Last night I was driving out to the store to grab a few grocery items and as is my custom, I began flipping through the radio stations.  I was mindlessly turning from station to station when I stopped at a commercial that caught my attention. The announcer asked, "Are you in sales or do you own a business?"  Because I could answer "yes" to both, I continued to listen.  The commercial went on to state that not getting good qualified leads for a business can be the main factor that stands in the way of a business making money.  The commercial then offered their solution to the problem:  leads delivered right to your sales people's inbox every day. The results?  Your business will grow, revenue will increase, quotas will be met and everyone will retire to Millionaire Estates just like in the game of LIFE!!!  OK, the last one I added. It wasn't really part of the commercial.

While it certainly is true that good qualified leads can make the difference in a sales career or for a business, I've yet to see where this "silver bullet" approach works.  After all, if it was as easy as subscribing to an email service, wouldn't every one in sales be succeeding? 

As I continued my "radio scanning" exercises, I thought about the issues that the "leads" commercial brings to light, many of which are not being effectively addressed at the majority of companies.  These are issues such as...

• Lack of clarification on the definition of a lead. What does sales say a lead is? What about marketing? What about customer service? Most companies cannot definitively describe what a lead looks like for their business.
• Lack of qualification criteria. At a significant number of companies, different groups are using differing weights and measures to determine a lead's viability.
• Lack of centralization for lead qualification. Many companies allow leads to be qualified at the point of entry instead of through one central repository and process.
• Lack of "on going" lead qualification, or lead nurturing. Most companies don't have a plan for ongoing lead nurturing for those leads that are not "sales-ready".

Making sure you have the answers to these and other questions is the start of defining and developing a sales and marketing process that will enable you to improve the return on the sales leads you receive, no matter where they come from.