Lead Management - Key to Success Replication

Service Providers are constantly challenged to win profitable business. As a thumb rule, one can say that if a service provider focuses on winning new business with its existing capabilities and offerings it will be more profitable. This is because the existing clientele would give a positive reference and the new prospect would obviously pay more. The key perhaps is to have a Lead Management Team in place.

To ensure we are on the same page, let me define my understanding of a lead. When in an account, there is (i) a significant pain, (ii) a budget has been allocated to alleviate the pain, (iii) the plan is to spend the budget in the coming 6 - 9 months and (iv)we (the company I work for) have a solution to alleviate the pain - I call it a lead.

The crucial next stage is to qualify a lead which means answering questions such as (i) Is the Prospect looking for the value that my company can provide or are they looking for a price quotation? (ii) Should I set aside resources (budget, people and time) to pursue this deal? – Can I win this deal? If the answer to both questions is yes, then the lead becomes a "qualified opportunity".

Wins come from Qualified Opportunities and Qualified Opportunities come from effective lead management. I am sure all of us know that. Now, how does one do lead management (different from lead generation) in this "real world"? Here are my suggestions.

1. Focus on creation of opportunities that one can win. There are too many companies in the marketplace responding to opportunities coming their way. The results are typically low morale, unexciting results and low ROI on Sales and Marketing. A lead Manager will be respected only in such a company. Elsewhere he is wasting his time.
2. Put a Lead Management Team in place instead of Lead Generation team. A lead management team has the complete authority to push anybody in the company (including the account manager) to create the lead and manage the lead till it is qualified and handed over to sales. Authority and responsibility should go together.
3. Right Organization Design. Keep Lead Management as peers to Sales and Account Management. Lead Managers need to manage leads through multiple channels - Email, Voice, Events and the website. This will ensure the two teams respect each other.
4. Right Measurement. Measure Qualified Opportunities as the Key Output of Lead Management. In other words, Lead Managers should be compensated only for qualified opportunities. Not for leads, not for setting up meetings for example. This will ensure result oriented action within Lead Management.
5. Peer Sign off. Have the Account Manager sign off on the Qualified Opportunity and take over the same from the Lead Management Team. The Lead Management team should get compensated for their work at this stage. This is the crucial step that gets the Lead Management Team the respect it deserves from its prime customer – the sales team.
6. Creative Tension. Conduct weekly reviews on Opportunity Management where Sales can ask Lead Management for new qualified leads and Lead Management can ask Sales to sign off on qualified leads. This will create push back from both sides - this is good for the business and must be welcomed.

I have migrated from lead generation to lead management as I have described above - learning the lessons on the way. I have done this for leading Offshore IT Services/BPO Multinational companies selling into U.S, U.K, Canada and Australia.

I used to ask my Lead Management Team to strut around the company a bit. They were worth every penny their employer was paying them! We had the figures to prove it!

Cheers

Paul Simon Arakkal