Segmenting by Type of Lead
Segmenting your leads is probably one of the very first things you will do when addressing your new Prospects. It is always helpful to segment your leads in a meaningful way to help provide you with an efficient workflow process.
There are several ways to segment your leads in Daylite, but here are two specific methods using Categories:
Unqualified Leads vs. Qualified Leads
Cold, Warm and Hot Leads
Unqualified Leads
Unqualified leads are defined by the possibility of doing business but nothing specific has yet been identified. These leads need to be researched and contacted to see if there is any prospect of doing business with them. This Category of leads represents the list of People or Companies that have been entered into Daylite but have not yet been followed up on.
They may include leads captured from:
Email marking
Trade shows business cards or conversations
Direct recommendations from other clients
If it looks like there might be some business to pursue, then these Contacts would be re-classified as Qualified Leads and the Category woud be changed to accordingly.
Qualified Leads
A Daylite Contact is considered a Qualified Lead if there is a good chance of winning some business with them in the near term. This means that during your follow up:
A budget amount might been outlined.
A due date has been mentioned.
Specific products or services have been discussed.
Of course the decision to add a Contact as a qualified lead might be from a combination of these factors.
Cold, Warm and Hot Leads
Another common approach for lead classification is to apply Cold, Warm and Hot as Categories to your Contacts.
Cold Leads
These are unqualified leads, meaning they are Contacts that have been added to Daylite as possible new Opportunities but at the present time there is no specific deal or Opportunity that has been identified.
Warm Leads
A warm lead means that a deal has not been identified yet, but a positive conversation has at least been started. Often referred to as a follow up, this usually means you have emailed or called the prospect, and recieved some sort of engagement.
Hot Leads
These are leads where something is more likely to happen in the near term. You might decide to use this Category if the results of your follow up are positively received or the client is making an indication that they have a budget and or a date for when they would like to move ahead with a potential deal.
Each of these three Categories will require a different follow-up or communication approach. Being able to clearly view separate lists for each Category when needed will greatly help the follow up approach. We recommend creating three separate Smart Lists for Cold, Warm and Hot Leads, similar to the ones you created for Qualified and Unqualified Leads.
Topping up your Sales Funnel
One of the key indicators of a successful business is a steady revenue stream.
There is a balance to be struck between when deciding on whether to spend time on adding new business Opportunities or closing existing business. This process is often referred to as managing a sales funnel. The aim is to keep adding new leads into the sales funnel to be processed through to completion. If this is managed carefully then it avoids periods of time when new Opportunities might dry up because the sales funnel is not being adequately stocked. As an example, if a business has a sales lead time of approximately one month, then it stands to reason that it will be necessary to add new Opportunities each month. If a month goes by without adding new leads to the sale funnel then new sales will most likely begin to dry up a month or so later.
You can consider the Unqualified Leads list as a pool of potential Opportunities that need to be converted (qualified) to bring into the sales process.
As we will see later on, that once a lead is qualified, a new Daylite Opportunity should be created with an associated Opportunity Pipeline, which is a series of milestones or Stages to help manage the sales process.
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