January 2011
LeadMaster Newsletter - The Leader in Lead Management LeadMaster Logo - The leader in Lead Management
About LeadMaster - the leader in Lead management Lead Nurturing from LeadMaster - The Leader in Lead Management LeadMaster The Leader in Lead Management LeadMaster Free 30-day Test Drive

Sales Lead Management

Lead Tracking

CRM

Sales Force Automation

 

test drive

Your test-drive logon will have sample data already there so you can quickly see how easy it is to make LeadMaster work for you. 

 

 

LeadMaster is starting the new year off with a major enhancement to Workflow Automation called Task Manager.  This enhancement adds time-based task management and a business rules feature for managing leads and accounts.

Here's how it works.  Tasks are assigned to one or more reps for specific records.  Each task has a condition that must be completed in a specific period of time.  Examples of possible conditions include things like making sure the lead has been contacted or updating the sales progress.  If the condition is not satisfied within that time period then the Task Manager triggers one or more actions (e.g. reassign the account, notify the sales manager etc).  The tasks, time-frames and resulting actions are all user-definable by clicking the mouse.

The LeadMaster Task Manager will help sales managers manage more sales activity more effectively by automating the oversight of individual sales activities and alerting the sales manager when goals aren't met.  The Task Manager will allow the sales manager to focus their time on revenue production instead of lead management.

Reps will also enjoy using the Task Manager because they can setup reminders to help them with their sales process.  For example, suppose that a rep wants to interact with long term leads at least once a month but they've forgotten to add a callback to their calendar for a particular prospect.  They can create a task that will send them a reminder if that prospect's record hasn't been updated in 30 days.


It is difficult to explain all of the functionality of the new Task Manager.  I think it is easier to convey by example.  Here are a few that come to mind.  There are a wide variety of Task Manager actions that could be added to each of these.

  • The sales manager wants internet leads followed up within 5 minutes.  Create a task so that if the lead status doesn't change within 5 minutes the lead is reassigned via round-robin.  Alert the rep who is getting the reassigned lead with a text message or email.
  • The sales manager wants to know if sales progress has stalled.  If each step in the sales cycle takes 1 week and the sale hasn't progressed in two weeks send an email to sales rep & sales manager.
  • The sales manager wants to know the size of the opportunity within two weeks of a new lead coming in.  Create a task so that if the lead value hasn't been entered within two weeks of assignment then send an email to the sales manager and cc: the rep. 
  • The sales manager wants reps focusing on bigger deals and inside sales to work on the smaller deals.  Create a task so that if the lead value is below a certain $ value then assign the lead to inside sales.
  • The sales manager wants to know if a deal hasn't closed in 60 days.  Create a task so that if a lead reaches 60 days and hasn't closed, assign it to the sales manager for review.
  • The sales manager wants inside sales to talk with a customer if a deal hasn't closed in 90 days.  Create a task so that if a lead reaches 90 days and hasn't closed it is assigned to inside sales and the sales manager is notified.
  • The sales manager wants to make sure the sales team is continuing to work on all of their leads.  Create a task so that if a lead hasn't been updated each week the sales manager receives notification.
  • A new lead has come in from the website where a customer has expressed interest in a software demonstration.  The lead is assigned round robin.  The sales manager wants to know that the demo has taken place.  Create a task to watch for the 'demo completed' checkbox due anytime within the next weeks.  If the task isn't completed an email is sent to the rep, cc the manager reminding them the customer wanted a demo. 
  • The sales manager is having a hard time keeping track of sales leads.  Many leads have the lead status 'could not reach' for months.  It appears the rep tried to reach them a couple of times and then forgot about them.  Create a task so that whenever a new lead is assigned if lead status = 'could not reach' an email is sent to the rep every couple of days with a reminder to call that prospect until 30 days later when it is reassigned to inside sales.
  • The sales manager wants to know about any big deal.  Many of the reps leave the 'lead value' field empty.  The task is for the sales rep to enter a value (other than $0) into the Lead Value field within the first week.  If the lead value hasn't been filled in within a week reassign the lead.  Once the value has been filled in, send an alert to the sales manager if the lead value is in the 'big deal' range.

The time frames for all of the above are just examples, you can adjust all of the parameters.
To summarize, a LeadMaster task can be associated with a specific record and can be assigned to the rep(s) working on the record. The task has a user-definable condition (assign the lead, update the sales stage, etc.) that must be satisfied in a user-definable timeframe. If the condition is not satisfied, one or more actions associated with the task can be triggered (reassign the lead, notify the sales manager etc.).

This is a very powerful feature and may take some time to fully master.  I've already created several runaway tasks that have sent hundreds of reminders.  Beware if you are sending reminders to cell phones!  This is a great enhancement that is sure to help automate both the lead management process as well as the sales process.
Until next month, good selling!

Andy Brownell
LeadMaster, CMO

 

©2011 All rights reserved.