tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7794386793170803972.post2332042009405206937..comments2024-01-22T07:31:42.008-05:00Comments on Digital Body Language: Cherry Picking of Leads: B2B Marketing to Sales HandoffSteven Woodshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06376596253100522418noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7794386793170803972.post-30995046128567905292009-05-14T15:48:00.000-04:002009-05-14T15:48:00.000-04:00Tim, David,
Great points. I guess the way to thin...Tim, David,<br />Great points. I guess the way to think about it is more like a "symptom" of an underlying challenge. The funnel may be too constricted, or the lead scoring algorithm may be wrong. Either way, the symptom gives great insights into what is wrong and allows tweaking. Hiding the symptom by outright prevention of cherry picking just hides the underlying problem.<br /><br />Thanks for the insights, you're right on with that.<br /><br />SteveSteven Woodshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06376596253100522418noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7794386793170803972.post-14295782294362811212009-05-14T12:32:00.000-04:002009-05-14T12:32:00.000-04:00I'm with Tim. The assumption is your scoring algo...I'm with Tim. The assumption is your scoring algorithm is smarter than your sales reps -- not sure that's the case. The reason we score is so salespeople don't have to spend time deciding which leads are worth their attention. If they dip into the pool and find a few leads they want to contact, they may well have spotted something subtle that the scoring formula missed. As Tim suggests, best is to let them do it and measure the results -- if you can show that sales is wasting their time, you'll have a stronger argument for not letting them do it. They might even agree!David Raabhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03489754392712536104noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7794386793170803972.post-71357238637471702632009-05-13T09:07:00.000-04:002009-05-13T09:07:00.000-04:00This is a delicate area, as Marketing-telling-Sale...This is a delicate area, as Marketing-telling-Sales-not-to-call-a-lead-when-Sales-is-compensated-on-the-revenue-they-generate-and-not-something-fluffy-like-"qualified leads"-so-stay-out-of-my-business-thankyouverymuch is a slippery slope. An alternate approach is to treat the cherrypicking of leads by Sales as another opportunity to "work with sales" (which you mention early in the post). Rather than negotiating a lower lead threshold, do two things: 1) Pull the leads that Sales followed up with but that were scored below the qualification threshold and sit down with Sales and ask them *why* they followed up -- do this with your top Sales performers first, and it's guaranteed that you'll learn something worth feeding back into your process (or at least considering), 2) Compare the results for the unqualified-but-cherrypicked-and-called leads against the qualified-and-called leads...and show the results. In practice, this may be tough, but, in theory, you should be able to show higher conversion for qualified leads than unqualified when both are followed up on. Right?Tim Wilsonhttp://www.gilliganondata.comnoreply@blogger.com