It is the start of a New Year and what better time to look for ways to improve upon your current business practices. The economic conditions of 2009 were brutal and most companies experienced a loss to their top line revenue. With this in mind, it may be a good time to review your companies lead and sales generation process.

Often companies do not consciously consider the individual activities that comprise a process. This is especially true in sales organizations, where each person may operate independently.  By performing an audit of the internal sales processes, through a series of questions, sales managers and company owners can determine if each salesperson is investing their time efficiently and where additional training may be beneficial.

The following outlines a series of questions regarding three processes: lead generation, lead management and prospect development. Although each company is unique, many of these questions can apply to most organizations.

Review the questions and customize a list to your organization. Ask each person involved in the selling process to submit their answers and then have a team building meeting where tribal knowledge can be shared, to the benefit of all involved. The more consistent and streamlined the sales process—the greater potential for success.

Lead Generation
(1) How are you generating your leads?
(2) What research do you use in the process?
(3) How do you solicit referrals?

Lead Management
(1) Describe a typical day and how you schedule your activities?
(2) How do you manage/calendar your day?
(3) Describe your process for organizing the leads once obtained.
(4) How do you manage the follow-up process?
(5) What processes do you follow to convert a lead to a prospect? (ex. number of calls/visits or the use of specific literature)
(6) What percentage of leads turn into prospects?

Prospect Development
(1) At what point in the sales cycles (amount of effort invested) do you determine if the prospect is qualified?
(2) What criteria do you use to identify a lead as a “qualified prospect”?
(3) Once identified as a qualified prospect, describe the activities involved to close the sale?
(4) How do you manage any additional information obtained during the interaction?
(5) How do you manage the communication process?
(6) What percentage of qualified prospects turn into clients?