Managing leads like profitability (while ignoring cash flow!)
You've heard the story enough to tell it yourself. The successful entrepreneur who builds a thriving business, relies on his accountant to prepare filings and reports (but not for strategic & tactical insights) and eventually craters the business because of a myopic focus on the monthly bottom line....at the expense of healthy cash flow.
There's a reason that modern management relies on "dashboards." A carefully selected assortment of metrics compliment eachother, collectively offering a textured view of the business. Individually each is subject to vastly ranging interpretations - but together they are particularly meaningful.
There's an analogous need in pipeline management - but too often lead generation is treated like finance in the earlier example. "Number of leads" is tracked at the expense of viability. And it's always easy to bump the number of leads - even to th eoint of overwhelming sales.
And sadly that metric misleads many managers to conclude that business development is successful....until the revenue growth piece (lack of) suddenly emerges as an existential crise.
What's a lead?
If you still define a lead as someone who's popped up and asked for some information, you're in trouble. You can flood your sales team with more follow up than they can handle - chasing companies that have selected you to fulfill the important role of 3rd quote provider.
