If your work in the Sales Department of an IT company, you must be under a lot of pressure to close the sales. So much, that you might have to ignore other sale opportunities that are not likely to turn into real sales. What happens it that even if you as a seller are doing a good job, some time the marketing department gives you the wrong info. The think they give you sales leads, but they only hand you inquiries. Inquiries are not sales leads, because they are customers that are only seeking support but they do not qualify as sales leads.

Studies show that from all of those inquiries your sales people get, only a maximum of 15% become sales. If you sales department are given only inquiries, then their times with unlikely customers will be a waste. In the process your company will spend useful resources, and your staff will be frustrated and become distrustful of information supplied by the marketing department.

The key is to make good management leads. Several studies show that companies properly manage their work more efficiently and leads have better closing ratios on opportunities generated by marketing. And the most basic of all these management techniques is the qualification of leads.

However you decide to do it, the most important thing is that the definition is agreed upon and accepted by all concerned parties and that it has all the specifics of the type of product and what needs it covers, of the customers that they are marketed to, their purchasing processes, and the vendor and its sales process.

Apply a clear criterion of what constitutes a good lead has key implications in terms of which of them are transferred for follow-up sales-ready leads and which will continue to be treated and developed by marketing through nurturing, and in general all activities of leads management.

On the contrary, not implementing a formal definition of what the company is a good lead on which they agree upon in terms of sales and marketing ends up in frictions and mistrust between the two departments, for wasting sellers’ time and marketing resources on monitoring or the generation of useless leads and ultimately, failure to achieve the business goals.