketing veteran, gives real, everyday practical meaning and utility to all of the typical sales and marketing aphorisms. 

Obermayer begins by emphasizing the importance of making the case to everyone in the organization so that lead generation, qualification, and management can be integrated into all key business functions. In addition, he provides “business rules to operate by” as standards everyone in sales and marketing and the entire organization can use. And he shows how to measure the declining value of sales leads, giving managers the ammunition necessary to establish realistic and relevant standards.

In the second section of the book the author details all steps in the management process, including:

• Defining and identifying the different kinds of leads.
• Rank-ordering and valuing different kinds of leads.
• Reading, understanding and using the numbers to manage the entire process.
• Matching the inquiry-handling process to the type of product or service.
• Special inquiry handling concerns, such as business-to-business inquiries.
• Making the in-house or outsourcing decision.
• Minimizing leakage.
• Handling all backroom operations, such as fulfillment, tracking and distribution.
• Closing the inquiry loop.

The third section covers estimating and forecasting inquiry and lead generation, while the fourth section lists 11 essential rules for inquiry handling and management and pointers on how to get buy-in from the sales force and the rest of the organization.

All in all this the one book sales and marketing executives will refer to and use every day to manage the inquiry and lead management in their organizations.

Product Details
255 pages
ISBN: 0-324-20536-5