Lead Management Software-Setting Up The Systems To Make Winning Salespeople

  Ok, I can speak from a lot of experience, while there are a lot of CRM Software programs out there that are good for pipeline management and reports, there are not many good for keeping track of leads and prospects. I know, because I spent a lot of time looking around at different solutions. I have come across a couple options that I have tried and work well, but let's go over the basics first.

Just to set the record straight, anything that keeps track of someone to call can be a lead management system. Regular CRM Software does it just fine, but I was looking for a solution that made following up with leads and prospects easy. I had a vision of what my ideal lead management software would look like, I had the vision because I had used a similar software in my bill collection days in college. In essence, it runs like a calling queue system where customers show up in your queue based on follow-up dates that you have set. Of course, this can be done with CRM Software, but its not as user friendly and if you've used lead management software before, you know that there is a difference in usability. I mean, let's face it, getting salespeople to prospect is hard enough, lets no put another barrier in front of them! Getting back to the ideal prospecting software, I had a vision of a software program where you showed up for work, you logged into your queue and saw that you had 20 phone calls to make that day. You press F4, and call #1 shows up in your queue, you have to call a prospect to do a 60 day follow. You call that prospect and his secretary says he's out on vacation till monday, so you make your notes very quickly and then enter the F/U date in your system, hit F4 and then you are onto the next F/U call.

The beauty of the system like this is that it's easy and systematic. You work your way through follow-up calls and when you're done with your queue, you are done. Systems are the key to selling. Born Salesman? HA! I'll take a salesman with a systemized way of selling over a born salesman anyday of the week. A good lead management software program turns everyday salesman into selling machines.

Now, are there solutions out there for this? There are a couple that I've found. The first is called Kliptz. In all fairness, I haven't actually used the software but it looks to be quite good and do what I describe. The one I have used is called leadsonrails.com and its fabulous. It's a hosted CRM solution and basically what it does that makes it so wonderful is this. Let's say that you decide that in your market, it takes 12 contacts to convert a prospect into a sale. Well, you can set up what are called 'Tracks' in the system and in this case you would create a "Prospect Track". You define that track however you want, it could be alternating phone calls, faxes, and direct mail for 12 weeks straight. The point is that you are defining the best way to follow up with prospects, defining it, and then the software reminds you when to act. You could also setup seperate Tracks for Centers of Influence and current clients.

So, in closing, I'm going to continue to keep my eye out but I'm a big fan of leadsonrails. Anything that can help you setup your systems and stick with it is a good thing in my view. We'll continue to add more reviews as we find products that don't just market themselves as prospecting software or lead generation software, but the ones that actually ARE just that.

Prospecting Software Reviews:

Prospecting Software | Leads on Rails Review