Leads

****** Software On Sailboats Pocket Sales Manager
****** Keywords: CRM software, mobile crm

Leads

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Leads
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Sales leads are the gasoline that makes the sales engine run. Since leads can come from many sources, below are some ideas about how to manage sales leads in the Pocket Sales Manager. Note that there is not a strict discipline for managing leads that you must follow.

The basic tenet of lead distribution on the Pocket Sales Manager is the exchange of sales leads (undeveloped sales Opportunities) stored in Pipelines ( XML data files). The exchange of information can have many, many forms. Choose and use any of the random ideas below that fit your business....

To be, or not to be ...Leads can be thought of as sales Opportunities that we don't know a lot about just yet. Since the Pocket Sales Manager tracks sales Opportunities, it can also track the undeveloped sales Opportunities we call leads. The sales rep will want to consider the merit of managing your leads in a leads-only Pipeline versus keeping them in your working Pipeline with a field ( like "Stage") marking them as a lead.

Manna from heaven ...some organizations provide leads from advertisements,websites, telemarketing, etc. Distribute these leads to sales reps by entering them into a Desktop Sales Manager Pipeline and emailing the Pipeline to the sales rep for management in their DSM or PSM. The rep can merge them into their lead Pipeline or into their current Pipeline as they see fit.

Something in the air ...Mobile sales reps who have WAP phones, Smartphones,or PDAs with wireless connections can get their leads in near real-time using the Pocket Sales Manager. In the same fashion, they can send their Pipelines back to headquarters for near-real time updates of sales information.

I found one! ....during your prospecting you may have come upon a sales lead you may want to track. For example, you may have seen an article in the newspaper about a company that could use your products. Since we don't know much more than the company name or contacts that were mentioned in the article, enter a sales Opportunity with only a description e.g. "Acme Manufacturing, newspaper article".

It's just a stage they are going through ...Use a field to track leads in your normal sales Pipeline. The standard template has a field for tracking the "stage" you are at in your sales process and the first stage is Lead. Setting the Navigator to "Stage"will sort all your leads under one tree node...

Can't see the forest for the trees ....If you have a lot of leads (a very good thing...) you may decide to keep leads in a sales Pipeline and not clutter up your "work in process" sales Pipeline.

Marketing Campaign Effectiveness ...One of marketing's many challenges is to measure the effectiveness of a campaign. How many leads does a campaign generate? How many of a campaign's leads turn into sales? Consider using a sales Opportunity field to track the lead source. For example, the standard template uses a "Lead Source" field for Internet, prospecting, call in, etc. You may want to use a field that is more campaign specific e.g. "January catalog mailer".