Lead Generation, Lead Management, Lead Nurturing: three crucial steps in the life of a lead!

The first of these steps is lead generation. This is the process of finding those parties who already have an interest in what is being sold. There are several ways of generating new leads; including purchasing leads from a third party organization or having web visitors submit their contact information. These leads are more valuable to a remote sales company if they have been newly generated, because these leads are more likely to convert into a sale. No lead can be ignored in a data base somewhere and still be considered a ?hot lead.?

Just as important to successful remote sales is lead response management. A customer relationship manager (CRM) is designed to help sales reps with lead management. Leads generated can be uploaded to the CRM from a variety of data formats or downloaded automatically from the company?s website.

CRMs may have lead response management tools built into the system. These allow sales reps to contact the newly generated leads almost immediately. Within minutes, generated web leads will receive a call from an attentive sales representative with this system. This is a noticeable difference from most companies, who often leave a new lead uncalled for 24 to 48 hours.

(These CRMs manage all the interactions that these leads will continue to have with the company. They are powerful tools for tracking and analyzing sales data. Definitely worth the investment.)

As calls progress, the CRM allows companies to manage contacts in three “Buckets:” leads, prospects, and customers. Within these “Buckets” contact groups can be made. Each contact group can be marketed, notified and supported with the mass emails, faxes, and mailer tools built into the system. Each of these groups can also be designated as the contact list for a power dialer or voice broadcasting system. Sales representatives can adapt their scripts to address the needs of the contacts in each ?Bucket.?

But even with such awesome personalizing of the sales process not every lead will convert into a sale immediately. Some inside sales companies would abandon those leads. Lead nurturing is an alternative to simply abandoning leads that did not convert. Lead nurturing is the process of keeping in contact with non-converted leads and providing quality interaction with them so they will become a customer in the future. Email, phone calls, mailers, and faxes are all used in lead nurturing.

While lead generation is a critical aspect of inside sales, a CRM allows sales reps to manage and nurture those leads until they become converted customers.

Most people in business know that without lead management, there is no business. Joined with dialer software, you have a business strategy that is nessessary for your business’s survival.

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