6 major stages of an effective lead management and Lead Generation

Here are the 6 major stages of an effective lead management:

1. Lead Generation (generating inquiries) 2. Lead Qualification (are they a fit? Are they sales ready?) 3. Lead Nurturing (cultivating early stage leads) 4. Lead Distribution (hand off from marketing to sales) 5. Lead Pursuit (sales process and pipeline) 6. Lead Tracking and reporting (closed the loop between sales and marketing)

10 Lead Generation (Prospecting) Tips

1. Build an ideal customer profile

2.Talk to your best customers

3. Build your personal prospecting engine

4. Develop a lead generation calendar

5. Act like a good financial manager

6. Define your goals for lead generation

7. Rigorously qualify

8. Be consistent

9. Develop a lead nurturing plan

10. Develop and maintain your own database

Collaboration Huddles and 35 Other Ways to Improve Sales and Marketing Teamwork

1. Get feedback from the sales team – look at the conversion process and have regular face-to-face meetings or conference calls. Where is your sales team getting stuck?
2. Seek to understand if the sales team is at capacity. Don’t generate more leads if they are focused on closing deals. Support them with nurturing.
3. Encourage sales people to follow-up on leads and hold them accountable, while still treating them like customers…ask them what they need.
4. Develop a strategic lead generation and growth plan between sales and marketing.
5. Marketing and sales can work together on standardizing and documenting their lead generation and sales process so that what is happening can be easily tracked and measured.
6. Develop a marketing program that helps the sales team sell at a personal level.
7. Train your sales people on how to optimize your lead generation investment and give your feedback.
8. Centralize the lead qualification process.
9. Use your huddles to introduce new sales people to the marketing team.
10. Share lead generation best practices amongst the sales team.
11. Assign revenue goals to your joint sales and marketing plan.
12. Be flexible in your planning, so that you can adapt to changing requirements.
13. Lead generation must be promoted from the top down and bottom up.
14. Develop a culture that values leads by creating a universal lead definition.
15. Get the marketing team out in the field with the sales team regularly.
16. Arrange your compensation so there’s a shared accountability around lead generation.
17. Remember what Steven Covey say’s, “seek first to understand. Then be understood.”
18. Close-the-loop on each sales lead being generated.
19. See that marketing takes over as many of the non-selling tasks as possible.
20. Integrate sales and marketing activity by using the same database or CRM system.
21. Define and map out the responsibilities shared by both sales and marketing.
22. Share details about upcoming, events, articles, and press coverage.
23. Go over the upcoming lead generation program strategy and what the outcomes of that strategy are expected to be.
24. Mutually share new insights gained from customer feedback.
25. Share effectiveness measurements from recent lead generation activities.
26. Jointly develop message map and value proposition for you lead generation program.
27. Ask, what have you learned from the leads? Are there changes in hot topics for your target audience?
28. Discuss common concerns raised by potential customers and how the sales team is addressing them and develop solutions together.
29. Do your lead generation messaging align with your target audiences needs?
30. Analyze competitive information, and develop a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats)
31. Improve relevance of sales tools and marketing materials with sales input.
32. Map out your customer’s decision and buying process and then map out your value proposition for each role involved in the buying process.
33. Determine an answer to the question: What is the life cycle of a lead?
34. Strategic accounts: Can you develop content and lead generation events with your existing customers as references (ambassadors) to your audience?
35. define your expertise: how can you demonstrate your ability to solve business problems and share new ideas?

Lead Nurturing Plan Below is a sample schedule of a lead nurturing program Day 1: Phone call "nice to meet you" and send email Day 28: Send e-newsletter and leave voicemail to announce Day 42: Email recent customer success story (related company) Day 60: Call from sales person personally invites to seminar Day 80: Mail case study and personalized letter Day 100: Email a recent article of interest link Day 120: Email "touching base" note Day 140: Mail follow-up letter with free report Day 160: Prospect calls you - Qualified lead