♪ Take this lead and shove it
♪ I ain't following up no more
♪ My innocence left, and with it went, all the reasons I was working for
♪ You better not try to stand in my way
♪ As I'm walking out the door
♪ So take this lead and shove it, I ain't following up no more

With apologies to David Allan Coe, this is how many sales reps feel about the leads they get. They don't feel they receive sales qualified leads that are going to help them build their sales lead pipeline.

Like you probably, I'm tired of hearing about (even talking about) the lack of alignment between marketing and sales. However, the poor results from this lack of alignment are going to continue, if not get worse, unless some very specific changes are made.

I was talking to a prospect last week; and they described their process as follows:

Raw Leads (100%) → Marketing Qualified Leads (25%) → Sales Qualified Leads (25%)

In that situation, for every one hundred raw inquiries or "leads" the company generates—sales ends up with 25 of them. Sales reps then work the "leads" down to about six qualified opportunities. That is a lot of work for a sales rep, especially if they are involved in active sales cycles and don't have an affinity and/or aptitude for prospecting (and most don't).

According to CSO Insights, just about one out of two salespeople achieved quota in 2008; and quotas went up in 2009! Worse yet, 65% of companies report that their 2009 marketing spend will be equal to or less than 2008. So, it would be unrealistic to expect results to improve this year—in fact we expect them to be substantially worse.

There is a way you can change the outcome! First, let's look at the three most common "lead" handling scenarios:

Most Common

Inquiries and "leads" are sent to sales, end up in a black hole, finger pointing ensues between marketing and sales, inevitably someone is fired, and there's no return on investment.

Somewhat Less Common

Inquiries and "leads" are pre-qualified by an internal or outsourced inside sales team, 25% result in "marketing qualified leads", these are sent to sales; sales works about half of them (at best) and identifies three opportunities that they will invest time on. The other, roughly twenty-two, companies are never nurtured and are squandered.

Not Common

Responses are pre-qualified by internal or external inside sales team. Sales qualified lead criteria is established and a process for identifying and handing off sales ready leads is designed and executed. Effective multi-touch, multi-media and multi-cycle processes yield six leads that are sales ready (without sales having to work twenty five opportunities—giving them time to do what they do best which is sell) and nineteen longer-term opportunities go to inside sales for nurturing.

Remarkably, senior managers do not understand why the sales force should not work "marketing leads" and why the cost of having sales do any filtering of leads is expensive (both from the standpoint of real cost and opportunity cost). The cost of mishandling leads is so high that it is senseless not do something about it. The roadmap for best practices in lead handling is the "Not Common" scenario above. How likely are you to change your processes to match that scenario?

If you find that your sales force takes your leads and shoves them, maybe you better find out why.

By Dan McDade