It is amazing how easy it is for some people to continue to talk themselves into the wrong situation and then be miffed when they they continue to have sub par results.
I can’t exclude myself from this group. I know that I can be hard headed at times and to succumb to to the excuse that I or others make. Maybe it comes down to people wanting to take the road with the least amount of resistance. I think we can all attest that to be successful we have to make the hard decisions and in many cases those decisions will lead you down roads that have a number of potholes.
I continue to have conversations with lead buyers that say, “Mike, we don’t need a lead management system. I don’t think that speed to contact will make a difference. We are not going to track contact rates, because we only care about conversions. If we add another system into the process we will then have to enter the data into two systems and I am not going to make my employees do that. Our IT team doesn’t want to integrate with a 3rd party system.”
When I hear excuses like this I want to explode, but I calmly express my concerns with the point of view and explain all the pitfalls of not having a solution in place and the benefits that will far outweigh the costs to bring on a lead management system. I negate every excuse that they have and in my opinion I present the idea as a “no brainer”. Well, they continue to think they can succeed with what they have. At that very moment they are just successful enough to not feel backed up against the wall and believe a decision can be put off for a later time.
I have seen this too many times. I can predict exactly what will happen. The company will continue sputter along wondering why they can’t quite get the ROI they are looking for. Mostly likely they will hire and fire people thinking it is a personnel issue. They will continue to grow, because the demand for their product is at an all time high, but as soon as conversions take the slightest dip they will begin to panic. They will finally make the decision to bring on an LMS and work on an integration with their legacy system. This will take a few months and by the time they have the right tools implemented and optimized it is too late. They are behind the eight ball and playing catch up.
Another situation that leads to these wrong decisions is one where they only took some of the suggestions and saw no change in performance. They may have implemented a call center, but not a proper lead management system. They argue the point that they listened to the consultants, but their suggestions didn’t make a difference to their bottom line. Therefore, they still think they know best.
Come on people. Get your act together. These suggestions are no longer based on assumptions. There are facts based on studies that looked at thousands of leads and companies. To be successful you must commit to improving the complete process. Stop making excuses.
Rant over.
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2 Comments
Well put. I continue to scratch my head when I hear or see this myself.
A shocking percentage of leads are still “tossed over the fence” from seller to buyer, with no real insight into lead contact time, lead satisfaction or conversion rate for the lead buyer.
With one of my customers, we were able to plot lead conversion rates based on lead contact time. It’s not at all shocking that conversion rates diminished exponentially across time.
-Drew
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Yes, I do agree….The role of Lead Management System is undeniable for any organization. If you care about lead conversion, better you bring in LMS in your system at the right time.
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