Best Practices for Salesforce.com Leads

by heather on February 25, 2010 · 0 comments

in CRM, Sales & Marketing

Great advice for anyone that wants more leads……Ben is smart….

Advice As A Service

via Best Practices for Salesforce.com Leads.

Best Practices for Salesforce.com Leads

“i do a lot of cold calling – would these count as leads in salesforce or is there a better way to organise them?”
Community – Leads – Best Practices Discussion – Force.com Discussion Boards

This is a common question for Salesforce.com users – what is the best practice on lead management in particular for cold calling lists?

In my opinion, the best practice is to enter the lead only if you are committed to performing one of the following actions on the lead:

  1. Qualify the lead now;
  2. Disqualify the lead now; or
  3. Disqualify the lead forever.

In particular, here is what I mean:

Qualify the Lead Now

If  you say that the lead is now qualified, it means she is in the market for your product,  she has the ability to pay for it, and she will be making a decision relatively soon.  That’s a beautiful thing.

Disqualify the Lead Now

If  you say that the lead is not qualified now, it means he is not in the market for your product, he does not have the ability to pay for it, or he will not be able to make a decision anytime soon.  That’s frustrating, but you should not throw him away.

 

Disqualify the lead forever

If you say that the lead is never going to be in the market for your product or will never have the ability to pay for it, then you should disqualify the lead forever.  This most often occurs when:

  1. The lead tells you to update their telephone number, “My new number is (212) 479-7990.”;
    Or the lead says, “I never want to hear from you or speak to you again.”
  2. The contact information you have for the lead is no longer valid; or
  3. The lead was 86′ed by your organization – this is usually done for some sort of egregious behavior.

If you are not committed to driving the lead to one of these outcomes, do not even bother to enter the lead in your CRM.  Save yourself the thirty seconds to enter the information into your CRM.  I’ll go even further – if you aren’t committed to driving to one of these outcomes, don’t even bother calling even once!

Yes, Not now or never because I am dead are the only options  – Accept no other outcome!!!

Community – Leads – Best Practices Discussion – Force.com Discussion Boards

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