James Obermayer, Executive Director and CEO of the Sales Lead Management Association and President of Sales Leakage Consulting is a regular guest blogger with ViewPoint.

Salespeople often complain about receiving enough new leads, but are short on answers about the leads you gave them, now aging and becoming potentially less valuable. I remember Dan Rogers, the president of SmartLead by AdTrack, stating that sales leads are one of the few assets marketing creates that have a declining value month by month. Here’s a story that illustrates this reality.

Alice is the marketing manager of a medical device company. Cindy is the sales manager. Alice creates 1,000 monthly inquiries for the company’s 40 salespeople. The value of their product is $8,500. Because Alice has proven (from her own research at a previous company) that 45% of all inquiries turn into a sale for someone within a year, she knows that the potential value or total wealth of closing 100% of the buyers is $3.8+ million. Her market share is 20%, so she expects to get $765,000 in sales over the coming 12 months…if she can get 100% inquiry follow-up.

The problem is Cindy doesn’t enforce a 100% follow-up policy; she allows the salespeople to make their own decisions on that score. Alice points out to her that the follow-up is only 10%, mainly on inquiries that will close in three months. The return on investment is $76,500 in the 3-6 months following inquiry delivery. By not having a 100% follow-up policy, she’s leaving $688,500 on the table for competitors. Nice of her.

Alice decided she would have to convince Cindy that follow-up isn’t an option. This is how she tackled the problem.

1. Research: She didn’t have time to follow one inquiry batch for a full year to understand the closing ratios after each quarter. Instead she took a batch of 100 inquiries each (for the same product) that were 3 months old, six months old, nine months old and twelve months old.  She called each inquirer and found what they had bought, and from whom.
2. She presented the results first to the sales manager, then to the management team. She didn’t want to ambush the sales manager.
3. The results showed that:
1. At three months, 13%+ had closed for someone.
2. At six months, 26% had closed for someone.
3. At nine months, 36% had closed for someone.
4. At twelve months, 45% had closed for someone.

The report showed that their salespeople’s follow-up level was about fifteen percent. It also showed the percentage that turned into sales for her versus those for her competitors.

4. She used the report and the lack of follow-up to request the following changes:
1. She wanted a marketing automation tool for follow-up and nurturing.
2. She planned to send only sales-ready leads, not inquiries, to their salespeople.
3. She requested a new policy of 100% follow-up on all sales-ready leads (she was already calling and contacting every inquiry).
5. Because she had not ambushed Cindy and asked her for support with the new changes, she got what she asked for.

The result: sales increased. Communications budgets were spent on sources that found the best inquiries and leads. The sales manager and salespeople made quota. The company was more profitable. Alice and Cindy took an asset that was declining in value and not giving the company its deserved ROI, and turned it around.

This isn’t a fairy tale. But it does have a fairy tale ending that could be a reality for you.