At what point are leads handed off to your sales force? If initial inquiries are forwarded directly to Sales for follow-up, then you’re tasking your sales force with all the qualification required to sort and select which leads are actually ready for direct sales activity. That’s fine, if you’ve deliberately hired a versatile sales force that wants to get their hands into the database and handle lead qualification themselves.
It isn’t so fine if you’ve deliberately hired a group of strong closers that specialize in converting ripe leads into orders. To such salespersons, a lead is an individual who, at the least, has a problem that your product can solve, is motivated to solve the problem, is actively looking for solutions, and has the budget and authority to buy at list price. The “leads” you send to to your sales force will seem to them like some random group of individuals with no relationship to quota. They’ll go back to golf selling, and your investment in generating inquiries, and organizing them carefully into a database, will be wasted.
How does it work in your organization?
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