Lead Management Strategy: Determining the Right Baseline Metrics for Lead Qualification

One of the keys to establishing a successful lead management and lead qualification initiative is to identify and establish the right baseline metrics for the sales team beforehand.

In order to monitor the effectiveness of any sales program or effort, managers have to first determine exactly what it is that they’re going to be measuring. For lead management, that means breaking down the process into its fundamental stages, advises John Barrows, Co-owner and Managing Partner of sales consultancy Kensei Partners in this short video.

Starting with lead generation, conversion rates can be established for the following buckets or stages:

• Initial phone calls
• Getting through the gatekeeper to conversations with decision makers
• Qualification calls
• Qualified calls (“I’ve got fifteen minutes, you and I are going to talk, after that fifteen minutes you’re going to say, ‘Alright John, why don’t you come in and meet with me.'” Barrows explains.)
• Meetings
• Proposals
• Closed deals

Once managers are able to monitor and establish conversion ratios for each of these stages, Barrows says that’s when they can start to pinpoint where reps need help and focus on making targeted improvements to the process.