Inside Sales Lead Management Featured Article

What do basketball and inside sales lead management have in common? For some, the former is an opportunity to procrastinate on the latter when the NCAA March Madness takes hold. For others, it’s the most intense time of the year, with 68 teams vying for the championship spot. The games captivate the nation and even the casual observer is swept into the madness.

Al Davidson examined the similarities between the two beautifully in a recent Small Biz Trends piece. The importance of competition is alive in both inside sales lead management and basketball, along with the thrill of the chase and the unpredictability of where the next big winner will emerge. If you really want to pull value from one by relying on the other, Davidson suggests you look at the favorites.

When evaluating the potential winner in any situation, the best first step is to look at the rankings. Some sales leads are better ranked than others, meaning they have a better chance of closing. If you sort your leads according to their ranking and work on them according to the likelihood of success, the desired outcome is much more likely to occur within the projected timeframe.

It’s also important that you don’t get ahead of yourself. It’s easy to keep your eye on the prize and yet forget the steps necessary to get to it. If you spend too much time looking far ahead, you won’t see the opponent on the court and you’re more likely to lose. With inside sales lead management, you have to keep your head in the game, focus on the lead and take a patient approach to ensure you can guide it to the proper close.

Finally, the element of not knowing the outcome is one of the most fascinating things about March Madness and inside sales lead management. You can run projections and assume certain things, but until all heads are in the game and working through the steps, you just don’t know how it’s going to end up. The result can be exhilarating and heartbreaking and everything in between.

The reality is you never know which sales leads are actually going to convert to sales. Sometimes the most promising opportunities turn out to be a no, while the quiet and unassuming prospect ends up being your best deal yet. The point is to treat every lead with focus, careful handling and as if they are the biggest client you’ll close to date. You never know when such diligence will pay off. Keeping your focus on the prize while your daily activities stay on nurturing the leads, the outcome is much more likely to be an exciting win.