We are currently preparing to attend a local tradeshow for manufactures. Tradeshow preparation can be a little daunting. You want to make a grand impression. You want to be memorable. You want to reach your target audience. You want to make new contacts and gather new leads. Most importantly you want the effort to result in profitable business. How does one translate all of those goals and actionable results? The trick really is being able to clearly define who it is you are talking to. Is the person standing in front of you simply a contact or are they a lead? Are they truly a prospect? What is the difference?
We find that if companies create the definitions for these terms prior to attending a tradeshow and ensure that everyone in the organization understands those definitions, expectations and outcomes are often better aligned. For example, if the marketing department has created a contest, provided a raffle giveaway, or another reason to generate traffic into the booth that collects names, emails and telephone numbers does everyone in the group agree these are leads? Likely not. Unless every individual has to meet a very specific criteria before stepping onto the show floor, it is most likely that the vast majority of names in that drawing are not qualified leads. They may not be leads at all, only contacts.
So, what constitutes a lead? Different company’s sales processes manage these terms in different ways and there is no right or wrong as long as there is agreement to the intended meaning of each term and the expected action that each is to be met with. In our company we classify a lead as someone who has “raised their hand”. In other words it is someone who has said, I know what you do and I’m interested in that. That alone would constitute a reaction from us that is different than a name we would have gotten from a booth drawing, however, a raising of the hand is still only a lead; not a prospect. This is where we get particular about qualification. Our CRM software is helpful in outlining our qualification questions for each record and collecting the answers to those qualifications in a single, quickly reference able location. Once all qualifications regarding interest, size, time, decision makers, and budget have been collected we can officially classify them as a prospect.
In our world, a prospect is someone that has moved into the sales process. Again, CRM software is highly beneficial in streamlining activity for all classifications of records. If you have a specific contact process that you would like to engage in to convert a lead to a prospect, a CRM solution can help automate many steps of that for you. We all want to convert prospects to customers, and there are undoubtedly steps in your sales process that can be automated to expedite that result. Often, even automated reminders to ensure action is being taken can make the difference in converting a lead to a prospect or a prospect to a customer.
Tradeshows are only one way that leads enter our sales system. They come in from many directions and a CRM solution can manage the classification of these records in a language that is mutually understood by all in the organization and it can help you manage those records in an effective manner that will result in more customers and more revenue. Before you start planning for your next tradeshow, have a planning meeting to determine what your goals are for contacts, leads, prospects and customers. When everyone is speaking the same language the expected outcomes will also be understood by everyone!
