Here is the typical process that isn’t working in most companies today:

1.      Leads are generated in the marketing department by means of expensive media (print ads, trade shows, the Internet, etc.)

2.      Information is sent to the enquirer (in the form of a letter, catalog, brochure, e-mail, pdf, etc.)

3.      Leads are turned over to sales for follow-up and noting happens to them. (More than 70 percent of leads are not followed up, while 43 percent of those who were not contacted will buy what they inquired about within 13-months. Source: Reed Business Information Systems.) Therefore, no new business is generated and nothing is measureable.

Even when companies use sophisticated software and expensive CRM applications, there is seldom enough follow up to get the results and feedback necessary to offset the cost of the activity. Why? “Activity” in the marketing department somehow magically becomes a “productivity” expectation in the sales department.

In fact, the sophisticated software and expensive CRM applications only get the leads to the sales force faster, whereas nothing gets done with them any sooner.

Software can’t be expected to follow up sales leads. It’s a people function.

In my 20-plus years of selling sales lead response management solutions, everyone I ever approached knew the problem, as do most that are reading this right now.

Why do it all over again?

So why do so many do the same thing, the same way, and expect different results?

Earl Nightingale may have expressed it best when he said, “It’s a human nature tendency to think that whatever people are doing in large numbers must be right, simply because so many of them are doing it.”

Everyone is doing the same thing with sales leads, even though they know it doesn’t work. And most of them do it because the person before them did it that way, without considering why the person before them is no longer there.

Sales lead follow up has to include initial contact of the prospect, which is virtually impossible for sellers today. Marketing needs to understand that.

Think about it. The communication technology that is in place today to make it easy for us to communicate with each other (after a relationship is established) actually makes it harder to make the initial contact necessary to establish the relationship. And therefore, challenging for sales people to follow up sales leads. They can’t reach anyone and have plenty more to do than follow up leads, most of which are dead ends anyway.

Considering automated switchboards in companies today and personal voicemail, think about how many dialing attempts it takes to reach anyone by telephone. New fax laws require written permission from recipients before you can send a fax. And emails from strangers get deleted. So how is sales supposed to follow up?

The fact of the matter is that marketing needs to take the initiative to make it easier for sales to follow up. Not to qualify leads by identifying the prospects, but to disqualify leads by eliminating the nonprospects. This can be accomplished by the adaptation of the proven form of direct communication that I teach. A process that American Airlines named a Best Practice in (Trade Show) Marketing as it pertains to its contribution to a company’s selling process.

The American Marketing Association (AMA) puts the new requirement of marketing in perspective in its statement:

“The sales and marketing disconnect has reached a day of reckoning. Executive management is demanding that sales forces become more effective and that marketing departments help them get there. No more blame game. No more finger pointing. We are all on the same team, with the same objective: Sell more stuff profitably.”

It’s 2010. So why do it again? Change your sales lead response management process to increase sales, then get the resultant measurement metrics you need to prove the ROI from increasingly expensive marketing communication media.

Richard Erschik is a sought-after speaker and educator in sales lead response management and follow up. In 1986, he founded a national sales lead response management and follow-up service organization that American Airlines named “one of the most innovative companies in the country.” After selling his company to a client, Erschik now works with individual companies, teaching marketing and sales teams the do-it-yourself process. He can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .