We desire and need leads in our businesses. Those of us with experience know all leads are not created equally. It is beneficial to have a lead grading system set in place. This way, your sales team can act accordingly and other members of your team can devote their energies towards attracting more leads and nurturing others in their early stages. The following article addresses ways to establish and operate a lead grading system in order to optimize your business’ sales cycle.

Coordinate
All levels of your sales team should communicate and coordinate the stages of each lead. This should include all levels of your team from executives to lead generators. Keep all players on the same page in order to avoid confusion and missed opportunities.
Set timeframes in place and account for chances to up-sell and cross-sell. Segment your team, so your most successful sellers are dealing with high-end leads ready to make a commitment, while other members work towards generating and procuring quality leads.

Put a system of measurement in place
Assess the criteria used to grade leads and the process for moving them along. Your sales team should have the ability to reject leads that seem to be substandard while logging the reasons for their decision.

Criteria can be modified, improved, or disbanded over the course of time. Feedback needs to be shared at all levels. Base-level generators need to see how well and easily closers are making sales in order to make the entire process run more smoothly. Educate all members in regards to all levels of the sales cycle.

Make it easy on the players
Some companies have complex grading systems in regards to their leads. Keep it simple to eradicate ambiguity and nuances. A simple A through E grading system will work well. Keep a running record of leads at every level including course of action and conclusion.

Remember to be flexible with grading. Grades may change over the life of the lead. There needs to be several ‘check points’ along the line complete with recorded data. Certain criteria can be weighed more heavily than others. For instance, one missing or insufficient element may lower a lead a whole grade while it may take a combination of other, less salient elements to drop the grade further.

Think before you act
You do not want your lead generation department to get ‘trigger happy’ in passing ostensibly good leads along up the sales ladder. Incorporate regulations that dictate the actions of your sales team. There will be a difference between the intentions behind those people who can be constituted as ‘leads’ and others who are just ‘in the market.’ Make a distinction between actions that warrant a reaction by your generators and those that can be immediately categorized as ‘leads.’

There will always be exceptions to the rule
In the beginning or amidst modifications, you will be confronted with exceptions. Though they may be few and far between, they will exist. You would not want to dismiss what could become a high-end lead because it seems to follow a formula for rejection.

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