Successful Tradeshow. Home with Leads. Now What?
The biggest trade show of the year drew record crowds. A busy couple of days on our feet and we have talked with too many people to count.
Our plane lands at our hometown airport and I grab my briefcase brimming with new sales leads from the overhead bin. Okay. So our marketing really paid off. We had numerous meetings and gathered information on oodles of prospects in our key target market. But...yikes!
When we get home, how can we turn these leads into revenue-generating clients?
This has happened before. The expectations of management is that marketing will generate leads and, hence a healthy return on marketing investment. So we DO generate qualified leads and when we bring them home, and I give them to the sales manager, they just sit there...on the corner of his desk...and grow cold. Even though the sales manager was with me as these leads were generated, he quickly gets sucked into putting out the "fires in the office" that happened while he was away.
Has this happened to you? It did to us, and here is what we did.
We implemented CRM technology to easily upload all lead information and distribute leads automatically to sales people who have to accept or decline the lead. AND management can see who has what and actions being taken.