Salespeople enjoy receiving leads. They feel confident calling because they think the prospect already has a high level of interest in their product or service. It also beats having to make a cold call any day. However, if they are provided with consistently poor leads over a long period of time, eventually they won't bother to follow-up.

It is common for a company to spend a significant percentage of its marketing budget trying to provide strong leads for the sales staff. They want to believe that their methodology for acquiring these leads is solid, and that they are giving the salesperson the names of prospects that have a high probability of closing.

A great deal of finger-pointing takes place when the sales staff criticizes or expresses disappointment in the leads. Much of this disappointment emanates from the fact that all parties concerned are far more optimistic about the quality of the leads than they should be.

When a salesperson is making a prospecting call it is a proactive activity. Following up on a lead is a reactive activity. While the potential client may still be interested, their expression of interest may have been of the moment and they might be thinking about something else now. It takes one or more conversations to determine whether or not they remain interested. This is one of the reasons why leads should be followed-up as soon as possible after they are identified.

The key to successfully following up on leads is to have a standardized set of qualifying questions that all of the sales representatives or all of the lead qualification representatives ask of the prospect before they make a judgment on the true level of interest.

Examples of qualifying questions are as follows:

• How did you hear about our company?
• How long have you been considering a product / service like __________?
• How might a product or service like _________ be of benefit to you?
• Are you using a particular product or service to address these issues currently?
• Do you have a preliminary budget drawn up for a purchase of this nature?
• Did you have a time frame in mind for making a decision?

Many will say that these questions are too bold or aggressive - and they are - if the salesperson is dealing with a prospect with little genuine interest or urgency in regard to your product or service. If they do have a significant level of interest, though, they will answer these questions with little trouble.

Meet with your sales staff and create your own list of qualifying questions. After that is done, come up with a rating system for the leads based on the prospective customer's answers to the questions. The rating system should be objectively based on a specific set of criteria that the qualifying questions determine. Once this is completed, your company can begin to determine what percentage of leads is really "A" level.

If a salesperson is given 20 leads from a trade show and it is determined that 3 of the leads are "A" level, as a manager you can now hold them accountable for closing a certain number of "A" level leads throughout the course of the year. This practice will help the entire company. The sales representatives will not feel unfairly judged, and those charged with providing the leads will come to a greater understanding of what really constitutes a strong lead.