The end of lead management

I know this sounds crazy. And people who know me may even ask if this is a faked identity. No - it's me. Here is what triggered me to this post:

Let's be clear on leads:
Leads are basically inquires for information initiated by a prospect of any kind. Either inspired by advertising, direct mail or other means of attention creating measures - right? So far so good.

What is going on today?
If you are telling me that you are inundated by sales leads, don't read further and be very thankful. For the rest of us, I guess it looks like this:

1) At first a prospects searches for things in the Internet [not yet a lead] at best an IP address in our weblog which we call "traffic".

2) The search unearths a lot of information and that information is typically written or shown on blogs, in Youtube, in forums, groups, communities. Still no inquiry is coming in - unless you are active on all those places.

3) The prospect digests the information and tries to ask questions. The most asked question: "Does any body have experience with..." You find those questions in LinkedIn groups, Yahoo Groups, on Blogs etc.

4) With the answers coming in, the prospect is now exploring websites, compares products, experience, suggestions and price of course.

5) [still no leads] The prospect is now getting in touch with other users of said product or service and tries to get a clear picture. "Hey, I saw you do this and that. I'm thinking about... Do you mind telling me..."

6) Based on all the information the prospect is ready to make a decision and connects with the seller (company, reseller, agents... you name it)

Ahhhh - now this is a lead, actually a hot lead, actually a pre qualified opportunity, no no no it is a real opportunity...

Let's try to match it with the way we all explore things we potentially buy. Ask yourself: When did you ask a company or reseller for information BEFORE you checked the internet and get a clear picture about what you are looking for?

The well informed customers get's in touch with us and leaves the "lead qualification process" empty. So leads, as we know it, is simply history - end, over, gone. With the exception of our marketing departments buying ADDRESSES which are sold as leads.

But most companies have still "lead qualification, nurturing, initial contact, presentation...." in their sales process. Pretty interesting disconnect isn't it.

Now - some companies nailed the "new normal". I actually worked with several companies to develop new processes to deal with the new reality.

Whats necessary:

1) Openness to understand the world didn't stand still in the last five years. (There is no go back to the good old days)

2) Openness to realign sales processes to the new reality. You may actually have invested hundreds of thousands in training and CRM systems. You don't need to throw everything away - but be open to realignment.

3) Openness to EXPERIMENT with brand new tools that accommodate the new processes. You read correct: experiment. You can of course wait and see what others do and then simply follow. It's a cheap way to avoid mistakes. Doesn't get you to leadership but we can't be all leaders anyway. In any case you can already safe time and resources if you overhaul individual process steps that are just no longer efficient.

Andi Rudin and I crafted a paper called "The Principal Of Social Selling" Happy to provide a copy if interested. Send me an email at as@xeequa.com

@AxelS
http://xeesm.com/AxelS
(My Social Map)

P.S. Why aren't your top notch sales trainer tell you?
Because they where in the trenches at times where we had leads from web forms, through the fax and even via mail - so many that we had to develop a lead management process. But that was 10+ years ago ;-)