No Lead Left Behind

How many touches should it take to assign a lead?

Of the two options given below, which is the better method for delivering leads to sales representatives?

• Option A: Set up 3 territories for the whole US with 3 territory owners. Have them manually review each lead and reassign them to a more local sales manager. Then have the sales manager review each lead and reassign the lead again to the sales representative that is best suited to contact the lead.  Number of touches = 3.  Time elapsed = hours? days? weeks?
• Option B:  Set up territories for every sales representative in the company so when a lead comes in it gets immediately and automatically routed to the best suited sales resource. Number of touches = 0.  Time elapsed = 1 minute, tops!

I continue to be surprised by the number of sales executives that want to go with option A.  Sales people typically do not want to spend their time on paperwork or process, nor can you count on them to quickly reassign a lead to someone else.  The lead sits in their territory until Friday afternoon when they are done making sales calls… then it finally moves down the hierarchy to the appropriate rep.  In the meantime, the lead has grown cold.  This month’s issue of the US Post Office’s “Deliver Magazine” has a great article that cites a 30 minute contact rule for all web-based leads in order to maximize conversion.  That’s not even possible with 2 touches, much less 3!  

A good lead management system must be flexible to automate lead distribution rules based on almost any variable -

• Geography:  zip code, state, MSA, county, country, etc.
• Product line
• Vertical focus:  legal, healthcare, hospitality, etc
• Budget size
• Channel preference:  branch, dealer, VAR, distributor, etc.
• Named accounts:  (Big, national accounts get special service and sales support)
• Keyword filters
• Lead source
• And more

There will always be exceptions in a complex selling solution where a lead cannot and should not go below the VP level.  But this is the exception, not the rule! 

Disagree?  Let me know.