The leads have been distributed........will sales follow up? Part 7 in a Dick Lee series:

Sales follow-up: You might think that sales-follow-up is outside the purview of lead management. If you do, think again. In fact—along with inquiry qualification—encouraging, monitoring and measuring field sales follow-up provided the original raison d’être for the third-party sales lead management industry, which popped up in the early 1980s. Third-party lead management originally focused on helping companies with “direct” (employee) sales forces, but by the 1990s, several of the more advanced firms had mastered the art of working with “indirect” (distributor or independent rep) sales forces as well. I want to reinforce with readers that effective lead managers can and do successfully monitor and measure indirect sales force activity.

We need to offset misperceptions that trying to manage partner leads is wasted effort.

It’s in our best interests as well as yours because we ourselves often have difficulty persuading our own clients that lead management involving third-party reps can work, if properly executed. Initially, most clients throw up their hands and cling to the belief that trying to manage third-party rep performance is futile——like trying to turn a stand of trees into a chorus line.

Implementing CRM software doesn’t supplant the need for effectively executed lead management strategies

Now, you might also think that having a CRM system in place takes the place of lead management. If you do, step back and stop remembering the software sales pitch you heard. CRM software is a tool—an automation tool, a reporting tool, a collaboration tool and a data integration tool. But it barely helps B2B lead management unless it’s enabling and supporting a well thought-out and fully articulated sales lead management strategy, as in the following example.

An innovative manufacturing company historically known for excellent sales strategies and effective lead management—pre-CRM—does an excellent job of motivating, monitoring and measuring field sales activity post-CRM. Lead management tools it uses include:
• Matching selling processes to individual customer buying processes.
• Monitoring milestone achievements across steps to the sale.
• Comparing field sales rep performance across a range of metrics
• Identifying rep training needs based on milestone achievement, or lack thereof.
• Monitoring customer retention.

Tellingly, while CRM software helps supports all of these tasks, it can’t perform any of them by itself.

These functions have to be designed according to business requirements, properly configured within the app, and most importantly—managed by people, not software.

Here’s a good way to frame the relative contributions of lead management and CRM software to managing sales follow-up. Companies can effectively manage sales lead follow-up using lead management tools—but lacking any CRM software support. It’s a tad untidy and manual, although some companies have done it for decades. However, lead generating companies cannot effectively manage sales follow-up with CRM software alone—in the absence of broader lead management tools.

We should all chew on this for a while. We badly need to put into proper context CRM’s contribution to sales lead-follow and to lead management programs overall. While CRM can enable and automate important lead management processes, such support takes a back seat in importance to what people contribute across the entire lead management spectrum.